Knitting

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Giveaway: 75 Floral Blocks to Knit

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75 floral blocks to knit giveaway

Congrats to C. Allen!

This week I’ve got another giveaway from my archive of knitting books, 75 Floral Blocks to Knit by Lesley Stanfield. As the title says, this book is full of blocks — squares as well as other shapes — that include flower motifs, whether in lace or colorwork, stitched as part of the block or appliqued on top.

It’s a fun collection if you like to make patchwork blankets for babies or other people, or use them for pillows, to embellish pockets on sweaters, or any other way you like.

For a chance to win this book, leave a comment on this post before the end of the day Sunday, Aug. 21. I’d love to know what your favorite flower is. Mine: zinnias.

Thanks for visiting, commenting and sharing, and good luck!

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Comments

  3. Such an interesting book. My favorite are peonies (heady scent, soft petals, lush colors)! Second ate dahlias (they remind me of ladies in ball gowns).

  7. Hi I enjoy these emails, my favourite flowers are lilacs. The smell is soo awesome. Judy.

  12. Tulips are my favorite flowers. The floral blocks are beautiful. Thank you for this opportunity!

  15. I love every flower, I am partial to some, some every one from the absolute smallest to the biggest ones are all gorgeous and to be appreciated!
    I would definitely be inspired to become a better knitter with this book!

  17. These are beautifully knitted. My favorite flower is peony. I just wish they bloomed longer in the Spring.

  18. I love lavender, does it counts as a flower?
    Well, I also love roses…but all flowers are beautiful as well.
    Thank you for the giveaway.

Have you read?

Knit a Leopard Print Shawl and Learn about Yarn Substitution

When I was looking around for free knitting patterns to share recently, I came across this fun leopard print wrap from Yarnspirations. 

This fun bulky wrap gives you tons of practice with instarsia and makes a bold statement while keeping you warm. It’s rated for intermediate knitters and the design is charted but pretty easy to follow. And it’s only 50 rows and worked in bulky yarn, so it wouldn’t even take that long to knit. (You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.)

So what’s the problem? The yarn that the pattern calls for has been discontinued, and it’s not a yarn that a substitute for immediately springs to mind. 

The original yarn was Patons Alpaca Blend, a single ply bulky yarn that was a combination of acrylic, superwash wool, nylon and alpaca. 

My first thought was Lion Brand Hue + Me, which is an acrylic and wool blend, with two plies instead of a single. It looks like it has the colors you would need to make this fun shawl. 

But as I was thinking about it, I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce you to YarnSub if you don’t already know about it. This website is a giant database of yarn that can consider the qualities of the yarn you want to substitute and offer potential substitutions. 

It’s not only thinking about yarn weight, like I was, but also fiber content, number of plies, gauge and even the difference in yardage between one ball and another. It even looks at the price and can be filtered by your price range or preferences about fiber content (if, say, you’re sensitive or allergic to wool, for example, or don’t want to you acrylic). 

When I plugged in Alpaca Blend, it gave me a lot of different options, though many of them were self-striping or multicolored, which wouldn’t work for this project, and I don’t see a way to filter for solid colors only. 

Still, it’s a good tool to give you some ideas you might not know about or might have forgotten about, and it tells you how the new yarn is similar to the old one and how it differs, allowing you to make smarter choices when substituting yarns. 

[Photo: Yarnspirations]