One fine morning in the Shire, Bilbo

A couple of years ago I spent a several weeks researching textural stitch patterns and then combining them in order to create lace floral motifs that also had appropriate leaves and stems. I knitted them up in a series of swatches but never managed to fit them in to a particular project that I liked.

This pattern was used as the Round 7 (final) pattern in Sock Madness 18 in 2024. It will be available for purchase when the competition has ended.

After noticing the lovely slanted lines that resulted from making increases for a thumb gusset, I began contemplating the design possibilities of intentional integrating decreases to move colors around and generate smooth or curved outlines rather than a jagged or stepped edge. More recognizable botanical motifs became my next goal and I spent ...

Lately I’ve been hooked on the mockumentary series “What We Do in the Shadows” on Hulu that follows the misadventures of a modern day group of vampires on Staten Island. Nadja (played by the outstanding Natasha Demetriou) is the main female lead character and she is a delightfully sexy, strong-willed and campy character who is always dressed in...

I love knitting textural stitches of all kinds and especially love incorporating them into the socks that I design and knit. I run the full range from very challenging lacy or cable designs to simple knit/purl combinations that are just enough to add some interest while still being easy and fun to knit. These are some of the latter kind of socks!

I’m always experimenting and creating

Recently I agreed to design some lace

I love playing around with textural

I love a good lacy leaf motif (I’m a

How about some pretty lacy socks that

Like many a knitter, I’m a sucker for

It seems like I’m always dealing with scraps from my sock knitting. I love doing colorwork and I obsessively hoard every leftover yarn ball, big or small (including the sock yarn from my mother, who also loved knitting socks, when she passed) so it’s really kind of inevitable. That’s OK—I view it as a fun challenge to use up all of those scraps.

With these fingerless gloves, or gauntlets, I have come full circle in a fun little design quest of a couple of years.

Unusual colorwork patterns intrigue me

This pattern served as the High Octane choice for Lap 4 of the 2022 Supersock World Championship competition. It will be available when the competition is over.

Update, February, 2023:

My love for stranded colorwork in

Single large maple leaf motifs are not

How about a shawl you can knit up in

A while back, an image triggered me to combine two of my loves: paleobotany and knitting and create a sock design with a textural pattern that resembled the fossils of an ancient extinct Coal Age tree called Lepidodendron.

These socks are being used as a Round

Stranded colorwork always packs a

A while back I received a request for

Nontraditional stranded colorwork

I love playing around with textured

Who doesn’t want little lace kitty

Petroglyphs and Cave Art has

These colorful mittens started out

Some people bring home t-shirts as

Sometimes you just need a nice easy

As a serious yarn collector, I

Textural or lace socks are fun to knit

Addicted sock knitters are a quirky

These elegant and feminine socks were

The overlapping florets found in Sea

This pattern appeared in the 2021 Supersock World Championship Competition as the Cool-down sock.

I continue to be intrigued by

This top down shawl features a small,

How about a light confection of a

Overall vertical stripes in striking

When the air conditioning is a bit too

Fingerless gloves are fun and quick to knit and these combine several colors in their stranded colorwork. They look grand with the matching cowl (pattern not included here) or on their own.

This shawl design came about as a

This pattern was Round 1 of Sock Madness 14 in 2020.

“Women rely on friends. That’s where we draw sustenance and find safety. We can count on our women friends when we need a good laugh or a good story.” - Cokie Roberts

Sock knitters accumulate scraps and

Harry’s not fussy about his clothes; he’s got too many other pressing things going on in his life like studying for his herbology class, practicing quidditch, finding horcruxes, among other things. Obviously, fancy-schmancy socks are not his bailiwick so I’ve designed these easy to knit and wear socks with a subtle reference to the young wizard...

My ongoing love of traditional types of geometric and symmetrical patterns continues with this elegant colorwork cowl.

This fun and easy pattern looks a lot

Non-knitters go on vacation and buy a

Basic knit and purl stitches combine

Stitch patterns that torque the

While I always strive to match yarns

When you’re a sock knitter for any

Here’s a sock pattern for that

How’s about a little bit of fair isle

I have been fascinated with this

Soft and squishy scarves are the best

Botanical motifs are common in lace knitting; here’s a lovely one where the leaf is very clearly outlined and recognizable as an old world ivy leaf. I’ve been playing with this charming pattern for quite a while and after designing a large shawl* with it, I still felt like I still wasn’t done with it. So I took the smallest version of the leave...

Folks love to make themed socks for

A rip tide is a current that runs

Here’s an easy piece with some strong graphic appeal suitable for discerning gentlemen or ladies of all ages. The pattern features slipped stitches which makes the fabric of the scarf thick and cushy; perfect for keeping necks warm. The pattern is given in both charted and written forms

It’s the eternal lament of yarn

Seeing puffins in real life has long been on my Bucket List and recently a vacation to Newfoundland enabled me to do just that. After that hard-to-top outing to the puffin nesting grounds, it was time to check out the urban attractions of the city of St. John’s and do the typical touristy stuff in the main harbor area. I was pleased to find a h...

This pattern was originally published in 2018 in KnitCrate’s November crate. In December of 2022 KnitCrate went out of business and all patterns reverted back to their authors

Imagine yourself as a Faerie Princess

I’ve been on an architectural kick for many, many years. I love examining buildings of all sorts and I find that architectural elements and details translate beautifully and interestingly to socks and knitting. This time I’ve focused on the columns that you find in classic Greek architecture and shrunk them all the way down to sock size. These ...

This easy wrap features a play of six different colors in a DK weight to represent the brilliant colors of the Arizona sky at sunset and is worked from the bottom up. I was lucky enough to obtain a stunning kit from an indie dyer but you certainly can put together your own combo of 6 different 50g balls of yarn. I wanted the pattern to simulate...

Time for some fun, quick knitting and even some stash busting!

Recently, I’ve been working on an Architectural Series of Sock designs and having great fun incorporating architectural elements into knitted stitches. With these socks, I extended my quest out to colorwork, as well, in order to translate the feel of the glorious stained glass windows found in Old World gothic cathedrals. I wanted my windows on...

Sometimes I’m a big fan of the unpredictable color pooling that you tend to get with indie dyed yarn and sometimes I just don’t want to see it; I want the colors to play nice with each other. When I started knitting these socks, I was very excited about using this gorgeous yarn from Happy Fuzzy Yarn. It started pooling a little on the cuffs whi...

This top down triangular shawl is knit with eight bands of mosaic motifs interspersed with a garter stitch here and there and finished with a wide border of stockinette/garter repeats at the bottom. The design starts with a small garter tab and then features two mirror image triangles that come together with a single stitch “spine” in the cente...

This sock pattern is the first design in my Architectural Series in which I explore motifs, building structures, styles and even specific examples of architecture and interpret them into a knitted sock design. Interpreting brickwork seemed like a very natural place to start: what’s more common and familiar than brickwork in buildings? The recti...

This is a mosaic slipped stitch pattern, not a stranded design. As such, only one color is worked in a row at a time and some stitches from the previous row are slipped. This sort of pattern works easily on the leg portion-or knitted in the round for these top down socks. But then you hit the foot with its sole and instep and I decided to get a...

I’m always on the lookout for interesting textural patterns that are a little out of the ordinary. This pattern struck my fancy as an easy knit for 2 different yarns with a bonus of producing a cushy texture that feels good on the feet and legs. This is a modified mosaic or slipped stitch pattern, not stranded. As such, only one color is worked...

All knitters are familiar with cables, big and small. Handsome on a sweater or sock, as an isolated pattern repeat or even as an overall fabric. They are really quite versatile. One thing they don’t do, however, is run horizontally. Until now! These sideways cables are organically part of the leg of this sock—they are not knit separately and th...

Want just a little texture to jazz up that sock? A little hesitant to tackle that big complicated pattern, but want to try something that is just a bit more complicated than plain stockinette? Maybe you’re knitting for a guy who wants you to keep it simple. Or you have some gorgeous yarn in a simple colorway that you would like to highlight? We...

Time to explore some different patterns and textures! Sometimes I get tired of 1 x 2 or 2 x 2 ribbing and plain vanilla stockinette stitch on a sock. I love fancy pattern stitches and how they look, but at the same time, following a huge sock chart that lays out the whole leg and foot is just not something I am up for very often--just too compl...

I’ve always been intrigued by the many variations of the pattern called “Tracks of the Turtle” or some such. The pattern looks especially like the tracks that sea turtles make in the sand, I think. Often, however, it is a rather large-scale pattern that doesn’t translate well to socks. That’s how this pattern came about: I shrunk down the essen...

This pattern came about as an easy textured pattern designed to make the most of both plain, one color yarn as well as that lovely hand dyed stuff that you fall in love with but then knits up with unpleasant color pooling. The pattern is written out and charted and is really easy to