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It’s been months since my last update, and I have fantastic news: we are now a family of four! Emma Jacqueline was born on August 27, just hours before hurricane Irene came roaring into our area. She’s beautiful and extremely sweet. Noortje loves her baby sister and is a great helper to her mama to boot!

This past summer I designed a little baby hat for Emma, and I liked the result enough to size up the pattern to fit Noortje and I as well. The pattern, Snow Blossom is available in sizes Baby, Toddler, Child, Women’s Small and Women’s Large. To celebrate Emma’s birth, the pattern will be free until January 1, 2012, after which it will be available as for-sale pattern for $2.99 here on the Woolly Mammoth Knits website, as well as on Ravelry. Click here to download a copy of Snow Blossom. Here’s a picture of Emma wearing her Snow Blossom hat, when she was only about 10 days old:

And here are Noortje and I wearing our hats, on a recent walk in the park:

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I’m very excited to announce the release of my first full-size lace shawl pattern: Maratea. Named after a favorite vacation spot in southern Italy, Maratea is a sunny triangular lace shawl featuring an all-over goblet lace pattern that flows naturally into a simple but decorative lace edging. Both lace patterns are fairly straight-forward and easy to remember. The shawl is worked from the center top down in a fingering-weight yarn, making this a great shawl to wear on a cool Fall day or to wrap around one’s shoulders in cold air-conditioned rooms in the summertime. The finished measurements after blocking are 66 inches along the top length with a depth from the center top to center bottom edge of 32 inches. The pattern comes in written instructions with charts and is available for purchase on the Woolly Mammoth Knits website for $5.50. Just follow this link: Maratea. Here are a few photos:

It’s funny how in the photos you can hardly tell I’m already 7 months pregnant! We didn’t take them like that on purpose, they just kind of turned out that way – I promise you I do have a big belly! Especially now, with just 5 weeks left to go until the due date… it’s very exciting.

Anyway, to celebrate the release of the pattern I will give away two free copies of Maratea to two lucky members of the Woolly Mammoth Knits Ravelry Group, who will be decided via a random drawing. The drawing closes on Wednesday night, July 20th 2011, at 11.30 PM Eastern United States time. If you’d like a chance at winning a copy of Maratea, please check out the “Maratea Lace Shawl pattern giveaway” thread on the forum to enter the drawing! Not a member of the group (or Ravelry) yet? Follow these links to learn more: Woolly Mammoth Knits Ravelry Group and Ravelry.com.

A super quickie update! I just wanted to let you all know my scarf/cowl pattern Meanderlust will be a part of the soon-to-be released book Easy as 1-2-3 skeins by House of White Birches / DRG Publishing. I’m very excited that Meanderlust is not only included in the book but has made the cover! Below is a picture of the book featuring Meanderlust on the cover, and the description from Amazon. The book is available from Amazon for pre-order here.

Amazon.com description:
“Easy as 1-2-3 Skeins offers 63 projects such as small accessory items gift items, garments for baby and adults. In our Just a Skein chapter, we’ve got an exciting range of projects from preemie caps hats to single-skein stylish scarves made using one skein of yarn, or multiple colors, requiring only one skein of each color. If you’re pressed for time, these projects will provide quick gift-giving solutions. To stretch your stash even further, take your pick of projects from It Takes Two for imaginative ways to use just two skeins or balls of yarn. Add a little drama to that little black dress and cast on a shrug or an easy mobius. All you need for Mad for Plaid blanket are two skeins of three different colors, and you’ve got the makings for a delightful play mat or blanket for baby. If garments are what you seek, Everything Good Comes in Threes gives you even more good reason to finally make that splurge on some luxurious yarn. You’ll be thrilled to get to work on some eye-catching garments such as sleeveless tunics and tanks that are perfect for layering, all made with just a few fabulous skeins of yarn.”

It’s been far too long again since I last got to update this blog! Here are some bits of Woolly Mammoth Knits knitting news:

First of all, a little while ago I released a new pattern here on the website. It’s Ripples, a slouchy beret in Malabrigo Chunky. Working with this yarn for the Brampton beret pattern (see post below) got me quite addicted, so I decided to design another beret in Malabrigo Chunky. A little ripple lace and a little shaping make for a hat that looks almost as though it’s cabled, but is not. Ripples is knit from the bottom up on a circular needle, with double pointed needles to shape the top, and is entirely seamless. The stretchy ribbed brim ensures a perfect fit for most women. The pattern comes in written instructions and with a lace chart. Ripples is available for purchase on the website for $2.99 here. A few photos:

Secondly, I’m very excited to host the first Woolly Mammoth Knits knitalong (or KAL) in the Woolly Mammoth Knits Ravelry Group! The pattern the group has decided on for this first KAL is Peggy Sue and the KAL runs until September 17. If you think you might be interested in joining the knitalong, please check out the Peggy Sue KAL thread on the Woolly Mammoth Knits forum by following the link to the Ravelry group above (if you’re not a member of Ravelry yet, it’s easy to join!). Some superfast knitters have already finished their Peggy Sues but we still have new knitters join every so many days, so jump in any time – we’d love to have you!

Thirdly, I just received word that Brampton has been accepted as part of the Knit Picks Independent Design Program. I’m very excited about this as I love working with Knit Picks! They produce some of my favorite yarns (not to mention my favorite needles – Harmony Wood interchangeable circulars), and I already have three other patterns that are a part of the IDP (Kensington, Kensington Fingerless Gloves, and Lugano). I’m very excited to have Brampton join the program as well! I got to knit a version of the beret in Knit Picks Cadena for this, which is an absolutely delicious wool/alpaca blend, in a beautiful deep dark blue called “Admiral”. I will post a few photos of the Knit Picks version of the beret here as soon as the pattern is posted on the Knit Picks website.

Here’s an important bit of information for those of you who have already purchased a copy of Brampton: Knit Picks has a system of certain set prices, and as a result, Brampton from now will on cost $2.99 instead of the original price of $3.50. If you’ve already purchased a copy of the pattern for $3.50, please send me a private message or email me (linda.wilgus (at) yahoo.com) to let me know. I will send you a refund for the bit you paid extra or, if you prefer, you can choose to have one of my other patterns for free instead – whichever you’d like better.

Last but not least, I’ve just had my first pattern submission accepted by a US magazine. I’ve previously worked with the lovely Yarn Forward magazine in the UK while we lived there, and now that we’ve moved to the States I wanted to submit to some American magazines as well. Of course, with our new little one arriving in some 6 weeks or so (possible even less!), there’s only so much I can do in the way of submissions and projects with deadlines, but this is a small knit and pattern and I’m very excited to be able to have it published in this magazine. More on this later! Another pattern that I plan to release on the website as soon as possible is currently being tech edited, so hopefully that will be up soon as well!

That’s all for knitting-related news! We’re counting down to my due date now which is exactly 5 weeks and 5 days away… we so can’t wait to meet the new little addition to our family!

I’m very excited to have had another pattern published in Knitty. Shetlander was just published in the Winter 2011 issue. Here’s a picture or two:

The pictures were taken in Enschede during our visit in November. We found some fantastic graffiti that formed a great background for some of the photos. It was freezing cold out, too, and drizzling rain, so perfect for a Winter-themed photoshoot!

Also recently published, in Yarn Forward Magazine, issues 32 and 33:
Lief Beret:

Isn’t Noortje the sweetest little model? These pictures were taken when she was about 9 months old, in our garden in Brampton.

Charming wristlets:

Photos taken in Venice during our trip in February ’10. I miss Italy!

And lastly, Happenstance, a beginner level set of fingerless mitts. This is not the best photo of them; luckily the ones in the magazine were very nice, as they always are really:

I’m working on some other projects but it’s a bit slow going at the moment as we’re still in the middle of our move. We should be all moved into our new house at the end of this week, however, and hopefully we’ll have our household goods the following week (so we’ll be “camping” for a few days before our stuff arrives ) In the meantime, we’ve managed to build an enormous collection of books in our hotel room! Christmas presents combined with some very nice thrift stores and second-hand bookstores in Norfolk have added to our book stash. Mine include some awesome knitting books, too! For Christmas, I got Knitwear Design Workshop by Shirley Paden, which was on my wish list for some time, and Debbie Stoller’s Stitch and Bitch Superstar Knitting. At a second-hand bookstore I found Barbara Walker’s Knitting From The Top (yay!), the Vogue Knitting Vintage Collection and a book full of amazing fair-isle patterns called Traditional Fair Isle Knitting by Sheila McGregor. I’m sure all of these will provide a lot of inspiration with the designing. Now if I can only find the time!