Norah Gaughan Designs

As I am admittedly obsessed with knitting, a large amount of my time is spent combing through media I get on my iPad. Information can come from yarn companies, yarn shops near and far, YouTube subscriptions, from Facebook groups I have chosen and Pinterest, but by far the best information source for me in Ravelry. If you don't hear from me for hours at a time it is because I have been sucked into the Ravelry vortex of lovely patterns.

It is because of this looking on Ravelry I have found designers like Norah Gaughan. Norah lives in New Hampshire in the States and her takes on knitted designs suit my tastes. I have followed her as she worked for Berroco yarns, Vogue Knitting and Brooklyn Tweed. Since 2006 she has moved out on her own expanding on her over 1,000 designs.

Recently on a yarn run with Pam and Tena I found one of the collections Norah Gaughan had done for Berroco called Volume 15: Maritime Journey. The booklet contains 14 designs and as I perused it I realized I would happily knit all of them. Since it cost merely $8.25 CAD/$6.50 USD I snatched it up. That means it costs less than $.60/pattern CAD and even less in USD. Plus all the charts are each on a full-sized sheet of paper meaning there will be no need to expand the size to clearly see the marking. It is a booklet prepared for a knitter.

Here are a few images from the booklet:

This is just a sample but each suits my style and are knit with either worsted or aran weight yarn on rather large needles. I can see me busy with sweater knitting for some time to come. (The sweaters I have been making lately are on much smaller needles and lighter weight yarn.)

So even though on that shopping trip with Tena and Pam no yarn was purchased, certainly inspiration for future yarn purchases were inspired.

Comments

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time. One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock. So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep. Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot. And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms...

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing. I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away. Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close. Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening. As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend. Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration. I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned ou...

Knitting-Related Guinness World Records

I had to share some of the Guinness World Records connected with knitting. It is amazing to me the type of skill, stamina and unique characteristics these record holders have in common. How about trying to knit with these SPNs?? Ingrid Wagner and her large needles and knitted swatch The largest knitting needles measured 3.5 m (11 ft 5.8 in) long and had a diameter of 8 cm (3.15 in). Ingrid Wagner, a rug and art creation artist, from the UK used the needles to knit a tension square of ten stitches by ten rows at the Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, on March, 10 2008. (And I complained about getting certain SPNs stuck in my clothes.) See how this swatch was done with merely 5 people managing the needles. And what about the yarn? It is truly ex-bulky. It looks like they're knitting in a warehouse, but with a wingspan of almost 24 feet or 7 m, you'd need all that space. Or h...

Flagel Knitting Files

Search This Blog