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Try Your Hand at Design for Free Yarn, Cool Prizes

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my mountain design contestThe German yarn company Schachenmayr is celebrating the release of its new yarn line in North America with a very cool design contest.

The line is called My Mountain, so the contest is about your personal design mountain, something you’ve always wanted to try but haven’t felt up to the challenge yet.

This is a pretty fast-moving contest, in that you can put in a request to receive free yarn for your design (how cool is that?) between now and August 17 and a photo of your design needs to be emailed by August 30. Fifteen semifinalists will be chosen by Sept. 6 and will be promoted as part of a Facebook contest. It’s not clear (to me, anyway) if all 15 get $150, or just the winner.

In addition, five finalists will each receive an iPad mini, promotion in social media and be featured in an ad on Ravelry. What’s more, everyone who submits a design gets a free T-shirt. That’s a pretty sweet contest.

The one caveat is that designs become the property of Westminster Fibers, so even if you don’t win, you can’t publish your design elsewhere. But it still sounds like a pretty fun design exercise and a cool chance to get to play with some new yarn.

If you decide to take part, I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Schachenmayr Yarns.]

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Comments

  1. I have my pattern pretty much finished. I’m wondering where you saw the part that the designs become their property? I didn’t find that anywhere. Are you entering?

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Textured Hat Knitting Patterns

There are all sorts of knitting techniques you can use on hats, but some of my favorites are textured stitch patterns or cabled hats worked in a single color. Check out these great textured hat knitting patterns and find your next fall favorite. 

The K?pekapeka hat from The Practice of Fibre was the one that got me started thinking about textured hat knitting patterns. This one has a simple zig-zag pattern worked with purls. This hat uses centered double decreases for shaping to help keep the pattern going as you finish the top of the hat. It uses worked weight yarn. 

Little Totz Designs has this simple knit hat that uses worsted weight yarn and an allover knit-purl stitch pattern that’s easy to memorize. This one would be a great first hat in the round pattern if that’s something you haven’t tried before. 

The Fia Beanie from Honey and Grace Fiber Co is another simple stitch pattern that’s full of texture. It calls for bulky yarn so it should stitch up in no time in this great textured diamond design. 

Kalurah Hudson’s Cindersmoke hat is an interesting stitch design that uses double moss stitch and bands of slipped stitches throughout the pattern, which is where the decreases are worked, keeping the rest of the pattern as established. It uses bulky yarn and is sized for adults, and you can find it on Ravelry.

Benjamin Matthews has such pretty designs that often turn out to be simpler to knit than they look. The Snow Carved Beanie (find it on Ravelry) for example only uses knits, purls and slipped stitches, but it has a design that looks almost like cables. The pattern uses worsted weight yarn and has a foldover brim for extra warmth. 

While I wanted to keep the focus in this roundup on simple stitch patterns, basic cables are not that much more difficult than regular knitting, and the lattice pattern on this CrissCross Hat form the Purling Princess is so charming I couldn’t resist sharing. This hat comes in three sizes (baby, child and adult) and uses worsted weight yarn. It would be a great gift to knit if you’re thinking about that.