DesigKnit

At the end of the last post, I was still pretty sure that this little thought experiment with the one-piece sweater was going to be just that: a thought experiment. It was a fun idea to consider, but I didn’t feel any driving desire to cast on and knit.

And yet, it was crowding all other design ideas out of my head. And I needed something to cast on, so I kept playing with it. I don’t really have sweater quantities of yarn in my stash, and the few yarns I had weren’t the right yarn for this project, somehow.

But then it occurred to me that I had a bin full of Cascade 220 in a variety of coordinating colors.

What would this look like in a multi-color version? I made a rough sketch of the sweater, and scanned it into my computer. Then, I got out the colored pencils, and got to work.

The fun thing about the multi-color version is that it really highlights the geometry. To my surprise, I liked the blocky, modern look, especially in the asymmetric designs (A, B, and E are my favorites).

I’ve decided to try knitting this up, if only to have something on the needles. After some more hemming and hawing, I settled on B as the color arrangement of choice. I have no idea if this is something that I will actually wear – it falls into the category of project that I will either adore or completely forget about once it’s off the needles. I’m not usually big on blocks of color in clothing, but something in it appeals to me, and that seems like enough of a reason to move ahead.

I’m off to SPA in Maine this weekend, so I should have lots of knitting time to make some progress (I just finished the dark brown section and am starting the gray). More soon!

I think I mentioned before that this picture got me thinking about one-piece kimono designs.

Except for a little bit of bunching at the underarm and a tiny bit of binding over the shoulder, a few pins turned a wide scarf into a very comfortable, flattering sweater.

The idea nestled quietly in the back of my brain for a few days, and then began to toss and turn. What if the front panel had a split in it so that the wide part went under the arm and the narrow part went over the shoulder? How would that geometry work?

That turned out to be a harder question than I at first suspected. I started out with some drawings of what I thought the shape would look like, but quickly realized that this was a slightly bigger leap than my brain could make alone.

So I got out some scissors and started playing with paper.

I cut out a shape something like the rectangle I’d imagined, and then began playing with the dimensions to see what it would take to make it fit a real body. I added some measurements that I thought would reflect the right dimensions.

…and quickly realized that I had not yet accounted for a neck.

Whoops! Changing the folding angle helped a little, but I wasn’t convinced that it would be enough.

Changing the fold location made the neckline a little more realistic. (This was a lesson I learned when making the Striped Shawl Sweater…increase/decrease placement makes all the difference in fit!) We’re also getting close to the kimono look here, which I like.

But notice those shoulders? That’s still a pretty steep angle, unlike the body of anyone I know. Clearly, that was going to take a little more work. After a few more adjustments to the shaping, I ended up with something a little closer to what I was looking for (early models to the left, newer models to the right. Note that the shape looks less and less like a rectangle, and more like an “M” as you go).

But still, those shoulders are pretty steep. How much are they off by? I got out the dressform and a roll of wide paper, and started pinning things in place to see how it would all work out. (The beauty of paper here is twofold: it’s cheaper than fabric, and it has absolutely no give…it won’t hide any problems with the shaping! Also, you can write notes all over it explaining what you think you should be doing instead.)

Not too bad, actually, but there was still a lot of extra fabric at the neckline, and the hem clearly needed some more room. I lopped off a good 5 inches of fabric at the neck, and added some deep darts at the shoulder to increase the ease. Armed with these measurements, I adjusted my original sketch.

This was getting closer to right. The question of how to actually achieve this shape with knitting still remained, though. If you follow the shape through considering the knitting direction, there are several places where things don’t quite seem to work. So I cast on for a mini-sweater to figure out what it would take to knit this thing – kind of an oversized swatch. I ended up reworking the shoulder section several times (I’m still not sure I’m satisfied, but it’s getting there), and today, I steam-blocked this (one half of my “M”):

That’s one half of the sweater, with the hem at the bottom and the center back section still on the needles. All folded up, you can see that it’s starting to look like half a sweater, too.

The shoulder is looking just about right here, though I still need to fuss a bit to get the decrease line to lay flat. There are also some choices to be made about how much underarm panel should be allotted, and exactly how wide the back panels should be. I haven’t decided if I like the deep v-neck or whether I’d go back to the wide-band kimono look, but now that I have a working knitted model all of those changes will be easier to make.

I’m not sure that this will ever be anything more than an interesting swatch, but it has been fun to figure out how to fold an almost-rectangle into a sweater body all in one piece (the sleeves would have to be picked up and knitted on, like in a traditional raglan design). If I do scale up the design, there will be lots more swatching to make sure that those angles stay consistent and that the measurements will work for an adult body. Still, in between projects, it’s been a fun idea to toy with, and that’s what process knitting is all about!

It has been just over 2 weeks, and I still don’t have anything on my needles. I made an attempt at writing up a hat I designed last year, but the charts are complicated and we all know by now that writing down patterns is not usually the thing to get me in a creative mood. (Finishing patterns, on the other hand, has a very satisfying feel to it…I’m looking forward to a couple of those in the near future.)

I cast on a mini practice version of a sweater geometry that I’m currently noodling through, but that was really to give me something to knit at knit night and to keep my hands busy in case I get stranded on a train. More on the sweater later…that’s another full-on process post.

I am in one of those moments in life where one thing is ending and another is about to begin, but I’m not sure what that beginning is or should be. Sometimes, it pays to lean into that pause. As so often happens, my knitting is a reflection of the state of the rest of life.

The practice sweater did help to take the edge off, but between projects (no knitting?!) is not a comfortable place to be. Sometimes, though, it’s important to lie fallow. It’s easy to forget that fallow is not idle, and that downtime is often quite productive. I could rush to cast on just to have something, or I can wait for something compelling to come along. Usually, I would choose the former, in the interests of maintaining rhythm. (My creativity works best in a steady rhythm most of the time.) But sometimes it pays to linger in that downbeat, to just let things settle until they come back of their own accord. Breathe all the way out, and then wait until you must to breathe back in. I am very, very good at committing, but right now is not the time.

Fortunately, I have some spinning to do for a sweater that I may or may not knit (no commitment there!), and that has been keeping my hands occupied while my knitting takes a rest.

I’m sure I’ll be back at the projects soon enough. Until then, it will be little things that get knit around here.

I finished the scarf version of Branden’s basketweave sweater last week, and we took advantage of another snowed-in Monday to take some pictures of it in action.

Lots of people seem to think that an 18″ wide scarf is crazy, but I have a couple already and I love their versatility. I am not very good at being “stylish” and draping things just so, and most of my scarves spend their lives thrown haphazardly around my neck in a futile attempt to keep me warm. Still, I like having the option of dressing them up if I want to, and my practical side loves a scarf that can double as a blanket in a chilly office or on a plane. Douglas Adams says that you should never travel without your towel. Well, for me, that towel is usually a scarf.

If you fold it in half, it works beautifully as a standard-issue scarf…thick and warm to keep out the cold. This is the #1 style around here, though the shawl pin does add a little bit of class (should remember to use it more often).

Then there’s the casual toss over a shoulder (which apparently also leads to slightly dopey, vacant expressions…or maybe that was just the end of the photo session drawing near?).

If you wanted something a bit more stylish, I really like it fastened low across my stomach with a shawl closure. (That’s my favorite squiggle from Leslie Wind holding it closed.)  This style also has maximal upper-back coverage for drafty offices and air conditioner vents, though it is a bit lacking in the neck snuggle.

Adding a second closure in the back practically turns it into a sweater. (There are now all kinds of thoughts floating around in my brain about kimono sweaters knit like a shawl…)

The back closure gives it a nicely fitted look in the front, too. (Here I’ve also closed up the neck a bit more.)

A slightly higher closure position makes it a little more cape-like.

And a shawl pin helps hold up the end for more of a poncho style.

I love the texture of this stitch pattern, and I love the warmth. The scarf has been finished for just over a week, and I have been wearing it every chance I get. (And with the weather we’ve been having, there have been a lot of chances.)

Of course, this design came out of a request for a pattern (thanks, Teresa), so there is also a pattern coming soon. If you have a desire to test knit, give a holler and let me know. We could all use something to warm to wrap ourselves in at this time of year!

One of the most interesting things about the design process (for me, at least) is watching the ebb and flow of ideas. I have no ideas, then I have a hundred ideas. I narrow it down to a few ideas, then they branch out into a hundred more. Back and forth, big and small, growing and contracting, until eventually they settle into just one.

The last post showed the results of the first expansion of designs. I really thought I had no ideas for this project, and then I sat down and put pen to paper. Suddenly there were more designs than I knew what to do with – enough for a lifetime of knitting if I were to try and follow them all. I sifted and sorted, narrowed and selected, and then let them lie fallow for a few days to see what else would emerge.

Then, on a different topic entirely, Elaine (from the comments) sent me a link to Kate Davie’s blog. Do you read it? You should…her work is beautiful. I hadn’t seen it before, but am happily following now.

And, well. The photo on Kate’s header shows a very nice circular yoke cardigan. In fact, she has a whole book full of them.

Know how I said that I’d pretty much ruled out circular yoke designs? Now I’m wondering if I should reconsider that thought.

It had occurred to me before that I might want to knit a “practice” sweater to get the fit and shaping right before committing to a design on such tiny needles. That idea was also floating around in the back of my mind.

The other night, I was sitting in my (home) office, knitting, and looking at the braid of yarn on my spinning wheel. It’s been sitting out for about a month now, waiting for me to find time to spin. I’ve been hesitating because I wasn’t sure what it wanted to become.

Then I thought of the Crocus sweater sitting unhappily in the closet.

You may remember that I was nearly finished with the first sleeve when I realized that I would be short of yarn (a hand dyed, drum carded blend of three colorways that would be very hard to reproduce). And, honestly, the light yellow in the yoke design wasn’t working for me. I liked it at first, but as I got further into the knitting, I began to have my doubts. I put the sweater aside to think over its fate. That was in July.

The initial recovery plan for this sweater was that I would spin up a couple of gradient braids left over from the shop.

The color is a pretty good match, and the gradient would make for a nice yoke section, giving me back about a skein of the base purple yarn. With two braids of the gradient to work with, I should easily have enough yarn to finish the sweater. I was pretty sure that this was the answer, but something kept me from starting to spin. Something, somewhere, still wasn’t quite right.

Enter the braid sitting on my spinning wheel without a project. It’s a colorway that I really love, born of the marriage of pink and dark purple at the deep end of sunset. Maybe it could be my yoke color?

I think it probably could.

So now, instead of designing the O-wool sweater as I had planned, I find myself thinking again about how to fix the Crocus, and whether it might make a good practice run to test the style of its finer-gauge cousin.

Or maybe not. I’m not sure yet; a clear path has yet to emerge from this new profusion of ideas. But it is funny how you can start out to design one thing and end up spinning yarn for something entirely different. I suppose it’s all part of the fun: you just never know where a design adventure will lead.