Threeravens » Pattern Suggestions

A new, awesome pattern for handspun from Knittyspin!

Xiane — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 02:38:18 +0000

I love Knitty. That lovely online publication fuels my knitting dreams and gives me tons of inspiration – and now with their Knittyspin segments, they offer useful and pretty patterns for handspun. They include spinning instructions so that you can make the proper yarn, or a commercial alternative when available, so everyone can play along. And did I mention that the patterns are lovely?

Here’s a perfect example: the Slantwise shawl from First Fall 2011. It uses the natural skew of freshly spun singles to create angles that work perfectly with a shawl. There are even two different options you can choose, for different stitch interest. Love it!

I want to make one for myself as soon as I clear off my needles a bit. Would you make this or have you made it? Tell me all about it!

The Purl Bee’s Color Change Scarf FTW!

Xiane — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 00:23:20 +0000

If you talk to me on a regular basis, you might know that I follow the blogs and Facebook posts of a lot of the folks in the yarn/fiber fields. Sometimes it’s to keep up on the industry, but more often than not it’s to glean insight from my amazing Yarnies and to feel happily surrounded by my community.
A pleasant side-effect of this is that I get to see ALL sorts of great knitting and crochet patterns. The one I found today at The Purl Bee, which is the blog for PurlSoho in NYC, made me immediately think of the yarns from several of my pals.

The Purl Bee created the Color Change Scarf as a way to incorporate several colors from the Habu Textiles Fine Merinos line. The yarns are held together in different combinations to create a lovely, graduated look across the ladder stitches used in the pattern.

Now, I readily admit my love for the Habu Textiles yarns – I use their Silk Stainless Steel all the time to ply with or use in corespinning, because it adds a touch of body and strength to my yarns. But sometimes you would rather support a hand-spinner, you know? Since I never ever spin anything that thin, I turn to my colleagues for help… and here’s what I might choose instead.

BlondeChicken’s Hemp Laceweight yarn – thin, drapey, and it softens as you knit with it, this would make a lovely version of this scarf!

A personal favourite of mine is FibroFibers’ very popular Nightfall line of yarns. These yarns have a gradient that goes from a vibrant color to black in a very pleasing way. I personally think that these yarns would be *amazing* for this scarf!

Here’s what the yarn looks like knitted up!

Have any other yarns from small business hand-spinners that seem perfect for this project? You should leave a comment with a link! I’d love to see them – I think at least one of my Xmoose gift projects will be this scarf knit in a hand-spun yarn!

A Gallery of Handspun Creations

Xiane — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 23:54:32 +0000

I’ve started compiling Ravelry links and the associated photos at Flickr of fairly simple, lovely projects that you can knit or crochet from your Threeravens handspun… or the yarn you create from Threeravens batts!

So many people ask me, “What exactly can I make with this yarn?” that I thought it would be a helpful way to give y’all ideas. Whereas I feel that you can make ANYthing from handspun, these are patterns that are specifically designed to allow the unique qualities of art yarns and handspun to show themselves off to the fullest!

The first entry in the gallery is here:
the Lucy Shawl
You can see more photos and info at Hello Yarn’s Ravelry page for the project: Thick and Thin Shawl

If you see something around the Web or on Ravelry that you think I should highlight here, please drop me a comment or email and I’ll run right over to take a look!