Knititude

Cabled Sampler Cowl (and a class on cable knitting for novice knitters!)

 

By definition, a novice knitter has learned a limited number of knitting skills, which also limits the variety of suitable knitting projects. So it can be tricky to find patterns that help a novice knitter to learn new skills, yet are easy enough that knitting progress isn't frustratingly slow.

The Craft Yarn Council has published definitions of different levels of pattern difficulty, designed to help knitters choose projects that are appropriate for their skill level. According to the Craft Yarn Council's definitions, an Easy level knitting project uses basic stitches, repetitive stitch patterns, simple color changes, and simple shaping and finishing. Basic cables and lace, simple intarsia, knitting in the round, and mid-level shaping and finishing are all defined as Intermediate level skills, and short rows and more complicated lace, cable or fair isle stitch patterns are defined as skills that belong in Experienced-level patterns.

By these definitions, most of my patterns are either Intermediate or Experienced difficulty: they usually include a cable, lace or texture stitch pattern, they are often worked in the round, and they often include short rows.

While I think the CYC's definitions are very helpful, I feel that a simple lace or cable stitch pattern can fall under the "repetitive stitch pattern" classification. In addition, many simple cable or lace stitch patterns look much harder to work than they really are-- which is always a nice boost to the confidence of a novice knitter. I also feel that knitting in the round on a circular needle can be easier (and faster) in some ways than knitting flat: the right side (as opposed to the wrong side, not the left side) of your work is always facing you, which means that Stockinette stitch is worked by knitting every stitch, rather than alternating rows of knit and purl. It also makes it much easier to keep your place if working a texture, cable, lace or fair isle stitch pattern, and it decreases the amount of seaming required when finishing a project.

So while I've recently been trying to create more Easy level projects, I haven't avoided simple cable, lace, or texture stitch patterns, nor working in the round; to me, including these has the important advantage of making projects more fun to knit. 

Some of these Easy level designs will be coming out in a book of patterns that I recently completed; it isn't scheduled to be released until spring of 2018, but working on these got me thinking about how to hit that sweet spot of interesting enough/easy enough to keep knitters going! So when Skillshare.com approached me about doing a video knitting class on their website, I quickly decided that I wanted to teach classes that would help novice knitters learn new skills, thus expanding their project choices from Easy to Intermediate level patterns. And that is why I'm calling these classes "Next-Level Knitting."

My first class teaches cable knitting, using the Cabled Sampler Cowl* (photos) as the class project. I teach knitters how to do simple cable crosses, and also review a few other basic skills: the long-tail cast-on, working in the round, seed stitch, and binding off. Use this link to find out more; the first 25 users can also try the class for free!

*Last photo shows the "wrong side' of the cowl, which is also very attractive. Already know how to knit cables, or want to give this project a shot on your own? The Cabled Sampler Cowl pattern is also available as a free PDF download.

Happy Chinese New Year!

A few weeks ago I finally finished my Year of the Monkey design, the Shadow Monkey Hat-- just in time for the end of the year. Now that we've entered the Year of the Rooster, I've started thinking about what to create for this year's design. For me it will do double duty as a nod to my last name, Hahn, which means rooster in German.  

Although I've done several stranded designs in past years (Sheep, Horse and Rabbit), I try to mix it up a bit, doing lace one year (Year of the Dragon) and cables another (Year of the Snake), and I've tried not to simply translate a picture of the animal into knitting every time. For the Sheep/Goat/Ram project I did a fairly abstract representation of a ram's head, made into a border; for the Horse project I used the Chinese character for horse. For the Shadow Monkey Hat, I tried several different motifs before choosing the one I derived from the "Barrel of Monkeys" game, even though it didn't look like the monkeys usually depicted in artwork celebrating the Year of the Monkey. (Nor did I use the bright primary colors found in the game, preferring the slightly sinister effect of dark monkeys marching in rank...I suppose you could add wings if you really wanted to get scary.)

So I'm thinking about doing something more abstract for the Year of the Rooster; whenever I look at rooster photos, I find myself focusing on the gorgeous iridescent feathers. This led me to wonder whether there was an iridescent yarn, or a variegated yarn that imitated that effect, that I could use in my design. In just a few minutes of Googling, I found Tahki Tandem yarn (above), which is a blend of different fibers and has an iridescent sheen, and Manos del Uruguay Wool Clasica Space Dyed (below), which is 100% worsted wool.

So now I'll have to think further about how I could incorporate an iridescent-effect yarn into a rooster-themed knitting pattern. Fun, fun!

(Top photo found here.)

 

Truro Hat

Now available on both Ravelry and Loveknitting: the Truro Hat pattern! Like the Wellfleet Hat, it uses an innovative new cable from Norah Gaughan's Knitted Cable Sourcebook, AND it looks great from the "wrong" side (see the 3rd and 4th photos), making it effectively reversible. Instead of a pompom, I decided to add a fun tassel to the crown of this hat. 

The yarn I used, Cascade Yarns Boliviana Bulky, is a Super Bulky weight yarn, with label gauge of 2 to 2 1/2 stitches per inch in stockinette stitch, and recommended needle sizes are US 13 (9 mm) to US 17 (12 mm)! So if you are looking for something you can work up in an evening or two, the Truro Hat would be a great choice. You cast on only 68 stitches for the adult size, so I had to find a relatively small cable stitch pattern. Even though it's a smaller repeat than the cable I used in the Wellfleet Hat, it's a bit tricker to work, because you have to move the cable needle from front to back (or vice versa) in the middle of working the cable cross. 

The circular needle length I recommend for hats is 20 inches (50 cm), which I've recently realized is quite hard to find (thank you Paradise Fibers for carrying them!). Most knitting stores jump from 16-inch to 24-inch-long needles, but 24 inches is really too long to do most hats, and I find the needles on the 16-inch-long ones awkward to use because they're so short.

As a bonus I've included detailed instructions on how to do a felted join (otherwise known as "spit-splicing"). If you are using a non-superwash wool or other animal-origin yarn, this is a great way to invisibly join new balls of yarn, and decrease the number of ends you have to weave in when you're done.

I really love the way the three-dimensionality of a simple cable is enhanced in such a thick yarn. The "right" side of the fabric reminds me of snow-covered tree branches.

 

The towns of Truro* and North Truro are right next to Wellfleet, on Cape Cod; if you visit, be sure to see the Highland Light. It's the oldest lighthouse on Cape Cod, is still in active use, and was moved 450 feet west in 1996 to keep it beach erosion from causing it to fall into the ocean! (Photo below: John Burk)

*I was informed by a knitter who saw this pattern on Ravelry that there is also a Truro in Nova Scotia (and she lives there).

Wellfleet Hat

The Wellfleet Hat pattern is now available, both on Ravelry and on Loveknitting! I also call it the Wellfleet Reversible Hat, because the "wrong" side (below) is almost as nice as the "right" side (above)-- in fact, some may prefer it. 

This design is one of a pair* that I decided to work up almost the moment I opened Norah Gaughan's new Knitted Cable Sourcebook. Norah is a master cable knitter and creator, and this book contains so many new, unusual and wonderful cables...luckily, I also decided that I wanted to design a couple of hats that work up quickly in bulky (3-3.75 stitches per inch) or super bulky (1.75-2.75 stitches per inch) yarn. This helped me limit my cable choices to a few of the more small and simple ones-- cables that would fit on a hat if worked in a heavy yarn.

The cable I chose for this hat is simple enough that I didn't even include a chart in the pattern! And I love charts for how they give a visual representation of knitted fabric, simplify directions for complex stitch patterns, and allow the knitter to see the progression of pattern rows...but in this case a chart just wasn't needed. The cable looks more complex than it really is, a function of the ingenious and elegant cable cross, which crosses one four-stitch group of K1, p2, k1 over another. 

And this cable cross is the reason that the "wrong" side (above) looks so good. 

I did add my own innovation in the form of the crown decreases (above), which are worked similar to a three-needle bind-off (without actually binding off any stitches), and preserve the cable architecture into the final rounds of the hat. 

The yarn I chose is a new line from Cascade Yarns, Baby Llama Chunky; it's available in undyed and dyed colors, and is very soft compared to most wools. It knits up at the same gauge as their Baby Alpaca Chunky (which came out awhile ago, is also very soft, AND happens to be on sale on one or two websites at the moment).

As for the name Wellfleet, the rippling cables and gray-lavender-blue of the yarn reminded me of a wintry sea, so I decided to give a shoutout to my home, Cape Cod. Wellfleet is one of the more remote towns on the Outer Cape-- lovely in summer, it's a very different (but still lovely) place in the winter (photo below copyright Dapixara.com). 

*Next week: the second of the pair, the Truro Hat

Lariana Cabled Pullover

The pattern for the Lariana Cabled Pullover is now available for purchase! Named after the Penisola Lariana (Lariana Peninsula)*, this pullover is a modern take on the Aran sweater, at home in the mountains, the city or on the shore, with set-in sleeves and streamlined stockinette side panels with diagonal accents. Three different lengths customize the fit: hip length (as shown), cropped and tunic length.

I've been considering ideas for a cabled sweater for awhile, and one of the first decisions I made was which stitch pattern to use for the central cable; I liked both of the diamond-themed designs in the photo below, but eventually decided to use the less-dense one, on the left.

The design for Lariana really started to take shape after I discovered the combination of this cable and the mirrored side wave cables. A traditional choice for the side panels for a fisherman or Aran sweater would have been heavily textured moss stitch (see below), or perhaps smaller cables.

I'm just not crazy about moss stitch, so I made a lot of swatches of different cable and texture patterns (some of which are pictured below), but none of them seemed quite right with the central cables, so I decided to go with smooth stockinette side panels, which I do believe lighten the overall look and streamline the fit.

For more pattern details, see the pattern page.

The yarn I used for this design, Katia Bulky Cotton, with a cotton core inside a mesh nylon tube, is unusual enough that my last blog post discussed it in some detail.

*The Penisola Lariana in Italy, also known as the Triangolo Lariano, is the mountainous triangle overlooking Lake Como, with points marked by the towns of Como, Bellagio and Lecco, and with myriad walking paths offering stunning views of the lake.

 

 

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Zinnia Tank

The ZInnia Tank pattern is available for purchase! (If interested in the design process, see here, here, here & here.) 

The boldly colored floral yoke is the focal point of this tank. In traditional Fair Isle fashion, only two colors are worked on each round, although a total of four different colors are used. Optional duplicate stitching (see photos of front of garment) is used to accent the center of each flower. After the yoke is completed, stitches are picked up around the bottom edge and worked down for the body; short rows are used to shape the upper part of the front and back to the yoke. With gentle waist shaping and simple rolled edges at hem and armholes, this tank has classic lines that work well with both casual and dressy outfits.

The difficulty of this pattern is Intermediate to advanced: Skills include stranded knitting, following a color chart, knitting in the round, picking up stitches, Knitted Cast-On, and short row shaping.

Colubrida Wrap

The Colubrida Wrap pattern appeared in the Interweave special issue Enchanted Knits 2014: Knits Fit for a Fairy Tale. The submission call for this issue, sent out in late 2013, stated:

    Be inspired by the generations who have imagined magical worlds filled with fairies and elves, spindles that can hop, skip, and jump, talking mirrors and magical handkerchiefs, witches and wizards, ghosts and giants, flying mortar and pestles and magical combs, and heroic journeys out into the world and within oneself.  

As it happened, I had recently been working on snake-themed ideas, since 2013 was the Chinese Year of the Snake. I had already completed the Nerodia Cardigan for Babies and Children and the Nerodia Cardigan for Women (above), but I had another idea that I liked, for a wrap that incorporated a snake motif. I had found the undulating lace stitch pattern in a Japanese stitch dictionary, and fiddled with it to create a head at one end and a tail at the other. I thought that this design would fit well with the theme of the magazine, and sent the submission into the editors with this description:

    “Colubrida” is the family name for many common snake genuses. Snakes have been featured in many different mythologies as a symbol of power, whether good or evil; I like to think of the serpent within this design as a sort of guardian, wrapped protectively around the wearer."

Above is a photo of the swatches I sent in with the submission, with the head end on the left, and below is a photo of the finished pattern sample, showing the snake's head (on the left) and tail (on the right). If you are feeling the urge to make one for yourself, the pattern is also available as a kit, with yarn included! (At the time of writing this post, the kit was "on sale," from $130.49 to $129.00-- a savings of a little over 1%. Not sure what that's about.)

 

It was fun to look through the magazine and see some of the other fanciful knits; three of my favorites, pictured below, were: Maleficent's Cloak by Vicki Square, the Hunger for Rampion Pullover by Jennifer Hagan, and the Honest Woodsman Pullover by Kathleen Danes. You don't often see a man with an ax in photos of knitwear! (Top photo and the three photos below are courtesy of Interweave Press.)

 

After this magazine was published and the sample was returned to me, I draped it on the mannequin in my office, and noticed one day that the head of the snake bears a passing resemblance to, well, a certain part of male anatomy. So I'm going to modify the pattern to remove one of the eyes from the head end, add a couple of pompoms to the tail end, call it the One-Eyed Trouser Snake Wrap, and offer said pattern in a kit with flesh-toned yarn... April Fool's! (I figured that anyone who reads this far at least deserves a laugh.)
 

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Blue Ridge Sweater

The new Spring 2016 issue of Interweave Knits includes my Blue Ridge Sweater. It's worked in the round from the bottom up with a round yoke. The highly textured stitch pattern alternates a bobbled cable with a not-too-open lace panel. I suggested using Juniper Moon Farms Sabine for this project; Sabine is a heathery 40% cotton/30% merino wool/30% royal llama blend, which means it's great for multi-season use, and it comes from a very special yarn producer. 

I discovered Juniper Moon Farm (JMF) almost eight years ago, when I purchased a share of their Fall 2008 yarn harvest for $100; JMF offered the country’s first yarn CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). The farm was founded in 2007 by Susan Gibbs, a former network news producer, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, with an initial flock of just five sheep. Over the years, the JMF flock has grown to include Cormo, Babydoll Southdown, Cotswold, and colored Border Leicester sheep, as well as Mohair goats. In addition, the farm is home to a number of Maremma sheepdogs, including Sabine, after whom Sabine yarn is named. In 2009, the farm moved to Virginia, and at the end of 2015, the yarn CSA ended, and the JMF flock retired to live out the rest of their days in leisure. However, Susan remains the Creative Director of Juniper Moon Farm Yarns, which use fibers grown in Peru, Argentina, Nepal, and Italy.

When the issue became available, I asked the publisher for some higher resolution photos than those that were on their website, and I am so glad I did! They emailed me some gorgeous photos, some of which I've included in this post; many thanks to Interweave Knits and Harper Point Photography.

My working name for the sweater was the Granola Pullover, because of the rich texture of the fabric. But I love the name Blue Ridge Sweater-- the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina and Virginia is one of my favorite drives in the world. And even though the photo shoot for the magazine was done in Colorado, some of the photos really look like they could have been taken in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains; the last photo, with a garden and house in the background, reminds me of a friend's home near Asheville, NC.

 

Spalle Pullover

"Spalle" is Italian for "shoulders," and since the shoulders are the focus of this design, I thought that would be an appropriate name. Published in the Winter 2015 issue of Twist Collective, the Spalle Pullover is worked seamlessly in the round from the bottom up, with a yoke construction that has an effect somewhat like saddle shoulders (although I think of saddle shoulders in connection with drop-shouldered, loose-fitting sweaters, and usually the saddle is joined to front and back without additional decreases). I was experimenting with different ways of yoke and shoulder shaping, and when I decided to try using only paired decreases along the tops of the shoulders, I realized early on that this went well with ribbing, which has a lot of stretch and helps the fabric to conform to the body. I really liked the way that the decreases caused the ribs to converge and overlap.

Above is my original sketch, with short sleeves (the Twist Collective editors preferred a 3/4-length sleeve); I stuck with a closely-fitted silhouette throughout, using the same type of decreases to shape the waist.

I was delighted when I received the yarn for the sample (Blue Moon Fiber Arts Silky Victoria), and saw that it was a gorgeous red-orange, quite similar to the color of the heavy worsted (#4 Medium) weight yarn that I had used for the swatches. But then I saw that it was a sport weight (#2 Fine) yarn, which was much thinner than I had expected, and I started to worry that knitting the sample would take much longer than I had planned. Luckily I found after swatching that I could use US #6 needles and get a gauge of 24 sts to 4 inches. This was still higher than I had originally planned, but the resulting fabric was so light and springy that I was very happy with the end result. The Silky Victoria was wonderful to work with-- the silk content gives it a nice sheen and impressive tensile strength. And there are so many lovely colorways that I was actually glad I didn't have to choose just one-- Beryl? Jasper? Mermaid Tears? Winter Blues? If you order yarn from Blue Moon Fiber Arts, they dye it to order, so the number of colors available is truly amazing. And if at first glance it appears that the yarn is expensive, at $36 a skein, note that each skein is 695 yards; the sample I made only took two skeins.

The design process for Spalle was relatively straightforward; the only major change I made to my original concept was to add more waist decreases, placed like princess seams; in order for these decreases to become a visible design element, as shown in the sketch, I needed more than four or five decreases. But too many decreases would either have made the waist too small, or I would have had to start with too large a hip circumference, so for half of the decreases, I added compensatory increases along the sides. Both the decreases and the compensatory increases are visible in the above photo.

This pattern lends itself to adjustments such as making the body longer or shorter (just add or subtract rounds before beginning the waist shaping), or lengthening or shortening the turtleneck. The sleeves could easily be made short, as shown in the sketch, by casting on the number of stitches after all sleeve increases are completed, and working even for a few inches. Since the ribbing is very stretchy, they could also be made full length by casting on the same number of stitches as for the 3/4 length sleeves, and recalculating the increase frequency (but keeping the number of increases the same). There might be a very slight belled effect at the cuff, but it would be subtle.

I don't think I'll get the sample back in time to wear it before spring arrives (hint to Mr. Groundhog for tomorrow!), but I'm looking forward to wearing it next winter!

(Top photo copyright Twist Collective/Crissy Jarvis)

 

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Windley

Windley

The Windley cap-sleeved top was recently published in the Spring issue of Twist Collective. Perfect for summer knitting, it's worked in the round from the top down, in a DK weight warm-weather-friendly cotton/microfiber yarn (Valley Yarns Longmeadow). I modified the Pagoda lace pattern from Barbara Walker's Third Treasury to create the large lace panel that adorns the upper front and back. The main reason the top is not knitted from the bottom up is that I liked the look of the lace better when it is upside down!

Once the lace panels and raglan yoke shaping are completed, feel free to watch your favorite TV show while you knit the rest in simple stockinette; some easy waist shaping, a rolled hem, a few rounds on each sleeve, and you're done, with plenty of time left before sweater weather returns to wear Windley over shorts, jeans, a skirt...

And the name? Windley is one of the smaller Florida Keys, located about halfway between Key Largo and Marathon. If you go diving in the Keys you may well see staghorn coral, which is what I think of when I look at Windley's lace panel.

 

(First 3 photos, copyright Chrissy Jarvis and Twist Collective.)

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