Springtime in Portland, Oregon is simply magical- the streets are lined with trees brimming with blooms of different shades of pinks. On a day in March, I slipped into my local yarn store, hoping to find a yarn that would draw me out of my knitting funk. Enter Malabrigo Twist in Sotobosque: a hand-painted yarn in dark browns and light pinks, exactly like those heavenly cherry trees outside. I had been wanting to knit a project like Knitty’s Jeanie that wouldn’t take me a lifetime to finish. I loved the look of dropped stitches and cables. So, after tweaking it a bit, I came up with this:

The Hanami Stole, named after the festival in Japan for blossoming cherry trees (the stole part means it can be worn around the neck as a scarf or over the shoulders as a shawl). I was going to name it Sakura, but that name was taken for a different pattern. I’ve been sitting on it for a few months now, waiting for the right opportunity to release it into the world.

I went back into Happy Knits, and showed them the finished project, and they oohed and aahed, and gave me my very own little blog post. They told me about a fantastic offer that Knit Picks has made: They are offering to buy patterns from independent designers, and the designers keep 100% of the rights to the pattern, are free to distribute it elsewhere, and if the pattern is not finished in their yarn, they will send you the yarn to make it. Amazing! Well, I sent off a sample pattern and photo today, let’s see if it gets accepted!