January 21, 2010

New Pattern Out: Soft Linen Sideways Lace Vest

Ack! Published! No matter how many times I've done this, I still get a huge thrill out of seeing my designs in print. I feel very, very lucky. You can find the Soft Linen Sideways Lace Vest in Classic Elite's Farmer's Market (rav link).

The photo as it appears in Farmer's Market, copyright Classic Elite Yarns, 2009.

The Sideways Lace Vest is a brain-child of mine from spring of 2008, which was long-delayed due to pregnancy. I finished the proposal just before we left for Italy that year, and got a very nice call from Pam Allen late that July to let me know that Classic Elite would like me to design the piece for one of their Spring 2009 booklets. I was thrilled and began work on it the second that I received the yarn, but soon after that I found out that Griffin might make his appearance in the world significantly earlier than planned - about 6 weeks earlier. I was already finishing up two pieces for Kristi Porter's Knitting in the Sun book and trying to wrap up all my loose ends at work before starting maternity leave, and the thought of knitting the Sideways Lace Vest during the first few sleepless weeks of Griffin's life terrified me. I just couldn't see how it was all going to get done. So I called in a panic and Pam kindly agreed to put off publication until the Spring 2010 Booklets were released. I was able to work on the pattern at a leisurely pace and turn it in in August of last year. Now, nearly two years later, it is finally in print.

The original styling plan.
Still one of my favorites.I often hear designers say that the pieces they design don't turn out as they envisioned. For a long time I thought this wasn't the case for me, but now I realize that my pieces turn out as expected only because my ideas of what I want morph along the way to accommodate what the yarn and design techniques I have at the ready can do. So the Sideways Lace Vest started as a more fitted piece with a collar that stood up, but slowly worked its way into a much simpler construction with less tailoring and a "collar" that flows rather than stands. Some elements remained the same - the voluminous nature of the collar, the lace patterning, the sideways construction, and the rectangular buttons. But others had to change to make the pattern more accessible.

A bit ladylike.In its current iteration the piece is surprisingly easy to knit, which I prefer. There are things that look complex about it, but that is all a facade created by lace and styling. Anyone who can manage a yarnover and some decreases can make this vest. It is sized up to a 48.5" bust, and could pretty easily be re-sized up to 5X. I think it would look good on a variety of body shapes and sizes, as it has that kind of artsy-flowy thing going on, which flatters a lot of women. It can be made to hit at the waist or lengthened significantly by the simple addition of repeats, so the look is very flexible. By happy accident I figured out that it can be styled in a variety of ways. I've included photos of the six styles that I came up with, and I'm sure with some creative button-positioning you could come up with even more. I hope that people do. I love seeing the different versions of knits that people make on ravelry. It's always fun to see someone riff on your design and take it in a new direction.

Slightly different than the last,
but enough to make the difference for me.I would be remiss if I did not tell you about the Soft Linen yarn that I used to knit this design. In these days where everyone is pinching their pennies, it is even more important to buy yarns that we enjoy knitting and to support companies that sell quality products and support designers we want to see more of. Even before I designed for Classic Elite, I designed several pieces using their yarns: the Lush Hoodie from Greetings from Knit Cafe, using, not surprisingly, Lush; Mishka, a piece that I will someday self-publish (really!), in Premiere; and the Vernazza Sleep Set from Knitting in the Sun, in Cotton Bam Boo. I would endorse all of these yarns and work with them again. They are all beautiful examples of the fibers of which they are composed.

Surprisingly cute this way.The same can be said of Soft Linen. Its main characteristics are of the fiber for which it is named, and the strongest of those would be stitch definition and stability. Soft Linen holds its shape, but it also drapes nicely due to its alpaca content and is softened by the wool it contains. You will find Soft Linen to be similar to other linen yarns on the market, but with a gentler hand. It may still be challenging to work with for those who are sensitive to working with yarns less resilient than wool, but this is the nature of the fiber. Soft Linen becomes significantly softer after washing than it is out of the skein, and I find that it is more suitable to a wider range of projects than other linens for this reason. It isn't rough against the skin.

Artistically Asymmetrical.When I designed the Sideways Lace Vest, I had my choice of yarns to work with, and I chose Soft Linen and designed the piece around that choice, so you can be assured that it is the "right" yarn for the design. In many publications designers have to incorporate yarns chosen by an editor into an existing design. Sometimes that works well, and sometimes another yarn would be a better fit. Designers who contribute to Classic Elite have their choice of all the yarns for the upcoming season and build their designs around the yarn they choose. To me, this makes a huge difference, because I can feel confident that my designs are the best they can be. It is one of the reasons that I chose to submit to them. They have many yarns I have enjoyed working with, including Summer Set, which I used to design a little hat and sweater for Griffin that was featured in Issue 76 of their webletters (both free patterns - go get em!), and Kumara and Wool Bam Boo, which I used to design pieces in upcoming fall booklets.

School-marmy. I know someone
out there could carry it off.At this point I must sound like an infomercial, but you can rest assured that the company has never asked me to endorse them. I just feel that it is important to tell you about their yarns because they are of such wonderful quality and because they have pattern support from some really great designers, including Cecily Glowik MacDonald, Carrie Bostick Hoge, Kristen TenDyke, and Edna Hart, who you may not know as well (and you should - check out their work), and established knitting luminaries like Pam Allen (former creative director), Veronik Avery, Twinkle, Jil Eaton, Jared Flood, Kate Gilbert, Anne Hanson, and Kat Coyle (and the list goes on).

Well, I think that covers everything about the Sideways Lace Vest, Soft Linen, and Classic Elite that I have for the moment. I hope you enjoyed reading about the pattern. I am certainly happy to have it out in the world.

January 17, 2010

Alpine Shrug: Pattern Notes

Happy New Year! I was hoping to sneak in another design post in December, but no such luck. Knitting-wise, I spent the month finishing up several designs that will appear in Classic Elite booklets this year, and that kept me busy enough that knit-blogging just did not happen. I had a great time with the things I was finishing and I am now completely done with "contract" knitting, which always gives me a sense of satisfaction and relief. I am now "free" to go back to working on designs that I intend to self-publish. Hopefully the practice of meeting someone else's deadlines will push me in the direction of meeting my own deadlines. I am much worse at finishing things for myself than for others, but perhaps the discipline will rub off. One can always hope.

Playing with Griffin in Descanso Gardens, photo by Jillian. (And wearing the Alpine Shrug.)

The Alpine Shrug was a stealth knit. It surprised even me. I did not intend to make anything from a commercial pattern for myself for quite awhile -- especially given the knitting time constraints that I was under -- but the allure of a quick, beautiful knit that would not require any math on my part was just too strong after drafting one too many fair isle charts. For me, knits like this are a guilty pleasure akin to reading Cosmo or People Magazine on an airplane. (If you can justify reading those mags on a regular basis, more power to you. I just don't have the hutzpah to bring them into the house under the ever-watchful and judgmental eye of the Moxie.) I actually started this shrug over a year ago in a different yarn and abandoned it when I realized that the gauge was going to be too far off, and I didn't have the needles I needed to work the yarn doubled. I wasn't sure it was ever going to get made, to be honest. There are certain patterns that I love and covet but fail to make because they lack practicality or are of questionable wearability. I stalk these patterns and admire the knitters who seem to knit them exclusively, or at least predominantly, but I cannot seem to be that kind of knitter. I have an underlying streak of caution and frugality that prevents me from making many of the things that I would most like to, and knitting many of the more beautiful yarns in my stash. It's stupidity really -- a characteristic to explore in another post and then quickly shed. Anyway, the Alpine Shrug is exactly the kind of knit that runs against my boring streak. It was a pleasure to make and in the making it reminded me that I need to do more things that run against that boring streak. Life is simply too short to be foolishly, slavishly, needlessly self-depriving. It makes no sense. Carpe sweaterem! (Carpe Cosmoem?)

Flat, before seaming.Alpine Shrug (rav link), Rowan 42
designed by Sarah Hatton (rav link)
Knit with 3 skeins of Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande (rav link)
on size US11 (8.0 mm) Clover DPNs and US11 (8.0 mm) Clover straights.
Gauge: I did something on this knit that I never do - I didn't make a gauge swatch and I didn't ever check gauge against the pattern. I just knit and it worked - the second time.
Size: One, but this one size varies widely depending on who makes it. Mine is 22.5" x 22.5" unblocked, but the piece flares out substantially at the corners, so it measures 42" on the diagonal. If blocked I think it could easily grow 4" horizontally and vertically, but I have no intention of blocking it.

The Pattern:
This is a quick knit and a well-written pattern. It took me all of a week to knit it and considering that I was working, wrangling a toddler, and often going to bed at 8:30 out of sheer exhaustion, I think it is safe to say that someone with a little more dedicated knitting time could tackle it in a weekend. I love how it looks on. From the front it is pretty and a little understated, from the back it is dramatic. It spices up my usual uniform of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt perfectly. I have hardly taken it off since I finished it. I am not normally one to make sure that I am wearing the perfect knit at a knitting gathering or fiber festival, but for the Ravelry bash at Unwind this year I must say I felt quite chic in that knitterly way all dolled up in my Alpine Shrug.

More play with Griffin. The Dude hides, too.

This shrug has also made me re-think the sweater. I've spent six years living in the Southwest (after leaving the happily snowy locales of Chicago and Iowa), and I am just now coming to grips with the fact that a pullover might not always be the best choice for me. I am inherently a sweater girl, and a pullover, turtle or cowl neck girl at that, but here there is little need for a full-on sweater, especially not in an alpaca like the one I used for this shrug. We do have cold snaps and we regularly experience surprisingly chilly mornings and evenings, so shrugs and knitted accessories make a lot of sense. I have a sweater in my design queue and at least one in my commercial pattern queue, too, but other than that I think I am going to make more of an effort to turn out wraps, cowls, hats, mitts, etc. I get a lot of use out of those kinds of pieces. The utility of the Alpine Shrug combined with its beauty makes it a winner and a strong candidate for a high-use knit. I highly recommend the pattern.

Seaming Tips: Avoid seaming completely by knitting in the round and using yarnovers to increase between segments. If you knit the shrug flat, leave long tails at the beginning of each piece (I'd guess about 55", but your mileage may vary) and seam from the center out. You can mattress stitch back and forth between the loops created by the yrn's at the beginning of each row. This is easier to do in the leaf section of the shrug than it is in the garter ridge section. If you start from the middle you guarantee that any error introduced in the garter ridge area isn't propagated in the leaf area. As an added bonus, using the yarn tails means there will be fewer ends to weave in.

Before seaming again. Nine of these squares
together would be a gorgeous blanket.Modifications: I substituted yarns, and true to form I was obsessed with making the shrug with the 3 skeins of Baby Alpaca Grande that I had, no matter what I had to do to accomplish that. If the 3 skeins that I purchased had indeed all contained 100 grams of yarn, this would not have been a problem. However, they weighed in at 100 grams, 98 grams, and 96 grams. In most cases not a big deal, but here I would have run out of yarn if I had knit the shrug without modifications, so instead of knitting six garter ridges, I knit 5 and added an extra purl row to the last ridge. This made the shrug 3 rows smaller, which gave me all the leeway that I needed. The fit is a lot closer to the "fitted" versions of the shrug on ravelry, which I prefer, so the yardage shortage was serendipitous. That's not to say that I was happy about it. I always cut it very close with yarn amounts. The lesson learned here is that when I cut it close I need to weigh the skeins. In some cases the shortage would have spelled disaster.

Two views from the front. I particularly like the one where I look like a giant. In a good way.

Techniques: I would say that this shrug is an intermediate project. It feels easy because you knit on such big needles that it just flies by. But it also requires an understanding of lace, some slightly different seaming, and a working knowledge of the differences between yrn, yon, yfwd, etc. The British yo system is heavily employed here. I think that anyone familiar with lace and not afraid to look up a few terms would do fine with it. I would note that the first 5 or so rows on the needles look pretty sloppy. Don't lose heart - the piece gains stability as it grows.

Working With Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande (rav link): I substituted Baby Alpaca Grande for the Rowan Cocoon called for in the pattern. I would love to work with Cocoon at some point, but I'm devoted to knitting from stash as much as possible, and this yarn was a great substitute. I've worked with Baby Alpaca Grande before, when I knit Mary Heather's Reversible Cable scarf (soon to be re-released and one of my very favorite, most-worn knits), and really loved it. Baby AG is a two-ply super bulky yarn, with each of the plies spun woolen (as well as I can tell from my limited spinning experience). Because of this, I would expect it to pill with wear, but my scarf, which I have worn extensively over the last 3 years, has not pilled a single bit. This may be in part because the scarf is cabled, but I've worn the Alpine Shrug at least 6 times already and it does not show a bit of wear, either. The yarn is also incredibly soft despite its alpaca content. For quality, I would give it a 5 star rating. As I mentioned above, I was not too happy to find that the skeins were short on yardage, so it gets a little ding for that, but that would not prevent me from purchasing it again. As it is, I have 12 skeins of the lighter gray that I used for the reversible cable scarf in my stash, and I am considering dedicating about 6 of those to Iceland from Rowan 42 and then using the rest for my own design work. There is a part of me that wants to use all of it for Faeroe, also from Rowan 42, but I think that the Alpaca would cause it to sag a bit (not a problem on less voluminous pieces), and honestly, I have no real need for a piece like Faeroe. I suppose I could use it as a full body blanket in the winter or wear it in the jeep at night, but that really goes against all I have just written about accessories, doesn't it? We'll see. There is something so outlandish about Faeroe that I might have to make it just because it exists. We may end up living back east someday again anyway.

One more with the Dude. He's cute and the scenery is beautiful.

Finishing:I seamed from the center of the segments out, and I suggest that you do, too. I've tried it from the outside in and it's much more of a pain. See the blockquote above for tips. I didn't block this because it was already the size that I wanted and I like the texture as is. It isn't a garment that you wear next to your skin, so I doubt that it will ever need to be washed. If blocked, I'm sure the Alpaca would grow.

Special thanks to Jillian for making Descanso Gardens so much fun and taking so many wonderful photos there.

November 24, 2009

Finishing colorwork and moving on to lace

I've been happily finishing my Fair Isle design, which will be published by Classic Elite sometime next year. I feel like I was very lucky, because I got the design I envisioned with a minimal amount of swatching. (Not that I don't like swatching - I do! - it's just more time-consuming.) I chose my basic pattern by trying out about five pattern bands in different colors on the needles and then decided how to put them together relying exclusively on my excel spreadsheet. It boggles the mind how well a spreadsheet can approximate the real thing, but it can, and it did, and the result is both pleasing and time-saving. I'm sure not everyone is a spreadsheet fan, but I've gotten into quite a groove with it this fall, charting cables, color, and lace. It's added an entirely new element to my design process. Charting is such a discrete activity - there are clear starting and ending points - that it makes it much easier for me to parse out the work of pattern-writing in such a way that I am more efficient and more creative. I also know my own design more intimately when I reach the point of sample knitting, which opens up greater possibilities for departure. Before I often found myself wanting to tweak something after the knitting was done. Now I can tweak as I go. It's great fun. I highly recommend charting to anyone who dreams of designing, and I am once again going to tout the wonderful tutorials of my friend Marnie. All you need is microsoft excel and a little knowledge on how to set up spreadsheets to chart colowrok, cables, and lace. It's a fabulous tool.

One of the lace patterns in the Alpaca Sox. The pattern gets a little obscured, but I like the mossy texture the yarn brings to the lace.

So on to lace. Having played with color a bit, I decided to go in an entirely different direction and design a lace shawlette. My goal was to use a skein of Classic Elite's Alpaca Sox. It's in a lovely color called "Dress Gray" and has a very earthy feel to it. My only definitive design concept for this yarn is to find lace patterns that display that earthiness. I'm going for something that would be worn on a walk in the woods on a cold, misty day.

I've been pouring over stitch dictionaries and I have tried out five different lace patterns - four in Alpaca Sox and one in a pretty laceweight merino silk that I picked up while in Portland, Maine this fall. (I acquired the Alpaca Sox at that time, too, so maybe the Eastern Autumn crept into my subconsciousness.) I was a little concerned that the variegation of the Alpaca Sox would be too stark to read well, but I'm instead finding that it reads quite well, and the variegation adds depth and interest. It's really interesting to see how the different stitch patterns work. I've found that an open lace works best for a variegated yarn (or at least this variegated yarn), and for this particular yarn I'm drawn to patterns that undulate because of the way they display the variation in color. I'm planning to self-publish this pattern, so I'm free to share the details of the process as well as some photos, which is a nice little treat. One of the perks of self-publishing is that you have license to share as much as you like, and for me that is a great opportunity to re-connect with you, my knit-bloggy friends.

Words cannot express how little this photo does to capture the beauty of this lace. Just trust me. When I'm done I'll get photos in natural light.

In the process of swatching the Alpaca Sox, I've also fallen in love with the laceweight merino silk. I actually don't think that the two substitute for one another particularly well, and if I planned to use the pattern that I swatched in the merino silk for the Alpaca Sox shawlette, I would re-swatch it. But in working with the merino silk I've found that I am compelled to make two shawlettes, each very different in character. While the Alpaca Sox suggests the misty woods, the merino silk makes me think of a an open field somewhere in the midwest (most likely in Iowa, where I lived for a few years). I just can't resist the temptation to follow the stitch pattern in this lighter, almost flaxen yarn. The two are like yin and yang. It will be fun to work them simultaneously and experience how yarns of different fiber and color push my design choices in different directions while working within the same shawlette structure.