I've got my July design nicely underway, named Lena for my great grandfather's cousin. (It's this family line – the brother of my great, great, grandfather who traveled with him from Switzerland in the late 1800's – that eventually marries into my husband's family long before I do, but that's a story for a future knitted piece that I'll get to pretty soon. Sadly I am running out of family names and will eventually resort to assigning design namesakes to those of us who are still living, though this may well please my pals. Family tree research sure has been fun!)
The design for Lena was spawned initially from my search for a lace. I ran across the Double Wing pattern in one of Barbara Walker's books. It's easily memorized (a requirement) with short repeats and I loved that there was both an open version
and a closed one.
Initially I thought they might look cool paired, but after swatching I found the open version more appealing so I stuck with it.
At this writing, Lena's bodice will be shaped, as per my usual, and with a wide scoop neck. Her sleeves will be slightly longer than those for recently published Marjorie. I like this silhouette, and lately like playing with raglan sleeves so I stuck with these design elements too. I'm working the sample with Quince chickadee, also my usual, but in the new-to-me petal color that I've found to be unexpectedly fantastic –
at first glance almost colorless in its pale-ness, but while working it has become nicely saturated. It feels quite rich to me by now, and a favorite.
Also note, I'm tweeting!, turned on to twitter by Juliet who found, to my delight, that fellow tweeters were mentioning my designs. For those of you who tweet too, you'll find me there as @DebHossKnits. I hope you'll follow me as I post regular updates about my knitting progress, and maybe a bit more.