I have finished my Charm Pull, and what an adventure it turned out to be! The Charm Pull is a pattern by Anny Blatt, from their Couture Collection #217. You can find it here:
http://www.annyblatt.com/boutique/femme/9-pull/3698-charm-pull/
I loved the idea of this jacket in pullover form, and it was a perfect opportunity to use the Vintage Chanel buttons I found at an antique button seller's stall at Stitches West.
The first part of this knitting adventure was the quest for yarn. The pattern calls for Anny Blatt Victoria, which is a ribbon yarn, and Anny Blatt Angora Prestige, but all the Anny Blatt stockists were out of purple angora. As with any Chanel-styled knit, the fabric must look expensive and there must be an element of color depth and sheen. The Victoria ribbon yarn provided the sheen, but it needed to be paired with a fuzzy-textured yarn. I found that the Rowan kidsilk in Black currant was a color match to the Anny Blatt Victoria ribbon yarn. To create additional depth of color and texture, I added a purple angora, Rowan Angora Haze in "love", and so I was ready to begin!
The next challenge was to recreate the interesting textural pattern used in the design. Most Chanel jackets are woven on looms in Italian mills. The reason this pattern is so compelling is that it gives the look of a woven, semi-metallic angora tweed. The pattern itself tells you to use a half brioche stitch. However, dear friends, the Charm Pull in the design photo is not knitted in half brioche stitch. In the design photo, you see little squares of ribbon yarn stitches against a background of angora.
However, the half brioche stitch was swatched by me, my mother-in-law who is a master knitter, and the helpful ladies at my LYS multiple times, without any of us ever producing anything other than this effect:
With the brioche stitch, you get a continuous row of ribbon yarn, not the little ribboned squares from the pattern photo. So I abandoned the pattern and started swatching with a variety of slip stitch patterns until I could create a tweed effect that I liked. My break-through was when I found a way to create raised garter ribbon squares against a flat angora background.
Here is the stitch pattern I discovered for the above tweed:
Row 1: (Angora/KSH) Knit all
Row 2: (Angora/KSH) Purl all
Row 3: (Ribbon yarn) Edge stitch, *slip 1 w/yarn in back, K1* edge stitch
Row 4: (Ribbon yarn) Edge stitch, *K1, slip 1 w/yarn in front * edge stitch
This stitch pattern creates a flat stockinette background in the angora/KSH yarn punctuated by flashes of color from the ribbon. Since angora and KSH are fuzzy, you need to make the ribbon yarn “pop” by knitting it in a garter stitch pattern. You do this by knitting one ribbon stitch on the RS and knitting the ribbon stitch again on the WS so that it will stand out against the angora. By slipping the yarn behind, you ensure that the ribbon squares are totally distinct and separated visually from the angora . It is particularly easy to see this pattern when you are using a variegated ribbon yarn like this Berroco ribbon against a solid background in a saturated color. However, I had chosen 3 yarns with colors that were very similar to each other to create a color depth effect.
So in order to make the ribbon yarn stand out distinctly enough from the angora/KSH background, I needed to use two stitches in the ribbon yarn together to create a garter stitch rectangle. Therefore my final stitch pattern was:
Row 1: (Angora/KSH) Knit all
Row 2: (Angora/KSH) Purl all
Row 3: (Ribbon yarn) Edge stitch, *slip 2 w/yarn in back, K2* edge stitch
Row 4: (Ribbon yarn) Edge stitch, *K2, slip 2 w/yarn in front* edge stitch
Here is a closeup of my sweater so you can see how this pattern works to form a subtle tweed:
Satisfied that I had created the woven texture I desired, I turned my attention to the other problem area of the pattern, the sleeves. No woman wants to look like she has fat arms or bulky shoulders, and the unfortunate use of angora yarn on the sleeves of the Charm Pull magnifies the width of that area.
I have broad shoulders to begin with and I hate the look of “hairy arms” on a sweater that is supposed to have feminine charm. The pattern sleeves had to go! Luckily, I had an ace up my sleeve. One of the great advantages of using kidsilk haze in combination with another yarn for the body of the sweater is that I could knit the sleeves exclusively in kidsilk haze.
Unlike angora, kidsilk haze is light and airy, with an almost sheer effect and knits up very flat, eliminating any bulk. Because the kidsilk haze color matched the ribbon yarn color so closely, you do not even notice the fact that the body of the sweater is a different color from the sleeves.
the only elements of the Charm Pull pattern that I used were the idea created by the image, the Victoria yarn, and the instructions for the ribbing at the bottom and the neck. I constructed the body of the sweater with plenty of waist shaping (-4 inches, 3 inches straight for waist, +3 inches for bust), and drew from the Kim Hargreave pattern, Delphine, for the armhole shaping and sleeve construction. Kim Hargreaves always designs tight-fitting sleeves and sweaters with high armholes which emphasize the slenderness of the figure, so I always come back to her for those elements.
In order to ensure that the sleeves echoed the tweedy look of the body of the sweater, I created an extended ribbing on each sleeve cuff. There were 36 rows of ribbing, with 2 rows of KSH in blackcurrant, then 2 rows of Anny Blatt Victoria ribbon yarn. The subtle sheen of the ribbon yarn in the ribbing echoes the tweed pattern in the body of the sweater and allows it all to come together as an ensemble. Well, here it is. My first heirloom knit of 2014, which took about three months to complete:
I think I’m going to take a little break now and knit something easy and satisfying from my stash. However, I do have another heirloom knit in the works that will requires some sewing skills. I have spent the past month gathering the materials and input I need in order to begin. But for now, I plan to curl up with a simple, satisfying Kim Hargreaves pattern for a cardigan I can wear to work. I’ll be back to you soon with photos from week six of my 100 day challenge of wearing my handknits!