The Sweater: After Party from Laine Magazine.  I was totally smitten with a version that the gals over at Wool and Honey posted on Instagram and I had just the stash to knit it from!!

The Yarn: The main yarn in Berroco Quechua, a 60% merino, 20% Yak 20% Alpaca. The contrast is Queensland Collection Perth, an 80% wool 20% nylon color changing two ply yarn. It is the bees knees when it comes to color changing yarns. It clocks in a 437 yards in a 100g fingering weight cake and it regularly sells for $13 in local yarn stores.

The Designer: Astrid Troland –  This is my first time knitting one of her patterns. This particular piece was featured in Laine Magazine, Issue 6.

The Details: Was this my last finish of 2018, or my first finish of 2019 – I can’t remember. I didn’t change a single thing about this project. I knit it exactly as written and love it just the way it is. It is more close fitting than many of my regular wear sweaters, so I layer it with only a long sleeve t-shirt. It is perfect for warmer winter days that don’t require a flannel button down under a heavy wool sweater.

As far as wear goes like my Throwback Sweater, this made from a  very soft wool blend. I wore it a few times and was totally pleased, but it is certainly a special occasion sweater. I would consider going back and knitting this again in a more sturdy yarn so it could be in regular circulation.

The Sweater: The Throwback, a graphic and fun light worsted weight sweater originally designed as a cardigan… and not written to be steeked. Insert annoyed face.

The Yarn:  A fun combination of left over bits and bobs of Spincycle Dream State, a 100% domestic wool paired with Stonehenge Fiber Mill Sheperd’s Wool, a 100% merino.

The Designer: Andrea Mowery, a veritable powerhouse of creativity and personality. Andrea writes patterns that click with my brain. That is why I keep knitting them.  They are always fun, straight forward and always brilliantly fashionable.

The Details: Where to begin? How about at the neck?  This sweater was designed as a knit flat cardigan with not only stranded color work, but three colors used in several different rows around the yoke. (head in hand)

I started out by knitting in the round. I removed any stitches that would have been selvage stitches intended to anchor the front  bands in the cardigan version.I also  changed the beginning of the round to the back of the neck. This was only really imperative in making sure the neck shaping was on the back of the sweater and that the color work rounds started and stopped on the back of the sweater. I opted to work three color rounds twice for each round so that I could a) only work with two colors at a time slipping the third color stitches.  I went back and worked them slipping colors one and two and b) manage my floats better. I knew from knitting the cardigan in October of 2018 that this was something I needed to be prepared for. Once the yoke was finished it was straight on ’til sunset so to speak.  I knit the body in the round finishing with the hem band as directed. There were no changes to the sleeve.

Overall, I love this sweater.  I don’t wear it as much as I would something made from a more hardy wool because Merino while amazingly soft will pill like nobodies business. I would rather wear this sweater on a special occasion and have it for a very very long time.

 

The Sweater: Bezel 

The Yarns: Katia Cotton Merino is a worsted weight 70% cotton 30% Merino wool blend. Each 50g ball is 115 yards. Cotton merino is a tubular or caged yarn and this construction gives the yarn a light weight while still being plump and knits to a fairly large gauge. The cotton is the tubular structure of the yarn and the wool fiber is blown through. The dyed wool gives the yarn a halo that contrasts with the color of the cotton.
I chose color number 104, my all time favorite shade of coffee.  This neutral will be a staple in my closet for years to come.

The Designer: Nell Ziroli, of Nellknits.
Nell is one of the best designers.  Her designs are thoughtful and beautiful. Her patterns pay very close attention to detail and her reasoning behind knitting techniques always results in the very best possible fit and finished product.

In addition to design Nell has so much talent for knitting and instruction. She has been a huge influence to my own personal journey. She coached me through projects, shop ownership, design questions and even rocky parts of life. I am lucky to count her among my personal friends.

The Details:

In early October I was in a knitting slump and Nell offered up a new design for testing. At an Aran Gauge and with yarn I had in stash I was ready to jump in for a fast sweater, and all in time for The New York Sheep and Wool festival in Rhinebeck.

Bezel features beautiful feminine details, a delicate neck edge, subtle eyelet formed shaping in the yoke. And this is all just the set up for the main event- a beautiful Bezel style lace band around the hem. The beautiful cascading diamond shapes in the lace and cable combination give the illusion of cut stones.

The design also features bracelet length sleeves and a slightly cropped body length. These details are intended to make Bezel easy to style with both pants and over your favorite dress.

 

The Sweater:  My Tecumseh knit in Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool is a show stopper. It is absolutely one of my top three most worn sweaters of 2019.

The Yarn: Silky wool is a long time favorite of the knitting world. The yarn alone boasts 20,404 projects on Ravelry. That is HUGE!!! Silky wool clocks in as a light DK weigh 191 yards in a 50g skein of 45% wool, 35% silk and 20% nylon. It has a rustic silk hand with beautiful tweedy flecks. The silk takes the dye so much more richly and that really adds to the depth of color in this yarn.

The Designer: Caitlin Hunter of Boyland Knitworks is the designer of Tecumseh.  I have tons of respect for her and have enjoyed test knitting for from the very beginning of her career.  The amount of hustle and passion that Caitlin puts into her work is amazing. She has a background in fashion and has lived in some pretty interesting places and channels all of that into her work. I think it is what sets her apart in the field of knitwear design. You can learn more about her on her website and read her mission statement.

The Details: While the Tecumseh is knit with lots of positive ease (meaning it is designed to be worn bigger than your body size) I wanted it to fit more traditionally.  The only modifications I made were knitting closer to my bust size ( 42″) and I moved the arm separation up one repeat of the color work. This allowed me to have less underarm fabric, my biggest pet peeve.  And it created a sweater shape versus a swatch/ poncho shape, which I do not care for on my body type.

 

Every year I get so inspired to work on holiday projects, always in December… and always with the goal to be festive. Finishing small things gives me great joy, but they all tend to go away as gifts and treasures for family and friends. Last year I realized the joy in knitting something bigger, and being okay with it not being complete until the new year.

This Fall I had the privilege of knitting holiday patterns in September for publication in October partnering with Knitting Fever and a few of the new yarns from Queensland Collection. I designed a few Holiday Stockings in Drover, a 330 yard light worsted weight yarn  made up of 50% Merino Lambswool, 25% silk  burette and 25% Polyamide. Drover has a smooth hand and contrasting color tweed fleck making the fabric both durable and interesting. This yarn is great for color work as well as textured projects. It is sure to be a work horse in the Queensland line.

While working with Drover I was drawn to both the simplicity of stripes and the complexity of color work. Watching the rustic colors play off one another on my needles  and in the fabric that developed was a dream.  I ended up with three designs this season, one of which is here for you to enjoy for your own knitting right away.

The striped stocking is whimsical and fun. The clever stripe repeat is beautiful knit in the five colors shown, but could be equally stunning in only two colors.  The fun in handmade holiday decor is that you are 100% in control. Make it just to suit your style.

My holiday gift to you is the knitting pattern for the striped stocking. Drover Stripe Stocking – Just download your very own copy and enjoy knitting!

Special thank to Anna, my sample knitter who worked very closely with me on the stripe stocking.

The other two designs are more traditional color work Christmas Stockings  modeled after holiday stocking I knit for my own family. They feature seasonal design elements as well as elements derived from traditional weaving patterns.   They are a available for purchase on Ravelry  from Knitting Fever as well as in paper copy from your local yarn shop.

Sometimes some pieces in your wardrobe stand out more than others.  This is the story of one of those pieces, my all time favorite Liberty of London Wicksten  Tova.

In 2013, many moons ago I was designing my second sweater to wear to my very first New York Sheep and Wool Festival.  It was all star eyes and love and absolutely amazing for me. I was knitting be best possible sweater and I was going to have the best possible hand made top to wear with it.  The Wicksten Tova was a popular  sewing pattern at that time, and I had sewn a few with other fabrics from The Crooked Stitch.  For this festive and maker-centric occasion I needed something extra. I needed Liberty.

I promptly procured from some unrememberable online retailer enough Liberty Tana Lawn to make my extra special top. And some more. And a one more 3 yarn piece just to make sure I had exactly what I needed.  It must have been on sale, because I certainly would not have spent $300 in one go on fabric at that point. At least not for my own sewing… I did own a shop that was chalk full of fabric. Just not Liberty.

I stitched up a trusty top in my all time favorite print from Liberty, Betsy and with all the luck in the world version D had the perfect green color leaves to coordinate with my sagey green Swans Island Merino sweater.

I wore it proudly to Rhinebeck, and then dozens of other times with my trusty Elm sweater (which I have yet to publish). I had professional pictures taken. I had the best of intentions for the whole outfit.

The soft merino of the sweater became worn in and loved, it stretched and eventually became an at home only garment. All the while the  Luxurious Liberty Of London Tana lawn top stuck with me. I had worn it three times a month easily for as long as I can remember until the faitful day in 2017 a very exuberant and very large Goldendoodle caught it with his pointy tooth.  Much to my chagrin he had torn a neat little corner out of the sleeve.

I promptly shared the sad news on Instagram, and went on with how to mend this beloved shirt.  Honestly, I had enough fabric left to replace the whole sleeve. Problem solved. Then I started thinking about how I could neatly stitch a small patch. And that would allow me to continue hoarding the remaining yard of fabric, as well as the other two prints that I was marinating in my stash. Well, I guess it wasn’t a top priority and the sadness of the event left the favorite languishing in the back of my closet until last week.

I pulled out my favorite top to throw on with my favorite grey sweater, realizing that it still had a hole in the sleeve. D’ough! Maybe I really should get on that. After lots of compliments from my lovely husband and making the realization that it wasn’t the hole stopping me from wearing the top, but the 3/4 length sleeves!!! They felt bunchy under the sweater and since sweaters are an essential part of the uniform, I needed to **FINALLY** fix the sleeve. I removed the sleeves, with plans to add the salvageable fabric to the doll clothes/ scrap quilt bin.  I pulled out the trusty  pattern and went stash diving to find the remaining fabric.  I added 6″ of length to the sleeve pattern piece and opted for an elastic cuff, giving a new detail to an old favorite.

I couldn’t be more happy with the outcome. Saving a favorite piece that had been briefly forgotten feels like finding buried treasure. Since I had no recollection  of the other Liberty Prints I had on hand, I went ahead and cut out and stitched a second Wicksten Tova Top in the Wiltshire Berries print. The pinks and Cinnamon reds have me just itching to make a new red sweater to go along with this soon to be treasured favorite.

 

The Stonecrop Sweater has been one of my favorite makes of 2019.  I cast on the cardigan as soon as it was published. The design elements spoke to two of my loudest knit-loving voices; stranded color work and color changing yarn.

The pattern has a few things that I absolutely love. It is easy to work from. It is not overly verbose. It is written for an inclusive number of sizes and it looks good!!! And I had just the things to use; EYB Tenderfoot, a new machine washable yarn with 75% Merino lambswool and 25% nylon in a fingering weight and a few skeins of SpinCycle Dyed in the Wool a 100% Domestic Wool sock weight yarn.

The pattern also has a few things I don’t always love the outcome on.  Firstly, circular yoke sweaters increase at the same rate all the way around. If you were to look at my body from a birds eye view, I am not a cylinder. I am more rectangular, with boobs on my front half.  This means anything cone shaped (which a regular increasing circular yoke is) without planned negative ease is going to be too big. Especially at the under arm.  This is my personal pet peeve. With some designs it is easy to accommodate for, but with something charted and something with very slim sleeves it is harder to change without knitting it first. Secondly, there are no stabilizing elements in this sweater.  The neck band in knit in line with the sweater, so no stabilizing picked up stitches at the neck. There are no seams to provide support.  Third, bobbles. All I could imagine is that I would end up with a bobble  centered on the aforemention boobs and look inappropriate.

I like to stay true to a pattern the first time I knit it so I can know where and how to make changed. Bearing that in mind,  here are the accommodations I made to have the best possible result for me.

1. I knit my neck band flat. That way when I cut the steel in the finishing of the sweater  I don’t have loose ends right up to the neck of the sweater.

2. I knit much smaller bobbles.  In the stitch specifying the  bobble, I ( k,yo, k, then k the 3 loops together through the back) this resulted in a little knotty slub type bobble that stays in line with the structure of the surrounding cable.

3. I steam blocked to make sure things were behaving: Floats, cable texture, length and so on. I do this on most projects so I am never surprised when I get to the end of the knitting.  I also tried on the sweater as I went… Those pictures are on Instagram @adventureswithwhitney

4. I knit the hem band flat as well. Same reason as the neck band. I do like a tidy finish.

5. I used a sewn steek. I used a washable yarn for both colors in this sweater and after all that knitting I wanted things to be tidy and secure.

6. The Steek… Just because it is fun to see!

7. A pullover becomes a cardigan.

8. Facing the raw edge. I used a twill tape and was careful to not stretch my knitting while tacking the tape with thread to the picked up button band and the purl bumps of the sweater fabric.

9. The finished Stonecrop.  While I was absolutely in love, I felt like the neck was sagging and that the under arms were long. I spent about a month planning what to do next while wearing my sweater. (Step one of this process was to promptly cast on a second because it was so much fun to knit.)

10. Ultimately I used a single crochet chain in the first row of purl bumps on the inside of my sweater to tighten up the neckline. I was careful to not pull too much to prevent the fabric from gathering. I also added one more repeat of zigzag to the sleeves and made my cuffs 4″ long, knitting with a 3 sizes smaller needle because I did not decrease rapidly enough on the sleeves.  This anchors the sleeves at the wrist and I am much happier now with my finished sweater.

I break the conversation surrounding the Sweater Round up to bring you a little bit of Holiday Inspiration.

I always pick up my needles and knit for the holidays. Always and only in December…usually small things like ornaments and hats. Always thing specifically for gifts and decoration. The exception happen this year when I had the pleasure  of designing in September and publishing in October some holiday knits! I created a few patterns in partnership with Knitting Fever featuring some of the latest  yarns from the Queensland Collection.

Walkabout is a 100% Organic Shetland wool 4 ply yarn in a sport weight. It is put up in 50g pull skeins with 157 yard making it perfect from multi color or small projects. Walkabout is not only lovely heather colors,  it is healthfully raised and priced well around $8 in most local yarn shops.  It comes in 24 colors ranging from naturals and earth tones to floral brights. It is a true Shetland, perfect for color work and has good body for making a nice dense fabric.

 

First up are some super sweet Mini Mittens.  I have been knitting Mini Mittens for my tree for a long time.  In years past I have used them to decorate garland. I have knit them in every weight yarn from fingering weight to aran. I keep a stash of 100% wool in a special bag with needles so I can knit them on the go all season long. I tend to knit way more than I get to keep because they are the perfect holder for a gift card or the perfect tie on for a gift tag. Adding a small handmade ornament elevates the most boring bag of Scout Popcorn making it a much more lovely ( in my opinion) gift.

And if you have tiny mittens you certainly need tiny stockings. Not only are they absolutely adorable, this is the perfect way to learn all the skills necessary to knit any size sock.  And perhaps prepare you for knitting even bigger holiday decorations!!

The patterns for the Mini Mittens and Mini Socking are available through Knitting Fever on Ravelry.  Even better the paper copies are available in Local Yarn shops for your happiest of holiday knitting.

 

I love a classic sweater. Something that can be worn with everything and in an Aran weight yarn. The Trail Jacket fits the bill: classic styling, easy to knit, and supremely  functional. I made one and as I recall it was a process like many other handmade garments.   I went searching back through the Instagram worm hole to see if I could locate the origins of this particular sweater.

The Cascade Eco + was circa The Crooked Stitch – the first yarn shop I owned back in Virginia.  I have alway loved this wool, as it is first and foremost 100% Peruvian Highland Wool.  It comes in huge 200G skeins and at the time it was so affordable.

The first attempt at knitting this yarn into a wearable garment was this Salish jacket named Takoma from Knitty. It was stranded, but not worked in the round.  In 2011 or 2012 in my guestimation there is no way I was a seasoned enough knitter to tackle this project.  I sure did try and made it through a good portion, but it just never was at the top of my priority list for finishing.

It was eventually ripped out and became 3 other sweaters in one way or another – which leads us to the Trail Jacket. Way back in 2015, during my annual #julyisforfinishing I finally checked the Trail Jacket by Hannah Fetig off my to do list.  It was lovely and was displayed proudly in The New River Fiber Co. ( my second yarn shop)  for a long time.  It was, as finished and at that time too cropped for my overly busty and very round shape.

It was pulled back out of hiding last fall (2018), after I lost 60lbs and I was instantly so glad to have this piece in my closet.  I wore it several times last year noting only one thing that I found regularly annoying… the 3/4 length sleeves.  (This is a persistent problem and will be a theme in many many more posts.) I am not a lover of a short sleeve. I find that 3/4 length bunches at my elbow, and because of the inherent stretch ends up bell shaped and unpleasant to wear.   I prefer a bracelet length sleeve, so I can show off the cuff of my button down shirts.  That fact paired with moving out west, enjoying winters with snow and no humidity make long sleeves absolutely essential.

So one evening – I pulled out the sweater and was actually able to lay my hands on the left over yarn. I pulled off the cuff and added a grand total of 8″ to each sleeve.  It took approximately 1 evening of bed time TV viewing. An now, even 7 years later I have what feels like a brand new sweater.

I love this sweater pattern! It checks all the boxes for me: feminine flower-like detail, color work and endlessly fun to play with color. I have knit it twice, once for Jane and now once for Emaleigh. And yes, I have had yarn in my stash set aside from a fun shopping trip at Haus of Yarn in Nashville, Tn for an adult sized Sunset Highway for YEARS now… I digress.

The first Sunset was knit for Jane, and she was very instrumental in picking her colors.  It features a handpainted skein that I dyed at a Studio Dye Day with Unplanned Peacock Studio back when I lived in Virginia. The other skeins where assorted stash skeins from Blue Moon, Malibrigo and Spun Right Round.  It is and bright and cheerful combination that was worn so long on the playground that the bright Arizona sun faded the dyes.  I have only newly finished object pictures to share, but one of these days I will dig out the sweater in its current state and share how much it has been loved! I made no modifications to the first sweater.

The second Sunset was knit for Emaleigh, and she wanted it to look just like the one in the picture on the pattern. For a kid who spends her days in creative pursuit of refashioning dolls, and making new houses for all her Maileg mice – she sure did not want to stretch for this project at all. This is my biggest struggle with knitting for my girls.  They want sweaters, and they want to shop Ravely for patterns. If the pattern is not knit exactly in the color they have there eyes on – it never sticks!!

Emaleigh did decide that short sleeves would be better, and I completely agree. I had a grand idea that we would all have Sunset Highway sweaters to wear for Easter… but Emaleigh was the only one with a new one… much less one that could be found and worn.

The short sleeve modification was very easy on this sweater.  I picked up the held stitches from the arms, and knit 5 rounds. On the first round I decreased on either side of the body stitches at the underarm to neaten up the arm hole.  I then made sure my stitch count was divisible by 4 and went on to 2×2 rib ( Knit 2, Purl 2) for 10 rounds. I bound off in pattern to keep an reasonably elastic edge for the arm and repeated for the second sleeve.

I think the results were great and with a little prompting, the sweater even gets worn!!