Have you ever wanted to try something new within your favourite hobby? Wanted to push yourself just a little more? This summer I wanted to step out of my comfort zone with our summer seasons knitting club. I’ve long been an admirer of embroidery, but the only time I have tried more traditional embroidery on fabric, I found it quite hard on my eyes. The small size of the needle for embroidery was difficult to work with, even though I liked the finished effect. Fast forward to last year when I started seeing embroidery on knitting everywhere! Did you see it too? I suddenly realized that embroide ..read more

I love designing garments. If I could knit just one thing forever, it would be garments. I fully believe we should knit what we love. Designing the final garment for the Celtic Knits Club every year is both a highlight and also a little terrifying. Cables are both what I love to knit and to wear, but until I share it with you, I don’t know if you’ll fall in love with it as much as I do. So let me introduce you to my final design for the Celtic Knits Club 2024: The Bere Sweater Last year we discovered that our Deas yarn LOVES big chunky cables. So my focus was on larger, more dramatic cables an ..read more

Today we are handing over the blog to the wonderful Laura Perrem, who is our club manager at Stolen Stitches and our designer of Ferry Times from our Celtic Knits Club! In this post, Laura will give you a glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes of the club and what to expect from her latest design. © Joe FellerCeltic Knits Club Theme Around this time last year, Carol and I were playing with different themes for this year’s Celtic Knits Club. She had just been to visit Cape Clear and came back SO inspired. We had lots of conversations about the idea of islands, heritage, and journ ..read more

Would you like to join us for a season of vibrant colour and creative play? Nods. Then read on as this summer season we are all about dramatic splashes of colour and deliciously soft yarns. Towards the end of 2023, I had a live over on YouTube, where I was chatting with our community about things I would like to learn in 2024. One technique that stuck with me was embroidery, specifically embroidering on hand-knits. Many of you agreed that this was a skill that you would like to try in 2024 and so, this is how the summer season of our club was born. I’ve long been fascinated with embroidery and ..read more

We can’t quite believe that it’s time for our second Celtic Knits Club installment! The Ceilte Cowl is Eimear Earley’s contribution to this year’s Celtic Knits Club. A design inspired by a distant horizon where stories become cables. Ceilte (Irish for ‘hidden’, pronounced ‘kel-teh’ or ‘kel-tche’ depending on dialect) features a cabled panel at the front, with garter stitch to the back. The pattern makes a generous sized cowl, intended to provide coverage across the wearer’s front. We asked Eimear to share her inspiration for the design. In true Eimear fashion, she made herself a cuppa and wro ..read more

Have you heard of Knit Stars? Over the last few years, I’ve been aware of Knit Stars in the background. It seemed like a really interesting idea. From the comfort of your own home, you get to travel the world virtually and meet all these wonderful knitting instructors. You get to see their spaces and their lives outside of knitting. Learn about their inspirations and designs as well as taking a masterclass with them. But this year is different. This year Knit Stars CEO and founder Shelley Brander asked if I’d like to be part of their ninth season: ‘Permission to Shine‘. As you can probably im ..read more

I am in love. This year our spring seasons pattern is the Fennel Shawl and was designed by Bristol Ivy. The beautifully soft ‘Angel Sock’ yarn paired with the subtle lace pattern is a match made in heaven. This is the style of lace I really love. The knitting flows from one motif into another seamlessly and feels really cohesive. As a shawl, it’s also deceptive. The stitch patterns and charts look complex, but each stitch pattern builds on the previous one, so once you’ve mastered the first repeated stitch, you know that you’ll be able to do everything in the shawl. If you are new to lace pat ..read more

Woolly and I have been friends for a VERY long time. We immediately clicked. Perhaps it’s because we both have engineering backgrounds, which add a distinctive style to our knitting patterns. You can see why short rows are such a huge element in both of our designs. They allow you to change the shape of your knitting without ever changing the stitch count. That’s a little bit of knitting magic, right? So, last year when they asked me to be part of their Short Row Colourwork book, I jumped at the chance. About Woolly Wormhead & Short Rows Woolly Wormhead has been playing with combining colo ..read more

Are you ready for a garment knit-along inspired by gansey stitches with options for a warmer or cooler weather knit? Oh, and it’s got saddle shoulders, set-in sleeves and, as always, some interesting construction methods. Sound good? Then let’s dive right in! For the spring of 2024, I’m playing with a few of my favourite things, unusual construction techniques combined with some wonderful fabric textures. The top-down saddle shoulder construction is one of my favourites. You can tweak the size for your shoulders and bust as you work to suit your body shape. Plus, look at all those lovely shape ..read more

It’s always exciting to come to the end of a mystery knit-along because I can finally reveal the completed shawl to you! I’d love to tell you all the nitty-gritty details about the shawl as well as explaining my process of putting a mystery design together. Whether the pattern is a mystery or not, what is always most important is that you will love and wear your finished knit. Pattern Design for Mystery Knit-alongs. Creating a design for a mystery knit-along has many challenges. The design needs to be both a cohesive whole and also have several distinct sections that can be released as ‘clues ..read more