Fiber Fool

Wow, thanks to everyone who noted the mention of my upcoming pattern in today’s Knitting Daily! I have a triple play set of paper lantern covers in the soon to be available Winter 2009 issue of Knits. I thought perhaps you’d be interested in the inspiration for those covers…

In our house we have one of those half walls that runs along the stairs to the basement. It is a fantastic place to set plants, but it gets virtually no natural light. It is also in our living room so traditional grow lights were not an option. We ended up buying three cord kits for paper lanterns and were on the look out for something to use as a shade on the bare, full-spectrum compact flourescents but Drew and I were a bit at odds on what the proper solution was. Our budget dictated that paper lanterns would work. I was a little hesitant thinking it might take our living room back to college dorm days.

So, one day we were wandering around Old Town Fort Collins and seeing a few paper lanterns in boutique shops that did not previous carry them. Drew was arguing that they did not look at all dorm like and I was suddenly hit in the head with a brick and decided if I knit covers for them I could live with paper lanterns in my living room. Before I even got home I knew what stitch patterns I wanted on each shape of lantern. I think I walked straight from the front door to my idea notebook and sketched before I greeted Emma or even took off my coat, LOL!

Now, it is probably a good year since I was struck with the idea and I don’t have knit covers for my paper lanterns. But, they are definitely on the list. Our lanterns are the cylinder ones in cream. I want to knit our covers in Willow Euruflax Sport. I’m uncertain if I want to stick to the pattern on mine or play off of another idea or two I’ve had since I knit these for Interweave. They are deceptively quick to progress (yeah drop stitches for all the length you add in so few rows worked!) so perhaps I will get that done over the holidays…