The Knitwear Designer Causing Serious Girl Crushes

I love it when knitting related stories pop up in unexpected places, like this story from The Cut. The headline is “This Woman is Making Shawls Sexy, I Swear to You,” and if you’ve knit or even seen a picture of the hottest shawl of the past couple of years, Find Your Fade, you might know that the author, Edith Zimmerman, is talking about designer Andrea Mowry.

In the knitting world, as I learned, she had become something of an overnight celebrity — Mowry had rocketed to the top from out of almost nowhere, with her first pattern published only in late 2014, but with at least 88 since, to become arguably one of the world’s most popular designers. She’s like … the knitting world’s Taylor Swift. Cute, talented, driven, precise, upbeat, and kind, with a wink and a flicker of darkness.

There are no real revelations about Mowry in the piece; it’s mostly just fan-girling about a gorgeous and talented designer many of us might wish we were a little more like. But it’s always nice to see knitting portrayed as dynamic, stylish and, yes, even sexy, without a bit of the usual “not your grandma’s knitting” snark in sight.

Have you knit any of Mowry’s patterns? This might be the year I finally knit a Fade.

[Photo: Andrea Mowry via Ravelry.]

Looking to buy your Yarn online? Check out these online yarn specials.

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.

Have you read?