Knit one, purl two ...

Big announcement today: I am now a published knitwear designer!  Yay!!  

I am so excited to announce the publication of my knitting pattern, the Rock Springs Wrap, a colorblock lace wrap I designed for the new book of knitting patterns from Juniper Moon Farm called Modern Country Knits.  The book is the creation of Susan Gibbs, the creative director and founder of Juniper Moon Farm in Virginia, whose story is so inspiring.  The publisher is Sixth & Spring in SoHo, New York, and the people there were a pleasure to work with.  Thank you to both Susan/Juniper Moon and Sixth & Spring for selecting my design for your book, I'm thrilled to be a part of it!  

What started out with a simple watercolor sketch turned into a published knitting pattern.  Wow!

The yarn I used is the Juniper Moon Farm Zooey, a lovely blend of linen and cotton, which was so much fun to knit.  I originally designed the wrap to be a modern twist on lace, with shades of cool grey colorblocking and a bright, intense yellow as a pop of color.

Using Zooey led to some ‘value engineering’ (a little architecture humor) and to modifying the pattern to fit the yarn line colors of soft cool and warm greys.  The result is the Rock Springs Wrap, and the wrap sample I knitted is featured in the book.  It would make a great summer wrap or even a fall/winter scarf when worn gathered up and wrapped around the neck for more warmth.

The pattern is very straight forward: the wrap is essentially a large rectangle, knit in a lace pattern (that my mom taught me!), and it includes some intarsia work - the colors change periodically to create the colorblock effect.  

Starting out with Zooey was a lot of fun, I love the way it lends itself to lacework.  

Work in progress: the cool grey tones are my favorite!  But then again, I've been addicted to grey all my life, ha!  My mom is always trying, to various degrees of success, to get me to wear more color.  Gettin' there ....

Check out the pattern on Ravelry if you’d like to knit my Rock Springs Wrap for yourself or as a gift, or simply to ‘like’ my pattern, which I would appreciate tremendously.  A full list of all the 30 patterns in the book is also available on Ravelry.

Visit Juniper Moon Farm and their blog to find out more about this book, the farm and its cute animals (sheep, goats, dogs, pigs, cows, chickens, ducks and bees, wow!), the great work they do with Heifer International, Kiva and CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), and the fabulous yarns and patterns they produce.  They even have a sock-of-the-month club!  So cozy!  And you can also find the book on Amazon, of course.

All my creative work started with one person: my mom!  She is, to this day, the most amazing (and fastest) knitter I know and my biggest inspiration: she creates intricate knitwear without following patterns!  What??  That is simply a rare and mind boggling skill!  To watch her knit is just mesmerizing, her knitting needles are moving at lightning speed, and her designs are stunning, especially her little girl dresses - check out her Etsy shop for some of her knitted creations and custom orders.  The biggest thank you to my mom, Ari, who instilled in me a love of knitting, yarn and creating!  I love you, mom! 

Happy knitting and creating, everyone!
xoxo
Cristina