i love milo

Over on my Ravelry group I'm hosting a Knit-A-Long (KAL) for the Month of May, that we're calling Milo May. Sounds kind of catchy really!  We're having a crazy big knit-a-long in the lead up to the second anniversary of the release of the milo pattern. Hard to believe it's only been two years, but yep, the milo pattern was released June 6th 2009.

Milo is quite a special little pattern for me, as it's the first pattern I charged for.  It changed my whole approach to making, creating and designing knitting patterns. Before then there is no way I would have considered myself a knitwear designer. Truth be told, sometimes I still don't. But regardless, milo changed everything, mainly because it was a heck of a lot more popular than I could ever EVER have imagined in my wildest dreams. So there is a lot about milo that I have to be grateful for really.

So far on Ravelry there have been 105 milos knit up for the KAL! And over 2400 in total! WOW!!
And what I love most of all is the creativity that has gone into all these KAL milos; new cables have been designed and created, lots of colourwork has been happening with quite a few charting their own colourwork patterns, embellishments galore, substitution of stitch patterns, and of course, plenty of gorgeous knit-to-pattern milos too.

 If you're on Rav seriously have a look at them all .

I've knit two, but do have plans to squeeze a third one in before the 6th. Neither of the two I've knit are for the milo boy. oops.

The first one was for Lily.

This one is knit in Noro Silkgarden Lite. Yep, that Noro crack action is still happening.  For Lily I knit a 21 inch chest size (size 2) but knit it with extra length to a size 6 length. It used 2 and a half skeins of the Noro.

Through experience with Toby's Silkgarden Noro, I know that this yarn does tend to grow quite a bit with blocking and wear.  Lily is now a 22 inch chest, but I knit her the 21 inch chest.  I really could go down needle sizes but you know, I quite like the fabric of the Noro at this tension.

I played around with cable design for this one and did something that I'd been meaning to do for a very very long time! I designed a little heart cable that you can quite simply substitute into the milo pattern. It has the same stitch count as the cables on the milo so there's no maths figuring to get this to work.

The second one was for Toby's little baby doll; a wee little dolly size milo. Again, with the heart cable.
(excuse the unblocked garment)

If you like the look of this heart cable, you can add one to your milo (or anything else you think it might suit) by downloading it from Ravelry here.
Hopefully, I shall have time to update the milo pattern soon and add it properly.

Enjoy!