New Twist
I know I'm super late posting about this, but the winter issue of Twist is up. I have two patterns in it this time, Broderie and Garbo. I'm so excited to be a part of this new online magazine; it's such an honor to have my designs alongside the knits of the wonderful designers featured in this issue.
Broderie is a delicate lace cardigan with wide bands of leaf lace bordering the front edges and high waist. The lace band at the waist is knit first and then stitches are picked up above and below the band for the body. The rest of the cardigan is worked in an allover stitch called the wildflower knot, which I thought particularly appropriate given the leaf shapes traced out in the lace bands. I had a lot of fun knitting this. And because the body is knit in one piece and the sleeves are knit in the round up to the sleeve cap shaping, there's very little seaming and finishing to do at the end. The cardigan is closed with two buttons at the waistband. For fun and because I personally like getting a peek into the origins of a design, I'll post my original sketch for this cardigan with a few notes about the details scribbled out in the margin:
The other design, Garbo, turned out a little differently than I imagined. At first, I really wanted to make this cardigan with a lace or light fingering weight yarn. I wanted it to be in tweed, so I was thinking of Habu's Tsumugi Silk. The scarf part I intended to do in a single strand of the yarn and the body I wanted to do double (or maybe even triple) stranded. But Kate talked me down from my insanity, suggesting (very rightly) that a cardigan worked in a lace weight yarn would put off a lot of knitters. She suggested Fiddlestick's Luscious Tweed instead which is a heavy worsted/aran weight yarn. And I love the result. Luscious Tweed has a bit of silk in it and comes in gorgeous colors. It reminds me a bit of Jo Sharp's Silkroad Tweed, a yarn I love in the DK weight. The cardigan is cozy and I can't wait to get this one back after the Twist team is finished with it. The scarf is knitted directly onto the cardigan neck and is worked in the Roman stripe lace stitch, a reversible lace pattern that makes the scarf easy to wear - no worrying about keeping the "right side" facing the outside. A short repeat of the same stitch pattern borders the front edges and sleeve cuffs; and there is a bit of shaping to give the cardigan a nice fit. I'll also post my original sketch for Garbo below:
I don't know if it's obvious in the sketch or not, but another idea I had originally was to make the cardigan front border the same length as the scarf. I did knit this, but decided it looked weird. My husband, who has a more critical eye for these things, also agreed and so I ripped it out and redid the border and scarf.
By the way, thanks to those who responded to my last post. I don't usually like to bring politics into my blog, but I still can't believe California passed Prop 8. Love and functional families are already so difficult to come by, that I don't think the State should really have a say in what shape they come in. I can't believe, for example, that as recently as the 70s there were laws that prohibited interracial marriages. In another decade (and hopefully sooner), the idea that same sex marriages were banned will be as unfathomable to our children as the ban on interracial marriage seem to us today.
Broderie is a delicate lace cardigan with wide bands of leaf lace bordering the front edges and high waist. The lace band at the waist is knit first and then stitches are picked up above and below the band for the body. The rest of the cardigan is worked in an allover stitch called the wildflower knot, which I thought particularly appropriate given the leaf shapes traced out in the lace bands. I had a lot of fun knitting this. And because the body is knit in one piece and the sleeves are knit in the round up to the sleeve cap shaping, there's very little seaming and finishing to do at the end. The cardigan is closed with two buttons at the waistband. For fun and because I personally like getting a peek into the origins of a design, I'll post my original sketch for this cardigan with a few notes about the details scribbled out in the margin:
The other design, Garbo, turned out a little differently than I imagined. At first, I really wanted to make this cardigan with a lace or light fingering weight yarn. I wanted it to be in tweed, so I was thinking of Habu's Tsumugi Silk. The scarf part I intended to do in a single strand of the yarn and the body I wanted to do double (or maybe even triple) stranded. But Kate talked me down from my insanity, suggesting (very rightly) that a cardigan worked in a lace weight yarn would put off a lot of knitters. She suggested Fiddlestick's Luscious Tweed instead which is a heavy worsted/aran weight yarn. And I love the result. Luscious Tweed has a bit of silk in it and comes in gorgeous colors. It reminds me a bit of Jo Sharp's Silkroad Tweed, a yarn I love in the DK weight. The cardigan is cozy and I can't wait to get this one back after the Twist team is finished with it. The scarf is knitted directly onto the cardigan neck and is worked in the Roman stripe lace stitch, a reversible lace pattern that makes the scarf easy to wear - no worrying about keeping the "right side" facing the outside. A short repeat of the same stitch pattern borders the front edges and sleeve cuffs; and there is a bit of shaping to give the cardigan a nice fit. I'll also post my original sketch for Garbo below:
I don't know if it's obvious in the sketch or not, but another idea I had originally was to make the cardigan front border the same length as the scarf. I did knit this, but decided it looked weird. My husband, who has a more critical eye for these things, also agreed and so I ripped it out and redid the border and scarf.
By the way, thanks to those who responded to my last post. I don't usually like to bring politics into my blog, but I still can't believe California passed Prop 8. Love and functional families are already so difficult to come by, that I don't think the State should really have a say in what shape they come in. I can't believe, for example, that as recently as the 70s there were laws that prohibited interracial marriages. In another decade (and hopefully sooner), the idea that same sex marriages were banned will be as unfathomable to our children as the ban on interracial marriage seem to us today.
posted by Connie at 10:01 AM
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