Ethnic Gift Collection from The World Knits Collection with Progress Shots

Available on my website here

or on Ravelry here

Here it is - the last PDF Download in the World Knits Collection. Introducing The Ethnic Gift Collection. Pattern includes:

• Dog Sweater in several sizes

• Fair Isle Christmas Stocking

• Teddy Bear Sweater

• Knitted Toys including Farmer, sheep, cow, pig, and chicken

• Farm Woman Purse or Monedero

I just discovered the Farm Woman stashed in a book case. She had a bit of moth damage so I've patched her up. 

Her apron lifts up to reveal a slit and her skirt becomes a purse.  

Her Farmer is missing in action so I am working on a new one to help her with the chores. You can see my progress in the photos below. The projects are worked in the round. If you have very short dpns they would be helpful because the normal length are a bit unwieldly. Please excuse the awful photos taken at night while knitting in a dark room. 

Two legs - ready to be joined

Legs joined and hips knitted

Adding a belt

Shirt partly knitted and ready for shoulder shaping. He will be stuffed before shaping the shoulders because the stitches decrease way down for the neck and there will be no way to get the pieces stuffed when that happens. 

I will also be knitting up some animals for them to take care of. I will try to take process photos for you all in case you want to embark on knitting your own farm. 

Inspired Interiors from The World Knits Collection

Available on my website here 

and on Ravelry here

Inspired Interiors is Number 14 of the World Knits Collection. 

So I'll be honest with you all. This is probably my favorite pattern from The World Knits Collection. I have been interested in interior decoration for my entire adult life and I was always trying to figure out a way I could add knitting to my interiors. Finally in the early 90's I thought about mimicking needlepoint pillows with knitted Fair Isle patterning. If I knit the fabric tight enough and designed the right Fair Isle Chart, the resulting fabric could then be embellished with duplicate stitch to look like needlepoint. 

Once I started thinking about pillows, I couldn't stop dreaming up shapes that could be knit. There are 5 different styles of pillows in this collection. First of all, and most simple, is a square pillow in two sizes -- 14 and 20". The instructions are given for in the round knitting with a steek. Once you are done with the tube, you will cut the steek stitches down the middle. Using a very long circular needle (or perhaps 2), stitches are picked up all the way around the pillow and a mitered border is added.

The second square pillow is shown all the way to the left (red, black, gold and purple). This pillow is worked in the round and shaping is done with double decreases at four corners. The stitches are reduced and at the same time, a pattern forms. I knit this pillow and I still have it on my couch as you can see in the photo at the end of this post (second from the left). 

The next pillow design is a round pillow. It is a very large piece of circular knitting. To design this pillow, I thought about a traditional Fair Isle Tam and developed charts that had motifs that would look like they came out of a middle eastern bazaar. Four of my sample knitters made this design and you can see how Prabha - who grew up in India - added a traditional elephant motif to her pillow. 

The last pillow design is a bolster. Swanky interior magazines often feature bolsters on couches so why not a knit one? To design this one, I looked to my Moroccan Fedora pattern. I lengthened the body and then worked the decrease like on the Fedora pattern. To close the bolster, a second circular hat top is made. The bolster is stuffed and the round piece is sewed to finish it. You can see the bolster in the photo above on the right.  

For all the pillows, you will only need to knit the pillow front. Directions are given to use a piece of fabric as the backing. The fabric is hemmed and then hand sewn to the edge of the pillow. 

I've gone on to make lots of knitted pillows that I use in my house. Below you can see my sofa in our library full of knitted pillows made over the years. Maybe you will try to knit one or more for your home too? What do you think?

Available on my website here 

and on Ravelry here

Wild Wooly Headgear from The World Knits Collection

Available on my website here 

on Ravelry here

Number 13 in the World Knits Collection - Wild Wooly Headgear

The Wild Wooly Headgear PDF Pattern features five different hat designs in varying degrees of difficulty. They are sized for kids and adults. Hats are a great knitting project because they are relatively quick to make. I have always found them a good vehicle to experiment with different motifs and color combinations. All of these hats are made on circular needles.

This collection features (from easiest to most difficult)

• Flat cap with pom poms and no shaping (shown at far right) -- 3 sizes

• Four pointed cap made by seaming at top bind off (shown at far left) -- 4 sizes

• A classic stocking cap a la Dr. Seuss. This version has a fun pleated edge made with ribs. (bottom right) -- 3 sizes

• Wide border skull cap with two color stripes and spiral crown shaping (shown at top) -- 3 sizes

• Peruvian inspired four cornered hat (shown at bottom left) -- 2 sizes

The pattern includes a bunch of different rib/edge treatments to experiment with. There are lots of extra charts so that you can combine your favorites. 

The Peruvian Four Cornered Hat was inspired by hats that were made between the 7th and 9th centuries in the Andes. I had seen these hats in museums. In 1990 there was show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art which featured almost 100 Four Cornered Andean hats from the collection of Arthur Bullowa (catalog available here). You can see more photos on The Met's website here.  Here are some photos from The Met's website. 

Aren't these hats gorgeous and fun at the same time? These antique Andean hats were not knit but were knotted or looped. Some had pile. They featured geometric shapes and many animals. It's amazing that they survived to be collected. Many were buried in tombs. You can learn more about them on The Met's website here and see over 80 other photos of hats like these. 

My Peruvian Four Corned Hat was knit in the round in two colors in a round. The extra colors were added in duplicate stitch after knitting was completed. The 4 corner pieces are worked directly off the live stitches at each corner - almost like a thumb on a glove. After all the corners are knit, the stitches are put back on double pointed needles and a decrease chart is followed to make the stitches disappear. 

This whole collection offers five different hat styles and endless ideas for combining the charts and different stitches together. I can't wait to see what you do with it. 

Available on my website here 

on Ravelry here

Vivaciously Vibrant Vests from The World Knits Collection

Available on my website here

and on Ravelry here

Number 12 in The World Knits Collection are the Vivaciously Vibrant Vests.

The cut of the vest is simple - with squared armholes and very little shaping - except for the v-neckline. There are several different colorful textural stitches that can be combined in stripes with Fair Isle Charts.  

If you aren't afraid of steeking, there are directions as to how to work the pattern in the round. 

Sizing is written for 8 sizes from 22" (baby) to 50". I made a couple of these vests for my nieces when they were little. It's a perfect choice for kids who don't like to be encumbered with bulky clothing. 

Here's a photo we took of a woman in one of the vests. I love the Frieda Kahlo vibe. I wish it was in color to really show the patternwork but this is what I've got. 

Available on my website here

and on Ravelry here

Whimsical Tea Cozies from The World Knits Collection

Available on my website here

and on Ravelry here

It's the weekend! Here we are at Number 11 of the World Knits Collection. It's my pattern for Tea Cozies, French Press Coffee Cozies, and more. 

Old fashioned as they may be knitted tea cozies can be a real conversation starter. Bring a pot of tea to a table dressed in a knitted cozy and see what your guests say. This tea cozy pattern comes in many sizes to fit many teapots.

Also included in the pattern is a French Press Coffee Cozy in the three common sizes of Bodum pots. 

There is also a knitted trivet that can be used as a pot holder or a trivet to protect your table from the heat of the teapot. 

And because I was dressing up kitchen objects, there is also a pattern to cover a square tea tin. 

As with all the World Knits Collection patterns, there are lots of charts so that you can customize your project to fit your own decor. My favorite chart is the Sunflower Tea Cozy shown on the right. The top of the cozy is a flower with leaves on the main part of the cozy. Bobbles decorate the ridges. 

Available on my website here

and on Ravelry here

More Lambs + My Mushroom Cap from the Moroccan Fedora PDF Download

Yesterday I wrote about my fiasco knitting project - the Mushroom Cap from The Moroccan Fedora Pattern where I didn't measure gauge and ended up with a huge hat. I showed you how I took off the offending section and how I knit a rib down to save my hat. 

Last night I added some embroidery to pull the colors together. Here's what it looks like now. In this photo you can see the French knots on the gold diamonds, the running stitch on the teal diagonals and the whip stitch I added to the pink reverse stockinette stitch. 

Pattern available on my website here or on Ravelry here. 

Here is the top of the hat - chartreuse French knots in the center, gold crosses on the pink diamonds and maroon running stitch on the pink lines radiating around the center.

 

We are up to 60 new lambs. Here are some photos I took at the barn the other day. 

This mama is a bit old. She's staying in a pen longer than normal so her lambs get a better start. 

Look how big this guy is. He was one of the first lambs born. 

These twins are toddling after their mama, I love those spindly legs. 

Brilliant Bags from The World Knits Collection

Available on my website here

and on Ravelry here

Number 9 of The World Knits Collection - Brilliant Bags

This is the beginning entry into Year 3 in the World Knits Collection. Brilliant Bags is a collection of 6 different Fair Isle bags - mostly all knit in the round. I thought it would be fun to have knitted bags for carrying knitting needles and more. 

Let's begin with the classic drawstring shape. My inspiration for this project was the Moroccan Fedora pattern. I stumbled upon the Pillbox shape cap (similar to a Moroccan Fez) and loved how it knit up quickly without much of a chance to get bored. What if I turned it upside down and added an eyelet round to make the hat shape turn into a drawstring bag? So that's what I did. There are 3 sizes of the round drawstring bag with the smallest version perfect for toting circular needles. The largest bag is a backpack and you can see it at the center of the photo. Two versions of the middle size bag are shown on the red chair on the left. 

Here's a drawstring bag I made several years ago for my circular needles. It is the smallest round bag called a Circular Needle Bag.  I drew a Fair Isle Chart for the main part of the bag and knit it in red and purple. 

You can see more photos of this bag at the end of this post. 

Continuing with the knitting needle carry bag, I worked up a long thin bag perfect for straight needles. You can see that bag on the right chair. Notice the pearl buttons and the fringe that the knitter added for fun. 

Years ago, my sister Jenn gave me a handmade cotton bag that was the perfect size for the small amount of cosmetics I use every day. It's hard to believe but I still use that bag -- every day! It has been packed in my carry on bag for my entire adult life. It hangs on a hook in the kitchen holding a mirror, some eyeshadow and mascara. I pull it off the hook and use it every day. Every time it shows up at my mom's house, she and my sisters cannot believe that I still use it. "Don't you think you should throw that thing away?" they say. I have become very attached to its threadbare qualities. Once in a while it gets mended and I have no intention of giving it up. Here it is in all its tattered glory. 

This perfect sized bag was the inspiration for the square bag with the pointed flap shown in 2 versions on the right and left chairs. It too would work for carrying circular needles. 

Lastly, I designed a small pouch that can also be worn as a necklace. In it, you can keep $, coins, a credit card, or a cellphone. Granted - this pattern was designed before everyone had their own cellphone. A perfect thing to be worn at a needlework convention, wouldn't you say? 

Here are some close-ups and descriptions of my Circular Needle Bag. Here is a close-up of the duplicate stitch and French knot embroidery that I added to the red and purple Fair Isle Pattern. 

This is the cast on edge of the bag featuring bobbles and an eyelet round for the drawstrings.

This is the bottom of the bag. I added some embroidery here too. 

The Brilliant Bags PDF Download is now available 

on my website here

and on Ravelry here

Marvelous Mukluks from The World Knits Collection

Available on my website here

and on Ravelry here

Number 6 from The World Knits Collection - Marvelous Mukluks

The idea for the Marvelous Mukluks came from a pair of handknit mukluks that my sister Jenn gifted me. I think they were made in Afghanistan. I loved those mukluks - I wore them as slippers for several years until they fell apart. When I started The World Knits Collection, I thought it would be fun to do a mukluk pattern for American knitters. At that time, there had never been one published - at least that I knew of. 

I called Meg Swansen of Schoolhouse Press and asked her about mukluks - since she was THE person who knew everything about knitting at that time. She said that she had a book that might help and inspire. It was called Anatolian Knitting Designs by Betsy Harrell and was published in 1981. This is the book below - still in my knitting library.  

It is a black and white book that is printed on very thin, almost newsprint feeling paper -- so thin that the printing on the backside shows through to the opposite side. It tells the story of the knitting community in Turkey that was based in a shanty-town above a castle called Rumeli Hisar. Anatolian Knitting Designs documents the different charts that the knitters in this community used. It has an anthropological feel to it as the author researched the community and interviewed the knitters who made the socks. There are a lot of footnotes (something you don't see in most books). Here is a spread of the charts. These are called Thousand Branches, Walnut Kernel, Tough Nut and Walnut Flower. I would assume from these names that walnuts feature in a lot of their traditional food. You can see how thin the paper is with the charts on the other side showing through the page. It is also nice that there are drawings to illustrate what the chart knits up like. 

Anatolian Knitting Designs is mostly black and white and has some very sparse directions for a mukluk at the very end. The thing I find most charming are the colorwork graphs shown above. Each chart has a Turkish name and an English translation. Upon looking at this book again, I must sit down and read it cover to cover. It is available on Amazon as a used book. It looks like Schoolhouse Press sells it also in a newer version with a spiral binding. I just spoke to Meg and she said she is going to get back to me if she can get a hold of it again. 

Considering the situation of the world right now, it makes me wonder about the knitters in this Turkish community - if the community and the knitters exist anymore. Are these traditional Turkish stockings still being knit? I have never had the chance to go to Turkey but if anyone has been and knows anything, I would love to hear. 

The big question for me when designing the Marvelous Mukluks was how to make the heel. The toe was shaped in a point like a traditional Scandinavian mitten - a technique I had done many times. The heel was shaped exactly the same but in the middle of the piece of knitting. The answer to how to do this was to do an "after thought thumb" but make it an "after thought heel". This technique was popularized by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I decided to begin at the calf and work the tube down in patterns until I got to the heel section. At the heel, I worked about half the stitches with a scrap of thread. The scrap would be unknit after the entire mukluk was made and then the heel would be shaped -- just like the toe. It really was very simple once I tried it. 

I wrote the directions for the Marvelous Mukluks in 5 sizes from baby to adult. My sample knitters went to town, making up their own versions using my charts and my selection of colors. 

We took the photo at a woman's house on the Rhode Island coast. She had an incredible red Aga stove that we could hang the mukluks on. We had extra mukluks so we rigged up a "clothesline" situation. I remember that everyone had to remain incredibly still - barely breathing - in order to get the shot. This of course was before the days of digital photography. We were using natural light. This is one of my very favorite photographs that I had the pleasure of having a hand in. And I have alway lusted after that red Aga. I will not ever have one of those Aga stoves but a girl can always dream! 

Available on my website here

and on Ravelry here

If you want to keep the pattern in your Ravelry library, make sure you order via the Kristin Nicholas Ravelry store (not my website).

I found this card inside the Anatolian Knitting Designs book. I thought I would post it here. How gorgeous - a beautiful wooly sheep juxtaposed against a wool rug full of beautiful pattern. I haven't been able to track down the image - otherwise I would give you the information. All info on back of card led nowhere. 

Magical Mocassins from the World Knits Collection

Available on Ravelry here

on my website here

Number 5 from the World Knits Collection - Magical Mocassins

The idea for these slipper socks came are twofold. When I was a little girl, my grandma would knit us slipper socks to wear in bed to keep our feet warm. They were the classic pattern - with a garter stitch back worked halfway through and then a 2 x 2 rib worked to the toe. My grandma didn't consider herself a knitter (she was an amazing crocheter and quilter) but she could make these for us. I loved them. 

In the late 1980's/early 1990's when desktop publishing was becoming a thing, I was invited to South Dakota by Elaine, David and Alexis - the owners of XRX/Knitters Magazine/ the Stitches shows. They volunteered to teach me how to use a desktop publishing program called QuarkXPress so that I could publish Classic Elite's patterns myself. This was incredibly generous of them. They were one of the leaders and early adaptors of QuarkXpress and they felt so passionate about the technology that they wanted everyone to know how to do it. My colleague Cathy and I went on a whirlwind trip -- so much to learn in a short time. My head spun every night from the shortcuts I needed to know and all that I was ingesting. In the evenings, we ate very well and shared stories. Elaine showed me her collection of Greek knit textiles which included some colorful slipper socks made out of scratchy handspun wool. (An aside: later I went out to Sioux Falls again and they taught me how to use Adobe Illustrator - the computer program that I still use to draw my textile designs and charts. What generous friends! I miss seeing them.)  

A couple years later, Pat Chew and I travelled to Greece after visiting the (Koln) Germany Handarbeit show to visit a cotton spinning mill in Athens. We wanted to strike up a business arrangement with them to purchase yarn. Alexis volunteered to be our interpreter. He met us in Greece and we had a crazy 3 day trip up and down the coast, staying at his friends' houses (he was born in Greece). When Pat and I travelled, we liked to stop at flea markets. We both loved to find old things to bring home and she was a great bargainer - even when she didn't know the language. I was determined to find some Greek slipper socks for my collection. 

I found an antique stall and found several pairs of very old handknit, handspun wool slipper socks. Below you can see one of them. 

They could not be worn as they had holes and were very fragile. I bought them anyway and they are one of my favorite things in my textile collection. I keep them stored away and only bring them out to look at them once in a while. 

The Magical Mocassins are a combination of my grandma's slipper socks and the ones I saw in Greece. They begin with simple garter stitch in colorful stripes. Then the stitches are moved to double pointed needles and worked in the round in a Fair Isle stranded pattern. There is a simple spiral toe shaping. 

They are a very quick project and are sized in 5 sizes for babies to adults. There are also instructions to add a border around the opening to make a bootie. For babies, you can add an eyelet so a drawstring can be threaded through so it won't fall off. There is also an elf-en toe version. The Magical Mocassins are a nice project to make multiples of to have on hand for gifts - especially the baby version. They don't take long and are so colorful and fun to knit and give. I hope you might give them a try some day. 

Available on Ravelry here

on my website here

If you want to keep your patterns in your Ravelry library, make sure you order through the Kristin Nicholas Ravelry store (not my website). 

Ferociously Funny Socks from The World Knits Collection

Available on my website here

and on Ravelry here

Number 4 in The World Knits Collection are my Ferociously Funny Socks. Sock knitting was not much of a thing back in 1992 but I could feel a trend coming on. This pattern includes 4 different versions of the Ferociously Funny Socks. You can see them on the cover of the booklet below. 

They don't seem very revolutionary now but back then, these socks were something quite different. Knit in Classic Elite's Tapestry Wool/Mohair, they were colorful, very fun to knit and quite addictive. They each begin with my favorite two color corrugated ribbing edged in reverse stockinette stitch ridges. Each design adds a bit more difficulty to them culminating in the sock you can see all the way to the left with Fair Isle Patterning and duplicate stitching. 

Sadly, my sample socks disappeared 25 years ago so I can't share them with you. It seems a world away from these first socks after all the twists and turns of the yarn industry, people going in an out of business, hand-dyers making sock yarn, me having a line of sock yarn with Regia (that's gone now). I'm not sure if knitters are making as many socks as they once did in the early 00's with those little needles.

Me, I will happily make a sock on size 4 double pointed needles just like the ones featured here. Classic and as easy or difficult to make depending on your wants and skill. There is also a pattern for a back and forth simple sock included. 

You can purchase the PDF Download for the Ferociously Funny Socks on my website here and on Ravelry here. There is a pattern page now for this design on Ravelry if you have an older pair that you would like to post as a project. Or put them on Instagram and tag me so I can see what you knit. 

Spread the word about The World Knits Collection. Thanks everyone!