Paper Tiger

Some of you may know that when we lived in Montreal, I worked at Espace Tricot for a time. My colleagues and the community around the store became my knitting family there, and when Lisa and Melissa decided to move on, I was thrilled when my former store colleagues Steph and Naomi took over the helm. I was even more thrilled when they reached out at the beginning of this year to let me know they were working on a book, and would I like to be a part of it? (Would I?! Yes!!)

Now we’re days away from the release of Knits from the LYS: a Collection by Espace Tricot on Friday December 15, and my contributor copy arrived last week! It’s a beautiful hardback book, and I am honored to be among the designers included in the collection. I designed a pair of mittens for the book, and we decided to draw on the style of the Chalet Collection (Ravelry link) I designed for Espace back in 2018.

The Laurentian mittens feature stranded colorwork in neutral shades. We used Nordic Yarn Eco Cashmere for the sample, but these would also make an excellent stash buster. I can’t help thinking about a stash-busting pair with a different color for each row of motifs…perhaps I’ll draw up some ideas in a future blog post. I have lots of colorwork-friendly yarns and leftovers in my stash, everything from 25 gram balls of Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift to hand-dyed sock yarn leftovers. So much possibility!

I love the other designs included in the book–I think the Composition Book sweater (Rav link) and the Broderie Skirt (Rav link) are probably my favorites!

If you’re in Montreal, Espace Tricot will be celebrating the book’s release all day on Saturday, December 16! The book is available from Espace Tricot here, from Laine publishing here, or you can check with your own LYS to see if they’re planning to stock it. Congratulations to Steph, Naomi, and the whole Espace Tricot family on a beautiful publication.