I do like to knit socks. They're portable and practical. These were made using handspun Southdown yarn. Southdown fibre is supposed to be naturally felt-resistant which is a good property for socks.
This is a simple toe-up ribbed pattern, which I worked as follows:
Using a provisional toe-up cast-on (I like the figure-8 cast-on), cast on 28 sts. I use the magic loop technique on a long circular needle, so this pattern is written for that. The 28 sts are cast on as 14 sts on to each of the front and back needle tips.
Toe round 1: K1, M1, K to 1 st before end of needle 1, M1, K1. Rpt on needle 2.
Toe round 2: K all sts
Rpt these two rounds until you have a total of 56 sts. K 4 rounds even,
Foot: On needle 1, K1, (P2, K2) to last st, K1. On needle 2, K to end. 
Rpt foot round until sock reaches the length of the foot to the front of the ankle.
Gusset round 1: On needle 1, work as for foot. On needle 2, K1, M1, K to last st, M1, K1.
Gusset round 2: Work both needles as for foot.
Rpt these two rounds until there are 48 sts on needle 2.
Work once more across needle 1. You will now work back and forth across needle 2 only to turn the heel.
Heel row 1: K27, SSK, K1, turn
Heel row 2: Sl1, P7, P2tog, P1, turn
Heel row 3: Sl1, K to 1 st before gap made by previous turn, SSK across the gap, K1, turn
Heel row 4: Sl1, P to 1 st before gap made by previous turn, P2tog across the gap, P1, turn
Rpt rows 3 and 4 until all sts are used. Return to working in the round.
Leg: On needle 1, work as for foot. On needle 2, work as on needle 1 to repeat the pattern around the leg.
Continue in this pattern as set until leg is required length. Cast off loosely.

(Abbreviations: K - knit; P - purl;  M1 - make one; Rpt - repeat; SSK - slip next two sts one by one knitwise, return to left needle and knit together through the back loop; P2tog - purl two together; St/s - stitches)

Sometimes in knitting a yarn tells you what it wants to be. With this one the process started one step earlier with the fibre telling me what it wanted to be before I had even spun it.
Frost in Spring is a triangular scarf with stripes of simple lace and garter stitch. The pattern includes both charted and written instructions for the lace pattern. It is currently live in my Ravelry store, and I will publish it to LoveKnitting.com just as soon as the technical issue there preventing me from doing so is resolved.

The saying is "Don't put all your eggs in one basket", meaning don't rely on one thing for success. In this case though, I used that proverb as inspiration for the name of a sock pattern. The basketweave stitch pattern lent itself perfectly to this design, and made me think of that proverb, hence All Your Eggs!
The socks are worked toe-up using a Fleegle heel and the pattern offers three sizes, Small (to fit a 7" foot circumference), Medium (8") and Large (9"). The pattern is available on Ravelry (link through photograph) and LoveKnitting.com (search pattern database for All Your Eggs, or for my patterns)
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Another month, another pattern release, and this one is a cowl. I haven't designed a cowl worked flat for quite a while, and this one was inspired by the handspun yarn used to make the pattern sample. I wanted something that wouldn't compete with the colours. I had dyed the fibre myself before spinning it into DK weight yarn. It was my first time working with BFL fibre and it's so soft I wanted something I could wear against my skin. It needed a simple but effective stitch pattern that would work well with the subtle colour changes and this stitch pattern fit the bill perfectly.

The cowl begins with a provisional cast-on and is worked flat for the required length before the cast-on is unpicked and the two ends grafted together. (You could also work a three-needle cast-off if you like but that would form a seam.)
Don't worry, I don't wear the cowl like that in the street!
You can find Porthole Windows in my Ravelry store.

New pattern launched this week on Ravelry! Find it here!www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/leave-me-alone

My latest shawlette pattern just went live on Ravelry and will be up on LoveKnitting.com within the next day or so (the delay is at their end!). Little Green Frog is meant for a lace knitter with some experience as there is patterning on both wrong side as well as right side rows.

Naming patterns is always the trickiest bit for me, and the name of this one came from the fact that the yarn was repurposed from another scarf design which never made it to publication. The original scarf I made from it was a triangular one, predominantly mesh with a floral motif along one side, and it was very pretty but totally unwearable due to the dimensions of the triangle. It languished on a shelf for nearly three years before I decided that the yarn was too lovely to leave in a scarf I would never wear, so I unravelled it. Or "frogged" it, from the sound of saying 'rip it, rip it, rip it'!
One day I might rework that mesh and floral scarf with better dimensions, as the concept is still one I like. It just wasn't the right shape.

About a week ago, Ravelry launched a new theme. It was a total overhaul of its appearance on-screen and there has clearly been a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff gone on to make it work. Unfortunately, since it launched, it has been causing problems for some users.
For me, it just seems overly bright, and the graphics are not to my personal taste. Neither of those are big issues for me. However, the brightness, the colour contrast, and some moving images have caused a massive headache - literally, people have had migraines triggered. And worse, a few people have had seizures triggered. 
As a temporary fix, it is possible to toggle back and forth between "old" Ravelry and "new" Ravelry but users need to be able to log in to switch and some people can't even safely do that.
For the majority who can successfully continue to use Ravelry in whichever format they prefer, my patterns are available there.
For those who cannot, you can also find my patterns at LoveKnitting.com (which is also accessed at LoveCrafts.com). Unfortunately they do not support e-books, and some of my newer patterns still need to be uploaded so please bear with me.
​You can find my patterns here!!
Hopefully, Ravelry will sort its issues very soon so that everyone can enjoy the site safely, but meanwhile, if you can't access my patterns there, there is an alternative available for you.

I just launched my latest pattern, Tidy Vines, on Ravelry (and soon to be on LoveKnitting.com as well). The evolution of this one was surprisingly easy. I had seen the lace stitch pattern in a stitch dictionary and thought it would be a perfect edging for something but didn't know what. Then I saw the skein of fingering weight Polwarth yarn on an Etsy shop (scruffydogeco, although their yarn listings are few at the moment) and my brain put the two together and put the image of the scarf in my mind's eye. It was then a pretty easy task to just knit what my imagination saw!
The lace pattern is pretty easy to memorise, which makes this great for on-the-go knitting, and it works up really fast if you need a quick gift from a single skein of yarn.

It's been a while, but my first pattern of 2020 has just gone live on Ravelry. Spend Time With A Friend was designed for my own handspun yarn but it works just as well with commercial yarn, although I would use something either solid, semi-solid, or with wide stripes as the lace stitch pattern would be lost in a multi-coloured yarn. That lace stitch is original, inspired by the word "Friend" which is where the pattern name comes from. You can find the pattern clicking through the link above or through the photo.

November is here, it must be time for the GiftALong again! Back for its seventh year, the Ravelry Indie Design GiftALong is a series of make-alongs, chatter, and prizes, to get you ready for the holidays. I'm taking part as a designer for the sixth time. The Giftalong starts tomorrow (November 26th) but the fun has started already so if you want to join in, you can find the Ravelry group here!