September 06, 2019
Here in the studio, we are definitely feeling like it is sweater time. Some of us are still finishing up accessories from our holiday knitting, but we are excited about making sweaters and the workplace chat is full of links to Ravelry and other pattern sources with riffs on what yarn we could use and how we could adapt them.
Here are some of the ideas we have been considering - one of them may inspire you to admit it is autumn and sweater season.
I (Nuala) have made Ístex's Afmæli/ 20 year anniversry Sweater 3 times now and I still love it. Most of the excitement is in the yoke, but it can be as plain or or as bright as you like. The rainbow colourway is an obvious favourite, but I have spent some time recently imagining it made mostly out of lopi but with one of the richer colours of Einrúm as the flower colour for the yoke.
We know some customers have already noticed this next suggestion as we are suddenly fulfilling a lot of orders for a neutral and 4 colours of Ulysse to make Trove from the new Autumn edition of Pom Pom Quarterly. It is a top down sweater with drop sleeves that is the ideal canvas to play with Ulysse's beautiful colours that are dyed over different colours of merino wool from Southern France and Portugal.
So far we've really only used Callisto for shawls but it would work as a luxurious sweater yarn too - a pattern like eri's KOKO would show its drape and luminous sheen to perfection.
I think most of us feel like our Afterpartys (from Laine 6) would never be as wonderful as the one Sarah made from Hillesvåg Sølje but maybe we should give it a try - single contrast colour yokes can be a great introduction to colourwork without fretting about lots of ends, and choosing 2 colours you are happier with is definitely easier than 5 or 6!
Ysolda always has some knitting on the go, and right now she is enjoying working on a pattern written by someone else. Tundra by the Petite Knitter uses Létt Lopito evoke the colours of Iqaluit, where the designer lives. It comes in deeper and shallower yoke designs - neither has waist shaping and both are boxy, choose the one that works with your proportions.
Like Strokkur, also knit in 3 colours of Léttlopi, Tundra only uses 3 colours but as the colourwork portion is deeper and more complicated, they look very different. If you want some ideas for 3 colours that look good together for either design, a while ago we did a round up post of great Strokkur colour combinations people have used.
Rachel has been wanting a Gilliatt sweater for a while, but still hasn't settled on the perfect sweater - at the moment she is very tempted by Ifan by Kat Riddell.
Grace from Laine 8 was always lovely and now Dianna Walla shared her version, made with Blåne, we are liking the idea of the relatively fast knit a sweater at this weight would be. This might be the sweater to move Blåne up in the popularity rankings over its siblings Tinde and Sølje.
For those of you generous enough with your time that your autumn sweater knitting will be kid knitting, we are very happy with how this Petter Cartography turned out and superwash is undeniably a good choice for kids, especially if the person doing the washing isn't a knitter.
If, like us, you are now entirely ready to drop everything you were working on and cast on a sweater, we’re running a promotion. If you buy 4 or more skeins of yarn, you will receive 50% off any garment pattern. No code necessary, just add both yarn and pattern to your cart.
March 29, 2023
March 23, 2023
February 03, 2022
Learn brioche with the free Daniel's Hat pattern
Tombreck - a free chevron beanie pattern
Working the brioche neck detail on the Polwarth sweater
Decorative Channel Island Cast-on
3 Easy Stretchy Bind-offs (p2tog bind-off; k2togtbl, k1 bind-off; Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind-off)
Tubular Bind-off for brioche stitch
Paired increase methods compared
Brioche stitch double decreases
How to Knit in the round using Magic Loop
How to Knit in the round using DPNs
Avoiding ears when binding off
Tighter purl stitches for neater cables and ribbing
Cabling without a cable needle
Understanding "continue in pattern"
Joining the body and sleeves on a seamless bottom up sweater
How to pick a garment without a model for you (specifically addresses finding garment patterns when your gender identity isn't represented and the styles you want to knit might not be sized to fit your body)
How does ease affect inclusive size ranges?
Identifying and fixing mistakes in lace knitting
Getting started with stranded colourwork
Understanding colour dominance
Working stranded colourwork over small circumferences
Decreases in stranded colourwork
Holding the yarn for stranded colourwork
Ladderback Jacquard (a neat way to deal with long floats)
Cabling without a cable needle
Cabling without a cable needle on the wrong side
How to knit cabled decreases
Closed ring cable increases and decreases
How to work brioche stitch in the round
How to begin your first large cross stitch project
How to finish a cross stitch project with an embroidery hoop frame
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