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.]

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Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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