Dylana is complete! Dream in Color's model is a little bigger than I am---if I were knitting for myself, I would have chosen the next size down. Still, the sweater looks good and feels great. I expect the pattern to be up on the Dream in Color site soon after it's edited. The color is beautiful, and everyone who saw it mentioned it---since I knit in public, that's a lot of people. My husband remarked on it every time I got out my knitting. The yarn was a bit stiff while I was knitting it, but became much softer after having been washed. I attribute the preliminary stiffness to the superwash treatment which makes wool machine washable. This design has undulating cuffs, a magically curvaceous collar (with a slick trick involved), lovely shoulder increases, and a graceful A-line shape. I can't wait for its release!
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Dylana is blocked and dry and ready to be photographed and sent to Dream in Color. I am especially pleased with the cuff. I will get better pictures soon, but this photo begins to represent its undulating beauty. What you can't see is its delightful springiness! Congratulations to Patsy for winning my first giveaway. Look for more in the coming months. I've got some projects in the works, one of which is an eBook I'll be giving away to subscribers to my blog. This eBook will detail methods of lace design--basically, how to use holes to draw pictures. Various decreases will be covered, along with ways to manipulate yarnovers. I'm not sure when I'll have it ready, but if you really don't want to miss it contact me with your email address and I'll give you a heads up when it's done. Oh, and today is the last day to enter my giveaway. Good luck! lovely lines I'm trying something new with my Dylana sweater: the contiguous method. I love top-down seamless designs and have been aching to have time to develop a version of simultaneous set-in sleeves that didn't involve picking up stitches. Well, Susie Myers (SusieM on Ravelry) has already done it! I adapted her method for Dylana's wide collar. Whee! I'm on my way. My other design appearing in this issue of Clotheshorse is San Graal, a mini skirt that's oh so snuggly warm. San Graal means Holy Grail, the subject of many tapestries but significantly the tapestries of William Morris, who enjoyed "hiding images of flora and fauna within the intricate curls and swirls of a design" (quote taken from the Clotheshorse submission call). There's also a double entendre invoked here. This skirt knit up super fast in Blissful Knits Adore, even at the firm gauge required to make a skirt sag-proof. There are also instructions for making the skirt not-quite-so-mini, but I think this version is incredibly cute and the vertical elements (the alligators and bird legs and tails) are slimming. San Graal is a great project for those new to color stranding because of its small size and lack of repeated motifs which can call attention to mistakes. Why don't you give it a try? The new Clotheshorse is out, and two of my designs are included in the Tapestry section. Hestia is a shaped cashmere-blend pullover with negative ease. It fits like a glove and feels wonderful next to the skin. This piece uses an interesting method of stranded colorwork that leaves some strands visible. With careful finishing, the garment is reversible. The reverse side has the stripes showing in the opposite order from the photographed side. The Hestia Tapestry is a Byzantine work from the 6th century A.D. Hestia is the Greek goddess of the hearth and home. The stylized flowers on the pullover have a rather Byzantine shape, and the colors may be similar to the tapestry's original colors. The cuffs and neckline are a subtler version those on Hestia's robe. Next up: San Graal I never could draw very well, but my stroke affected the right side of my body, and I'm right-handed. So writing and drawing became difficult physically as well as aesthetically. But I've been perfecting my tracing skills! I just find a catalogue or magazine model in a pose that would demonstrate the garment's unique aspects, trace her, and draw new clothes on her. Sometimes I have to recreate limbs that are clothed in the original photo but bare in my conception. I'm getting better at it. There are a three or four photos I find myself repeatedly tracing, just as the models themselves seem to have favorite poses. For me, a good tracing photo has a dark image on a light-colored background. The model is posed to show off her clothing (as opposed to her hair) and there are no confusing elements like foliage or props hiding body parts. It's surprisingly hard to find all these qualities in one shot. No wonder I use the same ones over and over! The Dream in Color sweater call gave designers a choice between fingering weight Smooshy and worsted weight Classy for a woman's sweater. (They had similar yarn choices for the baby sweater, but I wanted to design something I could test for fit without having to abduct an infant from an unsuspecting parent's grocery cart.) I was already committed to knitting several other samples, so I chose the heavier weight Classy. With that yarn in mind, I knew I wanted to use the gorgeous blue Mission Falls 1824 Wool left over from the Gecko Hat. I was just in the mood for that color, I guess. I've also been working in the kitchen a lot recently and liking elbow-length sleeves, and I thought a basic but bold lace cuff at the elbow would be pleasant. Experimenting with knitting the lace sideways onto live stitches, I discovered this undulating pattern. It took me several attempts to achieve, but I adore this version. The same lace would be overkill at the neck, and I personally don't need to attract additional attention to my hips, so I needed a different treatment for the collar and waistband. Going with the simple solutions, the garter eyelet collar and simple hem sounded like they should work. Because Classy is a superwash wool, I wanted the garment to be fitted at the top (in case it stretches in the wash) but have comfortable ease at the bottom: A-line shape. I then chose a wide scoop neckline to point up the width of the garter eyelet. And so my design was born. Dream in Color recently contracted me to design a sweater for them. A specific sweater, whose name is Dylana. Dylana (pronounced DILL-en-ah) is a girl's name of Welsh origin meaning "born of waves." I thought I would take you through my design process from start to finish. This is pretty much what my submission looked like (minus my contact information): Can you see where the name comes from?
"Classy" is the name of a yarn in their line--a worsted weight superwash merino. While I wait for the yarn to arrive, I've taken some preliminary steps toward writing the pattern. When the yarn comes, I will knit a swatch (slightly bigger than the one in my proposal), measure it, plug in some numbers (stitch gauge, row gauge, collar height, etc.), and be ready to knit! |
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