Yuko Shimizu is one of many great designers I’ve learned of this past week as a result of the powerful discussion going on about diversity and the knitting community. If you’ve missed it somehow, there’s a good synopsis-with-links on Ravelry. In addition to hopefully opening eyes and minds to ways we can all do better to make the knitting community (and the world) a more inclusive place, it’s bringing a lot of wonderful and talented people into broader view.
I’m super smitten with these sweaters:
TOP: Sunburst is a fantastic little cropped colorwork sweater with full sleeves and some mohair content giving it an unusual surface texture for such a sweater
The speed at which Sólbein Cardigans are flying off the knitting needles in the #fringeandfriendssteekalong feed is truly jaw-dropping. For those who are half done (or already on a second one!), these tips and tricks may come too late! But for anyone who (like me) has yet to cast on, I hope they’ll prove helpful. And they apply to more than just Sólbein:
1. Floats out. Marlene @mnberghout posted about her floats being too tight and how she intended to solve it on a second go, which is one of my favorite tricks I’ve never tried! Let’s see if I can describe this any better than I drew it: Hold your knitting exactly the opposite of how you usually hold in-the-round work. So with it wrong side (float side) out instead of right side out. And with the needle tips away from you instead of toward you, so you’re looking at the right side of the work but in the rear inside of the tube of knitting. Does that make sense? Held that way, your floats have to reach around the longer outer curve of the work, rather than across the shorter inside stretch. And if you still prefer to work with it held the regular way, right side out, try keeping your stitches spread to their natural width on the right needle, which makes it much harder to create a too-short float in the first place.
2. Block that yoke. Several people have expressed concern about their gauge while knitting their yoke, and/or opted not to do a gauge swatch and just cast on. In either case (or if you just want to make sure your colorwork tension is good before proceeding), why not stop and block your yoke? Just put the stitches on waste yarn and block the work like you would a finished object. Once it’s dry, you can measure your real-time stitch and row count and make sure you’re on track for your intended size.
3. Steek first, sleeve later. Every time I see a pic of a finished body, pre-sleeves, I have an overwhelming urge to cut that steek! If you feel the same way, there’s no reason not to go ahead and do that first. Although if you’re one who doesn’t love sleeves, the anticipation or prize of getting to cut the steek when you’ve done them might help?
I also have one gentle reminder or request to make, and this is truly universal. It’s natural to want to slide your pattern into your knitting photos, and a common practice. Please remember that publishing a photo with visible instructions or charts is the equivalent of giving away the designer’s work, and be cognizant of that when taking photos.
For anyone who hasn’t seen the feed and the incredible array of cardigans coming together on the #fringeandfriendssteekalong feed, you really should go look.
Holy moly, you guys, the #fringeandfriendssteekalong feed is a sight to behold! It is, as Mary Berry would say, “cram jam full” of stunning Sólbein cardigans in progress along with a handful of other steekables, and surprisingly few people taking many liberties with patterns. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! I think on this one so many of us are just concentrating on getting the color choices right, gathering steam for our first steek — and there are actually quite a lot of people knitting their first sweater ever! All of which I applaud applaud applaud! I couldn’t be more thrilled. And cannot believe how fast some of you can knit! There are already sweaters at or nearing completion, while I haven’t even cast on yet. If you’re still on the fence, please understand you can jump in anytime!
Meanwhile, here’s the first of the standout projects that I want to feature here on the blog, so this is our first addition to the on-the-fly panel for the KAL, and it happens to be the endlessly inspiring Kristine Vejar from Verb. She’s taking quite a few liberties, and wow I cannot wait to watch this unfold!
Yarn: A Verb for Keeping Warm Dawn. I chose this yarn because I love the fabric it makes, and also because I live in a more mild climate, which means I will get to use this sweater more than if it were knit out of Lopi.
Palette: Indigo Blue! I am inspired by this coat by Kapital. In the AVFKW dye studio, we indigo-dyed a range of shades. I will try to incorporate as many of them as possible into the sweater. I have drawn a few ideas for how to incorporate the different skeins of indigo-dyed yarn into Solbein. All of this said, I am prepared to knit and rip, knit and rip, until I get the color combination just right.
Master plan: Taking some large leaps here as I dive into the Fringe and Friends Solbein Steekalong! When interviewing yarns for this project, at the top of my list were Lettlopi and Stone Wool Corriedale. However, when I came across Dawn, I thought Ooooo, this could be really interesting. I have a zip-up hoodie I purchased in Iceland a couple years back, and I wear it on our coldest Bay Area days from about November to January. But, due to Dawn’s cotton content, I could wear Dawn year-round. That being said, there are a couple concerns at hand using Dawn. It is lighter-weight, which means a smaller gauge. And, how would it steek?
Now to tackle gauge. I went to my swatch library and pulled the swatch for Dawn. (I use YO to record my needle size into the swatch). The fabric I like best is 17 stitches and 23 rows over 4”. It has substance not too tight and not too loose. And I believe I can make the pattern work at this gauge.
The pattern calls for 14 sts over 4″. The size I would knit if I were getting gauge would be 39 1/2” (though that is a touch too big). So to compensate for my tighter gauge, I am knitting size 46 1/2″.
By my calculations, the resulting finished size will be approx: 38″ chest circumference 12″ sleeve circumference
I am planning to leave off the buttons / buttonholes, cuff and hem treatment. I would like to knit my “buttonband” running parallel to the sweater, rather than horizontal (which I need to research because I am not sure how to do this).
. . .
I feel like I might need to hire one of you to distract her when she’s finished, if you know what I mean! But I also feel that way about sooooo many of the other sweaters on the feed. I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist casting one on in my own size …
I finished knittingBob’s sweater vest in plenty of time for him to wear it out to dinner on New Year’s Eve, and the man could not be happier! Nor could I, honestly — this vest turned out so much better than I imagined. And that’s due to two things: a highly detailed pattern paired with some very nice yarn.
You may recall I had bought a skein of this at Stitches West last winter, and Bob basically picked it off my shelf one day and said “I want a sweater out of this.” It’s Plucky Knitter’s Yakpaca in “Pinstripe” — a 50/50 blend of yak and alpaca — and there’s no way he would wear a full sweater in such warm fibers, so thankfully what he wanted was a vest. And after poking around a bit, we settled on Churchmouse’s His Vest pattern.
My gauge was slightly bigger than the pattern gauge (I knitted the yarn on US6 needles at 4.75 sts/inch) and for such a straightforward garment, it would have been super simple to just wing it. But there were so many subtleties to how the pattern is written — very fine attention to the armhole shaping, shoulder seam placement, neck treatment — that I wanted to try to use the pattern. Since all my numbers were different, that got to be a bit of a headache (and I wound up not doing their tidy little neck selvage trick) but I’m glad I did it, and if I were to make this again, I would knit it precisely to the pattern.
Apart from the slight difference in gauge, the only change I made was to tweak the length — we wanted it to hit right at the front pockets of his jeans — and raised the neck, which meant going my own way on that whole part.
It’s a really lovely, simple garment, and a perfect case of how much yarn choice can matter. The fabric this yarn creates is so soft and elegant that I had this hanging on the door to my room for about 24 hours and I just kept staring at it having that “wow, I made that” feeling, even though it’s such a simple thing! It just looks so luxurious.
It was 70 degrees on New Year’s Eve and he wore it anyway, looking perfectly dapper. Sorry I didn’t get a photo!
FINALLY! I know it’s been hard for a lot of you to wait to start knitting (and some just couldn’t stand not to cast on), so I’m extra happy kickoff day for the Fringe and Friends Steekalong has finally arrived. There is no firm end date. The feed will have my focused attention through Feb 17th, but feel free to knit at your own pace. Ultimately, this is not about deadlines or prizes (although see below) — it’s about challenging yourself, having fun, and making a sweater!
Normally, kickoff day is when I introduce you to the panel of knitters who’ll be featured here on the blog throughout the kal, but I’m doing things a little differently this year — or rather, taking a sort of hybrid approach from past FAFKALs. As of today, the “panel” consists of just me and Mary Jane, and I’ll be looking for standout contributors to the #fringeandfriendssteekalong feed, assembling a sort of panel on the fly.
For the next three or four weeks, I’ll pick projects that are of particular interest, and post a q&a with one of them roughly once a week. (Maybe exactly once a week, maybe less — we’ll see how it takes shape!) And then for any of those panelists that finish in a timely fashion (i.e. by end of Feb or so), I’ll also do an FO interview here just like I’ve done with panelists in the past, so everyone can see how those projects turned out.
So if you’d like to see yourself and your project featured here, the way to do that is to post about your plans on the feed! Photo quality always counts, but so does having an interesting approach or story or plan of whatever sort. Are you making some clever mods to the pattern, inventing your own, doing something interesting with your yarn choice? Setting some other sort of goal or challenging yourself in an inspiring way? Tell us about it! And you could wind up on the panel of featured knitters, which will also come with a gift from Fringe Supply Co.
YOU COULD WIN PRIZES!
Apart from the chance to be added to the panel and featured here, there will be random prizes everyone has a shot at. On February 17th, I will draw 5 knitters from all of the qualifying posts on the #fringeandfriendssteekalong feed and those 5 knitters will each win a Field Bag of their choice!
“Qualifying” means: – You must be following @karentempler@mjmucklestone and @fringesupplyco – You must have made at least 3 posts to your feed along the way (using the #fringeandfriendssteekalong hashtag obviously), showing your plans and your progress and sustained participation in the event.
Winners of the random drawing will be announced here on the blog on Feb 18th.
. . . . .
MEET THE PANEL
So there’s still the matter of telling you what MJM and I each have planned! You ready?
Master plan: As we’ve just gone through a December that hovered in the 50s, 60s, even some 70s, and I’m unable to wear all of the sweaters already in my closet, I had to face the fact that I would not be making this gorgeous sweater for myself — so for who then? Partly because of my color concept (below), I started thinking about all of my beautiful little nieces I’ve never knitted for, and realized if I were to knit this at worsted gauge, it would come out kid-sized, and they could pass it around depending who it winds up fitting. So that’s what I’m doing! (And I’ll also finally be taking this opportunity to cut open my purple lopi sweater.)
Yarn: Obviously when you’re knitting for kids, you think a little harder about the yarn. I want a nice wool that will cooperate with a steek (so nothing too gooey soft) but that will be acceptable to the littles (so not too woolly). So I think I’m going with Germantown. I know from swatching with it for the Anna Vest that it is quite flexible about gauge, and since I may be mixing yarns for the colorwork, in order to the get the tonal gradation I want, that feels important. I’ve ordered some at the last minute, and will swatch and see the moment it arrives!
Palette: I’ve mentioned that I’ve really been craving yellow lately, and ever since reading about Mary Jane’s initial inspiration for the yoke — the flickering of sunlight — I’ve been wanting to see this sweater in a nice bright yellow with paler yellow and off-white colorwork. The reason I say I may be mixing yarns is that Germantown offers what I think (from online photos) will be just the sort of saturated, cheerful yellow I want for the main color, and a natural for the lightest, but not a nice soft buttery yellow in between. The skein pictured above has been in my stash for several years — it’s an older offering from my friends Camellia Fiber Co. , an aran-weight Merino that was naturally dyed with marigold petals, by my friend Rebekka. I’ve been saving it, not knowing for what, and I know the girls would love this story — plus that will give a little extra softness to the neckband. So I’m going to see if I can make it work with the Germantown. If not, I may try my hand at dyeing my own middle contrast color! The girls might rather it were purple or pink, but I’m pretty committed to the yellow idea.
Plan: I think I’m going to put a zipper in this one. Either that, or knit the button band before I cut the steek. Both are things I’ve seen in real Icelandic Lopapeysas.
Yarn: I’m using Léttlopi because I have it and because I love it!
Palette: I think it will be 3 colors of red because I have enough of them in my stash. Two of the colors are really close … I’m going to swatch first. I have a favorite discontinued red I might use if I can find it, otherwise it’s going to be kind of a fade effect, which could be nice!
The colors kind of remind me of melted candle wax. Might not be a great visual for some but I find it kind of intriguing.
Somehow tomorrow is 2019 — which means the start of the Steekalong — so I’m here today to confess about the knitting projects that were spontaneously started and not finished this month. While Bob’s vest parts were blocking, and again when it was awaiting seaming and I had a flight to catch, I unintentionally cast on two more black stockinette projects. So this is also known as The Tale of the Black Blobs.
The first (upper one) is the evolution of the idea of knitting another dickey in the black Wookfolk Luft. Rather than simply knitting Grete again, I got inspired by the Flying Solo, plus a simple funnel shaped stockinette cowl I made and gave away the first year I was knitting, plus my neverending thoughts about dickey possibilities. And what I originally cast on has grown and changed and seems not done changing yet, so I’m not sure where it will wind up. Maybe it will be a garment before I’m done! But wow this yarn. I wasn’t sure I would like it and I don’t — I love it.
I took the first 8″ of it with me on my flight to Palm Springs for my birthday, only to realize I had brought everything but the yarn. Fortunately, I had brought a back-up knit: a Carbeth Cardigan to cast on. My hope, honestly, was that the cowl-dickey-whatever project would occupy me for the trip and I’d have packed the back-up unnecessarily. But as soon as I sat down on the plane, I discovered my mistake. So really, I had no choice!
If you’ve been reading, you know how much I’ve been debating with myself about the color and yarn for the Carbeth. I so loved Shannon’s off-black one, but I have a cropped black cardigan (but I’m forever on the fence about that one) and it would be so gorgeous in the toffee OUR Yarn, but then would I hate myself for not making it black? And if I made it black, what yarn? There’s the OUR Yarn in black, but for this particular garment, I wanted it less black. One night it struck me that I could hold something together with it, and that in fact I had enough black Pebble left from my striped sweater to do the job. So I knit a swatch and it’s lovely. The Pebble lends a bit of lightness and heatheriness, and I matched row gauge and am only slightly off on stitch gauge. So whether it’s defensible or not, it is now on my needles.
I’d hoped to finish one or both of them before the year came to a close, but my workload has not allowed for it — not to mention the difficulty of limited late night knitting time with three black stockinette projects to choose from! Needless to say, my Sólbein will not be black.
By the time the calendar blows over to January, I’ll have completed 19 knitting projects, which is a lot for me, but almost half of them were Log Cabin Mitts! When I came up with this pattern back in January — my contribution to last winter’s Fringe and Friends Logalong — it was one of those magical manifestations where you wonder where on earth it came from. I said at the time that they felt like the only truly creative thing I’d ever done, and I’m still so amazed at how beautifully the pattern worked out — and how fun it is to play with — that I have no intention of ceasing to knit them, even having finished 7 pairs this year: the originals (free pattern here), grey, black-and-white, toffee, black-and-blue, verb kit and indigo. (Grey and black-and-blue have been given to friends but will likely be replicated for the collection, which still feels like an art project in process.) The toffee pair live in my jacket pocket and are worn on the regular, but the black-and-white ones are my favorite rendition so far.
Then there’s another hat that’s never been blogged because it’s a pattern I’m supposed to be writing, plus my Hozkwoz hat from the Fringe Marlisle Knitalong. So a total of 6 hats. And of course the cable dickey I haven’t been able to shut up about either before or since knitting it.
And then there are the sweaters. Four ostensibly for me: the Sweatshirt vest, ivory aran-gansey, plum Anna Vest and blue Bellows Cardigan, which I don’t think I’m keeping. And the fifth, the final BO of the year, will be Bob’s vest. I’m just finishing up the bands and will write it up as soon as I’m done!
The dickey and matching toffee mitts are easily my most-worn, best-loved wardrobe additions this year, and the ivory Første hat is one of the most stunning things I’ve ever knitted. And in addition to the Log Cabin Mitts, I also designed a second mitts pattern this year: Cascara Mitts for Tolt’s anniversary collection. I can’t add them to my tally because I have only knitted 1 mitt for the sake of writing the pattern (plus two more partials for teaching purposes), but I love those mitts and will be making myself a completed pair in the future.
Log cabin and marlisle were both new techniques for me this year, as were the clever construction on the 1898 Hat and mosaic knitting, which was used for the unseen pattern-to-come hat. (Oh wait, there’s one more secret hat — a sample for someone else’s pattern that also involved a way-new technique!! Tell you more about that when I can. So that’s 7 hats, and 20 finished projects in total.) I also got to knit quite a few cables and did some experimenting with the earflap hat and the sweatshirt vest. And published two patterns I’m proud of. Not to mention finally getting the Anna Vest published as an individual download. Phew!
