Month: March 2021

The blog is archived

Hello my Dear Readers,

After much thought and consideration, I have decided to stop publishing on this blog. This has been quite a difficult decision, and yet an easy one at the same time. I have seen that I now seldom have the chance to update this blog with the love that was once possible. On the one hand, a busier digital life is happening somewhere else (like Instagram or, better yet, my newsletter). On the other hand, the feeling of not being able to deliver as much value in this format.

If you want to keep in touch and reading what I write, I invite you to sign up for my mailing list and receive my newsletter, where I write letters to friends (and not so much blog posts), where I share what I have been up to and things that capture my interest, as well as news about embroidery and knitting patterns that I have published and available for sale and news about my work as a designer, illustrator and animator. I hope you like it there!

You can also follow me on Instagram under the username @air_billy.

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Enjoy the archives below! You can browse posts from the time when I lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina; or dispatches written from Panama City, Panama. Or all about my love for my hometown of Lisbon, Portugal.

The Ocean Lava Cowl knitting pattern is out

My husband is covered in the handknits I made for him! Around his neck is the Ocean Lava Cowl, a squishy cowl made with colorful Malabrigo Silky Merino.

Hello everyone!

Hope you are well, safe and healthy wherever you are.

Here in Lisbon, Portugal, we have been in lockdown since January. Schools closed and we’ve had two young children at home. It’s been incredibly difficult to do client work, and I’ve actually seen many projects being postponed or outright canceled.

But you know what happened? The Ocean Lava Cowl happened! And I’m so happy for it.

I started planning it and knitting it in April 2020, during our first confinement. To be honest, it was a challenging knit for me at the time, as I was incredibly anxious and feeling generally unwell with the pandemic, lockdown and closed schools at the time. But I loved when I figured how I wanted the cowl to be and how what seemed like a daunting knit was actually quite simple. Yes, two-color honeycomb brioche seemed challenging, but it’s actually straightforward! And what a beautiful stitch it is.

As we were in lockdown, we couldn’t have a proper photoshoot out on Tapada das Necessidades, a favorite park very close to where I live. Instead, we headed for our tiny balcony/backyard and made do with what was possible. Glamorous? Not at all. But it’s done and I love this project even more for it. It makes me think of the very nature of knitting, of making do, of being creative in the face of adversity.

The cowl is a squishy cloud of stitches and if you’re looking forward to playing with colors and yarn, this is a great and quick project. I hope you’ll love it!

You can find it in my ravelry store. And you can use the code OceanLavaLaunch to get 15% discount on this pattern when purchasing until March 19th, 2021.

I have shared more pictures of this cowl over on Instagram if you wish to see them.

Stay safe, stay healthy, keep on knitting!