In one of the comments on my last post, Janet asked if I could direct her to some posts about the Selva Skirt. There is a category for it (look on the lower right hand part of the page), but there aren't many posts to be found, simply because the Selva Skirt pattern was created for publication in a magazine, and hence was unbloggable before publication.
Well, it's after publication now, and since at least one person is interested in how Selva came about, I thought I would provide a few details. I often look through stitch dictionaries for inspiration, and in this case, the skirt was absolutely inspired by the stitch pattern, Hearts of Oak from Barbara Walker's Fourth Treasury of Knitting Patterns. I thought the texture of this stitch pattern was fascinating, and after swatching, I thought its density would be perfect for a fitted knit skirt that would hide a few posterior, shall we say, imperfections. (Plus I hate wearing G-strings-- not required for Selva, ladies!) Also, as I recall (the themes that Interweave provided to designers for the Winter 2007 issue are no longer online), one of the suggested themes for that issue was tailored, fitted garments, which seemed perfect for Selva. Above is the wrong side of the swatch I sent off to Interweave Knits with my pattern submission, back in February '07; the photo is crap because it was an afterthought, taken with my cellphone camera in my car just before I put the submission materials in the mail.
While swatching, I also found that the Hearts of Oak chart has a number of errors. The most important part of the chart, the pattern repeat, is correct, but the outer edges of the chart are not. Always be aware that errors may be (and probably are) present in published charts and patterns!
In the case of this stitch pattern, I debated which side to use for the right side; both sides are really cool. One reason I decided to go with the "right" side was the waistband. As I was swatching, I had started to think about how I would do the waistband decreases, and had concluded two things: first, that working the decreases into the stitch pattern would require a better mind than mine, and second, switching to a less dense stitch pattern, like stockinette or ribbing or, well, just about anything, would mean losing that nice tight fabric just when it would be great to have a bit of a girdle effect, across the tummy and hips. So after examining both sides of the swatch, I decided that the V-shaped knit sections on the right side were just begging to be extended into long ribbons to form the waistband, and with some experimenting, I came up with what you see at the top of the above swatch: the ribbons include decreases and increases, and thus retain at least some of the density of the Hearts of Oak pattern.
Next: The evolution of Selva's design after she was accepted by Interweave Knits for their Winter 2008 issue.
