A GIANT box of free yarn !!!  The free yarn is one of the things I love about the Knit Picks Independnat Designer Program, the free yarn. 

here are the steps, think of a design, submit a proposal, receive their email citing interest, request yarn, receive yarn, open giant box and knit, knit, knit, or in this case crochet, crochet, crochet.

So first I did this ....

Next I did these ...

I have 10 to do in total, plus the patterns, so no taking any breaks yet !!

I have a new pattern due our super soon !!

It's called "the Classic Textured Tunic".  It features a modified linen stitch.  Therefore I thought I'd blog a bit about the stitch.

When I first decided to do the tunic pattern, I was looking for a stitch that would be haevy enough to drape the way I wanted the tunic to drape.  I skimmed through some stitch dictionnaries and googled a bit, and decided on the linen stitch.  It's a stitch done which is supposed to resemble the linen woven material.  The thing was, I found a number of different renditions of it some had stitches slipped every row, and some every other row;  some had a knit row to interrupt, others had a purl row.

Basically, I found this out:

This is the linen stitch:
 R1) k1, *(sl1 wyif, k1)* repeat from * to end of row
 R2) k1, p1, *(sl1 wyib, p1), repeat from * until one st remains, k1

This is the 1/2 linen stitch:
 R1) k1, *(sl1 wyif, k1)* repeat from * to end of row
 R2) purl row
 R3) k1, p1, *(sl1 wyib, p1), repeat from * until one st remains, k1
 R4) purl row

This is the double linen stitch;
R1) k1, *(sl2 wyif, k2)* repeat from * to end of row
R2) purl row
R3) k1, p1, *(sl2 wyib, p2), repeat from * until one st remains, k1
R4) purl row

The common characteristicto the above linen stitch patterns is a 'bar'.  I was after something slight;y different, and I prefer to knit a row than to purl one.  So I decided on a modified 1/2 linen stitch.  It looks like this:

Stay tuned for the pattern !!!

It's going to be on my site, on ravelry AND part of the Knit Picks IDP program !! (this (i.e. KP) will make it easier easy to order the pattern as well  as the correct amount and weigh of yarn at the same time)