Design Gallery

An odyssey is defined as a long, wandering journey or an intellectual or spiritual quest.  I found the name Odyssey fitting for my first mandala blanket pattern.  For me, this was a journey in self discovery, confidence, and creativity.  My dog, Ziggy, was prominently featured in each picture of the progress of the pattern, so I felt she needed a little recognition in the title as well.  Welcome to Ziggy's Odyssey.  I hope you enjoy the trip.

When you take your first peek, please don’t get intimidated.  Work one stitch at a time, just one stitch.  No matter how fast or slow anyone works, we all work one stitch at a time.  While working you may get frustrated with the pattern, with my writing, or with yourself.  Be patient.  Remember that this was the first pattern I have written and all frustration should be aimed at my inexperience.  I’ve grown since writing this.  My writing has improved.  Should you feel the need to scream in frustration, you should let it all out and then get in touch with me.  I’m happy to help.

This pattern was born as a 2 foot table art mandala for a father’s day gift for a friend.  Her description of her father was simply “an old hippie who loves hiking, the woods, and fairies.  He has small fairy statues on his tabletop I’d like something to go with those.”  The design went from the original “fairy garden” piece to a massive 8  foot blanket that needed four section redesigns, a “set it aside” pep talk from my mom,  a two month hiatus, and maybe just a little fairy magic to finally be complete. I hope you enjoy your visit to my garden.  

 During the final phase of designing Kaleidoscope Garden I was approached by someone looking for a peacock design.  The moment I read the words on the screen I saw in my mind so many bits and pieces of what could be something amazing.  I was intimidated by my vision, and stalled the start of the design by researching.  I spent hours upon hours looking at peacock pictures, picking and choosing different looks, shapes, and textures that called to me.  The birds in flight being the most terrifying thing I have ever needed to create out of yarn.  Those birds in didn’t just call to me, they screamed my name.  I tried to bring all the different things those hours of research showed me together in a design that can be used to bring any majestic bird or fantasy creature, not just a peacock, to life with color and texture to achieve the look or feel each person would want in their blanket.  

In the mid 1990’s strange, circular drawings were found on the sea floor off the coast of Japan.  Beautiful, circular drawings in the sand measuring approximately 7 feet across.  It was discovered that the artist behind these sand mandalas was a newly discovered species of puffer fish.  The small, approximately 5 inches, male puffer fish would work days moving sand and constructing the peaks and valleys of the design simply by flapping his fins, then decorating his work with bits of shells.  The laborious design is all to attract a mate.  If the female puffer fish likes the design she will lay her eggs in the fine sand at the center for the male to then fertilize. 

This design spent a few months floating around in my head.  I discovered the art of the Japanese puffer fish not long after I designed Ziggy’s Odyssey, but became sidetracked with Kaleidoscope Garden, Midsummer Nights, and then Flight of Fantasy.  The mandala was brought back to my attention toward the end of designing Flight, the rest is history.  This design is delicate and flowing.  The colors I chose help give the it movement and an appearance of depth without having to use too much texture, which I felt would take away from the design. 

Based on a short video clip of the Halitrephes Maasi jelly.  

The Halitrephes Maasi jellyfish, also known as the fireworks jelly, can be found 4,000 feet underwater near Baja, California.  The jellyfish is almost invisible until illuminated where it then reflects the light in a bursting, fireworks pattern. 

My goal for this design was to capture the still image of the jelly, and trick the brains of viewers into seeing depth and movement.  Using dark colors as the deep sea background, the transparent jelly appears to float.  The tentacles of the jellyfish in the design are "drawn" over the background with post stitches and capped with puffs or popcorn stitches.    A fringe border adds the final touch of tentacles to bring the whole design together.

Designed with Paintbox Simply Aran yarn for a soft, squishy, and luxurious finish while still being affordable to work the pattern to the end. 

If you’ve worked any of my patterns before you may have noticed my introductions usually include the inspiration for the design and fun facts I found interesting while researching that particular project.  I give everyone the backstory to the design.  This one has a longer story than the rest:

In the spring of 2018 the eruption of Kilauea was all I saw on the nightly news.  Around the same time California began burning.  Every evening while I worked on Strigidae Bubo I saw fire consuming countryside, homes, lives.  Pictures and videos were being shared on social media of hillsides burning, driving roads surrounded by fire, lava flowing, smoke, explosions, everything burning.  The night photography captivated me.  I saw the beauty in all of the destruction.

I spent months researching volcanoes and wildfires.  Lava lakes, lava flow, the temperature of molten rock, wildfire damage, burn rates, cost of destruction, anything and everything associated with these types of disasters filled my search history.  I was armed with knowledge, pictures, and statistics to create this volcano/wildfire inspired design.

I started this one in September 2018.  My life took a hard turn that early fall, and I was full of anger, resentment, and hurt.  I was overwhelmed.  I was scared.  This design became less about the volcano and wildfire and more about finding some way to give my inner torture a voice.  When I look at it now I see the anger, the insecurity, and the fear in the design.  I see a picture of my emotions put on display for everyone to see.  As a very private person this one is difficult to share.

Luca, my boy, my heart, was at my feet the whole time.  The gentle giant gave me comfort and warmth while I exorcised my demons.  He is, in fact, at my feet at this very moment offering warmth and comfort while I type this intro. 

Thank you for your support, especially with this one. 

I wanted to play around with the idea of making a smaller afghan and a wearable piece out of the same design.  The idea in my head was to release one document download with two variations included.  I thought it would be a fun little twist to the worked in the round mandala designs I love so much.  

Naming this design Morphed Madness was an easy choice.  The design morphs, or changes, from a lapghan to a shawl.  The madness came in to play when it took way longer than I expected to get the shawl section written.  The whole thing made me a little crazy.

This is my most basic design, lacking a lot of the overlay and intricacies I have become known for, but it still impresses.  

Using any bulky yarn makes this a quick project to work.

A section of La Tempesta stuck with me after I finished that particular part of the design in the late spring/ early summer of 2019*.  The lace section with solid “spades” and chains wouldn’t leave my mind.  I played with the shape and layout a bit at the end of Thing 5, but I knew it had something more to give.  These “spades” were calling to me and begging me to make them into a shawl of all things.

The story for this design is told in positive and negative space as opposed to using texture and contrasting colors to give the design its voice.  As the design was unfolding I worried it would fall flat and end up being just another shawl among an endless list of shawls.  I worried even as I completed my final stitch and sewed in my ends.  I worried every single step of the way until I pinned it to the mat to block.  I stood up and looked at the design for the first time as a finished piece and all of my worries were gone.

Eruption is the only design I have ever completed that looks the same as a finished piece as it did in my head before it was started.  

When I finish a design I often give members of my group the opportunity to suggest names for the design. There are always a lot of great suggestions and I occasionally pick one of them or a variation of one. This is one of those occasions.

Arianrhod is the Celtic goddess of fertility, rebirth, and weaving cosmic time and fate. Her symbols include the silver wheel and weaving implements.

Every year at work we draw names for Christmas gift exchange.  This year I drew Stephanie’s name.  I spun up a beautiful alpaca and angora blend yarn and whipped up a quick scarf design as a part of her gift. 

I cleaned up the design a bit while I made it a second time with a commonly available yarn.  This simple and quick design is now available as my gift to you.

This pattern is available for free under the Free Patterns drop down menu, or hit the button below and go there to get started. 

Unicorn farts has been in the in the pipeline for some time.  I struggled with this design more than any of the others.  The small size and the extra cute theme were a challenge to my dark and twisty nature.  The hearts and corner butterflies are worked in the round as a part of the pattern, none of that pesky stitching and joining for me.

This design is perfect for the little, or not so little, girly girl in your life.  The size is perfect as a large baby blanket or lapghan for adults.  

The Fried Egg Potholder was the first pattern I ever wrote.  It is a very simple design with a very short list of supplies.  All you need is 20 yards of 100% cotton yarn (I used Lilly Sugar n' Cream yellow), a full ball of 100% cotton yarn (I used Lily Sugar n' Cream soft ecru), an H hook, scissors, and a darning needle. 

The construction is simple.  You make two copies of the same pattern worked in the round.  There's nothing fancy to it, and no tricky stitches to slow you down.    

The final round is worked through both layers to stitch them together for a thick potholder to protect your hands or counter tops.  This is a single sitting project start to finish.  If you're new to my designs this is a perfect place to start getting familiar with my writing style and the layout I use in paid patterns.  

I had big dreams for this design when I was planning it, but this one had other plans. It wanted to stay at a manageable size and keep a fun hexagon finish. Despite multiple shape changes it still remains relatively simple and fun to work. 

In the beginning this design was going to be ripples, broomstick lace, and pineapples.  I was so excited to finally design something with broomstick lace I was positively giddy.  About a week into the design Covid 19 took over everything.  The country shut down, my state went into lockdown, and the only thing everyone was talking about was protecting yourself from the virus.  The design started speaking to me, it wanted to be the graphs and animations of viral spread with and without social distancing.  As always, when the design speaks to me I listened and let it do what it wanted to do.  I am thankful I got to keep the ripples and pineapples, but sad it took away the broomstick. 

While working with tiny yarn and tiny hooks is stressful for some I do hope this design is not half as stressful the past few months have been for the entire world.  Please enjoy and stay healthy.

A vesica piscis is a mathematical shape formed by the intersection of two circles with the same radius. It is found in Christian art, Freemasonry, Gothic Architecture, and sacred geometry. This unique shape has called me for a few months begging to be made into a wrap that wears easily around the shoulders or pulled over your head as a shoulder wrap and hood. Using a lightweight yarn allows it to easily be used as a scarf as well.

My Vesica Piscis was designed using angora, merino, and silk blend yarn from my animals and then dyed after finishing. Any light sport or heavy fingering weight can be used for this design.

A block designed to compliment my Anthozoa pattern, it is also designed to be interchangeable in Coddiwomple. Scrap and leftover yarns were used to design this block requiring approximately 300 total yards of yarn.  This is Block 7 when working in Coddiwomple.

Simple but elegant slouchy hat and matching fingerless gloves.  

This design project was a birthday gift for my mom.  For her birthday I told her she had to come over and pick her fiber, or her yarn, and I would design something just for her.  My plan was a hat or something small, but she was so excited talking about a lacy shoulder wrap/scarf deal... not the direction I had planned but, hey, what momma wants, momma is gonna get.  She liked a lot of the colors of my on hand rovings and enjoyed the feel of my hand spun but nothing had the perfect combination of feel AND color... what momma wants, momma's gonna get.  So, she picked her fiber blends for the plies, her colors, and now she has her own design in her own colors.

This was a fun challenge of building the yarn for the project, except I was building the yarn for the project I was building for the yarn.  I’m excited to play with this whole build the entire piece from thin air again in the very near future.