Alt Fiber and Free Felted Stocking Pattern

Alt Fiber, by Shannon Okey takes knitting with cotton and bamboo clear into another universe to experiment with the likes of corn, soy, hemp, even seaweed, and many more unusual fibers.

The different qualities of each of these fibers is discussed as well as suggestions for patterns based on each type of fiber’s uniqueness.

Nettles, pineapple and silk are explored as is milkweek, ramie and banana.

Got access to a cattail swamp? You guessed it. Spin it with a longer staple fiber and you have a most unique product.

The book also includes a section on natural dyes, plant based dyes and overdying.

On to the patterns; 25 of them including sweaters, coats and jackets, stoles, scarves and wraps, mittens, hats and socks. So the next time your dig out the pesticides to deal with those unmanageable dandelions, grab your wheel instead and watch a whole new world open up!

And, I found the cutest, rustic style Christmas Stockings. A free pattern from Knitting At Knoon, here:

http://www.knittingatknoon.com/stockingpatt.html

Enjoy!!

There’s a lot to like about the Eloise Bandana from Katryn Seeburger. This cute little colorwork triangle can be worked as a bandana or kerchief size or a bigger shawlette.

It’s worked in two colors of fingering weight yarn so you can use whatever yarn you have in your stash and just make it as big as you can (since it is worked from the bottom up).

You can see the two sizes from the photo, and also two colorwork options: strawberries and lily of the valley.

But that’s not all the choices you have. In fact, there are 34 different charts you can choose from to knit onto your project. Some of the options include happy faces, a lobster, a pumpkin, a snail and a butterfly. There are cherries, peaches, tomatoes and radishes.

There’s even a blank square you can use to draw your own little design if you want to use something else. Or keep it blank and make it a plain checkerboard design.

And while both of these shawls use the same icons throughout, you could also use different designs throughout if you want. Say a fall version with a bat, pumpkin, leaf and acorn, or a summer beach theme with sailboat, fish, lobster and a bird? I keep suggesting four different icons because the larger size has four rows of squares, but the smaller has three, so you could do stripes of the same icon or alternate a couple of different ones, whatever you like.

Look through the finished projects on the Ravelry project page to see lots of different options, from rows to individual icons. There are also some projects that are smaller than the suggested size to make a smaller bandana. You could also keep going a make a bigger shawl working increases in the same way as you have been going.

Check out all the details and grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Katryn Seeburger]

Have you read?