Over at Karin’s blog, Artful Crafts she has a great tutorial on how to jazz up those rather blah cloth grocery bags. This was particularly interesting to me because I go to a ton of trade shows and end up with lots of logo filled tote bags that I sometimes don’t really want to be advertising for. This is a great solution to remaking them into “designer” or at least fun up-cycled totes. I think I will do one with some old vintage fabric or maybe an old shirt with an image on it that I do like!
Have you read?
Book Review: The Doodle Knit Directory
Jamie Lomax of Pacific Knit Co is well known for her doodle patterns, small themed colorwork knitting motifs that can be combined at will to knit fun, colorful and stash busting accessories. It seemed like it was only a matter of time before she wrote a book on the subject, and that time is here.
The Doodle Knit Directory includes 200 mix and match designs that you can add to any knitting project or you can plug them into the pattern recipes in the book to make the projects your own.
The book opens with a brief explanation of how to use the motifs by picking a base project, the motifs you want to work and the colors of yarn you want to use. There’s an overview of choosing colors, working from charts and information on altering the charts to fit on different projects or with different gauges of yarn. You’ll also find a blank chart so you can draw your collection of charts all in one place if you want.
There are also tips for modifying the base patterns, changing weight and tips for colorwork, since that’s what these projects are.
After that you’ll find the doodle directory, which shows charts and knitted designs to give you an idea of what they might look like in your project. It starts with little border and spacing motifs, then goes into seasonal designs of different sizes. Spring is heavy on florals, for example, while summer has ocean animals, beach and mountain motifs. Fall is full of leaves and pumpkins, while winter has snowflakes and animals that live in the snow.
Then the book includes several basic designs for knit accessories that make it easy to add in the designs you want. There’s a simple cowl with no shaping and five different neck circumferences to make for kids, teens and adults; a looped infinity cowl (also with five sizes, but you can make it as long as you want); as well as a doodle scarf, hat, headband, mittens and fingerless mitts, and socks worked in two different yarn weights (sock and DK). Charts are given in the pattern for the motifs shown in the sample projects, and other ideas are shown, though of course you can go your own way with picking motifs and sizing your projects.
The book is a lot of fun to look through and is a great entry point to knitting design for people who might not be confident enough to start with a totally blank slate. Here you can pick your yarn weight, colors and motifs and use her simple patterns to make projects, or further modify those designs to make something all your own. The idea is to give knitters of any skill level confidence to try mixing up their projects and going their own way, whether that means changing a color on a chart or developing a design completely on their own.
About the book: 142 pages, paperback, 200 doodle designs and nine patterns. Published 2024 by David & Charles, suggested retail price $24.99.
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