Last Sunday I was attending a craft show in Budapest so I’ve had a tense week before it. I’ve sold out quite many beanies and bonnets before Christmas and I was in lack of my most popular hats but was too tired to restock them in January. On the other hand I wanted to destash a huge pile of yarn because I needed space for the newly arrived ones which were lying all around the house in baskets like this:

So I was knitting 24/7 for some days to catch up… The craft show went fantastically well, we sold almost all of the hats that I knitted the week before (only 1 hat and 2 cowls left…) which fully compensated me for my 7 days knitting-marathon with oceans of coffee and without sleep… 🙂 Here’s is our table at the beginning of the show (I’ve rearranged it later as we started to run out of things – but unfortunately I forgot to take photos of it…):

My newborn props debuted at this craft fair and they were surprisingly popular. I was overwhelmed with kind comments, everyone stopped by to admire them at least. I was happy to find out that it had been a good idea to put newborn props on the palette.

Finally I think I can declare that the hat season here in Hungary is officially over. At least from the perspective of a knitter. To tell you the truth (and please don’t share this secret to anyone… 😀 ), I don’t mind it’s over. Knitting is my life but until January I was knitting 12-14 hours a day, often with my wrists in bandage to kill the pain… I was counting the hours until Christmas, I knew I have to hold on and it will end on Christmas Eve… 😀 Anyway, my inner-knitter goes for a well deserved and loooong vacation until August and my designer-self takes her place in the next few months.

I have many designs in progress but the one closest to publication is Tyche (Tike-ee), a textured hoodie for toddlers. The sample is almost ready and I am beyond satisfied, it turned out just the way I imagined:

I will show you sneak peeks soon but I still have to write and edit the pattern and I need a tech editor for this one (since it is not at all a beginner-level, to be honest…) If you are interested in test-knitting this hoodie, please join my Ravelry group here: –> GK Test Knit. I would be very happy to welcome you in there! I will start a thread for Tyche test knitting as soon as the pattern was tech edited.

Until then, here’s a little history of the hoodie: I was knitting Rililie’s Diane cardigan (link to her Ravelry pattern here: –> La Maison Rililie – Diane) for myself at Christmas (it’s so embarrassing but I still haven’t finished it… two words: sleeve island…). I purchased the pattern because I really like Rililie’s designs and I needed to knit something other than hats. Diane was love for the first sight and when I read through the instructions, I found the techniques and implementations so phenomenal, I had to cast it on right away. As I was knitting, the idea of this hoodie struck me, so I started to draw sketches and along with the Diane cardigan on my needles, Tyche was born.

I named it after the greek goddess of good luck and fortune. Tyche has raglan sleeves and it is joined in the round after reaching the armhole. It is knitted mainly in seersucker stitch (which is one of my favourites at the moment) and it has a kangaroo pocket (which is my 3-year-old son’s favourite 😀 ). The top of the hood is grafted with kitchener stitch and has an icord hem, just like the pocket. I used Lang Yarns’ Merino 120 for this project.

More photos and details coming in the next few weeks! Happy knitting!

KNIT. WEAR. SHINE.

Mici