Diamond Drops Sweater - pattern release

 I'm happy to share my latest sweater design - Diamond Drops Sweater.

This beautiful sweater is knitted with two strands of lace weight yarn hold together. The design is simple and elegant - boxy silhouette with dropped shoulder and wide round neck. Pretty textured stitch over body of sweater is combined with sleeves which are knitted in plain stockinette.

Front and Back of sweater are knitted separately bottom up. After shoulder are seamed the stitches are picked up for sleeves and neck band.

Two contrast shades of yarn creates beautiful melange effect. Thanks to silk and mohair yarn the sweater is great for any season of the year. For this design I used ITO Sensai in shade Cherry Blossom and ITO Serishin in shade Pale Blush.

Knitting pattern for Diamond Drops sweater is available from Ravelry and Lovecrafts

You can get 15% off with code NEW15 on Ravelry.

I-cord bind off and attached I-cord - Finishing Techniques

In my recent design Transformer Poncho and Hat set I used I-cord bind off for pretty and simple edge finishing. 

Since this design is very simple with focus to it's shape I did not want to add any ribbing or textured band along the edge,. Instead, I wanted to keep the edge plain and simple, so I cord was a perfect choice. This technique is also used in my several older designs so I decided to make a quick video tutorial for I-cord bind off. Hope you will find it useful not just for my designs but for other projects too.

However, for bigger sizes of the Transformer Poncho picking up stitches along the edge and working on I-cord bind off can be a bit challenging so there is another useful technique - attached I-cord. It can be added to any edge of finished garments fast and easy. 

Knitting pattern for the Transformer poncho is available from Ravelry, Etsy and Lovecrafts

Happy knitting!!! :)