Tag Archives: support your clocal yarnshop

Beginning The Ella Coat . . . or gathering your essential materials

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I look at what’s in my knitting bag as a way to start this project. Of course you have to start with all the proper materials. Here is what you will need to begin (in no real particular order. . . they are all important at some point or another):

  • Your very own Ella Coat for Women Noni Pattern.


  • Knitting Needles: size 9 (4.5mm) circular needle. I recommend a rather long circular. You won’t need a long one right away, but if you want a ruffley hem, you’ll want the longest you can find. In this sense, a set with longer and shorter cables is ideal.
  • Size 10 (6mm) needle and crochet hook for the provisional cast on rows. Please have other sizes available if you need to adjust after making a swatch. You may work the coat on straight needles, but I also recommend circular needles (my own preference) or those flex needles I so seldom see anymore but some folks prefer.
  • Identify & Collect Your Yarn See my longer post about yarn: Choosing The Perfect Yarn for Ella for more about picking an appropriate yarn, some ideas for planning your coat, and carefully swatching before you commit. Briefly here: you will need light worsted or worsted weight yarn. For one of the Ellas I will be featuring here, I used Shepherd’s Wool by Stonehedge Fiber Mill. If, like me, you plan to tweak the pattern, you will want between 250 – 1000 extra yards to work with. My Ella has just weighed in at 2 lbs 5.2 oz! or almost 2500 yards and she might yet get heavier with flowers and other flourishes! Because one of the tweaks is to begin the skirt of the coat from the waist and work down to the hem, you can purchase yarn as you go (assuming you can get the same lot). For those interested in striping at the cuffs and hem, choose 2 – however many colors from your local yarn shop lovelies or your own stash. Then consider springing for something really fabulous for the body of the coat. My pick (after the deliciousness of Shepherd’s Wool) would be Madeline Tosh Vintage Tosh. . . I’ve got my eye on “Flashdance” personally. Below is a colorway I’ve been playing with. Earth colors. Add a little Chocolate Cherry Flurries and this will be lovely. For more color ideas, refer again to the post on picking yarn.

  • Assemble Your Arsenal of Sewing-type Needles: sharp, large-eyed darning needle (for weaving in ends), tapestry needle (for seaming), and sewing needles (for sewing flowers to the bodice of your coat, or to the lapel, or cuffs. . . as you might have guessed, you don’t need these immediately).


  • Lock stitch markers or other stitch markers to mark the locations of increase and decrease for the coat shaping. My personal favorites are Clover lock markers (small ones). I think Hiya Hiya also has a version.

  • Noni Flowers, in particular flat profile flowers such as Bling Flowers, Cactus Flowers, Hydrangea Flowers (the small ones), or Forget-me-nots. These little flowers are lovely to sew on as bodice and sleeve embellishments or to clip on (as I do with impunity) to your coat lapels, cuffs, and in your hair when you wear your coat).

  • (Optional) seed beads or beaded yarn . . . you know my feelings about ruffles and flourishes . . .

 

Now that everything is assembled we are almost ready for the BIG DAY! We cast on Jan 16th. BUT BEFORE WE DO….we swatch! Here is a challenge for you: swatch and post a picture to Ravelry or Facebook. For an extra challenge: why not work a small color pallet swatch (24sts X 24 rows) and post it as well! {Melissa is doing another fun give-away for a lucky participant! She loves giving things away! Anybody like that about her?}

Ok dear knitters: Gather ye knitting gear while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying…

Are you excited about the 16th?

Support Your Local Yarn Store & The Designers You Love: Buy Patterns!

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Everyone’s getting ready for the Knit-A-Long–this just get’s more exciting!

Let me take this opportunity to make a personal plea to you, kind and gentle knitter, to purchase your own copy of the Ella Coat for Women pattern at your local yarn store.

Those who know me know how passionate I am about copyright laws. Some of you might already feel your attention flagging, but please hear me out. I’ve written here before about how we indy designers make our livings (or try!) from selling patterns. So, while I LOVE the idea of sitting elbow to elbow with a circle of women all squinting to read from a single xeroxed pattern because it builds character and community, it doesn’t put even a crust of bread on the table of the indy designer whose pattern it is or the yarn store who stocks that pattern. I beg of you to reserve such bonding experiences for the free knitting patterns now fluttering hither and yon practically out of car windows.

Noni has solicited the participation of local yarns stores all over the country and internationally to support the Ella Coat Knit-A-Long. They have patterns and appropriate yarns at the ready for you to choose from. Support our efforts with your purchases. Don’t forget how powerful you are in supporting the designers you love and the small business, the local yarn stores, where you make your pattern and other knitting purchases. Purchase patterns with pride: know that you are directly supporting the arts, the work of the designers you buy. You are directly . . . let me say that yet more slowly and passionately (if you were here, you’d see me get a little emotional): you are di-rectly supporting us and your own community.

I speak on behalf of all of us who draft, re-draft, test, tech-edit, re-work, publish designs in hope you will love them, knit them, wear them, and bequeath them: thank you for supporting our work with your time, your passion for knitting, your hard earned dollars.

Thank you for purchasing for your friends their own patterns instead of making copies of yours. Thank you for understanding in your heart of hearts that designs you love are the foundation of our art and for feeling it is more than ever important to demonstrate that understanding by purchasing your very own copy of The Ella Coat for Women pattern.

Now, let me also say this. If you are a woman who would LOVE to participate in this knit-a-long but just simply don’t have the funds to purchase a pattern. And you are even now unraveling sweaters to have enough yarn, please write to me, tell me a little of your story, and I will see to it myself that you have your own pattern. Likewise, if you know a woman who SIMPLY CANNOT afford a Noni pattern, please write to me with your story and I will see what I can do.

So, now that we have all gone to our local yarn stores and we all have our own patterns . . . now we can begin to think about the other needed supplies. . . more about those supplies and also more about yarn in postings coming soon.

Your pattern purchase allows me to keep designing. Thank you and thank you again.