A court of Wallabies came hopping by...

I love collective nouns, in a sort of ridiculous semi-obsessive way. Sometimes on car drives we might even try and come up with the most silly collective nouns possible to pass the time; some of our favourites are a shiver of sharks, a parcel of penguins, a mask of raccoons and a journey of giraffes.  And yes, these are all real ones. One of my favourite kids books is this one.  It's absolutely gorgeous.

So when I came to name the e-book for this trio of patterns; a collective noun seemed totally appropriate. The only debate was which one? You see, there are a number of collective nouns that can be applied to a group of macropods; court, mob, herd or even a troop. 

This pattern has been in the works for a while. It came about as a class pattern that I used to teach a class on The Beauty of a Circular Yoke at The Craft Sessions. You all know how much I love a circular yoke. The original version of this was written for a 15" and 16" chest size (about newborn to six months size range) and the idea behind the pattern was to use a simple silhouette to demonstrate how different increases look and work when you're knitting a circular yoke. It was a happy co-incidence that the trio of increases I used actually created a really lovely effect on the yoke. The long garter stitch cuffs just seemed to be the perfect finishing touch to this cardie.

Then Lily needed a new school cardigan, there were three balls of Malabrigo Rios sitting in my stash and a small sample  of this wee cardie in front of me, so naturally that's where I went.  Usually I would probably knit Rios at a dk weight tension, but I only had three balls and I knew that that would be pushing it. And so Lily's new cardigan got knit with a 20 stitch tension. And thus my friends, is the reason this pattern is available for a 10ply/worsted weight tension; simply because I had the sample before any pattern even evolved.

The obvious next step was to knit an 8ply/dk weight sample. And again, this pretty much made its own course into existence. I'd been knitting with Skeinz Silver Lining, a cardie for me which is still in the works and Toby decided that he'd like a cardie in the Red Triangle. In fact, he told me he wanted a big version of the Joey. This is a boy who knows his own mind and I'm glad he does as I probably would have knit the 8ply sample in Lily's size, and she is one girl who has more than her fair share of cardies already! Toby also is considerably smaller and I was pleased to see that the cordie did translate well to a boy's garment. 

I think of all the cardies, the 4ply/fingering is my favourite. I love the lightness of this cardie; it's a very easy to wear garment for this time of the year and our climate. And the yarn I knit it in is really lovely. It's the new White Gum Wool 4ply and while it is quite a light 4ply, it knit up and bloomed beautifully. I really like this yarn and can see more 4ply knits in my very near future. 

All three of the Wallaby patterns are available for purchase in my Ravelry store either individually or as part of the e-book, A Court of Wallabies.

Would you like to win a copy of the e-book?

In this post I am giving away five (5) copies of the e-book to readers. All you have to do is leave a comment and tell me what your favourite collective noun is. At the end of this week on Friday night, I will give my kidlets the task of choosing their five favourite and they will be the winners.

Please take the time to read through the comments as the first to comment with a specific collective noun claims that one and any further comments using the same collective noun will be invalid.

P.S. If you've already purchased and then win, I am happy to refund the purchase price of the pattern/s.