Design Your Way to New Zealand!

Vogue Knitting is celebrating its 30th anniversary in lots of big ways, but one of the biggest was just announced. The magazine is teaming up with Zealana, a luxury New Zealand yarn company, on a design contest, the grand prize of which is a trip to New Zealand.

The contest is open to all knitters with an interest in design (there’s a separate student contest for those in high school, university or a fashion school) and is looking for hand-knit garments for women sized small to medium based on the Craft Yarn Council’s standard sizing charts. At least half of each design must be made with Zealana yarn.

Submissions in the form of color photographs are due by Nov. 30, and each designer may submit up to four projects. Finalists will have to mail their projects and the ball bands of the yarn they used to New York, and the winners will be announced at Vogue Knitting Live in New York next year. All finalists will be featured in Vogue Knitting, and the grand prize winner will receive a five-day trip to New Zealand that will include a trip to the Zealana factory and a wildlife sanctuary.

The winning design will also be styled and photographed for a feature in Vogue Knitting and to be used in promotions for Zealana. Other prizes for runners up include gift cards, gift baskets and tickets to Vogue Knitting Live events (though they are responsible for their own transportation and accommodations).

This sounds like a really cool contest. Too bad my book is due two weeks before the deadline!

If anyone decides to enter, I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo by Zealana.]

Next Pattern:

I can’t resist a pattern that’s both useful and a little silly, and that’s exactly how I feel about the Rybka pouch pattern from the delightfully named Rat and Sea Witch.

I know you’re going to ask, because I did, too. Rybka means little fish in Polish. (And because you’re also probably going to ask, Rat and Sea Witch comes from people’s attempts to say the designer’s name, Ratasiewicz, which if you say it fast kind of sounds like rat and sea witch.)

It’s easy to make a little fish bag in different sizes to suit your needs. The pattern has specific instructions for an Airpods Pro case and a pencil case, but you could change the length easily to hold more stuff, and change the size in general by working with a different weight of yarn.

The pattern calls for sock yarn and mohair held together to make a fingering weight gauge, but you could try it with heavier yarn and see what size bag you end up with.

Whatever size you make it, this looks like a fun project for holding trinkets or everyday items. The mouth of the fish is the mouth of the bag, and it closes with a drawstring that is also the strap. I wonder, too, if you could make one of these with a small clasp frame that could be the fish’s mouth and then you could just work I cord straps that would attach to the sides of the fish.

I could also see stripes, or fish of different colors to use up your yarn leftovers. How about a sunglasses case with a little loop to attach to your bag? Once you start thinking about all the ways you could use a fish-shaped bag in your life, I think you’ll see that you probably need more than one.

If you make one of these I would love to know how it went!

You can grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Rat and Sea Witch]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?