New Free Pattern - Halia!

Well, I have a new pattern out, and it's a freebie! It's called Halia, and is (at this time) exclusively available through Ravelry.

These photos were submitted by one of my testers and are used with her permission. She can be found as Naelana on Ravelry. At the risk of possibly having to locate a different tester when I need one, I highly recommend her. :) She provides excellent feedback and communicates very clearly. Also, as you can see from the photos, she does an excellent job.



I have to say that I am completely overwhelmed by the positive response I've had to this pattern. In just the few days since it was uploaded, over 60 people have added it to their favorites. Several have left comments on it, and even more people have queued.



The idea for the stole came from a Japanese stitch dictionary. I've removed a couple of extraneous stitches and worked the design from the center outward, but otherwise it's worked as it appeared in my dictionary.

I like finding names of literary authors or figures or elements to use as names for my design, and had posted on one of my favorite groups about name suggestions. Syracuse suggested Halia as a name, and I have to admit, I was originally a little disturbed by the backstory.

Then I started thinking about all the strong women I knew who are survivors of various forms of abuse, and thought that this pattern would be a good way to honor those women, and direct people to charities that they might not know about, such as Threads of Compassion. It's an "on your honor" sort of thing, but I've requested that people donate scarves/shawls to a local women's shelter or to Threads of Compassion if you choose to use the pattern. I'm more interested in the spirit of this request being honored than the letter. Thanks for listening!

And without further ado, here is the direct link to Halia on Ravelry!

All work and no play...

Makes me a busy girl! I've been designing quite a bit lately. I've worked on several new projects for The Unique Sheep.

Miss Austen

This is a circular love knot shawl with a beaded bullion shell edging.





More to come later!

Elizabeth Nicole Designs Terms of Use

Elizabeth Nicole Designs
Terms of Use

You may:

• Reproduce items in unlimited amounts for personal use, gift use, or charity use. If the charity item is to be auctioned, raffled, or sold, please contact me first.
• Produce up to 6 shawls per year per design for sale offline. Small accessories and other items will be noted on each pattern individually.

You must:
• Receive permission from me to sell items online.
• Attribute the design of any items made for sale in the following format: This is [insert name of design here], designed by Jennifer Benson of Elizabeth Nicole Designs. Pattern is available at http://www.ElizabethNicole.Etsy.com.

You may not:
• Reproduce any pattern in any format or distribute it in any format. For free patterns, please provide links back to the website where they are found.
• Mass produce items. If you are making items yourself and selling them directly, this does not constitute mass production.

Well, I don't really know where to begin. A lot has happened since I last blogged. I'm designing a shawl (Miss Austen) for The Unique Sheep. I contacted Laura and asked if she was interested in crochet shawl designs, sent her some swatch pics, and she said yes! So now I get to play with Tinsel Toes in their Orange Gold colorway, which is absolutely stunning.

I've never worked with handpainted yarn before, so this will be a first for me. I'm really excited about the opportunity, the exposure, and of course, THE YARN!! At this point in time, I'm unsure of when the pattern will be released.

My husband and I are getting ready to send munchkins to Grandma's and Aunt Amy's while we run off to Eureka Springs next weekend! I can hardly wait. We have barely been alone since our honeymoon! Obviously, since we've had our son since our marriage, there was some alone time in there somewhere, but not much. ;)

I've posted a wish list to the side, since family members usually start asking me what I want for my birthday and Christmas about now. Both are in December. Hint hint, MOM, AMY, and GRANDMA! :D Also, if anyone from RAK wants to know what I want/like, well, there it is.

Oh, I have a new design book coming! It's a Japanese stitch dictionary, and I've heard rave reviews about it. I should be getting it around the first of August, and then I'll see if I can actually put some of my design ideas into yarn. I'm really excited about it!

I hate chiggers!

I really hate the little boogers. I don't know if you have these little critters where you come from, but here in Missouri, we have plenty! I'll ship you some if you want to try them out. You will receive an official certificate of insanity along with a box full of freshly mown grass, guaranteed to have chiggers in it. For the curious who still have some grasp on their sanity, this Wikipedia article explains a little more about the critters.

What this article doesn't tell you is exactly where the little boogers like to bite. They tend to go for areas with the most warmth, which in turn tends to be near the unmentionables. While I myself do not have any chigger bites in the areas in question, they are near enough to convince me to suffer in silence without scratching, at least in public. I don't feel like explaining exactly what I'm doing to the stranger next to me in line at Wal-Mart. Hydrocortisone is my friend right now!

For those of you who have left me comments on my previous posts, thank (both of) you! I did see them, I'm just not yet adept at figuring out how to reply to them.

I finished my pattern for Night's Candles this week and got it uploaded to Ravelry and to my Etsy store. Now that I've got it published, here are some pictures!





With most of my designs, familiarity breeds contempt. I usually like the combinations my testers come up with better than my own. While the ones I've seen in the testing phases are lovely, I'm actually pretty proud of this one!

I'm working on Miss Austen right now. Hopefully she'll cooperate with me. I'm making her in mohair and I really shouldn't work on her when I'm sleep deprived. I've already had to frog rounds 2-3 times. Blech. I haven't decided whether to self publish her or to submit her somewhere. Hmmm....

I've also come up with an idea for another shawl, based on this painting and the poem that goes with it, particularly the following excerpt.

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.



OK, OK, so it's not weaving, it's crocheting, but I really want to make one in this colorway.
It reminds me of the colors in the blanket.

Granted, the poem itself is rather depressing. I was so totally in love with it in high school. I also had a thing for Edgar Allen Poe. I think I must have been emo before they called it emo. Oh well.

Look at me, rambling on. I guess I'm making up for lost time. :D

Pleiades!

Pleiades is finally finished! Ok, so not so much my version, but one of my testers finished her version and has graciously allowed me to use her pictures.


The shawl was crocheted by Riohnna, and photographed by her husband.

The pattern is for sale on Ravelry, but I don't have it added to my Etsy store yet.

I've finished crocheting Night's Candles, but I can't finish the pattern. I want to have specific pictures of certain techniques I use to ensure stitch uniformity and to make sure the construction is clear, but my sister took off to Puerto Rico with my camera. She left me hers, but I am a self-proclaimed procrastinator, and didn't download all my process pics before I gave her the camera.

I told asked her rather emphatically nicely to send me my process pics via email, and this is what I got:
(Fair warning! May not be safe for those with weak stomachs!)



Apparently, several weeks ago, my youngest daughter, JaLynn, found a lizard that the cats had half eaten, and decided it needed to be documented for posterity. That, or she just wanted to play with the camera. ;) There were several photos, and one of them was a completely awesome artsy shot of the sky and trees. If Amos hasn't deleted it, I'll post them when she gives me my camera back.

AAARRRRGGGGGHHH!!!!

Nope, I'm not turning into a pirate. I'm just really frustrated. Pleiades is not being cooperative. My original version calls for multiple slip stitches, mostly into chain stitches. I really don't like doing that, so I've tried to rework it so that it comes out without all the slip stitches. It's relatively easy, but I'm one of those who has to actually see what I'm doing with the yarn before I try to write it down.

Changing to the non-slip stitch version has also introduced multiple pulling issues. The stupid thing won't lay flat. I'm thinking that the slip stitches are the way to go.
I've got some awesome testers working on it that I will use in the future with their consent.

I also somehow got the bright idea to test a second shawl at the same time. Wow, was that ever a bad idea! I have to take a break from Pleiades and write up the edging for Night's Candles. From now on, these go into the testing phase one at a time! *Sigh* I'll get this whole "designer" thing eventually. (Please, Lord!)