Designer Spotlight - Minttu Wikberg
Minttu Wikberg of @pawlymade
Like many designers, Minttu credits her mom and grandmother as the start of her journey. She has built on that beginning with an MA in Art and design, and a career in clothing design. Her work has even been on display at The Architecture & Design Museum.
Minttu’s designs range from sweaters to socks to home decor. She has had multiple patterns published in a variety of books and magazines. You're sure to find plenty of gorgeous options to choose from.
Lovebirds
Lovebirds is a sweet top-down circular yoke sweater for the littles. An adorable lovebird couple graces the front, and the back has a flower motif. The design has options for three different types of sleeves.
The pattern is written for fingering-weight yarn, and Lankava Sulo is a great choice for this project. It is a superwash wool and polyamide blend which means it is easy to care for and durable enough that it can be passed on to many littles for years to come.
Bearly Hood
Bearly hood is an adorable balaclava for your little bear cub. It's a lightweight hood that can be worn with a pullover or under a jacket. In colder climates it's great for autumn or spring, and in milder climates it'll be great all through winter.
The pattern is written for DK-weight yarn. Lankava Mainio has a lot of great color options for this pattern. To get the look in the sample, combine Fog with Snow and Salty Licquorice. For more teddy-like colors try Coffee, Cinnamon, or Sand.
Autumn Fields
Autumn Fields is a sock pattern with a simple yet striking colorwork design. It plays with color dominance, and highlights both colors nicely. There are a few spots that use duplicate stitching, but most of the pattern is stranded colorwork.
One awesome thing about these socks is that you can use different weight yarns to get bigger or smaller sizes. The original pattern is for DK, and will make about a US Women's 7.5-8 sock. If you use a fingering weight yarn, you can get a smaller sock, and if you use Aran weight yarn you can get a bigger sock. With Lankava's Sock Yarns, the colors are the same across all weights, so you can make matching pairs in any of the weights.
Syyssukat
Syyssukat is toe-up stranded colorwork socks with little birdies. The name translates to Autumn Socks, but with a slight color change you could easily make these into spring, summer, or winter socks, too. All profits from the sale of the pattern will be donated to the Finnish Red Cross until September 2025.
Yarns for Syyssukat
The pattern is written for DK-weight yarn, so Lankava Mainio is the perfect option. With 23 colors to choose from, you can easily make a pair for each of the four seasons. Saffron, Rain, Snow, and Cherry will get you a very similar result to the sample socks. Pistachio, Dandelion, and Summer Sky are options for a brighter, more spring-like color scheme.
Which options would you prefer?
