KnitPro Acquires Rights to Lantern Moon Brand

Lantern Moon was a company founded in 2001 that produced knitting needles and other tools with the aim of supporting artisans in Southeast Asia. I’m not totally sure of the backstory on what happened with the company, but they stopped posting on their Facebook page in March 2019.

It was recently announced that KnitPro, the company behind Knitter’s Pride and KnitPro brands, had acquired the rights to the Lantern Moon brand and was producing needles under that name again.

According to a news release, Lantern Moon’s founders, Joel and Sharon Woodcock, will have “ongoing business and creative collaboration” in the company.

Joel said that, after visiting the company’s factory in India, “we came away confident that Lantern Moon products would benefit from KnitPro’s production expertise. We were especially pleased to see that the Ebony they will be using in the production of the knitting needles will stay true to the original design.”

While products are listed on their website it doesn’t look like it is possible to order needles or other products directly from them, but you can find information about shops that sell their products on their website.

[Photo via Lantern Moon.]

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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