Design process

I think that I just may have developed one of the worlds least efficient work methods. Some very clever designers are able to conceptualize a design in their minds, do a bit of swatching, write out a pattern and then have a sample knitter knit it up for them. In very rare cases I think that I might be able to pull that off, but more often then not I design a piece by knitting the entire thing myself... twice! So often I have an idea in my head and then as I'm working on it things change. By having the knit in my hands and working the stitches myself I start off in one direction and then the knit kind of takes me where it wants to go. For me, this system definitely works since every time the design that I end up with is much better than the one that I started off trying to accomplish. 

The fact that I knit my own designs is not what makes me an inefficient designer, the fact that I knit most of them twice is! That photo above shows a section of a sweater in progress. The sweater is now complete, ends woven in, blocked and in fact I'm wearing it as I type and I'm super happy to say that I LOVE how it turned out. The thing is, I've explored a few new techniques in this piece and the whole time I was working on it I questioned wether it would work out or not. As I was working on it I knew right away that there were a few things that I wish I had done differently, but because in the back of my mind I worried that this whole piece was going to get scratched anyway I didn't bother changing them and instead worked my way through the entire garment keeping notes about what I should have done differently. 

Don't get me wrong, this prototype is pretty rad, the little things that I want to change aren't deal breakers and probably won't even be that noticeable in the end. But they will make the pattern better so it's worth it. 

So now I'm sporting my prototype and tonight I'll dream up an alternate colour scheme to knit my final version in. The one that will be just perfect! I'm excited to share it with you all, but I've obviously got a few tweaks to make before it's ready for prime time. 

Speaking of making a few tweaks, I am in the final stages of a pretty major website overhaul! The website and blog will all be getting a brand new look and will look better, work better and overall just BE BETTER! That's the hope at least. I'm just giving you all a heads up that I plan on getting pretty serious about it this weekend and into early next week, so if anything looks weird or different in the next couple of days, bear with me! 

Reverb

I have something very exciting to share with you all today. Last fall I was secretly working on a design and it has officially been released: Reverb for Brooklyn Tweed's Wool People 5! Here it is on Ravelry. Most of my design work has been self published, using my own yarns, a process which I find very rewarding. It was really neat, however, to do something different and get to work with the Brooklyn Tweed team and the beautiful Shelter yarn for this design. It forced me to branch out of my comfort zone and stretch my design muscles. I feel so lucky to have been included in this awesome publication! 

photo by Jared Flood for Brooklyn Tweed

Of course, another real bonus was getting to see one of my own garments expertly photographed by Jared himself. His images are always so stunning, check out the beautiful gold Hayloft colourway against the models red hair. perfection! Before sending my sweater off we snapped a few photos ourselves. I was a few months pregnant in these shots, so the sweater didn't quite fit the way it was intended to. 

I really love the rich texture that the Shelter yarn lends to the knit fabric. Those beautiful tweedy, heathered colourways look so great worked up in cables, they really pop! I decided to keep it crisp and clean for this sweater, a straight, linear design. I'm really happy with the finished product and will be wearing this sweater a lot in the fall. 

Now the big question, what colour of TFA yarn do I knit a second version in?

French Braid Cardigan Pattern

My French Braid Cardigan pattern is now available and I could not be more excited about it! As far as pattern writing goes, I stayed the course with this one and managed to knock it out in much less time than it usually takes me. I had a very clear vision of what I wanted this cardigan to be right off the bat, when it wasn't working out just right, I ripped and re-knit until I got it! I'm very pleased with it and have been wearing it a lot ever since I cast off. 

If you ask me, spring time is actually the perfect season to knit yourself a lovely layering piece like this because since the weather is starting to warm up you don't have to cover up all your gorgeous hand knits with a big winter coat! I've been wearing mine instead of a jacket lately and it feels so good to shed that heavy winter layer. 

This sweater is knit from the top down in one piece with almost no finishing required. The swooping cable panel that runs around the neck and down the fronts adds a really flattering line to an other wise casually fitting sweater. This sweater definitely earns it's name with the french braid cable detailing down the front, on the sleeves and down the back. I knit this sample in my new Frost colourway and am crazy for it! 

$6.00

Details: 

Size: 30 (34, 38, 42, 46, 50, 54, 58)”

Yarn: 6 (6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) skeins Tanis Fiber Arts Green Label Aran Weight yarn 115g (4oz) = 187m (205yds) sample shown in Frost.

Needles: 5mm (US 8) 24” (or longer) circular 

              5mm (US8) dpns 

              or size needed to obtain gauge.

Gauge: 18 sts and 25 rows in 4” in stockinette stitch.

Additional Tools and Materials: Stitch markers in 2 different colours (4 colour A and 6 colour B), waste yarn or stitch holders, tapestry needle, crochet hook.

Ravelry Pattern Page here.

More details on my website here. 

Process

I'm working away at several designs at the moment. It's funny to look back and see the shift that has occurred in my knitting life. When I think of knitting now it's completely intertwined with designing. It wasn't always that way for me, but over the past year I've noticed a subtle shift. When I feel like casting on for something new, it's rarely a new pattern that I've found online, but rather a new design idea that I've had floating around in my head and can't wait to work out with yarn and needles. I learn a lot about my design aesthetic and my design methods with each new piece I work on. One thing that I know for sure is that for me, knitting is definitely part of my design process. It may seem obvious, but its not the case for everyone. Some people can visualize the pattern, do some swatching, write it all out and send it off to a test knitter. I admire that skill in the pro's, but I'm not there yet. I try to work out as much of the pattern as I can before casting on so I can try and pin point potential trouble spots before I get to them, but I find that I still have to actually knit the thing that I'm designing myself in order to iron out all the wrinkles. 

One of the patterns I recently completed is a shawl. Since shawls can be rather complicated with lace edgings that have to be worked on a multiple of a fixed amount of stitches, and that triangular shape requires lots of increases that need to be incorporated beautifully into the motifs, I have found that the best way for me to work it out is by knitting a mini shawl! (See a sneak peek of the shawl in this post.) It's proved invaluable to me lately. In a night or two I can knit a mini version of my final pattern. In my mini version I can experiment with different increases and stitch patterns, if things don't look the way they should it doesn't matter since I'll only have a few dozen stitches to rip out (rather than the few hundred that I might have to rip if I were "working things out" on a large shawl!) 

After knitting my mini-shawl I cast on for the larger, final version and it knit up without a hitch!

So far, this system really works for me. For me, it doesn't translate into garment design as I find that I really have to try things on as I go when I'm working on a sweater, but for a shawl, I'm loving the mini prototype approach.