Tuesday, January 13, 2015

ChromeAwesome Hat

You never know where the inspiration will come from. Being so fond of cable projects and designs, I started to see the cable crossings everywhere. This time there were chromosomes! These crucial parts of every living thing happened to be the key element of my new hat design: ChromeAwesome Hat.
Despite of my love to the complex cables and braids, I wanted to design a hat which may be a great introduction to the cable knitting in round for the beginners.
This hat design features just a few cable crossings, nothing too complicated, but overall impression is very nice and attractive even for the experienced cable knitter.
Also there are both written instructions and charts for knitters who prefer either one of the methods.
Pattern available in English and Russian.
So grab your circular needles and/or dpns and enjoy!
You can find pattern on Ravelry, Craftsy and Etsy.
For those who don't have time to knit, but in need of perfect soft and toasty beanie, already made (by me!) hat can be found in my Etsy shop




Saturday, January 3, 2015

Special promotion!

I hope you guys having a nice Holidays and happy to tell you that special Holiday promotion in my Ravelry store going on till January 10th 2015:

All patterns

Buy 2 get 1 Free!



New Designs

Just like all of us, I had a busiest couple of months at the end of the year. I found that I absolutely love designing hats and this very enjoyable work kept me occupied for a few weeks. And I am happy to show you the outcome. I like all of them!
Also I was blessed to work with most observant and helpful tester I met on Ravelry in "Free pattern testers" group. I am infinitely grateful for all their hard work and attention to details. They inspire me constantly to make something new.

It was very unusual but all these designs there was no struggling finding the proper name. Names just popped out in my head or the initial inspiration was very obvious and descriptive.

This hat was inspired by beautiful timeless Moorish architecture. The flowing lines of front decor on Sevilla's Giralda tower found their incarnation on my Giralda Hat.



First, Lance Hat was designed for worsted weight yarn, but I decided to make the bulky version, too. I just love how cables are popping when worked in bulky yarn.
Beige hat with pompom is bulky weight design and blue one made of worsted weight yarn.




I always loved the lattice design variations on cabled hats but I was looking for something a bit different then usual cable crossings. That's how Hearty Hat was born. I made two of them for test: red in Malabrigo worsted and orange in Cascade Yarns Pacific and seriously don't know which one I like better. It's absolutely impossible to decide.




There is a park in my neighborhood: Leo Carrillo Ranch park, the former San-Diego residence of 50s Hollywood actor Leo Carrillo. It is a pretty place, carefully preserved reflection of Californian Mexican style, somewhat rustic but beautiful. We love to walk there and watch the hundreds of peacocks that inhabit this friendly facility. So all these fences and peacock tails became an inspiration for the Carrillo Hat design:



One morning I woke up with a thought: "why not to go CRAZY with cables?" Yes, I think about cables all the time, sometimes I dream about it, too. So here is my Cablefest Hat with cables forming a merry-go-round on it.



And this design was inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth world. No geeky knitter can resist the temptation of this stories. So here is the Quendi Hat. "Quendi" is the name given by the Elves to their own kind. Since they are my favorite creatures of this legendarium, I could not pass by.


I hope you like them as much as I do!

The patterns available on Ravelry and Craftsy. The ready-to-wear hats you can find in my Etsy shop: IrmianDesidn.