Elephants on Parade!

contributed by Shawn

The NEW issue of Interweave Knits arrived recently and it has the most amazing and whimsical child's pattern in it! The Baby Elephant Vest by Melanie Rice has elephants on parade! The design is SO simple using yarnovers to pick out the stylized elephant motif that is repeated across the vest. I love the look of this and the idea of creating custom lace charts to make your own motifs. (I love the simple motifs on the Roo Designs sweaters for children, but yarnovers are faster than intarsia color work for me!)

There is a very detailed article that describes how the charts for this pattern were created. Melanie not only points out how she created this motif for her design but gives great tips about how to start making your own lace motifs. There are tips concerning yarn choice, information regarding knitter's graph paper - a must for developing your own motifs - and plenty of encouraging words to take you step by step through the process.

Even if you are not interested in creating your own lace motifs there are plenty of sage words in this article for any knitter. It's always good to remember that a break from your project can often lead to an "aha" moment when previously faced with only frustration!

While I find the Baby Elephant Vest enchanting, I can't wait to read through the Swirl Skirt pattern to check out the knit-on-a-bias fabric that claims to prevent knitted skirt sag. There is also a great pattern for the Nantucket Vest: This is knit in the Tahki Ripple yarn which knits up into the most amazing textural fabric: This is a very popular yarn for summer and we featured it on the Manikin recently in the Myrtle Pullover.