Did You Know about These Celebrities Who Knit?

I don’t know if it’s because we’re heading in to summer or because I just haven’t been paying attention, but I didn’t see a lot of knitting news this week. But I did want to share this piece from mental_floss about 11 famous knitters.

Sure, you probably know most of them, like Julia Roberts, Eleanor Roosevelt, Grace Coolidge (pictured) and Kate Middleton, but there are a couple that might surprise you.

One I will make you click through to see, but one is Ringo Starr. He says he was sick a lot as a child and knitting was something he could do while in bed.

Did you know that?

Of course there are many more than these famous knitters, so feel free to add to the list if you have a favorite who didn’t make the cut. (Katharine Hepburn is mine.)

[Photo via mental_floss, from the Library of Congress.]

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

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