Eighth-Grade Knitter Wins Entrepreneurship Contest

Baltimore eighth-grader Lily DeBell has been knitting for about 5 years and has built her passion into a solid business called Lily’s Legwarmers.

She says her class did an entrepreneurship unit in seventh grade in which students had to do research and develop a plan for a business. She went even further, opening a shop to sell her legwarmers online. She recently won a contest with a $25,000 prize from the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, and she hopes to use the money to expand her business.

Her legwarmers, which you can buy on etsy, are hand knit using wool and alpaca for more warmth and breatheability than synthetic fibers would provide. They retail for $32 a pair.

She says she wants to partner with local senior centers to hire residents to help produce the legwarmers, and she’s also looking to wholesale her products.

We wish her luck!

[Photo via Llegwarmer shop on etsy.]

Next Pattern:

If you’re looking for a sweater knitting pattern that uses up some of your stash and allows you to make just the sweater you want, the Marlina Rib by Shay Johson might be just the thing.

It’s worked with two strands of fingering weight yarn held together to make a DK weight gauge, so you can use the same two yarns throughout or change one or both regularly for an even more colorful look.

The pattern has options to make it either a crewneck or a henley style with buttons, tapered or relaxed sleeves, and a straight hemline or a split hem with buttons (which sounds so cute if you do the henley with split hem and match the buttons on both parts).

It’s also knit from the top down so you can make the body and the sleeves as long as you want. There are 10 sizes available in the pattern, with a chest circumference ranging from 32 to 68 inches, or 81.5 to 172.5 cm. It’s meant to be worn with 4-6 inches/10-15 cm of positive ease at the chest.

The pattern page on Ravelry includes tons of measurements and yardage estimates so you can make sure you’ll get a good fit for your body before you even buy the pattern. Shay also shows a few variations of the sweater so you can see how different options look before you decide how you want to put them together.

The stitch pattern is 1×2 ribbing, which is really easy to do and gives a look almost like fisherman’s rib that’s relaxed and easy to wear.

This sweater looks like a great option for people who are somewhat new to sweater knitting or those who love to have lots of customization options (because it’s like getting multiple sweater patterns in one!).

Check out all the details and grab a copy of the pattern for yourself at Ravelry.

[Photo: Shay Johnson]

Next Pattern:

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