Inspiration
It’s Here! MDK Field Guide No. 20: Atlas
A new season is upon us, just in time! Welcome to a brand-new collection of designs that we think you’ll love.
Simple, elemental, timeless, gorgeous.
It’s MDK Field Guide No. 20: Atlas, starring the work of Erika Knight.
Order your copy right here. It’s available two ways: a print edition that includes a Ravelry download code for the ebook. Or ebook only, if you prefer.
Working with Erika on this Field Guide has been an utter joy for us. She sees the world in a beautiful way, and her point of view comes through so clearly in these five designs.
She’s the consummate professional, and an artist when it comes to working with yarn.
The Designs
There’s knitting for everybody in this Field Guide. To show you what it’s all about, we’ve created a new lookbook. (Swipeable on your phone!)
Have a peek now. (You can order directly from the lookbook.)
The Yarn
It is a special thrill that Erika specified our new yarn, Atlas, for all the projects in this Field Guide. She really loves Atlas—and we love what she has created with it.
The palette of 22 colors is designed to give you a range of possibilities: vibrant, subtle, rich, soft. It’s 100% Rambouillet, a light worsted weight, in a three-ply construction and a worsted spin. Grown, spun, and dyed in the United States. We are uncommonly proud of this yarn and hope you love it.
We’ve had such a strong early response to the yarn that we’re in the process of restocking a few of the colors. Thank you for your patience—the supply chain challenges are real, that’s for sure.
What’s Ahead?
So much knitting fun. Watch for news of the knitalong for Field Guide No. 20: Atlas. We’ll have Zoom knit nights. And you’ll find a lot of help and inspiration in the Lounge, our online forum community that is open 24/7. Be sure to share your progress on Instagram with #myMDK!
What’s Catching Your Eye?
We can’t wait to see what you make.
Here are the Ravelry pages for each pattern if you’d like to see details and add these to your queue and favorites.
We have had a hard time deciding which project will be our first, but basically we’re planning to knit all five. It’s going to be a glorious new season of knitting, and we can’t wait to get started with you.
This is an exercise in squishy softness paired with elegant design! I’m through my first cable repeat of the Escalator Scarf in the color Whisper and blissed out on the Atlas texture (so plump! so soft!) and Erika’s lovely cable design. The pictures tried, but couldn’t capture the magic – it’s a knitter’s dream, I tell ya!
Just got my Atlas yarn! It’s beautiful and so soft. Current plan is a couple of Knight Hoods but we’ll see, plans do change!
I’m already halfway done with the back of the old friend pullover. This yarn is so squishy and soft! Can’t wait to finish and cuddle into this sweater. I love that I can’t detect my felted joins.
The yarn is gorgeous and I cannot wait to get some! I love all the designs in this field Guide, but the tote and the sweater are at the top of list.
Atlas feels wonderful. I have a grandpa cardigan plan for the Navy as soon as it reappears
My first ever Field Guide subscription came last week, what a joy! Love the patterns, a d the sample and color card So fun to look at the beautiful colors and imagine the possibilities! My first project will be the hooded cowl.
Thank you for making 5 lovely patterns a very affordable download!
I have a maybe not so popular comment. I have all of the Field Guides to date. Multiple copies of some of them. I go through them all the time and have yet to make ANYTHING from them. The beauty of the items created is just astounding, but I feel most of the patterns do a couple things so many designers are guilty of. They require large amounts of yarn. They require a very difficult skill set. I may be able to do it but if it’s a large print, I won’t try because I would never finish it and would be discouraged by frogging or ripping mistakes. They are intimidating in their color changes. I would love to see a field guide with small, easy to make, one skein or less elegant projects that would build up skills to get us comfortable for the transition to the more complex patterns in these.
I get you. I have so many magazines that are full of intimidating designs. Old Vogue Knittings… this guide attracts me because the sweater is gorgeous and looks straightforward, the hood is not a huge investment in time and yarn, and the scrappy bag is such a cool.idea. I can see myself making the throw in stash yarn too. I’ve been knitting since I was a kid, and I’ve just hit 60. I still unpick large swathes of knitting and crochet. I change my mind about projects and RIP out whole sweaters and cardigans. I’m in the process of depilling a cardi in beautiful blue faced Leicester and intend to reknit it as a sweater, because I don’t wear cropped little cardis any more:).
If it is any consolation, I have been knitting for a very long time and have not yet reached a point where I don’t have to rip things out. I have learned to be patient with myself and with the process. There is always a learning curve if you want the adventure of trying something new.
One of the best pieces of advice I have had from MDK is to make something you like. Knitting is absolutely an investment and a commitment. I first started knitting sweaters so I could have nice, interesting clothing for work. I re-knit one of my first sweaters because the final result was loose and saggy. It was cotton yarn. I took it to my local yarn store and the woman explained that cotton yarn needed to be knit very tight, at least for that sweater. My budget was very limited and I wanted that sweater. So I just made it again.
Knitting, for me, is still an investment in creating something unique and special. And, (to somewhat justify the cost) it has paid off with some incredible finds at the thrift store because I am now very sensitive to how things feel. I recently found a luxury level cashmere skirt and sweater set from a high end boutique. One touch and I knew it was good cashmere before I even looked at the labels.
Thanks for these kind words about the Field Guides, Janet! We’d love you to find them as useful as they are beautiful. You’ll find less-than-one-to-2-skein projects in Field Guide No. 4: Log Cabin, No. 7: Ease, and No. 10: Downtown. And the designs in Field Guide No. 18: Beginnings were created with beginning knitters in mind–the Diagonal Mitts take one skein of sock yarn.
I really encourage you to try some of the simpler one or two skein projects in the existing Field Guides! There are many that are very doable as even a beginner knitter— I know because my first socks, mitts, stranded, and lace knitting were all from Field Guide patterns, and all but the lace were in my first year of learning to knit.
Often I find reading a knitting pattern makes it seem more daunting than doing it turns out to be. You may be psyching yourself out by thinking everything sounds too difficult when you read it, but once you just start following the directions, you’ll find it’s much easier than it sounds. And if you have questions, the Lounge is full of helpful fellow knitters!
The one-skein Field Guide patterns I’ve done as a beginner or first time with that technique or type include:
– any of the Wanderlust socks (I made the Apres Anything socks as my first sock/first stranded, but it uses 2 skeins)
– Swirl hat from Sequences (my first adult-sized hat and second hat ever)
– Rib Lace scarf to learn lace knitting
– Appleseed coasters to learn cables
I haven’t made them, but both the Diagonal mitts and Everyday cowlette from Beginnings are also one-skein and designed for beginners.
That’s a good idea and one that the amazing folks at MDK may take in advisement down the road. One-skein projects are so good for our stash! But I do want to say Hurray! for the new book. I see many variations of the pocket on the sweater in everyone’s future … two or more of different sizes and different colors, a touch of embroidery perhaps.
Thank you so much for hosting the Zoom chat with Erica Knight. It was a lovely lunch break for me in my time zone. Love the Stepping Stone Throw. It reminded me of recycled/upcycled parts of favorite worn out sweaters. If you took the ribbing, or the patterns of the bodies and pieced the parts together. The boldness of the scale, color, and patterns make an old technique look very timeless. I look forward to wrapping myself in one of my own.
That sweater!!!!!!
Escalator Scarf, as in don’t wear it riding one? It’s stunning and I love the new yarn but can’t help it . . .
I love the portrait of Erica– especially that it has some yarn dangling down from the end of the wrap she apparently threw on to show off even before finishing it. That’s what we knitters should always do — leave some yarn lines hanging off the end even when we have finished and wear our projects, just to communicate to other knitters that’s who we are! (And lovely new projects, Erica, thank you.)