Lady Purl Designs

These are a few of the paintings I plan to recreate into skeins of yarn in my "Inspired" line of yarn (which will all be on my Etsy account, hopefully by the end of the year! >>  http://www.etsy.com/shop/LadyPurl   

This is my little sister. I knit her this sweater in green last year, but it was too big. This new smaller version was my wedding present to her. I switched from size 7 needles to size 2 and it took FOREVER! Luckily it's the very last time I'll ever knit it, hehe. The pattern in very nice, but those tiny stitches! Close up of the DNA cable and lace work. The back was all lace, I love it. 

Staghorn                                   The yarn you use and needle size probably doesn't make a lick of a difference. I used Vanna White's line of yarn because I loved the color, it was super soft, and cheap. It took 1 1/2 balls of yarn. I used size 10 1/2 needles (6.5 mm). Abbreviations: k: knit p: purl sl1kw: slip 1st stitch knit-wise sl1pw: slip 1st stitch purl-wise BC: place 2sts on a cable needle in the back, k2, k2 from cable needle FC: place 2sts on a cable needle in the front, k2, k2 from cable needle Cast on 30 stitches. Row 1 (WS and   all  other wrong side rows): sl1pw, k2, p2, k2, p16, k2, p2, k2, p1. Row 2: sl1kw, p2, k2, p2, k4, BC, FC, k4, p2, k2, p2, k1.  Row 4: sl1kw,  p2, k2, p2, k2, BC, k4, FC, k2, p2, k2, p2, k1. Row 6: sl1kw,  p2, k2, p2, BC, k8, FC, p2, k2,  p2, k1. Repeat rows 1-6 until desired length.* Cast off while following the WS of the pattern, it looked most natural casting off after Row 2. *My fav

Here's how the yarn turned out. Not sure how well I did, but either way the yarn felt and looked awesome. The blue came out a lot deeper than I expected and the purple really pops. I wanted yellow, but it came out more gold, slightly orange. I think it should be very interesting to knit with.

I had a dream about the "Vincent and the Doctor" episode of Doctor Who last night. I thought, I must do something to celebrate my love for not only that episode, which is thee best Doctor Who episode, beating "Lady in the Fireplace" by a hair, but also my adoration and obsession with Vincent Van Gogh.  So I'm going to do what I do best. Knit something. I wasn't just about to go out and buy the yarn for this. It had to be special. So I hand dyed it in a way that I've never tried before. I separated the dyes by placing them in individual jars, filling them half full with a dash of vinegar and a teaspoon-ish of dye in each jar.  I separated how much yarn I wanted of each color and slowly stuffed the yarn in the jars, using a dowel to stir and yarn. I'll post more pictures tomorrow once it dries. I'm super psyched to see how it turns out. I also need to find a pattern, or make one, that really encapsulates Starry Nigh

I've been designing patterns and coming up with ideas a lot lately for a pattern book I want to put together. I'm still weighing the pros and cons about selling each pattern individually myself, or through a publisher like knitty.com, or on Ravelry for like $5 a pattern, OR putting them all together and publishing a book myself... Or sending that finished book out to publishers and have someone else sell it... Uhg, I don't know. I think I should probably  get some patterns published first on sites like Knitty just to get my name out there. Then when I'm knitty-famous I'll have the street cred to publish a whole book. Either way I can't really publish pictures or notes on what I'm working on :{. I do have one thing though! This is a scarf I whipped up for a friend of mine who just designed a new logo for me. It's still in the works, but I'll be revamping my whole site and "Lady Purl" soon enough. The cable is called "Staghorn