It's hard to believe it's already almost half way through May. Almost. How did that happen? It seems like it was barely February yesterday!

May around these parts means Milo May; a super dooper knit-a-long of milos in my Ravelry group.
Have you joined in yet? 

This is the third, I believe, Milo May that we've held and it's always great fun! I love seeing all the different milos created and am always inspired by new ideas and a new spin on the pattern. I love the way so many knitters use milo as a blank canvas. 

Just the other day, I saw a little girl at kinder wearing a milo (gosh, that always makes me feel soooo good when I see a random knit knit by someone I don't know) and her granny who knit the milo had left off the cable added a little garter pocket near the hem with some cute feature buttons. 

I am so lucky to have on board as my sponsor again this year, Little Plum Yarn. 

I absolutely adore Sharon's dyeing. She has such beautiful depth and consistency in her colourways. The green above is one of my favourites, I have some in my stash just hanging to become a cardigan for me. 

Sharon has very kindly donated two skeins of glorious superwash dk yarn in the winner's choice of colourway. So how do you win? Or even enter to win?

It's quite simple. Just knit a milo in May and post pictures of your FO over in my Ravelry group. There's a chatter thread over there too, for lots of inspiration and support. 

Here in Australia, May is the month when Toby really starts wearing his milos again. I've noticed that, unfortunately, they're all pretty much too short!  He's chosen a very bright yellow for a new one, and has also requested one with some wild animals on it (preferably Tasmanian devils!). I'd really like to knit him a new noro one (always looking for an excuse to buy some more noro ~ it's the one yarn that really doesn't hibernate in the stash!) but I'm not sure I'll manage to accomplish all that in the next couple of weeks. Heck, I know I won't! 

Lily wore her noro milo to school yesterday which looked very cute with her skirt, and knee high socks! She's a bit of a school uniform rebel and likes to push the boundaries. They're not strict about uniform at her school, which I love, I'd much rather the teachers focussed on the important aspects of education, not whether her jumper is the right colour, or her socks the right length! Anyway, I digress......

So if you feel the need for a quick knit or a new milo, pop on over and join in. If you've never knit a milo before, this is a good chance to and you'll see why it is so addictive. Would you believe there are knitters out there, and that is plural, who have knit over 50 milos!

There are currently 5967 milo projects in the Ravelry database. I'd love love love to see it hit 6000 by the end of May! 


You can the pattern, milo here.

Earlier this month I released another new pattern, beear.

 It might seem like quite a lot of work to have two new patterns come out in such quick succession, but this one has been a while in the making. I started sketching and swatching for beear in September last year. We were staying at our bush block and I'd taken a pile of the Skeinz Vintage Premium NZ DK to play around with.
I love the colours of this yarn, they all work so beautifully together and have such a gorgeous old-fashioned appeal. The colours are subtle yet incredibly attractive. I'd bought about half a dozen different colours to play around with and I finally settled on four that I thought worked really well. 

 I swatched up a small yoke and added some ribbing and I liked what I saw. I really liked it. So much so that before we left to return from our holiday, I'd pretty much graded and written the pattern. I didn't have enough yarn to knit the cardigan so it had to be put on hold until I returned home to order it.

I must have been busy with multiple projects at the time, which is not unusual for my approach, because it took me until December to finally finish the sample garment. December is not the time to be asking your test knitters to knit up a new garment, so it had to wait until early this year before it could go into testing.

I loved what my test knitters did with this pattern. I loved their colour experimentation. This is the first of my designs that has really featured a colourwork element, so it was really interesting to see how the choice of colours made beear transform into a different garment for different people. It was so inspiring and interesting to see.

The more I see this cardie on, the more I love it. In fact, I love it so much that I'm actually plotting the colours I will use for one for me. So yes, this is another pattern that will become an adult one as well. 

I used 2x2 ribbing through out to try and capture that vintage feel. I really love the look of a thicker rib, which is something l often forget.

The really surprising thing about beear is just how easy it is to knit.  It's constructed top-down using a circular yoke. All the increases in the yoke are worked in as part of the colourwork pattern, and all the increases for each size are detailed out. As is typical of my patterns, I won't tell you to evenly increase 32 sts across the row. I will tell you where to work those increases precisely.

That colourwork, with all its texture and pattern, well, it's not really colourwork in the traditional fashion.

Would you believe me if I told you, it's the easiest colourwork you will ever do.  The whole pattern is achieved by slipping stitches. AND you only ever knit with one ball of yarn on each row! 
Too easy!


This would be a great pattern for knitters who love the look of colourwork but are a bit daunted by the swapping of colours throughout a row or round. Or even those knitters who get frustrated with colourwork and can't quite accomplish it without that annoying puckering that can happen.

Beear is available for purchase as a pdf via the Ravelry cart for $6AUD.
With this pattern you will receive two downloads; one that's designed for those who like to print their patterns and one that's for those who read their patterns on tablets, computers or smart phones.  cool hey!