Kaleido by Silkie B.

Happy New Year everyone!!!!!!  I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday with friends and family. As for me, my dear sister Bonnie and her family spent the holiday at my house… It was wonderful time to catch up with each other.

I have just realized that it’s really been awhile since my last post… say at least a couple of months. The truth is that I have been so busy at work that I have unfortunately put my needles on hold for majority part of last year. I did however manage to knit 4 pairs of Maneisha in a slight variation from my original design for my daughter’s dance teachers for the holiday. It’s such a fun pattern to knit if you have not check it out already.

So what have I been up to lately. Well, I will be busy this month to finish up a couple pairs of gloves for the Fall 2012 magazine publication and that will most likely be the only design that I will have for publication this year. I will be providing 2 versions of my design; convertible and full gloves version as you see below.  Thank you Suzanne at SP Photoart for taking the wonderful pictures and Amy for being the model. The sample of the convertible version was worked using one of my favorite yarn tern from Quince & Co in color sea grass; whereas the full gloves version was worked using a hand-dyed yarn from my friend Lindsey of  Waterloo Wools.

After I finish my commitment to the magazine later this month, I will start my big project of this year. You might be wondering what my big project is. Well I will finally start to work on my very first kids collection.  I actually have started the project last year; a couple of designs has finished but missing the actual written patterns; some of the design has swatches and most of the collection will be worked this year. My kids collection will feature knitwear and accessories from the little tiny to teen. It’s a very ambitious project but I am sure it will be a lot of fun!

First of all, I would like to introducing my first design for the collection – Taylor.

Taylor is a cap and sweater set for a baby; the pattern will be available from size 6 mos to 4 years. I designed this set for my friend, Glenna’s god-daughter who has given birth to a baby boy this past August. Taylor features celtic cable as the main center motif and I paired the cable with variation of cable rib. I have so much fun designing and knitting the Taylor set this summer and is very excited to include this design as part of my kids collection. A special thanks to my friend Karen K for taking the picture and have her baby girl Nia as the model.

Another design for the collection is Isaac. Isaac is an unisex cable cardigan design for your boy or girl. I designed this sweater with my son Isaac in mind. I don’t normally like to mix colors but with this particular design, I actually decided to play with colors. I love cable for winter sweater and it’s not surprising for me to incorporate cable into this sweater design. Isaac also features mock turtleneck and button enclosure. There is no buttonhole on the body band; hence the possible for the front enclosure is versatile depending on individual preference. The pattern for Isaac will be available from 4 to 10 years old.

I will keep updating on my collection throughout the year… so stay tune!