DesigKnit

It’s taken a while to get photos, but the Mondrian Sweater is done!

The sleeves are a little bit long and slouchy, perhaps, but after the past couple of sweaters where I swear the sleeves shrunk by an inch with wear, I wanted to make sure that they had plenty of length. They’re a tiny bit baggy, but that just moves the sweater a little more toward slouch-around-the-house rather than a formal jacket style, and I can roll the cuffs if I want to eliminate some of that length. Since I mostly use sweaters as slouch-around-the-house garments, the looser fit will be fine with me!

I like how the color blocks in the back highlight the construction, though I’d have been a tad happier if the red/brown line were an inch and a half closer to center. (That’s the thing about bold, graphic designs – they just beg for a certain level of exactitude, which encourages my perfectionist side…)

I do like how the blocks of color play off of one another, though. The three red panels keep your eye moving in the back (especially interesting in this photo, where the red vase pulls your eye right outside of the sweater and into the background – that wasn’t done on purpose, but it worked out rather well), and the dark green does the same in the front. Interestingly, the dark brown “reads” as red in some lights (see the first photo), which makes kind of a cascading blocks effect sometimes, too.

I think the shoulder shaping does a nice job of keeping the neckline clean, and there’s plenty of room to move my arms. In a second version, I might make the neck cutout a little deeper, even, so that the back neck seam falls a little further down the spine. I like a collar that stands up my neck a bit, so it worked out well for me, but I think most people prefer a neckline that sits a little lower in the back. It’s a subtle detail and barely visible in the photos, but it’s something I noticed while blocking and might want to come back to in future, should I revisit this design.

The back seam between shoulder blades is a little short, and it binds just a little with certain motions. You can see that showing up in the fabric distortions in this photo:

It’s not uncomfortable to wear since the sweater has a lot of ease anyway, but if I were to do it over I’d add another increase wedge in the back panel to increase the width on that seam just a smidge. (And I would probably also reduce the overall ease by an inch or so as a result.) Incidentally, a longer back seam would put the vertical seam back where I wanted it, with the color blocks meeting slightly closer to center – a win all around.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how this one came out…not bad for a first round with an odd geometry and an improvised design!

Before I really considered knitting the Mondrian Jacket, I was thinking that it would be a good pattern to use with handwoven fabrics. It’s a very simple shape, mostly rectangles, and uses one continuous piece of fabric with a few darts and tucks thrown in. I finally got around to pulling out some of my handwoven yardage this afternoon, and took a few pictures to sketch out the idea.

It’s a completely different feel, but I like the way the warp-faced stripes run down the sides in this version of the garment.

And they’d do interesting things in the back where they meet.

I also really like this shoulder fold

It’s a bit simpler than what I did with the knitted version, but I really like the lines. I’d have to make a muslin to see if it would restrict arm motion too much in the actual garment, but I like the spare simplicity of this design, and how the stripe lines intersect.

Of course, this version looks nothing like a Mondrian at all – it’s amazing how changing the color pattern alters the design.

The vertical stripes also have me wondering if this could be knit sideways to take advantage of a self-striping or variegated yarn. I don’t see why not; the shoulder shaping would simply be accomplished using increases and decreases rather than short rows. Some pieces would have to be knit in sections, but that doesn’t seem like such a big deal. On the other hand, there would be some incredibly long rows!

It always takes me longer to find a good name for a project than it does to knit it. I’ve decided to call the current “modern-art” sweater the Mondrian Jacket after Piet Mondrian, an artist working in the De Stijl art movement in Holland in the early 1900’s. His artwork was characterized by the asymmetrical balance of blocks of color, intended to strip art down to its most essential components. As often happens with famous artwork, I didn’t even know Mondrian’s name until I went looking for it, but I subconsciously had his paintings in my mind’s eye as I designed the color blocks for this piece. I left out the solid black lines and strayed from the primary colors a bit, but the asymmetry and the solid blocks and dynamic color arrangement remain.

Knitting on the jacket continues apace. I was a bad blogger and completely failed to take a photo of the body laid flat before seaming it up, but here’s a nighttime photo of it in progress. This was taken just before the midpoint, in one of the early fit-tweaking sessions.

The sweater is knit up from the hem (which also wraps around the back), then a large section is bound off at the armpit, when increases and shoulder shaping begin. The photo above was taken just after shaping the first shoulder, and before knitting across the sweater back.

Here’s a picture of the swatch sweater laid flat at a similar stage (note that this one was knit with the right side first, while the actual sweater was knit with the left panel first…doesn’t change anything about the shaping, but the swatch would wrap around the mannequin on the opposite side):

From there, I knit across the back, shaped the second shoulder, and then knit down to the hem on the opposite side. I stopped to steam press the fabric so that it would lay flat for a photo, and then completely failed to take it before seaming up the back.

I then picked up stitches from the increase sections and knit the sleeves from the top down.

The only two seams in the garment are shown with dashed lines in the photo below.

I still need to finish the second sleeve and knit the front bands and collar, but on size 3 needles it’s going very quickly. I’m a bit torn about what to do with the collar (I  drew it as a flat, kimono-like neckline, but am also considering a deep shawl collar instead), but I think that my choice may be made by my yarn supply in the end. I think that the modern design probably calls for sharper, cleaner lines anyway, so the flat front is probably best. I’m playing a bit of yarn chicken with this project, which was intended to use up yarn from the stash (it will). I definitely have enough to finish the sleeves – wasn’t sure for a while there, but I’m certain now – but I don’t know how much I’ll have left in the dark green for the front bands. Fortunately, Cascade does still make this color if I get myself into a scrape, but I want to see if I can make it without buying any more yarn. It’s always fun to have a challenge, right?

I made a couple of adjustments to the fit while knitting that changed the location of the seam lines. I was hoping for a slightly closer-to-center vertical seam, but I think I’m ok with where it ended up. After trying the sweater on, I think I would also add some short row darts in the sweater back section; it could use a little more length between the shoulder blades than I could give it with the shoulder shaping alone. (Incidentally, if the back had been longer, the seam would have shown up closer to where I wanted it to be….)

Other than that, I’m very happy with the fit and the design so far. It’s certainly been a quick knit, and it’s used up yarn that’s been in the stash forever. I bought the green and gray Cascade 220 at The Fiber Gallery in Seattle in 2008, intended for a colorwork project that never took off (I decided that the yarn was too heavy a gauge). The red and browns were added to the collection for my “weave-knit” swatches while I was in Madison in early 2011. It’s not often that I get to use up so much of the deep stash in one go, and it feels good to knit it up into something after having it hanging around for so long.

It seems that I have reverted to blogging in my head…I was sure I’d posted this past week, and the photos are on my camera, but apparently I got distracted somewhere between taking pictures and sitting down to write. (Sadly, this is not an uncommon occurrence lately…)

Last weekend (was it just last weekend?) I went to SPA – a fiber event in Freeport Maine. A bunch of knitters swoop in, take over the 3 biggest hotels in town, and knit for about 5 days straight. Many people knit for 5 days, anyway. I had to work until Friday, so I took the train up on Saturday and did an overnight…1.5 days is better than none!

There’s a vendor market at one of the hotels, and we also poked our noses into 3 or 4 yarn shops in the area. Then there was dinner at the hotel, more knitting, and then a long breakfast in the morning. It was a lot of fun, and a nice crafty break from all this winter we’ve been having lately.

The temptations were many, but I was fairly good in my shopping, all things considered. I bought several skeins of Shepherd’s Wool Yarn, which I had never seen before. It’s mill spun in Michigan, with a nice hand and a lot of twist. This should be enough to knit another mega scarf.

I also picked up 4 oz of yak-silk blend from Port Fiber, which should spin up into something wonderfully soft. This was the first thing I saw when I walked into the market. When the sun hits it just right, it shines like gold.

I also picked up a mini-loom from the same vendor: for small, portable projects. I’m not sure yet what I’ll make with this, but it seemed like a clever design and I love nice wooden tools.

As I mentioned, we stopped at several shops in the area, which poses something of a problem for someone who doesn’t need to buy any more wool. Rather than fall down again on fiber, I bought this fancy notebook to fill with ideas.

And finally, I bought another shawl pin from Leslie Wind (warning: her website has background music that plays when you click on the link). I love her designs, and how well her pins stay in my knitting – an important feature for someone who wears them on a long daily commute.

(I’ve just remembered that I also bought some discounted novelty yarn for accents in weaving, but that is put away already and probably not worth getting back out for a photo.)

It was a fun weekend of shopping and spending time with fiber friends, and I’m looking forward to going again next year.