Pattern Inspiration

Hi my lovelies! When we received our latest restock of BC Garn's Semilla Melange (one of my favorite sustainable budget-friendly yarns - 100% wool, non-superwash, GOTS-certified), I couldn't resist: I had to pull out our box of De Rerum Natura Bérénice, the wonderful fluffy silk-mohair-merino yarn, to see if I could find a few color matches.

And I did! 12 perfect matches – I couldn't believe it. So naturally, I had to share them with you!

Hi lovelies! You know how much I adore our 100% non-superwash wool color-changing yarn "Zauberwolle", right? I already knit myself a Pressed Flowers Hat and a Pressed Flowers Cardigan in it, and I can't wait to get the next project on the needles.

I thought it would be really cool to combine Zauberwolle with BC Garn's Semilla Melange, a wonderfully woolly GOTS-certified sport-weight yarn. (I knit the Pressed Flowers Cardigan in this exact combo, and it's a good one.) So imagine my delight when I realized how many colors of Semilla Melange actually work perfectly with the color-changing magic of Zauberwolle!

Without further ado, let me introduce you to a whopping 24 perfect color matches!

The joy of spinning your own yarn is that you can design the yarn from the fibre up. In theory this means you can hold the pattern or project you’d like to make in mind, and create the yarn to match. 

However in practice, at least at the beginning, that’s often not how it goes. Perhaps your spinning is either a bit inconsistent, or you find it hard to spin to a specific weight of yarn. Maybe you enjoy spinning from gloriously dyed variegated fibre and the result is very busy-looking yarn. It might be that you have small, precious skeins of practice yarn, or on the other end of the scale, you’re amassing hand-spun yarn faster than you can possibly knit through it.

Hi lovelies! Spring has sprung here in Berlin – as I am typing this (mid March), the buds on the chestnut tree out the window are a few days away from bursting, the forsythias are in full bloom, and our strawberry plants have started their comeback as well (leaves so far, but Aurin checks every day for berries :)).

So it's no surprise at all that today's blog post is very much inspired by the sun and the warmer days to come! I have put together a sweet roundup of 6 joyful spring knitting patterns, all of which I'd love to have on my needles soon. (If someone can get me an extra day or two per week to knit (oh, and to spin), I'd love that!)

The three yarns I've paired them with are my favorite spring / summer yarns: De Rerum Natura's Antigone, a delightful sport-weight linen yarn, Wooldreamers' Saona, a 50% Spanish cotton, 50% Spanish wool blend, and Natissea's Pernelle, our newest spring yarn: A 100% European hemp yarn!

Hi lovelies! I adore a good color-changing yarn, so imagine my excitement when I found a non-superwash, 100% wool version (not so easy to come by)! Schoppelwolle's Zauberwolle comes in at 250 m / 273 yds per 100 g and knits up beautifully to a fingering-weight, sport-weight and DK gauge.

It's fabulous on its own, and great combined with neutral solids! My top picks for yarns to go with Zauberwolle are BC Garn Semilla Melange, De Rerum Natura Ulysse and Holst Garn Supersoft. All three have a broad color range, so finding a matching or contrasting solid to your chosen color-changing yarn should be a breeze!

Hi lovelies!

As I was finishing up Aurin's Joy Cardigan over the weekend, I started thinking about what I could cast on now that one of my current WIPs is almost done. And then it hit me - the holidays are just under two months away, and I have this dream of knitting a few sweaters for my nephews. Will I manage it in time? Who knows. But it would be nice to gift them the promised sweaters in time for the end of the year so that they actually get a little wear out of them still this winter!

Are you already deep in gift knitting mode or, like me, just starting to plan? If the latter (or the former, if you still need a few ideas!) I might have just the thing for you: Three super quick gift knit ideas!