Fallingblog

This is week 14 of the pattern highlights from my upcoming book. If you like what you’re reading about, please join my preorder mailing list. To read more about why I’m doing this (and why you should join the list), you can visit the Month 5 blog post.

Adenydd is worked in Galler Yarn Prime Alpaca Heather, a sportweight 100% alpaca yarn.

As I did with my last book, I’m ending this book with a “magnum opus” — a large, complicated and gorgeous pattern that will (hopefully) get people’s hearts racing and minds expanding.

It had been more than a year since Spring Willow came out as a pattern, and I hadn’t done any other double-knit lace. Not one to rest on my laurels, and of course with a book coming up, I felt I had to do one more thing in double-knit lace to really show off the possibilities. And what better than a shawl? There are so many shawls out there — it’s a popular garment to really show off a pattern or a yarn. I had designed one before, but it was a simple triangle worked from the point up. I wanted to branch out, so I took advantage of my local guild’s speaker series and took a workshop with Anna Dalvi. I learned about various shawl shapes and how to break them down into manageable chunks. I had chosen a lace pattern I wanted to use (again, from one of the Walker treasuries), but then I decided I wanted to use Faroese construction — from the center of the longest side of the triangle outward, ending with the two other sides of the triangle. In this direction, the lace pattern I had chosen would have ended up upside down — and since it was supposed to evoke feathers (or perhaps scales) on wings, the orientation was important. I began playing with the chart — first just flipping it upside down, then tweaking what didn’t work. Eventually, I asked for help from more experienced lace designer MMario while at the Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat, and he made some suggestions that pointed me in a different direction. I ended up scrapping the original pattern altogether and building a new one from scratch, which finally gave me a more significant understanding of lace design than I had previously.

For years I have been going to local sheep and wool festivals; here in New England there are plenty. Years ago I came across a few vendors that sold giant hanks of sportweight alpaca for very reasonable prices. They had different names but all seemed to be more or less interchangeable; I assume that this was because the fiber was all processed at the same mill. These hanks were all in natural alpaca colors — any color you like, as long as it’s white, cream, brown, charcoal or black. Much later, I was in a yarn shop in Brooklyn and found a dyed version of the same yarn: same giant hanks, good price, but a variety of amazing colors which I hadn’t seen before in this context. I was excited to try it, and bought a couple of colors that, in retrospect, were perhaps not the best. But I loved working with the yarn and contacted the company, Galler Yarns, for more in better colors. They were happy to help, in exchange for assistance in plugging their yarn on social media. Well, that’s no problem — I would have done that anyway.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a shawl meant to evoke the image of wings. Whether bird wings or dragon wings I’m not sure — the feathers could just as easily be scales. Perhaps it depends on the colors you pick. Anyway, given the Celtic knotwork motif around the wings, I figured a Gaelic word would be ideal. However, the word for wing (sgiath) in Gaelic isn’t terribly friendly to the English palate, so I looked into surrounding cultures. In Welsh, the word for wing is adain and the word for wings is adenydd. I know a little Welsh pronunciation so I amended that to “Adenyth” to make it easier to say. My Welsh step-stepmother (long story) told me that’s not right — evidently, I don’t know enough Welsh pronunciation after all. The -dd is pronounced as a hard -th, as in “the” or “there”, and replacing it with a soft -th could make it a different word. In fact, it’s not — Adenyth is just a proper name and has no other meaning that I could find — but I decided it’d be better to have a unique name for this pattern and a teaching moment, and save Adenyth for a derivative pattern I have in mind for later.

This pattern will be available in my upcoming book “Double Or Nothing”. To be informed when the preorder period begins, please join my preorder mailing list. Thanks!

This is week 13 of the pattern highlights from my upcoming book. If you like what you’re reading about, please join my preorder mailing list. To read more about why I’m doing this (and why you should join the list), you can visit the Month 5 blog post.

Spring Willow is worked in Anzula Squishy, a superwash merino, cashmere and nylon fingering weight yarn.

Double-knit lace is something that I dabbled with briefly while I was working on my first book, but never developed into a full pattern. It was relegated to the appendix along with a bunch of other techniques with similar histories. Several of these were pulled out of retirement later but lace spent a little longer on the bench while I was focusing on other things. Similar to Heartbound, which came out later, I needed a pattern to illustrate techniques I was beginning to offer in workshops, so that people would have a chance to try some double-knit lace in an actual pattern. To be honest, it had not gone unnoticed that there were some other innovators who had, whether with my book’s help or not, begun to play with double-knit lace and publish patterns using it. I was excited to see this, but also galvanized to release my own pattern to capitalize on the apparent interest of the knitting community. Besides, my design sense and style are uniquely my own and often recognizable to others — and the same goes for my double-knit lace when compared to others’ designs. Not only do I have a method to do it, I have 5 variations that all have unique properties. Of course, I do have a preferred method which is the one I’m using here. This lace pattern is subtly modified from something in a Barbara Walker treasury, then further modified to work in the round.

Superwash merino, cashmere and silk — it’s become such a common luxury blend that it even has its own acronym: MCS. I met the folks behind Anzula, a luxury yarn company from California, at a trade show where direct sales aren’t allowed — but where yarn companies and designers network on the side. Anzula came to the show with suitcases full of yarn to entice designers, and I got to sit and fondle the skeins for quite some time before I settled on the MCS base they called “Dreamy” in a particularly unlikely pairing of colors. This was well before I had a plan on what to do with them. When I began casting about for yarn for this pattern, I started in my stash and decided to try this yarn. Because the pattern takes advantage of larger color areas and single columns of stitches, I was able to get away with a slightly lower-contrast color combo. When I showed Anzula this pattern, they decided they wanted one for their trunk show but were out of Dreamy; instead, they asked me to substitute “Squishy” which mostly just replaces the silk with nylon. I’d be hard pressed to tell the difference. I’m not even sure which one I have and which one travels with Anzula now.

Normally, I shy away from naming my pieces after the colors I choose — I don’t want to lock others’ minds into that particular groove. I want people to feel free to experiment with colorways, and sometimes referring to a pattern as “Red Sweater #45” is going to unfairly bias people against knitting the pattern in blue yarn. But in this case the temptation was too great; I thought of the pattern as “Spring Willow” due to the new-growth tan and green colors it’s done in, and the name stuck. It fits because of the hanging ripply columns and the openwork between, and the colorways just sort of help the image, if you want them to.

This pattern is already available but will also be available in my upcoming book “Double Or Nothing”. To be informed when the preorder period begins, please join my preorder mailing list. Thanks!

This is week 12 of the pattern highlights from my upcoming book. If you like what you’re reading about, please join my preorder mailing list. To read more about why I’m doing this (and why you should join the list), you can visit the Month 5 blog post.

Heartbound Again is worked in Jagger Spun Maine Line/Green Line, a sportweight wool yarn.

Shortly after I put out my previous book, in which I postulated that there was no elegant solution to true double-knit cables, I discovered an elegant solution for true double-knit cables. Go figure. As a matter of fact, I found two — with and without a cable needle. This method opens up a whole new vista in reversible cabled colorwork. Not long after that, I began teaching a new class on double-knit cables. And yet, for quite some time, I didn’t have a standalone pattern that incorporated the technique. After some experimentation, I released a pattern called Heartbound which was a cabled headband using a reversed-color and reversed-texture background. It was a work in progress, and I informed people of that. Now that the book is on the horizon, it’s time to pull back the curtain for the full version: Heartbound Again. There is a headband version as well as a full hat. The cables are seamless due to some slip-stitch trickery, and the cast-on (and bind-off for the headband) is adapted from an i-cord cast-on so that it mimics the cables. There’s also some interesting cable/color/stitch manipulation borrowed from textured double-knitting (see the Eureka hat from earlier).

The yarn I used for this is actually something I acquired in a different way than normal. Jagger Spun has been around for quite a while but has recently changed their marketing and packaging efforts in order to appeal more to handknitters (they’ve been selling yarn on the cone primarily for weavers and machine knitters). One of their reps got in touch with me, asking if I’d like to try out some of their yarn. Never being one to pass up a new fiber-related experience, I agreed. The yarn they sent me was a perfect fit — lots of colors, my favorite weights, and great stitch definition. And, in the sportweight, they even have a 100% organic wool line.

The name “Heartbound” just came to me as I was looking at the cable pattern, thinking it looked a little like hearts all linked together. The word has two meanings, one more archaic than the other, but I’ll choose the positive and more poetic meaning of “having the heart entirely devoted to someone or something”.

This pattern will be available in my upcoming book “Double Or Nothing”. To be informed when the preorder period begins, please join my preorder mailing list. Thanks!

This is week 11 of the pattern highlights from my upcoming book. If you like what you’re reading about, please join my preorder mailing list. To read more about why I’m doing this (and why you should join the list), you can visit the Month 5 blog post.

Twice As Sexy is worked in Buffalo Wool Co Sexy, a laceweight bison and mulberry silk yarn.

Ever since I designed my first two ties (for my first book, Extreme Double-Knitting) I’ve had people thanking me for breaking the stereotype of the ugly knit tie. Let’s face it, most knitted ties are pretty awful-looking. In order to keep them from curling, you have to work them in garter, or seed stitch, or sew on some backing, or something. Most of them stop looking like neckties after they’ve passed into the suit-button range, which means that wearing one without a suit looks terrible. I mean no serious offense to anyone else who’s designed one, but I thought I could do better. For one thing, double-knitting doesn’t curl. The two sides cancel that effect out in both directions. For another, shaping is totally worth the trouble. You can make a nice point at the beginning and end, and slowly taper the middle. You just have to do some basic math at the beginning to match your gauge to the size and shape, and you can fill in the inside with almost anything. Where I went a little off the rails with the first two ties was when I decided what to fill them with. These are power ties — complex, bold, exciting. But what if you want something more subdued, genteel, dignified? A classic double diagonal stripe is a good bet. But no simple colorwork stripes for me — these are true double-knit cabled traveling stitches. There are no rest rows. By the time you’re done with this tie, you’ll be an expert at these 1×1 cables.

This is another case of working with a yarn partially because the company has done me a favor. In this case, as with the others, the Buffalo Wool Company has regularly hosted my books and patterns at their booths at various shows I’ve been teaching at. I wanted to thank them for their help by designing a pattern in their yarn. Fortunately, I don’t work with vendors whose yarn I don’t already love, so it’s a win-win situation. A couple years before I ever cast on for this pattern, I got the yarn; every time I saw them after that I had to apologize that I hadn’t gotten to the pattern yet. Finally, with the book on the horizon, I decided it was time to redouble (pun intended) my efforts and make sure the pattern came out. As you can probably tell from the company’s name, they sell buffalo/bison yarn (it’s the same animal, just a different name). It’s not quite qiviut, but it’s up there in luxury and, of course, price. This yarn, called Sexy, is 50/50 bison and mulberry silk, so I thought it’d be a great pick for a tie. It is, however, a laceweight, which means it’s going to take some time to do the pattern (not to mention tinier needles than I normally work with). Fortunately, it’s a tie which means it’s not all that many stitches to begin with — 30 pairs at its widest.

The name is no big mystery here. The yarn’s name is “Sexy”; it’s double-knitted, so “Twice as Sexy”. Voila!

This pattern will be available in my upcoming book “Double Or Nothing”. To be informed when the preorder period begins, please join my preorder mailing list. Thanks!

This is week 10 of the pattern highlights from my upcoming book. If you like what you’re reading about, please join my preorder mailing list. To read more about why I’m doing this (and why you should join the list), you can visit the Month 5 blog post.

Atyria II is worked in Seven Sisters Arts Helix, a fingering weight BFL.

My original idea for a Craftsy class involved teaching the basics in one pattern, then cramming as many techniques into a second pattern as physically possible. I wanted to try to get a whole book’s worth of techniques into that class. In retrospect, I’m lucky that Craftsy talked me down from that ridiculous goal. Whatever I made would have been hideous, and probably wouldn’t have sold the class as well as the two patterns I ended up using instead. Atyria was a pattern that used my off-the-grid style of decorative increases and decreases, combined with some basic 1×1 double-knit cables. This was the first place my new double-knit cable techniques were taught on a grand scale. However, the pattern was a bit of a rush job and I knew it. It was a great way to teach the techniques but a poor execution of a pattern. It relied on an obscure technique I called “ghost pairs” which confused some people greatly, and in the end the hat was too short and there was no good way to lengthen it. When I realized that the class was past its second birthday, I checked my contract and realized that the patterns were my property again, so I redesigned Atyria, lengthened the pattern and removed the ghost pairs. If you’re already in my Craftsy class, this pattern will be separated from the book and offered as a free download for my Craftsy students, around the same time as the book comes out.

I also took the opportunity to change the yarn I was working in. While I enjoyed working in Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport for Craftsy, it was a superwash yarn and I wanted to steer away from that when possible. I stumbled across a sportweight BFL in a New York City shop and figured I’d use that instead. The dyer (who shall remain nameless) was excited that I was going to be working in her yarn for one of my book’s projects, but when I reached out to her for yarn support (the colors I had bought weren’t quite what I needed), she never answered. I poked her again a little while later but my time was getting short so I had to choose another yarn. I heard from some other designers that the same thing had happened to them — I hope she’s OK. Her blog seems to indicate she is, but there’s a month-long gap in the posts right around when this happened. Anyway, I ended up finding Seven Sisters Arts, a company from Maine, at Stitches West of all places — and they not only had a heavy fingering BFL, they had it in almost exactly the same colors I originally used for Atyria. It turns out the owner is a big fan and was flattered that I’d be working with her yarn. I finished the hat in record time and was able to show her the final version at Stitches South later that year.

Atyria, if you google it, is a genus of moth. While that’s a dirty word to knitters, the vast majority of moths are not likely to eat your yarn stash and many of them are quite pretty. The spiral motifs in this hat, while clearly meant to represent some kind of fern-like plant, reminded me of moth antennae or probosces, so I looked for a moth-related name. Atyria is a pretty name and more easily pronounceable than something that ends in -ae, even if moths in that genus don’t actually seem to have any particular relationship to the spiral shape.

This pattern will be available in my upcoming book “Double Or Nothing”. To be informed when the preorder period begins, please join my preorder mailing list. Thanks!