When you work as a knitwear designer you will get told no an awful lot. Usually this is done in a very nicely worded form letter that arrives with your returned materials, or perhaps a short email extending the gratitude of the receiver and unfortunate circumstance of your rejection. And sometimes there are just crickets chirping in the night with no answer to your creative ideas at all. It is really a normal part of this job and I stopped taking it personally a long time ago, there is only so much space to be had in any one issue whether it is online or in print. And there are many more designs than spaces so I would say a large portion of design ideas get sent back.
What this also means is that if you are committed to sending in design ideas on a regular basis you are going to have a decent number of them sitting around at any given time. Just waiting to be recycled to another call, reworked as an independent design or donated to your kids as doll blankets. (The Barbies around here have some pretty epic blankets).
So about 6 months ago when Sarah Hollandsworth from Yarn Geek Fibers offered to collaborate with me on a design or two I already knew exactly what I wanted to propose to her. Two ideas in particular that had been percolating in the back of my mind for a little while and now needed to be realized. The yarn she dyes is beautiful, subtly tonal and really high quality with a nice twist. Just perfect for some cables and textural work with one of my faaaaavorite things: bobbles.
This particular design uses the bobbles to define a botanical motif, a beautiful cluster of yellow berries on a vertical stalk that climbs up the mitten from cuff to tip. The stitches outside this cable panel are worked in moss stitch which gives the mitten visual interest as well as soft cushy texture.
These are worked from the bottom up in the round and you will need either Dpns or a long circular for magic loop. They only need 1 skein of Sarah's gorgeous Maven DK and it is just the perfect yarn to make the stitch pattern pop! The pattern comes in 3 sizes and the length is easily adjustable.
Check out all of Sarah's gorgeous shades of the Maven DK on her site!
