Good morning and happy Friday to you! I’m really excited about this week’s newsletter. The beautiful, lacy, one-skein Sparktacular Shawl by Helaina Hovitz of Chic and Regal Knits is live, and I’m taking the opportunity to interview Helaina so you can get to know her a little better. I’ll also be announcing the August club colorway.
Sparktacular!
Let’s get started! First of all, I want to show you this amazing shawl that Helaina designed using my Sparkly Merino Sock yarn. Here is Sparktacular on Forest Floor showing all the glorious lace:
Isn’t it amazing that Helaina managed to get this much yardage out of just one skein of Sparkly Merino Sock? It’s so lovely!
You can find Sparktacular in Helaina’s Ravelry shop right here. You can also get it from Love Crafts right here. Helaina is kindly offering 10% off the pattern for all of you when you use the coupon code ChicLamb10.
Here are some gorgeous photos of Sparktacular in different colorways:
The colorways shown are…
- Forest Floor (top left and right)
- Monet’s Water Lilies (top middle and bottom left)
- Copper Roof (middle left)
- Lilac (middle right and bottom middle)
- Starlight (bottom right)
I actually created a new collection in my shop for all the Sparkly Merino Sock colorways I think would look fabulous as a Sparktacular shawl. You can find them right here. If you are stash diving, I recommend a semi-solid, Splashed and Speckled type colorway, or an Ikat colorway for this shawl. If sparkle isn’t your thing, then any sock-weight yarn will work.
Designer of the Month with Helaina of Chic and Regal Knits
Helaina has been wonderful to work with. She is kind and helpful, and she is such an amazing designer. I thought this would be a great opportunity to share more about her, so I interviewed her for today’s newsletter too! We’ll show you some of her other beautiful designs while we’re at it. Each photo links to Ravelry, but you can also find each one on www.Lovecrafts.com.
Q: Can you tell us how you got started in fiber arts? How did you first learn to knit?
A: I first learned to knit in 2018 at a class held by a nonprofit that hosts all sorts of events for young people in sobriety!
Q: Did you do what most people do and start with acrylic yarn and then move onto more luxurious yarn?
A: The teacher was actually very much against us using “cheap yarn” and wasn’t a fan of acrylic yarn. She discouraged us from buying experiment yarn and wanted us to all invest right away in high quality yarn, but I definitely have my share of both.
Q: I know you donate 25% of all your pattern proceeds to animal rescue. Tell us about your passion for animal rescue and how that got started.
A: As a journalist, my biggest focus was on social good, social justice, non-profits, inspiring people, and important causes. That was from day one when I started writing as a journalist for a local paper in college, and it has continued ever since!
I began designing totally by accident at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. I thought it would just be the one pattern, and I knew that I wanted to make it a fundraiser for our local animal shelter! Whatever I am doing, it is so important to me to give back and raise awareness for important nonprofits and animal rescues. I love being able to make an impact. and I have always been an animal lover.
Time went on and I continued to design and to donate, following this path I could not have even dreamed up for myself five years ago.
I am so incredibly humbled at how people have responded to my patterns! For me, this online yarn community we have here is such a gift. The best part of what I’m doing, besides the animal rescue donations, is the people I get to meet and become friends with!
I would say of course Wiley was very much in support of my donating to animal rescue. He is our rescue Chihuahua mix, and he lets us live in his world. I think he was very relieved when I got a mannequin because until then he was my only model, and you can actually see on Ravelry (in my project gallery) where I got the mannequin because the first half is all Wiley modeling everything. He’ll still model for me sometimes, and I have actually managed to train him to get excited when he hears the word, “modeling,” but it’s about 15 seconds worth of time and extra treats, so everyone wins.
Q: Which comes first? The yarn or the pattern? Do you find some yarn and come up with the perfect pattern to go with it, or do you have a pattern idea in mind and go in search of yarn that would complement it?
A: I would say that yarn inspires me totally based on the colorway. At least for the last year or two, I have been drawn to the yarn first and designed the pattern from there.
There are definitely still times when I have an idea, and I ask myself, “What yarn is going to work best for this?” However, I love when colorways and combinations get me really excited, and I think about all the different possibilities. I try to honor what each specific yarn wants. I know that can sound kind of funny, but sometimes I’ll have to regroup or switch directions because the yarn is telling me it wants something slightly different than what I had planned for it. I do my planning in writing because anything I sketch looks like something a child would draw in a horror movie.
Q: On a related topic, where do you find your inspiration?
Inspiration keeps finding me, which is probably how I’ve ended up in a wonderful and obscene number of collaborations through the end of next year.
Q: What’s your favorite yarn weight to work with?
A: I found that over the past 4 years, my favorite fibers to knit with, my favorite things to knit, and my favorite weights to knit have kind of changed. I would say consistently I love DK weight. I am trying to do more with fingering and sock weight too!
If you had asked me last year, I would have told you worsted, bulky, or super bulky were my favorites, but I have acquired some pretty tough muscle and nerve pain that I have to live with, so DK on like a 7 or an 8 is my sweet spot for now.
Q: Do you have a favorite type of wool or other fiber you like to use or prefer not to use?
A: I have really sensitive skin, and for a while I thought that meant I couldn’t knit. My mom was like, “You’re allergic to wool.” Some of the real woolly wools like the Peruvian Highland wools—I don’t get along well with those.
Q: What is your own personal favorite design that you have made so far?
A: Pass. If I choose a favorite, and the other shawls find out, it’s gonna be a situation.
Q: Where is the best place to buy your patterns and where can we find you online?
A: My patterns are on Ravelry and Lovecrafts! I’m a journalist and author (“After 9/11”), but I have shifted over to this more and more so that right now it’s actually full time for me! But if you google Helaina Hovitz you’ll find me, LOL. My website for the other things I do is www.helainahovitz.com!
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August Club Colorway
This month several different things came together to make me choose this particular painting as inspiration for the August club colorways. First of all, I have done several months of softer colors, and I wanted to do something with brilliant colors this month. Second of all, somehow bright colors match this unbelievably hot weather we’re having in mind. Is that just me or does that make sense to you too?
Also, it’s a landscape of the Mediterranean Sea, and who wouldn’t want to be there right now? Last but not least, I started my art-inspired club colorways back in February of 2019, and in all that time I have never done a Picasso. That may seem strange, but to tell the truth I don’t love Picasso’s human “dissections.” I like this one, though, and I hope you do too.
My plan is to dye this up using much the same method that I use for Beautiful Universe–short segments of all the colors with streaks of black, just like the painting.
If you would like to join the club in time for this colorway, you can do so until August 1st. If you would like to see the club colorways from prior months, you can see them here.
New in the Shop
Since we visited here last I dyed up Hope by George Watts, Forest Floor (for the pattern especially), Girl with a Pearl Earring, Galadriel’s Gift, and Honey Bee for the first time in a year. Here is Honey Bee and a hat I knit up with it too. This hat now belongs to my 8-year-old son.
I think that’s everything for this week. Happy fiber artistry! Stay safe and stay cool–literally.