I have not been going much to the Tuesday Knit Night at the George Hotel
recently, but I did go the week before last, and found Ann Kingstone
and her sister Marie in the bar. Ann has recently published a book of
her designs - her first, though she has published designs in various
knitting magazines. It's called Novel Knits and the designs are
inspired by her favourite authors - Jane Austen, J.R.R. Tolkien and J.R.
Rowling. She had a copy of the book with her and I borrowed it to take
a look - and then she gave it to me! So generous. Ann is an expert
knitter and many of the designs are technically interesting as well as
looking good, so it was a lovely gift.
Pemberley |
I think my favourite design from the book is Pemberley, which is intended to evoke the Regency interiors of Pride and Prejudice. The neck opening has an i-cord edging, which gives a very neat finish - that's one of the techniques that seems to have been developed during the time I wasn't knitting and I have not caught up with it yet. I must try it.
Lanthir Lamath |
Some of the designs I had seen before because Ann or Marie were knitting the samples at the George. One is the cover design, Lanthir Lamath, a hooded scarf. I wrote about it in a previous post, A Knitting Puzzle, when Ann and Marie were both knitting it - Ann was running a knit-along and posting the instructions in weekly instalments via her web site, and Marie was testing the instructions to see if they made sense.
There are also smaller items - socks and fingerless mittens - as well as shawls. I might try one of the pairs of fingerless mittens first - they are extremely pretty. And there is another book to come - Ann was knitting a sample for her second book, and plans to get all the samples knitted by the end of March. I look forward to seeing that one too - judging by the jumper she was knitting it will be full of really original ideas, again.
You can find more details of Novel Knits (and buy it) from Ann's web site. All the photos in this post are taken from there, with Ann's permission.
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