Dunedin shawl

Today I'm excited to announce the release of Dunedin as a PDF download!

Dunedin was originally designed for the Edinburgh Yarn Festival 2016 companion magazine, Wool Tribe, which was on sale at the festival back in March and was a great hit, selling out very quickly. Unfortunately, due to the speed with which we got the magazine together, some errors crept in to the pattern - so I'm very pleased to finally be able to offer a corrected and revised version of this pattern! If you have bought the original Wool Tribe magazine and are having difficuties completing Dunedin, please just get in touch with me at lucy@lucyhague.co.uk and I'll be happy to send you a free copy of the updated version of this pattern (and to help you with any queries you might have).

This shawl features a cabled border, which is worked first, then a shallow half-circular body which is worked upwards from the border and shaped with a combination of short rows and decreases. The version pictured uses approx. 1 100g skein of 4-ply/fingering weight yarn; this newly edited and revised version of the pattern also includes a larger semi-circular sized shawl, which uses approx. 2 100g skeins of 4-ply/fingering weight yarn.

The design process for this shawl was unexpectedly very difficult (partly due the time constraints!) and involved quite a few sleepless nights as I tried to get all the calculations correct and finish the sample in time for it to be photographed for the magazine. Whilst the cable pattern is pretty simple compared to many of my designs, the short row calculations proved to be something of a nightmare to calculate correctly in order to get the shape I wanted - a very shallow-half circle that curves around the shoulders, somewhere between a scarf and a shawl.

I had to rip out and reknit the body section so, so many times to get it right, but I'm glad I persevered, because the final shape is exactly what I wanted. In fact, I think out of all the shawls I've made, this is the one I enjoy wearing the most! If you saw me at Edinburgh Yarn Festival this year, you may have noticed me wearing it.

Which reminds me - here's a silly picture of my friend Graeme and I at EYF 2016! (I'm wearing Dunedin and he's wearing a Jayne Firefly hat that I made him for his birthday).

And, also at EYF 2016, here I am with the lovely Karie Westermann (Karie is wearing her Burnet hat, also featured in Wool Tribe).

I'd like to close this post by thanking the EYF team for getting me involved in Wool Tribe, and thanks also to Helen of Ripples Crafts for providing the yarn for this shawl (it's her Quinag Bluefaced Leicester 4-ply in 'Stormy Seas' - the most beautiful teal-blue I think I've ever seen!).

Iona blanket + Illuminated Knits

I'm delighted to announce the release of a new blanket pattern - Iona!

This blanket was inspired by the richly decorated carpet pages of illuminated manuscripts; it's assembled from individual squares, worked separately in the round from the centre out, and then attached with a three-needle cast-off or seamed together.

The contrasting colourwork effect is achieved by striping yarns of two different colours, and slipping the cabled stitches on every other round.

Whilst the cable pattern that forms the Celtic knot was certainly a challenge to design, I think it was actually more difficult to decide on the colours to use in the blanket! The pattern uses Malabrigo Sock, which comes in a gorgeous array of variegated and semi-solid shades. I love how the subtle changes in colour evoke a faded wash of ink - perfect for a design inspired by illuminated manuscripts.

Here are some of my original colour choices (along with some early sketches of the knot that I scribbled in my faithful Moleskine notebook!)

After a lot of swatching, sketching and playing around with coloured pencils, I finally settled on a colour scheme that uses 5 colours for 4 differently arranged squares: Turner (green); Ochre (golden-yellow); Archangel (pink-purple-orange); Aguas (blue-green) and Rayon Vert (purple-green).

Once I'd decided on the colours, it was a lot of fun to work on the individual squares and watch the blanket slowly growing. I particularly love how the shade 'Ochre' really pops in contrast to the other colours - I used this shade  for the i-cord edging that completes the blanket.

Iona is the first pattern in Illuminated Knits - a mini-collection of designs inspired by the rich colours and decorations of Celtic illuminated manuscripts and using beautiful shades of Malabrigo yarn.

The collection will feature three accessory patterns (including the Iona blanket) and one garment pattern. It’s available to pre-order now as an e-book for £8.50 and you will receive the patterns as they are released over the coming months.

If you’d prefer to wait until all the patterns are released before buying the e-book, you can sign up to my newsletter to be notified when the collection is complete!

The Book of Haps - Uncia

Today I can finally reveal to you my design for Kate Davies' The Book of Haps... Uncia is an unusually shaped shawl, based on a 1/12th arc shape and inspired by Gothic and Romanesque cathedral architecture.

The pictures for the book were taken on Calton Hill, Edinburgh (not far from where I live, in fact!)

I developed the cable and lace patterns based on cathedrals I visited last summer whilst travelling around France and Germany (in particular: Koln, Mont Saint-Michel and Carcassonne). It was a very fun challenge to try to capture the essence of these buildings in knitted stitches, and it’s probably something I’ll come back to in the future.

Here's a few pictures of Uncia that I took myself, to show a little of the detail in the lace edging...

• Read more about my inspiration for this design on Jen A-C's blog!
• Read more on Kate Davies' blog
• ... and you can check out the rest of the designs in the book as they're being gradually released here on Ravelry!

It was a real honour to be asked to contribute to this book, and to be featured amongst such a wonderfully varied and illustrious group of designers. Thanks to Kate and Jen, and all the team involved in bringing this book to life!

We'll be having a book launch at Kathy's Knits, Edinburgh, on Saturday June 11th (which coincides with the Indie Burgh Yarn Crawl!). Kate, Jen and myself will be there, along with some of the hap samples, and we'll be signing copies of the book, so if you're in/near Edinburgh, please do come along!

Nennir written instructions

5th October 2016: A corrected version of the written instructions has now been attached and can be downloaded here - Nennir-written-instructions-v2-0.pdf

After getting a few requests for the written instructions to my free pattern Nennir (originally published in the Winter 2012 issue of Knitty), I've decided to post the file here so that it's available to all!

Please note that this is a fairly basic text file, generated straight from my charting program, and as such does not include any explanation of the abbreviations, etc. - you need to refer to the page on Knitty for all the info on how to knit the cowl. This is simply a text version of the charts 'Cable Pattern Part 1' and 'Cable Pattern Part 2' (you will need to work out the edging chart yourself as it isn't included in the text file!).