Fashion: Yarn Style

Marie Wallin’s Stranded Aisling Knitted 3 ways!

 

 

 

This is Marie Wallin’s gorgeous Aisling pattern. After the first year of the pandemic, when I could only focus on knitting socks, I found that by doing KALs supported by knitters close to me, I could tackle stranded garments. In fact, we three friends got together and decided to knit something really beautiful. Aisling is a multicolor version of Marie Wallin's original, two-color top Nigella.

 

Buoyed by each other’s excitement, we ordered kits from The Woolly Thistle. I believe Marie Wallin's website now also has kits here. We each chose a different size. While my friend on the right @valbou knitted the top aimed to give more positive ease without alterations, my friend on the left @syl_vie.knit chose a smaller size. I used the technique that usually works for me in non-stranded garments, which is to cast on in a size large to accommodate my hip measurement, then decrease to a size small for the waist, and then increase to size medium by the time I reach the bust. 

 

It was tempting to leave this complex pattern alone and just knit a gorgeous colorwork boxy sweater. However, being rather plump and short-waisted I do not often look attractive in boxy shapes. So I risked altering the pattern and have mixed feelings about the results. Designs like this will always flatter women who are more willowy and slender than me. But I refuse to give up on knitting and wearing beautiful designs, even if it means recalculating some proportions and not getting all quite right. Having admired Marie Wallin for years, I particularly want to find a way to wear her colorwork designs because there is something almost otherworldly about their beauty. My real issue is a lack of knowledge of yoke construction. I'm going to share trials and failures in tailoring colorwork here and perhaps my success rate will have improved by 2023? 

 

Alteration 1) Sleeves. We found the forearm area of this design quite fitted.@syl_vie.knit, who as you can see on the left has slender arms, cut off and reknit the forearms of her sweater larger and then grafted them back onto the upper arms. So consider casting on the cuff of your sleeve in one size larger than you normally would. However, above the forearms, we experienced looseness in the sweater sleeves. This is likely because the design is intended to have a relaxed fit. However, I didn't discover how much extra ease there was in the shoulder and upper arm area until I had taken in the waist so I figured I had to keep bringing in the rest of the design as well. This is the slippery slope one follows when altering a yoked stranded knit! In the end, I steeked four inches from the upper sleeves & shoulder but I'm getting ahead of myself. Here is a photo of me wearing the sweater before the steek:         

 

Do you see the difference in ease between the fitted forearm of Aisling versus the upper sleeve? My guess is the upper sleeves needed to be quite wide to accommodate the stitch pattern repeat there. However, since I had chosen to alter the sweater by adding decreases for the waist (about 26 stitches) and then increases for the bust (about 22 stitches), the looseness in just the upper arms and shoulder on my version stood out. To fix this, I pinned one-inch seams on each side of the upper arm from mid-shoulder to mid-forearm and mid-underarm to mid-lower forearm and sewed one-inch seams, one on the top middle and one on the bottom middle of each sleeve. This removed the four inches of extra fabric. The seam didn’t show much so there was little distortion to the pattern of the colorwork in the yoke. Can you find the machine-sewed seam that runs all the way down my midarms?

 

 

If you compare my yoke to that of my friend on the far left, you can see that she knitted the pattern as written, without the shaping I added. Her sweater has the same amount of positive ease all over and that works really well for her. So I hope that looking at these different approaches to knitting the pattern will help you decide what look you want if you knit this design.

 

Alteration 2) The chest area of the yoke. I tried on my sweater once I had joined the sleeves to the yoke and saw there was a cowl shape in the back being created as I knitted up the yoke, due to this extra ease in the back. I assume this extra fabric was needed to keep the repeats of the pattern complete. Since I had tailored other parts of the sweater, I felt the need to adjust this area as well. I unraveled down to the beginning of the yoke/sleeve join again and decreased some stitches as I was joining the sleeves and body together (about 12). This further reduced the stitch count so I could follow the directions for the size medium from the yoke join on. Then, when I reached row 29 of the yoke, I used that plain color row to decrease over 24 stitches since everyone’s upper bust area is smaller than their bust point. Then, a few inches further up when I reached 3 repeats of small flowers in different colors, as my body was narrowing further (top of chest before it reaches the neck and upper shoulder), I altered the 5 stitch flower pattern repeat to a 4-stitch flower pattern repeat so that I could again decrease about 24 stitches, one for every flower. This kept the fit of the yoke more in line with my body’s diminishing width. My friend who knitted the size small also took in the sweater here. The pattern also decreases here but I'm just clarifying my decreases were in addition to the written pattern decreases.

 

You can best see the result of all these decreases in the chest area in this photo of my pre-steeked sweater. Here I had reduced almost 50 stitches out of the yoke on the chest but not from the upper sleeves or shoulder because I hadn't yet understood how important it was for the different pieces of the puzzle to all harmonize together.

Since the chest of the yoke fit relatively well, the extra ease in the upper sleeves and shoulder stood out more, which convinced me to steek that. Perhaps I should have decreased the yoke section less and then the looseness of the upper sleeves and shoulder would have flowed better. I am not very familiar with yoke construction so I kind of felt I was improvising as I went along. If any of my readers know of a close-fitting yoke sweater that works well for a plump hour-glass figure, please share in the comments section! I need to learn what I'm aiming for before I try something like this again!

 

You can see how thrilled my friends and I were to finish this magnum opus! At the end of 3 months our Aislings were done, and we were so proud to wear them together! This is truly an heirloom knit I will treasure forever. The leaf and flower patterns were so lovely I felt I was in nature even when I was trapped working in my tiny office on zoom! I have read posts from some people who just finished knitting this sweater and aren't sure of what to do with the large amount of ease their Aislings have in the upper arms and shoulder parts of the yoke, versus the tighter forearm area of the sleeves, so thought it might be helpful to share the adjustments we made as it is such a beautiful design, I hope as many people as possible will have the chance to make it for themselves!

 

 

Marie Wallin’s Stranded Ottilie Shrug Knitted 2 ways!

 

Insert photo of screen capture: project page

 

I have recently been learning to alter stranded patterns to fit my curvier figure and thought it might be helpful to post what I’ve been doing to help others who want to accomplish the same thing. Marie Wallin’s gift box 3 of British Breeds yarn arrived in May, and my mother-in-law immediately started in on knitting Ottilie, which takes all 24 colors of yarn in the gift box. 

 

This is a boxy shrug that was written one-size-fits-all. However, I was concerned this would swallow my figure, so I altered the back of the pattern. Instead of casting on with the original 162 stitches in the pattern, I knitted a gage swatch and calculated the number of stitches I needed to fit my waist dimension with just an inch or so of positive ease. I cast on 124 stitches on a size 2 instead of 3 needle and altered the pattern chart so that I was knitting half of one repeat, one panel of the pattern repeat in the middle, and then half of the repeat on the other side. In this way, I was able to keep the shrug fitted at the back waist, and then I slowly increased stitches on each size as I knitted up until I reached the stitch count of 162 by the bust. Then, switching up to the size 3 needle the pattern called for, I followed the pattern, increasing more stitches for the sleeves as written to form the kimono-style shape.

 

 

In contrast, my mother-in-law knitted the pattern exactly as written and you can see how perfectly it suits her. I do want to mention that she knitted her Ottilie in a tighter gage than I did, which may have helped her with the fit. It was really fun to see how these two different versions of the pattern both worked and suited us as individuals. My nephew, a professional photographer, took these lovely photos of us when we were on vacation on Puget Sound in the tiny town of Keyport, Washington. After knitting our Ottilie projects like fiends for several months, we were able to finish at the same time and capture this moment where we could enjoy our colorwork projects together. It was a special moment I wanted to share with you!

 

 

 

Flower Child by Nora Gaughan in Rowan Softyak dk

 

After many months of spending most of my time indoors last year, it seemed necessary to knit some flowers. I imagined blooms everywhere inside my little office, and I ultimately chose the pattern Flower Child by Nora Gaughan. For those of you who find it safe to navegate Ravelry, my project page is here: 

 

Seventies-inspired knits seem all the rage these days, but I was mainly attracted to the ingenious design of this pattern. I have never knitted a back or front in five separate pieces before and it seemed like a great challenge. The only issue is that I could not control any waist or any other shaping at all while using this method.

 

 

I cast on the pieces for the back in the smallest-but-one size as I knew with my Rowan softyak dk yarn my gauge might be a bit looser than the intended one. However, I could not downsize my needle because the 5 triangles for each piece are knitted sideways and therefore the row gauge is a more important measurement than the stitch gauge and I needed to get it as accurate as possible. In the end, my row gauge was a bit too small, so every ten rows, I added an extra two rows in each piece. I kept track of this in a small notebook.

 

As the back sleeves and sweater seemed huge = 46 inches around, I cast on all pieces for the front in the smallest size of the pattern since again I could not change my needle size. As a result, my front was smaller and closer to the right size.

 

 

In order to address the fit issue of the back piece, once I’d seamed the five back pieces together using mattress stitch, I hand-sewed a blue ribbon into the side seams. This way I could adjust the fit of the back however loosely or tightly I wanted by tying the ribbon behind me. I am quite happy with the end result, and since it fits well and is flattering, I believe I will wear it quite a bit. I see no point in knitting something “cool” that looks terrible on, because then it would probably be better to create a wall-hanging instead of clothes. My favorite part is the ingenious flower that is created through a combination of lace, bobbles, and cables at the center front:

 

 

Nora Gaughan is one of the most ingenious knit designers I have ever encountered. The fun experience I had knitting this piece encourages me to try more of her innovative designs in future!  I'd love to hear more about what you all have been knitting, and how your projects have been influenced by what's going on in the world. We cannot but be affected, and try to find comfort and inspiration where we can. My knitting world has been such a solace and happy place in the last two years, and I am so grateful for it!

My Journey of Crafting Hope in the Pandemic

Piuma Mitts by Heather Zoppetti

Hello! How have you all been during this difficult year? What have you been knitting lately? I have really missed you readers and our chats about knitting style. Knitting has been such a wonderful source of joy for me and my family and I spent much of the pandemic knitting scores of teeny tiny gnomes and unicorns I could give away to family and friends as a bright spot in a dark time. I particularly enjoyed sewing matching bow ties, skirts and knitting tops for my nieces and nephews for our family reunion this year! It felt like such an amazing gift for us to see each other in person at last that I wanted to celebrate as much as possible!

Lacy Day Top

A-line Skirt from Sew Sweet Handmade Clothes for Girls

 

Ana Hrachovek patterns

Spring Garden Tee by Alana Dakos

A-line Skirt from Sew Sweet Handmade Clothes for Girls

Hollyburn Skirt Pattern (adult)

https://www.instructables.com/Clip-on-Bow-Tie/

 

Well, it’s been a while since my last post. In specific, I last blogged at the end of September of 2020! It’s not that I stopped knitting or sewing during the pandemic. But it didn’t feel right for me to blog about a personal crafting journey when the news was full of such overwhelmingly serious problems. I suppose, like many, I fell back on a coping mechanism, which in my case was focusing on what I could do to make things better for the people in my life day-to-day. Due to the new online format of school, life became difficult for many of the families that I support as students struggled to learn on their own while teachers had to juggle their classroom commitments along with helping their own children learn at home. So, I doubled my work hours as an academic tutor and experienced the joys of Zoom Fatigue first hand. In spite of all the challenges, through our strong teamwork and dedication, my students made it through online school. However, this teaching 1:1 involved sometimes as much as seven hours a day and the brain drain from this workload was enormous. As a result, I focused on knitting small projects mostly that I could make in short periods of time.

 

 

 

 

Looking back, however, I realize it was the knitting podcasts and Instagram photos and blogs I read the last year that really kept me hoping for better things day to day. And if knitting emotionally supported me so much, I realized I shouldn’t undervalue my own crafty ramblings as unimportant. Let’s face it, my quest to assemble knitted + sewn clothes into great outfits has seemed pretty unimportant in the grander scheme of things. But the courage and hope I gained from creating gifts for my whole family as well as some garments made by hand allowed me to face everything else that was difficult in life, so perhaps it is somehow worth mentioning. I will try to post a few retrospectives on key crafty gains from last year over the next month.

 

I would love to hear from you about what crafting or other activities kept you inspired and sane this past year!

Crafting a Path through the Pandemic

 

For me, crafting has become a power for good in my experience of dealing with the pandemic. I live in the Bay Area, where there have been forest fires all around us and the number of COVID cases is somewhat high. If you let your thoughts dwell too much on what is actually happening it can be overwhelming. So it is a unique opportunity to channel restlessness and anxiety into creating pieces that illuminate the darkness. So I started seeing the image of a dark garden. The background of the fabrics I will use will be mostly black but there will be colors or flowers still shine through the darkness, preventing me from dwelling on what is missing. This is a way of telling myself that although at times it feels black, some flowers and plants can still grow in the deepest shade.  The first piece of fabric I found that makes sense of this to me is a Moschino cotton that displays a black background with crimson and white and orange and pink roses. I’ve also purchased some black lawn fabric to sew a simple sleeveless top to go with it. I added some black tulle to poof out the skirt to make it feel a bit more playful and fun.

 

 

I like to knit pieces to bring out one of the colors in a printed fabric, so I am planning to knit the following lace vest pattern, called Bourne by Sarah Hatton. 

 

 

I have some kidsilk haze in my stash in the color Blushes that I think will go beautifully with the colors of the skirt.

 

 

I will keep you posted on how the progress goes with my little capsule collection. In the meantime, I am continuing to focus on trying to bring more enchantment into my daily life because while I am spatially limited, the span of imagination has no boundaries. So I knitted myself a pair of Choose your House Socks in the Gryffindor House colorway to remind myself of this:

 

 

Sometimes the most difficult times bring out the best in us and I look forward everyday to seeing the creative inspiration my fellow crafters are finding in their own lives. What is inspiring you lately? 

Pairing Handknits w/ Handsewn Clothes—Is there a Formula?

 

As my longtime readers know, I have often struggled to find a winning combination where a handknitted sweater shows off a handsewn outfit or vice versa. Even my latest outfit, the Unst cardigan paired with Simplicity 2444, was not ultimately satisfactory. As I looked at the photos later, I realized that the neckline of the sweater did not harmonize with the neckline of the dress. The mismatch looks a bit sloppy. I'm sure blocking the right top edge of the cardigan will help but the two shapes at the neck really don't go together.

It turns out that the sweetheart neckline, which looks great on me in a standalone dress, does not necessarily go with a crew-neck sweater. I actually went through my closet trying on my Unst cardigan with a  bunch of tops and realized that the neckline of this Marie Wallin knit is unusually low (maybe this is the fault of my execution of this pattern?) and so most blouses/dresses show through at the top of the sweater collar which is not flattering. So I’m considering drafting a new neckline for a dress bodice in future just to match this sweater one day.

 

 

However, I have found one sweater + sewn combination that does seem to work reliably for me. It is a cropped sweater plus an A-line skirt. The outfit above is a dress I made by adding a self-drafted top to the Hollyburn skirt pattern. And I think it goes pretty well with the matching magenta lovenote sweater. The dress also looks great on its own, not just when it's paired with a knitted top, so I feel it's more versatile than my version of Simplicity 2444.

 

 

In order to make the 2444 pattern more versatile, I have gone back to the drawing board and drafted a new version with a round neck. I just can't use the original, boat neck version. That is NOT a good look for me!

 

It seems there is a lot of trial and error involved in this process of trying to create a handmade wardrobe that I was not aware of before I began. So I’ll keep sharing my adventures with you in case you are able to learn from my mistakes and so achieve more success as you are crafting your own clothes!

 

A Knitted Gnome's Adventures at Lucia Lodge, California

 

 

The above fellow is a starter gnome, looking through the white wooden fence that

separates Lucia Lodge from the Big Sur coastline. The starter gnome pattern is

designed by Anna Hrachovek of Mochimochiland. I discovered her adorable

gnome in this video: 

 

After six months of barely leaving home, we decided to go to Big Sur, California

and El Gnomo came along. My husband and I had fun photographing first El

Gnomo, and then later his new friend Brinkley at Lucia Lodge, where

we stayed. Everyone who saw the gnomes peering out of the foliage laughed.

And I realized that was what had been missing from my life----lightheartedness!

So I'm going to knit more gnomes for family and post them in the mail.

I hope later to receive back photographs of the gnomes having adventures

 in different parts of the US while we are so confined to one place.

 

 

 Lucia Lodge is a set of cottages right on the edge of a cliff and the ocean views

are spectacular. Even someone like me, who is struggling to recover from a leg tendon

injury, can sit back and relax in a gorgeous natural environment a few feet from your door.

 

 

Then there are the lovely outdoor eating spaces where you can picnic. This is necessary some

of the time, as Lucia Lodge’s restaurant only serves lunch there although dinner can be picked 

up. For the most part, all the Big Sur restaurants I called were only serving their hotel clients 

so we brought a cooler with ice to cover breakfasts with snacks.

 

 

There are lovely, quixotic gardens sprinkled about Lucia Lodge where gnomes can play and you

can pick some aloe vera leaves if you end up with sunburned feet from spending hours wading

in the ocean as we did.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed El Gnomo's and Brinkley’s adventures. For anyone who is interested

in making the pink-nosed variation like the one above, I picked up 8 stitches from the face

to make the beard jut out instead of knitting the beard separately and flat as the pattern

instructs so you can sew it on later. Then I added a pink safety nose between the eyes

 and the beard. Anyway, I will do my best to share more travel pics of the gnomes soon.

Lately, I’ve been pining so much for travel that I’ve been begging all of my 

friends to share travel photos with me. So these are mine of Lucia Lodge for you….

Marie Wallin’s Unst Fair Isle Cardigan & Simplicity 2444 Dress

 

 

I finally did it! I created an intricate fair isle knit that I am really proud of! And after all these years of eyeing spectacular versions of Marie Wallin’s fairisle knits, it was time to tackle Unst. I've wanted to knit this pattern since the very first moment I saw it. Someone had posted a photo of Marie Wallin wearing her new pattern among a group of knitting designers on Instagram and I was struck by its beauty immediately. I messaged the poster to find out the name of the pattern and then when I had the good fortune to attend the Edinburgh Yarn Festival three years ago I tried the cardigan on myself!

 

 

Mary had samples of many of her sweaters from the Shetland collection at her booth. Although the sample was knitted in a size small, which did not fit me, Marie recommended the pattern over the other garments to me because she felt it was more flattering for a curvy body type.

Marie Wallin, myself and my MIL Maxi at EYF

I was able to find the yarn for Unst at Uncommon Threads Yarn, and my husband purchased it as a Christmas gift. But in spite of all my swatching, the beginning of the cardigan back turned out too big. I just couldn’t face the idea of taking the fair isle out so I put it aside for six months. When I started again, I decided it was fine for there to be a bit of positive ease in the pattern at the hips and to add in more waist shaping to make sure of a more flattering fit. From the first four inches I’d knitted on a size 3 needle, I downsized to a size 2 needle and that is what I used to knit the rest of the garment. Here's my advice--always measure your garments four inches up from the cast on, no matter how perfect your gauge swatch seems. It may not turn out the size you expected because a garment piece is a much larger size than a four-inch swatch!

 

 

 I did add in a lot of waist reductions--I removed 20 stitches from the pattern--and then, of course, I had to add in all of the stitches again later for the bust. So it was a bit tricky knitting the stranded pattern on both the knit and purl side and tracking the shaping I devised at the same time. But I do feel that, because the fair isle motifs are small on Unst and it's knitted flat, it is an ideal pattern for adding in shaping. Each color section of a motif only goes on for about two rows. So it's a bit like adding shaping to a striped cardigan knitted flat, which is not too difficult. I just reduced 22 stitches gradually over the 5.5 inches from upper hips to waist, knitted the waist straight for two inches, and then I had to gradually increase the stitches again so that by the time I reached the armhole area, there were enough stitches for the recommended pattern size (M).

 

 

I feel, in retrospect, that I could have added in even more stitches for the bust, but overall the fit is good. It is just that buttonholes tend to gap on curvy wearers like me, and unfortunately the striped corrugated ribbing calls more attention to this. So in future, I will probably avoid using striped ribbing on the button bands of a garment like this.

 

 

Knitting such a complicated fair isle design on a size two needle took me three months once I’d picked up the project again. Because I was knitting on a size two needle for the body, I had to downsize the ribbing to a size one needle.  It also took me about three months to create my version of the sewing pattern Simplicity 2444 for the matching dress.

 

 

I had discovered the appeal of this pattern while watching the video podcast Stitching Over the Days because Constance, a fellow vintage style lover, has made many versions of Simplicity 2444 and I noticed it looked really great with her knitwear. However, the pattern was discontinued. So I actually searched for it online for about six months until I found a used version in my size. Then the challenge was to adjust the pattern to fit me. The shoulders were a bit wide and boxy and so I had to redraft that section of the pattern. Once I completed that, I realized that a boatneck is not a flattering neckline for me because of my face shape. Instead, I decided a sweetheart neckline would be prettier. So, using a photo from a Gertie Sews pattern as inspiration, I redrafted the neckline with the help of my sewing teacher, Paige, and drafted a matching facing.

 

 

At last I was ready to sew the dress! Of course, there were numerous trials and travails. I wasn’t used to sewing with plain fabric where both sides look the same so I kept sewing the sleeves or bodice wrong-side-out to the skirt. The skirt itself was a challenge because I hadn’t sewn pleats for about (eek) 30 years! So I had to get up to speed on that technique. Then, on top of everything else, it turned out the purple fabric was too sheer! So I had to line the bodice with a second layer of fabric!

 

 

As you can see, after all the work I put into both pieces of this outfit, I am going to appreciate this dress and matching cardigan forever!!!!!! It is too warm to wear them much right now but I am really looking forward to using them a lot in fall and winter. I wonder how many other knitters are becoming sewists during these strange times as we all spend so much time at home? I’d love to hear about your experiences!

 

VKL Yarn Haul + Hortencia Cardigan

 

Phew! It’s been a super busy couple of weeks since I got back from Vogue Knitting Live in New  York but I am determined to share my yarn haul with you since I know many were not able to attend in person and might be interested in some of these yarns!

 

First stop at VKL NY: Fuse Fibers studio.  This is a small, three-year-old company. I'm addicted to the vintage-inspired colorways but they sell out really fast. My favorite of the colorways is “The Natural Language of Flowers”, the light skeins pictured above, but even though I made a beeline for the booth, all but two of the Merino dk skeins were gone. When I cradled the two left in my hands, I could hear disappointed groans from the shoppers behind me. In order to achieve enough yardage for the shawl I had planned, I purchased a similar, but darker skein in the colorway, Cherry Tree, which you can see at the right in the photo. These do remind me exactly of cherry blossoms, which should be blooming in a few months! I'll knit my shawl then to celebrate the coming of spring.

 

 

Another hand dyer with a distinct color palette is Lolabean. Adella's super-saturated colors really pop. I eyed a bunch of her red, pink and yellow yarns, thinking of future gifts for friends who are flattered by brilliant colors. It is not always easy to find saturated and bright colors that are also tasteful and I really feel that Lolabean yarns has perfected that combination. I purchased this apricot-colored skein because it just called to me so much and I think would look amazing in combination with navy. My friend Stephanie is a big fan of Adelle's, the founder of lolabean, so we kept popping by her booth.

 

 

The other booth I raced for when the VKL market opened was Cat Sandwich yarns. I have been wanting to purchase one of their pins for years and I love the anime-like colors that the dyer combines together so provocatively.

I feel these colors shouldn’t go together but they do and they draw the eye like the costume of an anime superheroine. My niece is a fan of anime so I’m thinking of knitting her a pair of socks out of this yarn someday.

 

After having tried out the skeins I had sampled at VKL New York three years ago, I honed in on  one amazing, super-soft yarn—the Pascuali Naturale Tibetan. It is 70% merino, 30% yak, grown in Tibet then milled by Pascuali, which is a company that tries to support natural and sustainable farmers/herders. I had knitted the one natural skein of this yarn I had purchased together with some angora into a  Little Hearts Cowl[over the Christmas holiday.

The cowl pattern is by Martin Storey but I altered it a bit. Every other stripe you see different colored "big hearts" (me) holding hands with little hearts (my students). As you can see, I was missing them over the holiday. The Pascuali filati naturale Tibetan was soooo soft and luscious  that I HAD to buy more of that yarn. I decided to save my one “sweater” yarn purchase for this.  The Pascuali booth staff informed me  the yarn is such a top seller that they only brought five skeins in each color, and so I scooped up the only lot in blue. This yarn is so scrumptious that I keep humming and hawing over which design is worthy of it and that is holding me back from casting it on just yet.

 

 

As I've mentioned before, the huge advantage of a marketplace filled with hand-dyed yarn vendors is that you can find exactly the color of yarn you need. I have really been wanting to knit a shawl in deep green colors and I found my answer in the Green Dragon colorway of Periwinkle Sheep’s Merino Yak fingering weight yarn. I purchased all 3 skeins to knit a Wonky Starfish by Stephen West. I feel compelled to cast on one of his shawls almost immediately, before the hypnotic trance of creativity he lulled me into during his workshop lasts! Then again, I wonder if the green I purchased is the right shade of green for the starfish. The light green in the pattern photo does remind me more of a real starfish while this seems more like a forest green so maybe I should knit a more botanical design with this yarn instead. What do you think?

 

 

 

I have quite a few finished knits that have piled up while I was working up a storm and one of my favorites is this simple, vintage-style bolero designed by Andi Satterlund, called Hortencia. I'm wearing it with my Hollyburn skirt, which is also retro-inspired:

 

 

The cardigan has a top-down construction with a deep, short-row collar and the pattern is easy to follow. I used the Biches et Buches gros lambswool I’d picked up at Stitches West last year. I first saw the yarn at the Edinburgh Yarn festival and admired it two years earlier. I always love supporting natural yarns and family-owned mills. The mill for this yarn is in Scotland, in spite of the French name. It is a gorgeous, squishy yarn filled with lanoline and it was really enjoyable to knit with. Well, it’s taken me two weeks to get this post and photos together. I’m now sometimes working til 10pm and it's starting to wear me down so I had to stay home from a few appointments this evening as I was feeling quite dizzy.  Work life balance is important and I'm trying to get back to that somehow.

 

 

A Chanel-Inspired Skirt & A Fair Isle Cardigan

 

My one major goal for my sewing in 2019 was to try to replicate a zipper-front skirt I saw in the Chanel Fashion show influenced by computers in the Spring/Summer 2017 show:

 

I just adored these A-line skirts with the zipper in front but had very little sewing experience and was afraid I would completely mess up the zipper. But I kept at it, sewing skirt after skirt, starting with the Hollyburn skirt pattern by sewaholic. 

 

 

After creating several successful Hollyburn skirts, I moved on to McCall’s 7197. 

 

 

This pattern features a central zipper that runs the length of the skirt in the back, but it was easy to flip that around. I added one of the waistband options that dips in the center for more flair and voilà!

 

 

This fabric is a silver laminated cotton made by Joann’s fabrics. I really love it, as it has that metallic Chanel vibe. I then branched out and tried a more challenging combination, using a print inspired by Van Gogh’s starry night. For this skirt, I hand-basted the zipper slowly on before sewing it on the machine.

 

 

I don’t know if you can tell from the photo below, but the zipper is made of black lace, which I thought was really cool. If the zipper is going to be exposed, front and center like this, I feel it should be a statement piece.

 

 

I am now working on a wool version, which is considerably more challenging for me as I only sewed with cotton my first year (which was 2019). However, I really want to create something that reminds me of one of these skirts, which are all in tweed:

 

 

 

Here is the skirt as I have sewn it so far. It is just missing the zipper front and perhaps some bottom trim if I decide to do a black lace feature again:

 

 

I purchased this wool-blend fabric at a discount warehouse in San Francisco that receives leftovers from design houses. I love the pink and silver tones contrasting with the black which remind me of a Chanel textile. I will be sooooo excited if I can just find the right zipper and perhaps matching trim. A rhinestone zipper would also be really cool but I don't know where to look. I hope I will soon be able to finish and wear this skirt while it is still cold for a microsecond in my California climate! Someday I will try a pencil-skirt version of the zip-front skirt. The below image is again from the Chanel Spring Summer 2017 show:

 

 

Isn't it scrumptious? But where to find the pattern?

I feel really excited to have the chance to write a second blog post to kick off 2020. I teach reading and writing one on one to children with dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD, expressive processing issues, etc, and the private school where I mostly work is on intercession this week so my schedule is much lighter than normal. I will try to squeeze a VKL NYC yarn/notion haul post in too before my schedule becomes a whirlwind again! While posting this, I can’t resist sharing my fair isle Eliott cardigan, which I knitted for my birthday in September 2019. It is the cardi I am hoping to match to the zipper-front pencil skirt above if I can figure out how to sew one of those.

 

 

 

I knitted this stranded cardigan designed by Lisa Richardson which is from Rowan Magazine 66 in Rowan felted tweed. I used the same yarn colors in the pattern—watch out, the pattern photo colors have been deepended or altered--the Barn Red color of felted tweed is more orange, and the blue less deep blue than the pattern photo suggests. However, I still love this cardigan. I feel the striped sleeves break up the stranded color work, giving it a more modern feel. And this cardigan goes with so many different printed dresses because of its color range, it is really a versatile piece!

 

 

As you may have guessed, I have quite a backlog of knitted pieces I have not posted here. But actually a lot of the items I knitted this year were simple gifts that created bonds between myself and those I loved without being particularly noteworthy otherwise. I will try to post a few of my favorites in coming weeks, though! Thank you all for your kind, encouraging comments. I didn’t realize my blog was missed and it makes me much more motivated to continue posting!