Designer? Me?

Well, maybe.

When Carmen visited me in July, she asked if I could make something for her friend Felicia to wear with her motorcycle helmet and jacket that would protect the back of her neck from the cold wind. This is what I've come up with. I'm so bad at taking pictures. There's not enough contrast to see the thing well, and the neck piece doesn't show at all. But I don't feel lilke taking another picture. I started at the top of the head with 14 stitches and increased seven every other round to 84 stitches. Then I worked even to six inches from beginning, and switched to 2,2 ribbing on the front half and seed stitch on the back half for one inch. Then I bound off the ribbing and continued on the seed stitch part for another four inches. Next, I marked stitches 11, 22, and 33 and started increasing on each side of those stitches as well as at the beginning and end of each right side row. I worked until I ran out of yarn, but I think six inches would be about right. When I send the hat/scarf to Catmen, I'll ask her and Felicia to critique it for me.

I think it might also work as a 'capped' cape if I just continued knitting the 'scarf' part. I might try that sometime.
This is the shawl I'm currently working on, and it is also my own design. However, I like to use Elizabeth Zimmerman's term 'unvent'. I'm sure someone else has done the same thing, but since I haven't seen their work, I consider this mine. The cable is from one of my stitch dictionaries; however, when I looked back at the book after I'd worked on this for a while, I discovered that I was crossing the cables opposite from the book. This picture shows the beginning of the shawl. I'm increasing four stitches every other row to create a triangular shawl. When it is the width I want it to be, I plan to figure out how to turn the cable around the corner and work it as a border on the two short sides. I think I know how to do that, but my idea might not work out right. If not, I'll try something else.
And here are the matching sweaters for Lexi and her American Girl doll. The doll pattern is from the Borroco Yarn web site, and is worked in one strand of fingering weight yarn on small needles. For Lexi's sweater, I took measurements of her, worked a large swatch, and figured out how many stitches I needed to use. For it I used two strands of the same yarn and larger needles. Both of them need buttons and I may need to do something more with the neck on Lexi's.

I rarely use other people's patterns now. I did years ago, but for myself I always had to make adjustments, because I am what is often called 'ample' - sounds better than fat, doesn't it? It's not difficult to find large size knitting patterns now, but it was when I started knitting. After adjusting a few patterns, I graduated to measuring, swatching and doing my own.