The Luck Of The Irish

irish ale shawlette by yours truly
guinness version in ice yarns kid mohair 'black'
and rowan kidsilk haze in 'ghost'
green beer version in yarn chef minestrone in 'spring vortex'
and bbknits prima superwash merino nylon in 'innocence'

The Irish Ale Shawlette is a companion piece (as they say in the art world) to my Irish Ale Socks.  I love these socks so much that I've been thinking about making something with a similar pattern for yonks...  

The stitch pattern always makes me think of settling ale, swirling, newly poured, in a pint glass, and the bubbly head at the top (or in this case, the bottom) just cries out to be made out of such a pretty (if I may say so) ruffled edge - a somewhat stylised form of the main stitch pattern. 

And so this little shawl was born. Or perhaps poured...

The Irish Ale Shawlette is worked from the top down and knits up well in most lighter-weight yarns, as long as you finish the body of the shawl after one full repeat, as the froth is calculated to work with that specific numbers of stitches.  

My Guinness version was worked in lace-weight, and the Green Beer in fingering-weight.  They both look extremely tasty and the stitch pattern is well defined in both weights.  Try in sport-weight, or DK for something a little more substantial!  Gauge isn't important, and as long as you have enough yarn, you're guaranteed of a darling little shawl, designed to keep the Autumn (or Spring) chills from your shoulders as you partake of an Irish Ale down the pub!

And BONUS! for the first month, you can take advantage of the introductory price of  €3 - this price is available until the 10th of September, after which it will go up to the normal price of €4.  

Further details can be found HERE on the Ravelry page (available to members and non-members alike).  You can also click the button below, which will take you immediately to the paypal page.  

Goan - you know you wanta!

Lustrum Concessions

You know, I hadn't even heard of the word 'lustrum' before I moved to Holland - they use here it to celebrate or commemorate a 5 year period between big events.  It was, according to the internet so it must be true, originally to mean the period of time between censuses being taken in Ancient Rome - 5 years.  Nowadays an orchestra, or company, for example, can celebrate its lustrum every 5 years after its founding.  And when cake's involved, I heartily embrace this tradition.  And cake is frequently involved, at least over here in Clog-land.

But here it is - my first Ravelversary Lustrum (if one may mix these up a bit) and the first lustrum of my blog.  Hell yeah!  Has it really five years already?

I can't give everyone cake, much as I'd like to try, but I must celebrate this momentous occasion, and why not by giving five lustra to all.  

...

Okay, what I really mean is that all my patterns have 25% (see what I did there?!) off from now until after the second lustra of February!  Okay, I'm getting a little too taken with the whole lustrum thing...  So, from NOW until the 14th of February all my patterns will have 25% off.  No special codes or coupons needed!
 

It's a LUSTRUM SALE!  But in case it's not obvious enough:

You can find a link to the design page with all the patterns HERE!  

And to make the checkout much simpler, I've changed all the prices to Euros to stop the problems people were having if they were buying patterns in a mixture of € or $.  Sock pattern buying: now with new added simplicity! ;-)

p.s. lustrum

Turducken Sale

It sounds fowl (heh) but legend has it the Thanksgiving 'treat' of a turkey/duck/chicken roasting hybrid is beyond delicious.

I on the other hand, not being of a Thanksgiving celebratory nationality, have decided to commemorate this long weekend instead with a mini sale of all the House of Socks patterns.  

Indeed.  You can get 10% off any and all House of Socks patterns from now until the end of Monday 26th of November by using the coupon code TURDUCKEN in the checkout page.  (You see - there was method in my title madness!) The patterns are in 2 different currencies - the latest ones are in euros, the earlier ones in dollars - so you need to check to see if you're mixing and matching as otherwise you'll get Bob's 'crappers' problem page.  If you need to go to the checkout more than once, don't worry - you can use the coupon code as many times as you wish!  :)

In other news, you may be thinking to yourselves 'what's all the sudden emphasise on 'House of Socks'?'.  Well, that's a very good question, and I thank you for asking it.

A few days ago I bowed to popular (more than 4 whole people) demand that I make a facebook page for the patterns.  I did, and saw that it was good.  I had been thinking about changing the name to something a little more grown-up, but decided in the end to stay true to my adult-but-not-grown-up persona.  What wasn't so good was, it must be said, the rather lame profile picture.  So, after looking online for sock fonts (more prolific that you'd imagine) but rejecting them as really just replacing one lame with another, I decided to get my socks and camera out for the boys.

This was the result:

I have to admit that I *may* have had a lot more fun than expected photographing the socks in these different letters.  I may, if I have some more spare time, (hah, if, she says!) do the rest of the alphabet! You never know when a TRUE sock font will be needed by the masses.  

Or just by me, even.

It's That Competition Time Of Year

Of course, the implication is that I do something at this time every year, but having missed the occasion for the past 2 years, I thought I'd commemorate both the occasions and the remembering of said occasions this year, at the same time.

wahey - she remembered!

The occasions?  Both my Ravelversary (31st Jan) and my Blogoversary (4th February).  Or, as I'm bang-slap in the middle of them at the moment, I shall call it my Ravelblogoversary.
I can see this catching on...
So, what's the deal, I hear you ask.  Or I do in my head, which is enough for me to write a sentence or two about it.

The deal is this, dear blogowers (that's 'blog followers' to those not aware of the entry in the RedScot Dictionary of Made-Up Words OUP 2018): I'm offering a complete set of my 'to buy' patterns to the winner of the competition.  That's 9 patterns to the worth of... quite a lot.  My arithmetic skills are currently off partying somewhere.  Probably with my calculator.
And don't worry if you're not a member of Ravelry!  Anyone can see them if you click on this LINK and all I need is an email address so I can send the winner the PDF collection.  If you ARE a member of Ravelry, however, I can send you the patterns there and you will be able to keep them in the online library!

prohibition

gloriana

pom star

bloody mary

honey socktails

strawberry mohito

irish ale

piña colada

irish coffee

But, HOW to win them, I hear you ask. Again. Because I've not been dithering with picture placement at all.  Oh no.  Well, it's simple really. All I need to know is what you think my favourite colour is.  And don't think checking on my Rav profile will help, as I've unhelpfully removed any mention of my preferred palette choice.  

But because I'm actually really a helpful person at heart, I'll give you a heads-up and let you know you have a choice of 3 favourite colours - so you have 3 times the chance of guessing one of them.  (And I should be clearer - give me one colour - if it's one of my 3 favourite colours, then you're in with a chance!)  You don't need to be specific - I'm not looking for a Crayola-perfect colour name, just the general colour umbrella will be sufficient!

All you need to do is write a comment here on the blog telling me what you think the answer is. The winning entries who mention any of the 3 colours will be put into a computer generator thingy (technical wordage notwithstanding) and the winner will be announced after the end of the competition.  

(If blogger is playing silly-bluggers, then hop over to THIS THREAD on Ravelry and let me know what you think the answer might be!  Not a member of Rav and blogger playing silly-bluggers?  Click on the contact me on the profile and send a message.  I'll have that open for the duration.)

The closing date?  February 14th at a minute to midnight CET.  I may as well have something to look forward to on Valentine's Day, eh?

Happy guessing!

Red's January SALE

Yes indeed! For the first 2 weeks of January, you can get 25% off the price of ALL REDSCOT SOCK PATTERNS!  Oh yes!  Buy one or buy 'em all - you'll get 25% off the total price!

Don't say I'm not good to you!

Click HERE to go to the pattern page on Ravelry!  (You don't need to be a member to access the page or buy the patterns!)

Sale starts 1st January 00:01, ends 14th January 23.59
all times GMT

Sockalicious Summer Sale

Don't say I'm not good to you!  

From now until June the 30th, when you buy 2 or more patterns from my 6 'to-buy' lovelies, you will get an automatic 25% off the WHOLE TOTAL.

Oh yes!

(Excluding the Bloody Mary pattern, which is available in kit form from Holiday Yarns until the end of October, after which it will be possible to buy the yarn and pattern seperately...) 
Yes indeed, go get your choosing shoes on, and get the patterns you're missing from your collection!

(click on the thumbnails, and you'll be whisked off to the individual pattern pages on Ravelry for further info.)

Click HERE to go straight to the pattern store!

Go on, you know you want to! :D

Update: I had this banner ad running in Ravelry (the one above) - you may have seen it if you've been on the threads in CPaAG or LSG, but sadly I've had to curtail impressions because of only a couple of sales and not enough to cover the ad, never mind make any profit. But keep an eye out on twitter and facebook, plus ravelry, for any new announcements!

An Arbitrary Après-Après-Summer Sale

NEW IMPROVED SNOWLESS EDIT:

SALE FINISHES 31ST DECEMBER 2010

23:59 CET

There's nothing more depressing than seeing a children's playground, yesterday a source of deep, snowy, giggly fun, turned today, thanks to Mother Nature's need to put on some flannel underwear and warm things up a little, into a slushy, grey and soggy snowman's  graveyard.   

So to add a little cheer to an otherwise mucky, grey and generally dispiriting day, I've decided to have a wee sale of my patterns...  So from, oh, round about now, until sometime just after Christmas...  let's say the 28th for arbitrary's sake, [ed: now until the 31st of December]you can buy one pattern out of the Honey Socktails, Pom Stars, Strawberry Mojitos and Irish Ales and get a different pattern half price!

ONLY $5.25 $7.00 for TWO WHOLE PATTERNS!

All you need to do is click on this LINK and it'll take you through to my Ravelry designer's page with further links to each pattern.  Then you simply choose 2 different patterns to put in the basket and Ravelry, in its infinite hand-basket wisdom, will automatically award you with this marvellous deal!

There are, of course these other patterns which are already available for FREE, too.  (You lucky people!!!)  Gin and Tonics, Twist of Citrus and the Traffic Islands...

You'd better take advantage soon, before this Scots lass remembers that her race is allegedly not endowed with arms long enough for their pockets...  ;-)