Introducing Kilbride

Kilbride is the first of the new patterns in Painted Woolly Toppers for Kids that I'd like to introduce you to.

Kilbride is named for the yarn; the pattern uses Old Maiden Aunt Merino 4ply, and OMA are based in West Kilbride, Scotland. One thing about this collection is that all the designs have a sense of place, relating to the yarn in some way.

The yarn is lovely to work with; very fine, and on the slimmer end of sock yarn. Smooth and soft, and it stood well up to frogging as I needed to work the crown a couple of times!

Ivy Mae was such a *star* to work with! We had a lot of fun with the photoshoot, and the deal clincher was the low stage on which the kids could stand and perform and do their thing - it made them both play up for the camera.

As with all the other patterns in this book, they're not just for kids - adult sizes are included, too. Kilbride has 5 sizes, covering 14in to 23in sizes heads. You'll start from the bottom up and work towards the crown - nothing unusual or complex about the construction, and besides keeping track of the shaping in the crown, it's a very straightforward knit.

The garter lace pattern is incredibly structural and is you don't block the Hat too much, just enough, you'll find that it wears like a crown, with the lace points holding their shape. The stitch pattern intrigues me, and I'd like to try something sideways with. It suits the yarn perfectly, and will work with something a little more variegated too, but not too much.

At first glance this may look like a regular crown decrease spiral, but when you look more closely, you can see there are two spirals at play here, both curving at different ratios. I really enjoyed this, and it opens up different possibilities maths-wise, and it's something else I'd like to play with more... in a different pattern, it could be quite pronounced, whereas here I like it's subtlety.

Over the next week or so I'll be introducing each pattern from the book, and you can now pre-order the book for an early bird discount, too!

Thanks to the bundle promotion feature on Ravelry, when you buy the eBook you also get all the single patterns, too. OR: if you don't buy the eBook but buy the singles, once you've spent the value of the eBook, you get the lot. Which means if you've already made a past purchase (such as Gorton, which has been included in this collection) then what you paid for that will be discounted from the full price. Clever, huh?