Fashion: Yarn Style

Shaded Flower

 

I have finally assembled the backs and fronts of my fair isle cardigan by Kafe Fasset! I am very happy with the fit in the back! And the fabric itself looks beautiful and even:

 Unfortunately, there is some real gapping in the front:

 

Although, when this was laid flat, it measured correctly, giving me one inch of positive ease, the fabric has no stretch at all and somehow with the stranded fabric it does not stretch as far as it should. I don’t know what it is about getting older and getting wider, but there seems to be a correlation that is making my tops increasingly difficult to fit in the bust area these days. I am discovering that fair isle is not nearly as forgiving as stockinette in stretching over the bust area, so I am going to have to repair this somehow.

 

My first thought is just to wet block the fronts and try to get an extra inch in width on each side. If that does not work, I suppose I will have to knit some front panels.

 

In the meantime, I have been distracted by all of the excitement of Stitches West. I have only spent a few hours in the market so far, but the yarn is better than ever!  This is from Habu:

 

I bought two samples, one in black and one in white, of this fabulous bouclee yarn with the thought of using it as a textural element in my next Chanel-style jacket.

 

And the color combinations in the new Rowan Frost yarn are breathtaking—black with elements of pink, green and grey. I may break down and purchase this if I see it again, but so far I've abstained by reminding myself of how much yarn I already have:

 

 

I also found some ravishing vintage beads:

 

It is a good thing Stitches only comes once a year!

 

 

Tips on Yarn Combining for Runway Inspired Knits

            

 

I have now completed the second large piece of my Chanel-inspired V neck pullover, the front. It was quite a labor of love, but I do like the way it looks after blocking. Because of the mix of fair isle and slip stitch techniques, I found it necessary to block each individual column of colors with pins in order to keep them symmetrical:

You can see the pins, above, forming little indentations in the knitted fabric. Because this piece contains so many different yarns, I just kept the piece dry, pinned it, then put a wet towel on top of it to facililatate the blocking process.

 

It has been challenging to work with so many yarns at the same time. Normally, I avoid yarn combining, but I found it necessary in order to reproduce the unusual colors in this textile.

The mauve was particularly difficult to approximate, as when I used one mauve color by itself it looked to harsh and so I had to create my own color by combining several variegated yarns together. Compare the closeup of my actual knit here:

to the effect you get from using one solid mauve yarn, which you see in the top left section of the fair isle swatch:

The stark mauve, above, looks exaggerated and somehow too sweet in contrast with the grey and silver. Not the look I desired. However, I found that in order to get the water-color effect of the subtle mauve of my inspiration piece, I needed to combine 2 threads of Kidsilk spray yarn:

With one thread of Classic Elite silky alpaca lace

And one thread of Rowan shimmer

= 4 different yarns!!!!!

This means that on every other slip stitch pattern repeat, I am holding those four yarns together in one hand. And because I am creating contrasting colums of colors I must use another collection of colors in the other. This contrasting color block uses three yarns--Habu NS-28, Rowan Kidsilk Haze, and Rowan Shimmer:

This means that the knitting process is pretty slow, because every 5 stitches of the slip stitch pattern, I am trading a handful of yarns for another. But the back sides of my pieces are a gorgeous kaleidoscope of different colored yarns:

 

If I hadn’t fallen so much in love with these unique colors I doubt I would have bothered with the hassle of yarn combining. But since this textile has been haunting me, I have pushed forward with the two main body pieces and have just started my first sleeve. On the way, I have discovered some things that may be useful to others who have ventured into the tricky terrain of yarn combining.

Tip #1: Separate your balls of yarn in an open space

Keep your balls of yarn separate if you are combining several yarns of different materials and thicknesses. If you try to wind different yarns into a ball together but they have different stretch because of their different fibres, you will end up with a mess. Do not put them in a bag either. Unfortunately, balls of yarn will roll around as the strands of yarn are pulling off them, and in a constricted space like a bag they are much more likely to tangle together as that happens.I found that it is easier to keep my balls separate but next to each other on one side of me on the sofa, lying loose, or in a wide, open box. Here you can see that the yarn strands are separate but are knitted together as one:

Tip #2: When your yarns first cross over each other, pull the junction down.

In my case, when I am executing the fair isle/slip stitch portion of my textile, I have one color block comprising 3 strands of yarn and another color block comprising 4 strands of yarn. When I first switch from one block to another, my 3 strands of yarn cross over my 4 strands of yarn for the first time. At this crossing, I loosen the junction and pull it down gently.

The lower this junction is, of the strands crossing over each other, the longer your separated strands are, which means you have more time to do your stranding work before the junction creates an inevitable snarl as some of the hairs on the little threads catch each other.

Tip #3: Pause regularly to unwind your color blocks from each other.

As you knit along in alternating colors, the strands that cross will become wound around each other:

This becomes less of a problem if you defer the yarn junction as mentioned in Tip 2 by gently separating your yarns after the first crossing and pulling that junction down. But I found that if I took one color block of all its strands at once and unwound it from the others every 2 rows, then I could keep the work moving smoothly and avoid a massive tangle which is a time-consuming disaster. Once I got used to it, the yarn unwinding went quickly and prevented a lot of frustration. I found that if I held all 3 balls of yarn in my hand together as one, I could very quickly separate them  from the strands in the other color block.

Tip #4: Take frequent breaks to knit a simple project in one yarn

No matter how many tricks I have tried to use to simplify the process, I still find the process of colorwork with up to 7 strands of yarn at a time laborious. So I have been taking frequent breaks to liberate myself from the need for “yarn management” by knitting a fun accessory project in one yarn. I will be sharing some great easy accessory projects I have discovered through this in my next blog post.

 

 

Knitting Experiments in Textile Creation Inspired by Chanel

 

 

 

For anyone who missed the outrageously beautiful Fall/ Winter Haute Couture runway show by Chanel, you can still find it here:

www.chanel.com. Just go to Fashion, and click on the link for the Fall/Winter 2012 couture video.

 

I was absolutely stunned by the beauty of this collection. The color combinations, ranging from cream to pink to black and silver created an almost ethereal loveliness. And the textile art created by the woven pieces, quilted together, was breathtaking.

Recently, pink has been considered an outcast color in the fashion world. In 2010, Clinton Kelly, celebrity stylist from TLC’s What Not to Wear, wrote of pastel pink, “Sometimes it’s fine to wear pastel pink. Those times would be if, you are Molly Ringwald and it is 1985, or [if] you are an Easter Egg.” [OH NO She Didn’t by Clinton Kelly]. Perhaps times have changed, or perhaps Chanel is singlehandedly changing fashion through the rapturous handling of pink in this collection. Its edgy combination with grey and black, the outrageous beaded pieces and quilting were ravishing, leading me to see pink through rose-colored glasses again!

 

The piece that most captured my fancy from the show is the V-neck pullover, above. It is such a clever piece, with jacket-like sleeves and jacket trim, yet it is styled as a pullover. The exquisite combination of colors, between the hint of metallic sparkle and the intertwined pink and grey and mauve literally haunted my dreams until I resolved to find some way to achieve a similar piece. Considering that a couture garment by Chanel costs upwards of $30,000 from what I’ve heard, going out and purchasing the coveted sweater is impossible. My only recourse would be to knit a piece in a color scheme inspired by the original that would be my own, but carry something of the spirit of the runway.

 

The biggest impediment to my dream is the quality of the textile. Clearly, the pullover was woven. How could I create a similar blend of colors using knitting techniques? I spent some time amassing grey and white and silver and pink and mauve yarns from my stash (to my great good fortune I received birthday yarn money—thank you everyone!) and then I proceeded to swatch, and swatch, and swatch. Since I have just learned fair isle, I decided to use fair isle technique to create the columns of grey and light pink vertical stripes, and then I would experiment with other techniques to try to reproduce the effect of horizontal strips woven over the vertical bands of color.

Swatch 1

Attempt 1. Using fair isle and reverse stockinette, I tried combining the white silk yarn in my stash (Habu NS-28) with a thin thread of light pink yarn—Classic Elite silky Alpaca lace. Unfortunately, the two yarns did not mesh together. The resulting color was not an angelic light pink but a mottled pink and white mess that presented a sickly appearance. I was more fortunate in the grey yarn I chose. The Malabrigo Silky Merino, in Cape Code grey had a wonderful translucent shine with hints of pink that gave a fair resemblance to the grey in the original.

Swatch 2

Attempt 2: Rejecting the pink and white combination, I resolved to use straight pink in different shades mixed with grey. The firefly pink linen yarn is mixed with the Classic Elite silky alpaca again in light pink and mauve, and I brought in a silver thread of Rowan Shimmer to add dimension to the grey. The result reminded me exactly of those dusty rose bathrooms from 1990. I agree with Clinton Kelly here. The overwhelming pink pastel quality of this pink, combined with light grey is cloying and passée. There is nothing chic here.

Swatch 3

Attempt 3: Rejecting pink altogether for the body of the sweater, I resorted to a simple white and grey. The problem now is, where is the contrast? To spice it up, I added the Classic Elite silky alpaca again in pink and mauve for the upper section, but the contrast of the pink and mauve with the white is far too harsh. And the 1980s are calling again. Back to the drawing board.

Swatch 4

Attempt 4: This swatch was a success. I used a slip stitch pattern to create horizontal rows which give the impression of weaving over the vertical columns of grey and white. Here, the silver Shimmer yarn worked beautifully. Also, I brought in some new yarns that created a more subtle mauve color. Now I knew I was getting close!

 

My last step was to bring in a strand of light pink kidsilk haze. This gave me the angelic pale pink that I had wanted originally without any mottling, so that the base colors are now light pink and grey. Here is the actual textile I have created for the back piece:

Obviously this is not Chanel. It is simply my own version of textile art inspired by a beautiful piece I saw on the runway. Still, given the enormous limitations of knitting versus weaving fabric, I am pleased with the result.

Considering that I am using a mixture of fair isle and slip stitch techniques to create this textile, using 7 different yarns at one time, this is a laborious project. But sometimes no task is too difficult if you have the chance to follow your dreams.

 

Combine Yarns to Create A Chanel-style Fabric

 In order to create a knit that more closely approximated designer fabric, I combined three yarns together. This is because the expensive woven fabrics favored by designers like Chanel have color depth and texture that can rarely be recreated using only one yarn. My white knit jacket, above, is comprised of three yarns for the main body and a fourth yarn that was used for the trim.

For my Chanel jacket, I created color depth by combining three yarns that were similar in color, yet slightly different, and all of them had a different material composition ranging from merino to paper to silk. Since my color scheme was black and white, I chose Claudia Handpainted Yarns’ black tie 4-ply yarn in merino as my working yarn:

This variegated yarn is mostly white, with just hints of black, which was just the kind of subtlety I wanted. To add depth to this predominantly white color scheme, I brought in the Habu silk tram degummed NS-28:

This yarn has an incredible shimmer because of the pure silk, which shines through the knitted fabric and creates an impression of luxury. Also, this white is not exactly the same as the white in the black tie merino 4ply. Whereas the merino ranges from white to cream to grey, the silk is pure white, so combined together, they have more color depth as there is a subtle contrast between the two whites, which is further displayed by the contrasting grey/black splashes of color in the black tie. 

 

To give my fabric the feel of the bouclée of a classic Chanel and to deepen the color depth still further, I added a third variegated yarn which also ranges from white to grey to black and contains a symmetrical texture element of small squares of paper incorporated into the yarn, Habu yarn's N-78 B-3. Yes, this yarn is actually made of paper:

 

With these three yarn choices, I was able to simultaneously address the need for color depth and texture at the same time.  By sticking to neutral colors with subtle variations I was able to create a consistent fabric that looked more luxe. This is important, because when we look at the variations in color in most Chanel textiles, we can see the variations are perfectly symmetrical and the colors are generally muted. This is why I chose to use a simple basket weave made of knits and purls and why I kept my color variations more symmetrical by combining the two variegated yarns with a single white one that maintained a pure line of color throughout the jacket.

 

The edging ties the whole piece together. I executed the pocket and front edging borders in a double moss stitch using Schulana Mosco yarn doubled:

 

I do not believe that it is always necessary to combine multiple yarns in order to create a luxe fabric—there are some tweed yarns, for example, which are designed to create color depth. But in my case, I felt it was worth the extra time and effort to combine yarns in order to achieve exactly the fabric that I wanted, and the feeling that I was engaged in creating a kind of textile art  was the most satisfying part of the experience.

Lining a Chanel-Style Jacket

If you are knitting a knee-length coat or you want to stabilize loose knitted fabric, lining is a great option. I will be sharing some things that I have learned about lining knits that I hope will be helpful.

 

I was fortunate enough to attend Jean Frost’s Stitches class on how to line a Chanel-style jacket last year. I strongly recommend the class. Jean Frost is a great teacher, and she had so many useful tips and pieces of technical information to share! I brought in one of the sleeves from the Emerald Blocks jacket I was knitting, and it took the entire two day workshop for me to get that sleeve fully lined with silk. But I learned so much that it was totally worth it! I believe Jean Frost has an information section on lining hand knits in her latest book, “Custom Knit Jackets; Casual to Couture” which would be well worth reading.

 

After my adventure lining the Emerald Merino jacket designed by Jean Frost, I decided to build on what I had already learned and make my own design for a Chanel-style jacket so I could improve my lining technique. Since one of the most classic looks is a white jacket with black trim, I decided to use that as my inspiration. Here is the result:

 

 

I combined several yarns together to get the tweedy look that I wanted for this white jacket, and chose a textured stitch that I hoped would give the fabric a pseudo-woven look. More about the yarn and stitch pattern in my next post. To finish off the garment, I lined it in white polka-dotted silk.

 

Now all I need is a matching blouse underneath, and I have saved some of the polka dotted silk for that purpose. I just have to get over my fear of my sewing machine! For me, hand sewing is much easier than machine sewing, but I will have to get over my sewing machine phobia somehow. In the meantime, after my adventures lining these two hand knit Chanel-style jackets, I culled some useful guidelines that perhaps will be helpful to others as well.

 

1.   1. Sew the lining on by hand, don’t use a sewing machine.

There is a simple reason for this. Hand-knitted fabric is flexible and machine stitching is not. Machine sewn stitches create permanent, firm lines that cannot stretch in the same way that knitted fabric will. Therefore, the two will not live in harmony together over the life of the garment. One great technique that I learned from Jean Frosts’s class was this: To ensure that your hand-sewn quilting has flexibility, don’t knot the ends of your threads when you finish a line of quilting stitches. Just tuck the thread ends inside the lining, so they will be sealed in the area where the wrong side of the lining faces the wrong side of the knitted piece, out of sight. Keep the thread ends several inches long, so they will have plenty of range of movement over time without your stitches pulling out. That way, as your piece stretches, the stitching in the lining can stretch as well. I left about five inches of thread ends at the end of each line of stitching.

 

2.    2. Sew the wrong side of the lining against the wrong side of the knitted fabric. That way, the right sides of both will be visible, and your lining fabric’s right side is displayed every time you open your jacket and take it off. Don’t expect yourself to remember what the wrong sides of your lining are—mark them with chalk or some other erasable marker before you start quilting so you don’t waste time quilting the wrong sides of the fabric together! You would think this would be obvious, but on my second project I caught myself quilting a sleeve back to the right side of the lining and had to pull out my basting and start all over again!

 

3.    3. Use vertical lines of hand stitching to secure the lining. This quilting approach originated with Chanel jackets, so if you are looking for a similar effect, use the same approach to your lining. The purpose of the quilting was to stabilize a loosely woven fabric with a silk backing so that it would hold its shape. If you want a guide, after you pin your knitted piece and the silk lining together, you can baste vertical lines with a contrast thread as a marker first, starting with the middle of the piece that is being lined, and then placing each successive seam one inch out from the midpoint to the right and left, until you reach the edge of the piece, so that everything is symmetrical. Leave plenty of room on the sides for seams. For me, two inches away from the sides of each piece I stopped quilting and just left the knitted fabric and the silk fabric loose, to be dealt with when the whole garment was assembled later.

 

4.      4. Line each piece individually. Each piece of your handknit jacket should be quilted with a lining before you assemble your garment. Then you will sew the knitted pieces together to form the completed garment, and then finally you will sew the seams of the lining fabric together to finish the inside. As you can see from the image below, after the knitted pieces were assembled, the edges of the silk lining were folded under, overlapped over each other (front lining overlaps the back) and then secured using hand stitching. 

5.    5. Decide that you are going to line your project BEFORE you knit it. This is absolutely essential, because the lining process pulls in the knitted fabric, basically making it smaller by at least one garment size. To make matters worse, lined knit fabric loses all its stretch, so principles of negative ease no longer will show off your figure, and your jacket will simply look too small. After assembling my two jackets, I have found that at least 3 inches of the garment are lost to the lining process. So, in future, I will add at least 3 inches to the finished dimensions that I want to have for any jacket I knit. On the other hand, if you end up with a knitted garment that went off gage and knitted up way too big, lining it may be a great solution to improve the fit.

 

6.    6. Build in extra room for the bust and hips. Most Chanel jackets sit on the high hip area, where hips tend to curve the least, so that calculation is not quite as much of a headache as the bust, but make sure that when you choose a size for your knitting pattern that you choose a size that will accommodate your high hip measurement + ease for the lining. In other words, if the jacket sits on the hip 4 1/2 inches below the waist, measure the width of your hips 4 1/2 inches below the waist, and use that measurement + ease for the lining when you choose the pattern size. Because I have wider hips, I tend to lengthen my Chanel jackets, as that looks more flattering on me, so my jackets are usually 5.45 - 6.5 inches long after the waist, which means the measurement is even wider and I have to choose a larger size.

 

T   The bust measurement is even more important.  Silk lining renders the knitted fabric inflexible compared to a normal knit, so the fabric will not stretch to accommodate your bust the way it usually does. If you are over a B cup, you might want to strongly consider using bust darts or some other technique to add in enough fabric to accommodate your upper curvature. Otherwise, what will happen is that the edges of the jacket will be distorted, creating a curve in front because more gapping is occuring in the bust area. By the time I discovered this problem with my white jacket, it was too late to go back and reknit the front pieces, as they had already been quilted in silk. If I could have done it all over again, I would have knitted bust darts in the front to avoid this problem. See how, in the photo below, the jacket edges are furthest apart at the bust? Lesson learned!

 

7.    7. Sew on your pockets before you line the front pieces! Since you do not want the stitching for your pocket joins to mess up your beautiful lining, you must complete all the pocket work before you line the front pieces. That way, when you open up your jacket, the inside will be as beautiful as the outside! As a little extra, I also lined my pocket pieces with silk before I sewed them onto the fronts, and I love the way they turned out:

 

    In spite of the front curvature, I love my White Chanel jacket and I wear it all the time to work. Thanks to the lining, it is an elegant classic piece I can wear all year long.

 

Four Reasons for Lining a Hand Knit Jacket

     

There is nothing more luxurious than a custom-tailored garment

lined with silk. Lining elevates any knitted project to the next level

ensuring that it looks as beautiful on the inside as on the outside.

 

Apart from the luxury factor, what are the advantages of lining a knitted jacket?

1.    1. Lined jackets are more work-appropriate. Have you ever worn one of your hand knits to work, only to become embarrassed when it falls open or you take off the sweater and inadvertently reveal a morass of sewn-in threads ends and crossed strands in different colors? This is even more of a problem with a jacket that has pockets, as the pockets often lead to strange-looking squares of stitching on the inside that would be better left hidden. The back side of the button band is often not that great-looking either. It takes work to maintain the optical illusion that everything looks as good on the inside as it does on the outside of our hand knits.

 

Of course, if you plan to wear your knitted jacket buttoned up to the neck all the time, why bother? But knits can be warm, and I’m more comfortable wearing my sweaters and jackets unbuttoned at the office from time to time. Some jackets are also designed to not close in front, but to be worn open, with no buttons, and they flip open quite easily as you are walking about. In the case of a jacket with no closure, if it is a winter garment, I feel that lining is really desirable.

 

2.    2. Stability. Chanel originally lined jackets to strengthen the loosely woven fabrics and knits she used for her designs. It is not always flattering when a knitted jacket conforms closely to your body, especially if it is a loose knit, which can become floppy over time. And if you are knitting a large piece, like a knee-length coat, lining can provide the stability to help the garment keep its shape and to avoid the bumpy look of “the loving hands of home.” I feel that if I am going to spend all the money and time to knit a huge project, it is worth investing in a lining.

 

3.   3. Comfort. A knitted wool jacket can be scratchy and irritating to the skin over a long period of time. Silk, on the other hand, feels divine and so the lining ensures that I can wear a jacket for an entire day without any discomfort.

 

  4. Beauty. 

 

Chanel Jacket with a blouse that matches the jacket lining, 1960s

4. Once you decide to add lining as an element to your knits, they can become a key design feature. Chanel perfected this by matching the blouse worn underneath a jacket to the lining of the jacket itself, so that when the jacket was open you saw the play of the two fabrics and textures together. In the 2012 Couture fashion show of Chanel, which you can view on the website, www.chanel.com, Lagerfeld has added silk bows around the neck and pleated trims to the Chanel jackets, which no doubt match the silk linings inside.

 

What I love about my Chanel-inspired jacket is that when I wear it, even when it flips open, the fabric enhances the look and design. I also love the soft feel of it against my skin, and the way that the glow of the green silk brings out the sheen of the green merino. My pockets are hidden, and my buttons are extra stable because I was able to sew a strip of muslin behind the button band to keep the buttons firmly in place. This became invaluable to the integrity of the jacket, as I really did not like the first two sets of buttons that I sewed on, and I had to remove 2 sets of buttons from the knitted fabric, which is no easy feat. I was able to do this because the only wear and tear from the various removals of all the threads and buttons was to the muslin strip, which I simply replaced and then covered over with lining.

In part three, I will write about specific technical information that you can use to line a hand knit garment.

 

 

4 Tips for Knitting a Chanel-Style Jacket

Every few months, a new pattern that resembles a Chanel jacket surfaces in the

knitting scene. Why are we so obsessed with Chanel? Coco is my heroine because

she elevated the lowly knit through styling, fabric choice and sheer creative genius

to the height of fashion and sophistication.

 

What is more luxurious than a Chanel? Many of us try to imitate the look, but with

little success. I believe the reason so many fail is that they focus on the exterior

trappings of the classic jacket—the round-collared neck and square pockets,

ornamented with a contrasting trim. You can knit up jackets all day long that are the

shape of a Chanel jacket, but without the luxe look of the woven Italian textiles

adopted by the house of Chanel, the end result is often cheap-looking and sad.

Instead of living up to the image of Chanel, the garment depresses us because of

 how far it has fallen from the ideal. This is often the fault of execution,

but it can also help to look at the designs out there and learn to analyze the

elements that suit the purpose of the jacket you are dreaming of.

 

 Here is an example of the use of variegated yarns and textured stitches to achieve a

look that may be inspired by a Chanel jacket. This is an ingenious design, and there

are some great ideas in this jacket. However, most knitted jackets do not compare

to an actual look from the Chanel fall/winter 2012 Couture show:

 

These jackets are both wonderful and unique in their own ways, but one looks like

couture and one does not. Why?

 1. The hand-knitted jacket does not fit the model. The luxury look is

all about tailoring and good fit. By contrast, the proportions of the hand-knitted

jacket are off, in fact the garment swallows the delicate woman wearing it. This is

probably not the designers' intention, but just happened that for the purposes of a

photo shoot a larger jacket was put on a smaller model. However, we see this every

day with our own hand knits, which do not end up fitting us properly. Note

how, by contrast, the Chanel jacket flatters the models’ body and looks expensive

because of the correct proportions and tailoring.

 

TIP 1: 

 The fastest way to elevate your knits to a designer look is to learn your

measurements, and choose a pattern with proportions that flatter your figure.

Customize the sleeves to your arm length, and make sure the jacket is not

too long on you. It should sit at the top third of your hips, above the widest part,

 as Chanel believed this was the most flattering length. You can also play with

length like the two real Chanel jackets posted here--the green one is exaggeratedly

cropped, the silver one long, but remember your proportions and what looks best on

you. Chanel jackets also have high arms and well-fitted arm scythes and shoulders,

so do not start decreasing for the armhole too soon, it should be a bit higher than

you are used to. Make sure you also decrease enough for the armhole so that

 the top of the jacket sits on your shoulders properly, without creating extra bulk

due to loose fabric bunching around the arm. For example, when I make a jacket,

I know that the correct width at the shoulders for front and back pieces for me is 15

inches, and then it will sit correctly on my shoulders, so if I have to add extra

armhole decreases to make the garment narrower towards the shoulders, and make

my sleeve cap a bit taller to compensate, I make those modifications every time.  

 

2. The variegated yarn colors in the knitted jacket are bright and diverse. This is a

popular look in the knitting world, and there is much to recommend it. It

creates a look that is folk arty and fun, but it is not necessarily high

fashion. Variegated yarns are popular because they produce a colorful look without

resorting to yarn combining or color work, but they do not always look expensive. I

learned this years ago, based on a consensus by my readers. I had posted photos of

my knitting on my blog, asking my readers to vote on which tops and sweaters

were work-appropriate. Almost all of my readers felt that the pieces knitted in

variegated yarn were pretty, but too informal to wear in the work place.

 

TIP 2:

Although there are some expensive and beautiful variegated yarns available to us, I

do believe we must be discriminating in analyzing their appropriateness for an

expensive-looking piece. If you look at the subtle variegation in the

Chanel jacket, and compare it to the strident color differences in many variegated

yarns, you see the difference immediately. Look at how quiet the

the color variations are in the woven Chanel fabric--all the colors are cool

grey-toned colors, and their differences are highlighted through uses of metallics

and neutrals. By comparison, high-contrast colors in hand knits can seem stronger

because of their brightness, and draw the focus away from the wearer and the

structure of the garment itself. In many variegated yarns, we have the additional

problem of random striping and pooling, made all the more obvious by marked

differences in the colors of the variegated yarn. I recommend using a subtle

tweed instead of a variegated yarn, or pairing a metallic or silk

thread with a merino that is similar in color to create the subtle variation

suitable for a luxury look.

3. The materials in many knitted jackets  look less expensive than those in the

designer pieces they are emulating. Most Chanel jackets are made of woven fabric

from Italy, incorporating expensive materials such as silk,

merino, mohair/alpaca and metallics. Perhaps it is possible to make a

luxurious, expensive-looking jacket with cheap materials, but I believe

that you are increasing your difficulties a thousand-fold. If you plan to  

spend a month knitting your jacket and another two weeks at least lining it by hand,

your expenditure of time is worth something, and you deserve to use expensive

materials. It is my personal feeling that a Chanel-inspired project is one that I

should  save up for so that I can  splurge on fabulous, high quality yarn that will

justify all my time and effort with a luxury look. This means I will not be knitting

Chanel jackets all the time, but after all, how many does a girl really need? 

TIP 3:

Achieve the luster of a designer piece by using pure merinos by reputable

companies, such as Karabella and Marion Foale, or pure silks and silk blends, such as

Habu NS28, Malabrigo silky wool, Handmaiden sea silk, or use high-quality metallic

threads for a knitting splurge. Remember, if the yarn looks cheap, your jacket will

too.

 

4. The material of the Chanel jacket is finer than that of the hand-knitted piece.

The problem with trying to achieve a knitted fabric that looks woven is that the

combination of knit and purl stitches can create a bulky fabric which is not figure

flattering or elegant. This, to me, is the biggest challenge because knitting is more

limited than weaving is, and to produce a woven-looking effect that is still fine

enough to have drape can be quite tricky. 

TIP 4:

If you plan to line your jacket, don't use a pattern with a gage less than 24 sts = 4

inches. Avoid worsted weight and bulky yarns, and if you are using a textured

pattern to emulate a woven fabric, keep the yarns you use as fine as possible, as the

textured pattern will create more bulk.

 

This all seems rather complicated, and intimidating at first. Luckily, knitting

designers like Jean Frost have spent years experimenting with stitch patterns  and

yarns that, when used judiciously, can create a jacket that resembles couture. I

believe strongly, however, that you should use your own taste and discrimination in

choosing yarns and designs rather than blindly relying on a knitting designer to

create a pattern that will elevate your knitting to couture. I had to make many

changes to Jean Frosts' wonderful pattern, Emerald Blocks, before I was satisfied

that it had the look that I wanted. If you don't invest the extra time on the finishing

details, such as the shape of the collar, the buttonholes and the trim, you

may feel that your time and money have been spent in vain.

 

Jean Frost published the pattern, “Emerald Blocks” last year in the Fall 2011 issue of

Knitter’s Magazine. This, to me, seemed like a much better approach to a Chanel

than the ones I had seen before, because the drama was all generated by a braided

crocheted trim which was easy to achieve, and was executed in subtle colors instead

of some extravagant feathers or rainbowed braid. Also, the fabric used for the body

of the jacket is subtle and fine, using a monochromatic yarn at a gage of 28 sts = 4

inches. Frost’s slip stitch pattern, to me, was one of the best emulations of a

woven-looking fabric I had seen, and I increased the woven look by using double

thread in a laceweight instead of a single 4ply thread, so that there were 2 separate

threads visible every time the yarn was passed in front of the slipped stitches, and

so the “woven” look was enhanced.

I chose Marion Foale’s 3ply Merino yarn in a deep teal, a high quality yarn that looks

expensive, in my opinion. It was really a fun project, and for the most part the

result matched my expectations. 

 

THE NECKLINE:

The only complaint I have with the pattern is that for some reason, the round

neckline was far too low—it came out 5 inches below the collar bone instead of the

usual 3 inches for a standard jacket, which looked very strange. Unfortunately, I had

not basted all of my pieces together and tried the jacket on as a whole garment

before I had quilted a silk lining to each piece, so there was really no going back

after I sewed the whole jacket together. I strongly advise doing this to anyone who

knits this pattern. In the end, I solved the gap problem by picking up stitches around

the neckline and creating a collar. However, I feel that the collar, such as it is really

detracts from the look of the piece and betrays it as "hand-made".

 

BUTTONHOLES:

A small detail such as buttonholes can also ruin the appearance of a formal jacket

like this, and cheapen the look. The buttonhole technique used by the pattern was

not easy to master, and to me, created a gapping look which was not up to par with

the rest of the garment. In the end, I used a technique that bounded the cast off

stitch with knit 2 togethers so that the hole was firmly bound, which gave it a more

finished look.

 

TRIM:

One of the keys to success with ambitious projects is knowing your own limitations. I

am not an experienced crocheter, so I did not try to create the crocheted braid

myself. I was lucky enough to have the help of the master knitter, Pipapo, who

created a gorgeous crocheted and braided trim for me, which I sewed on to the

edges by hand (whip-stitching technique), and then I added antique glass buttons,

which I secured using a muslin backing behind the knitted fabric, which was then

hidden by the lining I sewed underneath.

 

For a first attempt at such an ambitious project, I saw that it was imperfect, but I

was pretty happy with it all the same. It is a functional winter jacket, and it

is work appropriate, and it makes me feel stylish, which is all that matters in the

end. In part two, I will write some tips for lining the jacket by hand with silk.

Knitting by Numbers: Sweaters that Fit

 

x² + bx + c = 0

\int_{-N}^{N} e^x\, dx 

How many of us knitters were whizz kids in math when we were in school? For me, personally, word problems were terrifying—my girlfriends and I actually had nightmares about math characters—in hers, a giant Sigma Iota sign chased her all over campus! I got as far away from math as I could once I was in college, indulging left-brain only endeavors in literature studies, theater and dance. How ironic is it that now, many years later as a knitter, when I sit down to plan a new project, I’m running word problems in my head? After all these years of fleeing from numbers, I find myself relying on them more and more. The truth is that projecting a desired outcome in length and width of a new sweater is not much different than those word problems that plagued us in school.

 

Knitting by Numbers: Successful Sweaters from 2010

It pains me to admit it, but my greatest knitting successes this year all came down to math. For all the sweaters above, what makes them work as actual clothing is how well they fit my body. That meant a considerable investment in time; reading over a pattern to determine the amount of intended ease the designer had built into a pattern, and the exact measurements that would result from sizes S to M.  (You simply divide the number of stitches at hips, waist and bust in the pattern by the number of stitches per inch in the pattern gage. That gives you the intended measurements for each size and desired amount of ease.) The challenge then is to choose a particular size or even adjust stitch numbers in a size to accommodate my own body measurements and my desired amount of ease. As if that isn’t enough of a challenge, I found it necessary to consistently measure the gage throughout the process of knitting the back and front pieces so that if my gage loosened or tightened up as I went along, (which happened often) I could continue to adjust my increases/decreases to get the desired fit.

 

Reflecting on successes from 2010, here is the formula I found that worked best to simplify my sweater word problems :

 

 

1.              Step one:

     Choose one style of designing and stick to it. In my case, I focused mostly on flat, bottom-up patterns. Actually, most of the sweaters I chose were designed by one design house. Why? Because working within a standardized set of patterns is predictable, and leads to sustained success from one project to the next. I chose Kim Hargreaves because many of her patterns are made with an hour-glass figure in mind, and the ample waist shaping and peplums or ruffles emphasized the ratio of small waist to curvy hips. Once I learned how to adapt one of these patterns to fit me best, I could apply that successful formula to them all. 

)

 

       Step two:

2.    Consistent choices in yarn is another must. Because my gage varies quite a bit, I have learned the hard way to hitch my wagon to a few types of yarn and stick to them as much as I can. Once I have learned what my gage is using 4-ply cotton, for example, I can apply that knowledge to the next project I knit in that yarn, which saved me a lot of unraveling. For example, I knit Petal right after Blossom and was able to achieve a perfect fit because I had just knitted a Kim Hargreaves pattern using that same yarn. On the other hand, when I tried knitting Arielle, which has a similar construction to Petal and Blossom, using handmaiden seasilk, I found my gage playing tricks on me and struggled so much with the different properties of the yarn that I had to unravel the entire thing.

 
3 patterns by Kim Hargreaves: Petal, Blossom & Arielle

I    I bombed horribly knitting Goodwill because the felted tweed aran defied all my attempts to control its gage, producing a loose, floppy jacket that was basically un-wearable. Kristenlynne’s sage advice has certainly proved true for me that consistent choices in yarn are a huge factor for sweater success!

      Step three:

3.     The final and most important factor for success for me is mastering own measurements when planning a project.

 

    This is something I am still struggling with, but I think this is perhaps the most empowering part of knitting one’s own clothes. How many women in America are even wearing the correct bra size? Most of us shy away from measuring ourselves, or from measuring our changes over time, but if we don’t, how will we ever knit sweaters that fit? I was shocked a few years ago, when I took Karen Alfke’s brilliant Stitches class on knitting sweaters that fit. To my embarrassment, we were all asked to measure the knitter sitting next to us from top to bottom, but I learned an important lesson. After several measuring attempts, my partner proved to me that my rib cage , in fact, measured only 31 inches. How was this possible when the bra I had been wearing since highschool was a size 38? I went to Nordstroms for a professional bra fitting a week later and left satisfied with my new size 34, in a cup-size bigger than what I had been wearing before. It seems this is a common mistake that women make, increasing the size of the band to compensate for a cup that is too small.

 

Since bust measurements are so critical to correct sweater fit, I felt very empowered by this experience, and used my newfound knowledge for the next two years when planning out all my sweater projects, incorporating bust darts into many of my tighter fitting sweaters.

 

But as time progressed, my horizontal bust darts grew less and less effective, leading up to the overly tight cardigan, Jen, in which it appears the buttons are threatening to pop off.

 

I was completely mystified by this disaster until this Christmas, when my husband used my supposed measurements to buy me some lingerie.  I went back to Victoria’s Secret in a huff, and put myself through the torture of trying on half a dozen bras in the same size, none of which fit. Forced to rely on a teenybopper salesgirl for help, I pointed out that everything I tried on seemed to be too small, and what could I do? She whipped out a tape measure, spent some time measuring me, and told me without a blink that my true measurement was a 36 inch band, in a cup size even smaller than the ones I was trying on. In the past, I might have been intimidated by the girls' arrogant manner, and ended up buying myself the wrong bra. But after years of knitting, I was armed with measurement experiences, which had proved time and again that my true number is 31 inches. It took some time and patience, and my actually trying on an ill-fitting bra to prove the salesgirl wrong, but in the end, I left Victoria Secret with a 34 inch-band bra in an even larger cup size that fit me perfectly. This experience left me with a few questions--is the cup sizing at Victoria Secret skewed to make women think they are bustier than they really are, or have I actually changed cup sizes, which would explain the bust dart failures in my sweaters this past year? I suppose I will have to make another trip to Nordstrom for a fitting so I can make sure. As embarrassing as this topic is, I bring it up because I am increasingly convinced that  knowing our own topography is a key to gaining mastery over our knits. As stressful as my experience was, instead of leaving the store in tears as I might have in years past, I left feeling empowered, because I was armed with enough knowledge to get the help I needed in the end. It turns out that now those math word problems, instead of adding to my fears, are making me a confident woman after all. 

 

 

Top-Down Set-in Sleeve Magic

 

I lengthened my fuzzy blue sweater by three and a half inches on the bottom, and it looks much better now! I was trying for a shorter length before because I wanted to do something different, but I guess you shouldn’t mess with a good thing.

 

This also gave me the chance to take a proper photo of the beaded trim on the sleeves, which I am quite proud of:

(It looks like there may be a gap in the beading here from the photo but it is just a shifting of the pattern. If you look more closely, you can see the beads are still there, in a different shaped cluster.) 

Aside from the beading, I am most happy with the shaping of the top-down set-in sleeves! I have struggled in the past with figuring out the right proportions for picking up stitches around the armhole to create a set-in sleeve that looked good. Especially if you are knitting a garment that is rather close to the body, it is important to avoid a bulky look in the sleevecap/upper sleeve area. But when I researched how many stitches to pick up at the armhole, many different sources recommended picking up two out of every three stitches. Perhaps I did something wrong, but every time I tried this proportion, I got a massive sleeve cap, and a sleeve that stuck out from the body of the sweater at a stiff angle. 

 

Determined to get a good handle on this problem, I took 2 classes at Stitches West last month on techniques for armhole/sleeve shaping. Putting together what I learned, I derived a few basic principles to use when I am picking up stitches around the armhole to ensure a good fit. Here are the four most useful things I learned:

 

1.    #1: Don’t pick up many stitches at the top of the sleeve cap or at the underside of the armhole. Think about it—when you are knitting a flat sleevecap from a pattern, you cast off most of your stitches by the time you reach the top so that you are left with a narrow sleevecap. This allows a better fit.

2.    #2: Pick  up one out of every two stitches from the armhole area to create the sleeve cap. Sarah Peasley, one of the instructors at Stitches West swears by this. (www.sarahpeasley.com) Why? Because a sleeve is not meant to stick out from the body perpendicularly—picking up two out of every three, or some other calculaton based on your row gage works better if you are trying to create a perpendicular join. But a sleeve fits into a sleevecap at a slant. Picking up one stitch for every two rows in the body of your sweater seems to work out perfectly to make a sleek, fitted sleeve cap. 

3.    #3: Once you have calculated the number of stitches you will pick up, multiply the number of stitches by your stitch gage and compare the number of inches you get with the width of your upper arm. For me, I found that if I picked up one out of every two, the measurements matched up perfectly. When I tried picking up 2 for every 3, I ended up with a sleeve cap that was quite a bit wider than my upper arm.

4.    #4 Don't pick up your wrapped stitches. Most  of you who have done this before know how to knit down, using short rows to create the sleeve cap. I won’t go into that here. One of my instructors at Stitches West spent a lot of time demonstrating how to hide the wraps you made by picking them up in ingenious ways. However, try as I might to make my wraps invisible, there is a distortion there that won't go away. That is why I decided to try Sarah Peasley's suggestion of just leaving the wraps in place as a decorative element. This way you avoid the unsightly lumps and bumps of the picked up wraps, and the result is a bit like a fully fashioned increase or decrease line—it creates a subtle pattern that looks intentional, rather than like a random series of blobs. This technique really added to the polished look of my finished sleeve.

 

Success with Beaded Trim

Sweaters by Naeem Khan 

It was these gorgeous designer sweaters that started my obsession with beaded edging! I still drool every time I look at by these creations by Naeem Khan. I actually went to Neiman Marcus and tried on one of his creations. Cashmere and hand-sewn beads—the height of luxury. And boy was all that beading heavy! Curious to see what other designers were doing, I looked at a bunch of beaded sweaters, from Oscar de la Renta to Armani. What they all had in common was a simple, stockinette body, and a sprinkling of large, crystal beads sewn on by hand. Since I didn’t have $1750 to buy a designer sweater, I researched a variety of options for beading to decorate my own.

Michelle Obama, wearing a J-Crew beaded sweater 

The Dilemma: How to Attach the Beads?

Considering that my handsewing skills are quite limited, I doubted my ability to sew a perfect, even line of beads “scattered” about my sweater. And I was frankly repelled by the knotted thread ends that stuck out on the surface of many of these supposedly top-of-the-line garments! Dreading the prospect of spending a month knitting a lovely sweater, and then ruining it with a “crafty”-looking sprinkling of beads, I opted for a fool-proof option—beaded lace.

 

 

Beaded Lace: Color Matching is Critical

The fantastic thing about beaded lace is that all the work has been done for me. The beads have been glued into a geometrical design permanently fixed in place by the lace backing. By choosing a diaphanous lace in a color so close to my yarn that melted into the fabric of my knitted sweater, I could make the backing almost invisible. In this way, at a normal distance, the viewer’s eyes are drawn only to the beaded sequence adorning the collar and cuffs!

 

How to Attach Beaded Lace?

Pre-planning is important here. It is simple enough to “whip-stitch” your beaded lace onto the fabric of your finished garment, but what thread are you going to use? Since I was determined to avoid a “handmade look” as much as possible for my beaded edging, I factored my finishing technique into my initial yarn choice before I even started the project.

1.    Firstly, I chose a fuzzy yarn, because that texture is more forgiving than a smooth fabric, which shows all the imperfections.

 

2.    Secondly, I made the yarn I would use to whip stitch the beaded edging an integral part of my sweater fabric.  I chose a two-yarn approach to my sweater, blending Rowan’s Calmer yarn with Rowan’s Kidsilk Haze. Since Kidsilk Haze is an extremely fine yarn, I was able to use it to whip-stitch my beaded edging onto the collar and cuffs, ensuring a uniform “fuzzy” texture that made the foreign lace fabric blend seamlessly at the edges into the texture of the rest of the sweater.

 

3.    Practice first. Lace is a fragile material, and doesn’t like to be punctured with a needle. Add to that the weight of the beads it is carrying, and you have a tricky prospect to sew the lace without ripping it! By adding a beaded lace edging to my cuffs, I was able to practice my whip-stitching along the edge in a less visible place—the underside of the wrist—than the collar of my sweater. It was a good thing I did this, because when I tried to take out a few stitches and shift the lace, it tore, but since I had made this mistake on the underside of the wrist, I could patch it up (in my color-matched kidsilk haze) so that no one would be the wiser. Imagine if this had happened at the focal point of the collar, where it would have ruined the entire sweater! Let me tell you, once you sew this stuff on with a fuzzy thread like Kidsilk Haze, it is glued in place! So use a lot of pins to make sure it is exactly where you want it to be, because you may not have a second chance!

 

Also, remember, since the lace is fragile, you must make sure that it matches the fabric of your sweater and the thread you are using, so you can make an invisible patch as needed. Imagine if I had used red lace on a black background—any tears would be glaringly obvious.

 

How to Position the Beaded Lace

It’s the tiny details that make all the difference when finishing a garment. One of the finishing techniques that impressed me about the designer beaded sweaters was the placement of the beads at the collar. None of the sweaters had a plain stockinette edge. Think about this—putting irregularly shaped items, like beads, along a regular edge, shows off even the tiniest asymmetry. Many of the designer sweaters I admired had a tiny machine-knitted ribbed edge. This textured pattern created a fantastic backdrop for the beads and distracted the eye from any potential irregularity in the placement of the beads.

 Inspired by this example, I spent a great deal of time working on the finishing of the collar of my sweater. I made a deep V, and then experimented with different kinds of ribbing to create the perfect backdrop for my beaded ribbon. In the end, I settled for knitting only 3 rows of ribbing on needles two sizes smaller. At my stitch gage, what that created was a ribbed finish exactly double the width of my beaded ribbon. I set the ribbon in so that the beaded width was flush with my picked-up stitches, and the other half of the ribbing was exposed at the edge. When I cast off my ribbing, I used a special technique, which forms a flat “chain.” See the article, “Knitting a Perfect Rib” by Montse Stanley for the instructions for the two-row cast off technique. You can find that article in the Threads book, “Hand-Knitting Techniques.” It is out of print, but you can get it on amazon.

 

As a result of this planning, the edge of the sweater features a chain-texture in the same color as the lace beading, and exactly the same width. These two textured pieces seem to be part of each other, creating the illusion that the ribbing and beading have blended together into a one-piece finish for the collar. It is the similarity in width, color, and texture that creates this effect, but it is just different enough to create an added dimension to the finished collar.

 

Well, it is a relief to have seen this complicated project through to the end at last! Between the new techniques I used for top-down knitting, beaded edging, and picking up and knitting the sleeves from the top down, there were moments when I thought I would never be able to make it work! Phew! Now I’m off to unravel the bottom and make it a few inches longer. Then I will FINALLY be done!