Kate recently published an e-book entitled From Mama, With Love, a collaboration between 5 knitwear designers who also happen to be mothers of young children. (In fact, since the ebook’s release, contributing designer Melissa had her second daughter, Viviane!)
As working moms (either as self-employed designers, contract employees, company owners, or day jobs that are totally unrelated to the knitting field), with little time for “selfish” knitting, the goal of the pattern collection was to knit and design items for our kids that fit our lifestyles that we also thought others would enjoy.
Kate designed three items for the collection, two pullovers and a luxurious crib blanket:
• Bluebell Pullover: an envelope style pullover designed using Organik featuring color blocking, set-in sleeves and garter edges. The body is knit in the round from the bottom up, then the front and backs are knit back and forth after the armhole division. The contrast garter collars are then picked up and knit back and forth. The sleeves are knit separately in the round, back and forth after the armhole division, and then seamed in using mattress stitch.
• Isadora Lopapeysa: This is the sweater I began knitting a while ago (full disclosure: I started it well before the project began!) I was knitting the sweater specifically with Charlie’s personality and love of outdoors in mind, so it seemed like a perfect project for the book! Isadora is knit in a classic Lopapeysa style – although not a “true” Lopapeysa, as it isn’t knit out of Lopi and there are short-rows utilized to raise the back neck – from the bottom up in the round. The sleeves and body are then joined at the armholes, short-rows are worked, then the yoke is worked with the decreases integrated into the colorwork pattern.
• Petunia’s Blanket: a blanket designed using Tundra featuring garter stitch and modular construction. Knit seamlessly, the individual sections are picked up and knit in segments and the blanket is designed to use pretty much every last inch of the Tundra.
Along with Kate’s designs, another contributing designer, Margaux Hufnagel, knit two designs for the collection out of the Fibre Company yarns, Organik and Canopy Fingering:
The Ferris Vest is an adorable Ferris Bueller-inspired v-neck vest knit using two colors of Canopy Fingering, mango and obsidian. She even styled James outfit to look like Ferris!
The Debonair Hat is a textured stitch hat designed using Organik. Soft and warm, with really beautiful decreases at the crown, Debonair would make a perfect gift!
For more information on the full collection and to purchase the patterns, visit the ebook Ravelry page here.