fashion

Tubular Cast On: my current favourite method

| eelliottknits

I do adore the tubular cast on. It’s tidy, and stretchy, and in fine gauge yarns before some ribbing it looks positively professional. It’s particularly helpful when you want to get a stretchy rib from a yarn without much memory of its own, which is why it’s the key to a good brim in Slouch 1, 2, and 3.

Slouch 1 three quarters web
Slouch 1: The first half of the brim is worked in Shibui Knits Pebble held double. Pebble is not a bouncy yarn at all, yet see how nicely the tubular cast on stretches?

I’ve tried several different tubular cast on methods; this is the one I currently prefer. I won’t say it’s the Best Method Ever—that’s subjective, and I’m fickle. It’s the one I used for these samples, and it worked well for me. Here’s how you do it: Continue reading →

Saltmeadow + Shibui Knits: a giveaway

| eelliottknits

Yeah, I know, this is a promotional post, which I’ve said I’ll keep to a minimum here on the blog. BUT! This giveaway is pretty sweet, and I didn’t want you to miss out. So:

Last week, I released Saltmeadow, a new shawl pattern in Shibui Knits Reed and Lunar. I’m pretty pleased with how this one turned out: lovely, drapey, lineny goodness, perfect for summer knitting, with a shot of glowing merino/silk at the edges.

Saltmeadow back draped web

The people at Shibui liked Saltmeadow so much, they asked if I’d like to do a giveaway for the design on Instagram, and here we are: the #mySaltmeadow yarn + pattern giveaway. One lucky knitter will win the yarn to make their own Saltmeadow—that’s 7 skeins of Reed and 1 skein of Lunar, in your choice of colours—and a PDF copy of the pattern. Plus, Shibui Knits has kindly said they’ll ship the yarn to you even if you don’t live in the US, so international entries are welcome! Here’s how you enter: Continue reading →

Well, that was a long gap.

| eelliottknits

I think I’ve discovered the problem with keeping new release announcements and promotions to my newsletter, and only posting personal projects and the like here on the blog: 99.999% of my projects are work-related, I don’t often get time to spin, and so there’s not much to say a lot of the time. (Also, to be frank, the current political climate has knocked some of the stuffing out of me, and I don’t want to add to the noise, and it feels like there’s a lot of noise to go around right now.) And lo, seven months have gone by, tumbleweeds are blowing through here, and still loquacity eludes me. But!

I do have a new project I’m excited about, and it’s not a pattern sample (though it may evolve into a pattern eventually), and this right here is just the place to share it.

Remember this?


It’s some 60/40 Bond/Silk that I spun a while ago as part of the Discworld spinalong over on Ravelry. I’ve finally come up with an idea for it: Continue reading →

Line and Shadow

| eelliottknits

Goodness, it’s been a while. This spring has been a full one, with no sign of slowing down for the summer. The drawback is that a lot of the busyness has been working on projects that I can’t talk about online yet, so my posts are starting to read like a catalogue of pattern releases. I hate when that happens—I recently set up a mailing list for pattern release announcements to try to move this space towards less sell-y content—which is probably why it’s taken me so long to post about Line and Shadow. However, the sample is going to TNNA with me to be displayed in the Shibui Knits booth (the sample, that is—I’m not nearly as good at staying still. It’ll be in booth 389.) I’m pretty chuffed about that, plus it’s well past time, so here goes. Continue reading →

Meltwater Scarf

| eelliottknits

As a fan of woolly wool, I really like Brooklyn Tweed‘s yarns. I’ve noodled around with Shelter and Loft, and just love the light, spongy, cohesive fabric these woolen-spun yarns create, and the wide range of lovely, heathered colours are a colourwork fan’s dream. It pleases me that these beautiful yarns are made sheep to skein here in North America. (I love the house yarns by the mill they use, Harrisville Designs, for all the same reasons.) So when Brooklyn Tweed released Quarry late last year, just as I was finishing the next round of samples for photography, I had to try it. A bulky weight yarn at 200 yds/100g? I could get a hat out of that in no time at all, and have one more sample ready to go. When the skein arrived, I played around with stitch patterns to see what it could do, and it turned out that what Quarry does really well is texture. Ribs and cables turned out beautifully. I didn’t want to stop knitting with it: I wanted a big, generous scarf out of this stuff. Not the most practical thing for the South, but fie on that. Sometimes you just have to go where the inspiration takes you. I ordered more skeins, and knit. And knit. And very soon I had a scarf. And it was exactly what I’d pictured. It’s warm and cozy and the pattern reminded me of runnels of melting ice water, so I called it Meltwater.

Meltwater Scarf 1 | thecusserknits.com Continue reading →