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Is there a type of garment that you haven’t made yet? Perhaps you've never knitted (or worn!) a vest before. Or maybe you’ve already made a few and you’re looking for a pattern that feels fresh—something quick, transitional, and size-inclusive for the season ahead.

I was in the first camp when I tuned into an Instagram Live one afternoon, where two besties talked all about a vest-along they were about to participate in. As they excitedly chatted about silhouettes, textures, and how they’d style a vest, I couldn't think about anything else. Before the live even ended, I’d grabbed the nearest notepad and scribbled a few rough sketches based on another pattern I had in test knitting at the time.

The first sketch was heavily cabled, front and back. “Keep it simple!”, I thought to myself. But it was the third sketch—the last one on that notepad—that stood out as “the one.”

I started a spreadsheet and ordered yarn faster than it took you to read this sentence. One package was coming from another state, the other from a couple hours north of me. Tracking said nearly a week. Torture!

To my relief, the yarn arrived four days sooner than estimated, and just in time for me to work on it while podcasting and watching You’ve Got Mail with my own bestie during her visit from Canada. There’s something special about knitting with someone you love in the room, even if you’re both just doing your own thing.

As I made progress on the pattern and then worked on a second sample, my husband—completely unaware of what (or who!) had inspired me to drop everything else—started calling it the Bestie Vestie. I loved how that name rolled off the tongue. It was cute, memorable, and different from anything I’ve named before.

The icing on the cake: 90 test knitters helped bring this pattern to life, and so many of them said the same thing—this is the best-fitting thing they’ve ever made. If you decide to make one too, whether as your first vest or a new one to add to a growing collection, I hope that it’s your Bestie Vestie yet.

There are hats you make because you need a hat. And then there’s the Novemberist—a hat with a story behind it.

November 2018 felt like it held multiple lifetimes. That month, I had my first trunk show at a local yarn shop, where I picked up two yarns for a hat design I had brewing. Then my husband Cody, his little cousin, and I took our first trip to Victoria, British Columbia, to explore the city, catch live music, and enjoy great food. And after all that, I attempted something I'd never done before: stranded colorwork.

The design process was playful and exciting. I developed three chevron charts, swatched two, and chose one for this pattern—the other would later become my Kestra Hat. While making the very first hat in the colors I'd chosen at the LYS, I learned to keep my floats relaxed, to catch them properly, and to maintain the right color dominance. It was awkward and fun, using both my hands together in a way that was entirely new.

For the final sample, Cody helped me choose colors from my stash: a warm red with rust and strawberry undertones for the chevrons, paired with natural for the background. I made the brim doubly thick, both for warmth and because I loved how a pop of color would peek out from beneath it. I'd done something similar on another hat pattern called Corbin, and I really loved the look.

The hat that emerged from that memorable month became part of the Novemberist set, a hat and mitt pairing that’s waiting to become part of your story too. What will your November look like?

I didn’t grow up watching much TV, but my husband Cody comes from a Star Trek-loving family. The Next Generation (or TNG) was basically always playing at his dad’s house while Cody and I were dating. After we’d been married for a while, he wanted me to actually watch the show—like, really commit—and I figured, okay, why not.

I got hooked.

Here’s the thing: they don’t really make shows like this anymore—shows that actually feel good to watch. It’s sci-fi on the surface, but what TNG really gets at is something deeper. Picard and the crew face impossible dilemmas and somehow always choose the right thing. Data learning to be human. The belief that we can be better. It reminds you that doing the right thing is possible.

So when I saw Lady Dye Yarns had a Star Trek: The Next Generation club and no designer, I texted her immediately. No hesitation. I knew exactly what I wanted to create—a shawl that captured the heart of the show, those Starfleet uniforms, that sense of mission and purpose.

Farpoint is that shawl. The name itself is a salute to the pilot episode, and the design channels the bold color blocking of Starfleet uniforms: red for Command, gold for Operations, blue for Sciences. Four bobbles represent captain’s pips, but you can customize them to match your own rank or make it entirely yours. Mosaic knitting creates a stunning, textured star field without the complexity of stranded colorwork.

This is a shawl for Trekkies who want to wear their values as much as their fandom.

Are you ready to boldly knit where no one has knit before?

A yarn crawl. A dyer’s trunk show. A generous hand reaching back to pull out a second skein just for me.

That’s how Indira began.

I walked into the first yarn shop of my day looking for something I wasn't even sure existed yet—the perfect yarn for a cable and lace shawl pattern I’d been sketching and swatching in other yarns that weren’t quite right. I grabbed what I thought was the last skein of a striking, plum-colored fingering weight yarn and two coordinating skeins of mohair/silk lace, and I started talking to an indie dyer who was having a trunk show there. She looked at the yarns in my hands and said, “Those are perfect together.”

I told her I thought so too but, sadly, the shop only had one skein of the fingering weight.

She reached back behind her table, pulled out a second skein of the same yarn that she’d set aside for herself, and handed it to me. “You clearly love the color and have a project in mind. Take it.”

That moment made my entire day. I left that shop knowing I’d found the right combination, and I knew exactly what it was for. My dream shawl.

It became my travel project. I worked on it during lunch breaks at work, at my first trunk show as a designer, throughout that memorable trip to Victoria that sparked the Aslyn hat pattern, even by flashlight during a power outage that lasted a few days. It was the project I was making when I hit 1,000 Instagram followers. And it was the pattern I was working on publishing when a season of unexpected grief and loss met my family.

All those moments—the in-between times, the pockets of creativity, the milestones, the memories—they’re woven into this shawl.