Welcome to Feral Knitter! My goal is to create a place where you can find the yarns, books, and patterns you need for a lifetime of colorful knitting, whether traditional Fair Isle, untraditional stranded patterns, or lacework.
I carry 210 211 212! colors of Jamieson Spindrift; the yarn pages are divided into color families to help you make your decisions. If you are swatching for a new design, every color is also available as an inexpensive 20-yard mini-skein!
Enjoy your knitting!
Janine Bajus, Feral Knitter
What’s New
May 2013 I’m very pleased to announce that my Dragonfly River Vest Pattern, originally published in Sweaters from Camp, is now available as a single-pattern leaflet! You know how much I admire Meg Swansen, and it is a real honor to be published by Schoolhouse Press. This was my very first design–single-color vertical motifs play against a five-color background, finished off by a garter stitch band and narrow shawl collar.
April 2013 Nine Five Spindrift bobbin sets now in stock! I don’t think I’ll be making any more of these, so if you want one, now’s the time to order.
For those who cannot afford a full set, I’m going to set up a bobbin exchange in the Fearless Feral Knitters Ravelry group–take advantage of social media to exchange the colors you have for the colors you want. The knitter’s form of baseball trading cards.
March 2013 Three new patterns from Schoolhouse Press! A re-issue of Ann Feitelson’s Shirt Tail Fair Isle Pullover, originally published in the out-of-print Sweaters from Camp.
The Circular Stranded Surprise Jacket, a cunning re-working of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Surprise Jacket to take advantage of the stitch:row ratios of diagonal stranded knitting.
And a Wool Gathering on Celtic Pillows, two of which are designed for Shetland jumperweight wool.
January 2013 Even more excitement! Jamieson’s has introduced two new colors: 780 Lime and 400 Mimosa. Lime is a beautiful, clear yellow-green; Mimosa is a clear yellow—both colors will add some liveliness to our design options.
If you have purchased a bobbin set, please send me a self-addressed envelope with two “forever” stamps on it—I’ll mail you bobbins of these two colors.
One color will be leaving: 324 Merlin. I’m not upset about this at all, however, because Merlin is nearly indistinguishable from 136 Teviot (I could hardly tell them apart if the labels fell off). I have 9 balls of Merlin left if you need some to finish up a project.
January 2013 Yes, I’ve finally begun to publish my patterns! First up: nine hat patterns. (Sorry, the thumbnails have cut off some of the image, creating a very amateurish effect that I have no hope of fixing!)
You can see them all on the Stranded Patterns page. They are sold as downloads; the download process is administered by Ravelry because I think they are the best at their jobs, especially at sending out errata when needed. (You don’t need to be a member of Ravelry to order through them.)
It took a lot of time and effort to write these patterns–a real learning curve to negotiate. I really appreciate all the encouragement I’ve received from you all over the last few years to get off my duff and just do it! Next up: the yoke sweater designs.
January 2013 Color Cards! 
Yes, I now have a limited number of color cards for Jamieson’s Spindrift! These very large cards have samples of each dyed color, natural color, and marled natural that Jamieson’s produces–the samples are large enough to be really useful. Definitely worth the wait!
And here’s a little tidbit: The color card shows two new colors! I hope to have them in stock next month.
December 2012 Meg Swansen has released her Norwegian Rose Jacket pattern as a single pattern. This beautiful jacket has some nifty features: purl-when-you-can hem AND front band, for one! The pattern offers several options for length and coloring; all result in a lovely, wearable garment.
Meg has also expanded upon Elizabeth Zimmermann’s legacy as an innovative seamless sweater designer. She has collected four different ways to handle the yoke of an EPS (Elizabeth’s Percentage System) sweater into her new leaflet–EPS – Four Tops: Raglan, Entrelac, concentric yoke (useful for Fair Isle patterning), and Nalgar (reverse raglan). This leaflet contains updated percentages for seamless sweaters along with discussions about the different yoke options–no patterns are included.
10/9/12 It is no secret to the people who have taken my design workshops that I love the book More Sweaters by Tone Takle and Lise Kolstad! It’s not a new book by any means, and I have been warning everyone for years that More Sweaters might not be available much longer–I began to feel like a Chicken Little or Boy Who Cried Wolf as the years went by. Well, the end days are here: the major craft book distributor tells me that they are getting rid of their back stock of this title. I’ve purchased a big stock, which I’m offering at 30% off until the stock is gone (I first made this offer to the people who subscribe to my newsletter, and I sold out all 16 copies I had; luckily, I’ve been able to get some more!) April 2013: I will keep ordering until the distributor is out of stock!
