The Gift Of Knitting

Rain Sweater. WAK Pima Cotton. FO Details

September 24, 2017 by Alina 0 comments

Happy Sunday! I hope you are having a wonderful weekend! If you remember this summer I published one more visual yarn story with Pima cotton yarn by We Are Knitters. At that time I was so busy with my day job, life in general and finishing the patterns for Vintage collection that I was craving for some unplanned, unpredictable and easy going knit. I “blindly” cast on and dived into this experiment on-the-go.A couple of months later this sweater came off my needles.

Project Details

Pattern

Not that much planning was involved in this sweater. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to use elongated slip stitches – I just loved the smooth stockinette stitch fabric created by Pima cotton yarn and I felt like the slip stitches will create these “drops” of texture that will stand out, but not interrupt the simple background stitch. And as I was a couple of rounds in the neckline, I had another idea – what if to turn the dropped stitches into travelling across the sweater pattern. As soon as I tried it, I loved it and the rest is history 🙂

The name for the sweater – Rain – came in the middle of the project. In my eyes the diagonal lines of the elongated dropped stitches looked like drops of rain running along the window on a gloomy day.

Yarn

Pima cotton by We Are Knitters. When WAK asked me to review one of their summer yarns, I knew pima cotton will be the perfect choice! This definitely my favorite type of cotton to work with – it;s amazing how soft and smooth it is and what beautiful fabric it creates – light, with crisp stitch definition and great drape! The other thing I wanted to point out is that the yardage for this yarn balls is so so so generous – I used just 3 (!!!) skeins for the whole sweater! I definitely have more that enough left for at least one more project!

Design Details

As this sweater was planned as a zen knitting project, I kept things very simple.

Minimal neckline shaping that looks something between round neck or boat neckline, top down raglan construction with longer armholes for a relaxed fit, minimal shaping in the body and classic i-cord finishing.

My favorite detail of this sweater is sleeves – the elongated travelling drop stitch pattern used for the central panel in the main body mirrored in on the sleeves, running from the elbow all the way down to the cuff. I think it not only creates an interesting design detail, but also makes it so much more fun to knit the sleeves – you will be addicted to see how the “rain drops” are being painted by your needles.

Thank you, We Are Knitters, for this fun collaboration! I really hope I’ve managed to show the beauty of this fiber in this sweater.

Test Knitting

If you like the sweater, please, let me know if you’d like to see it turned into the pattern and if you are interested in test knitting it. I will use my notes that I’ve made along the way and will finish the first draft of the pattern for Monday, October 2nd. Test knitting basically involves knitting the piece, sending me your notes/suggestions along the way and taking photos of the progress and the final piece and creating the Ravelry project page with all the notes and photos. You can also post about it on your Instagram account and the blog, if you have one. The deadline for finishing the sweater (including your photos of the finished piece and your notes) will be for Monday, November 13th (6 weeks from October 2nd). If you think, you can make it, please, send me an email at alina@giftofknitting.com or Ravelry message. Thank you so much!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

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Knitwear Review. New York Fashion Week, Spring ’18

September 20, 2017 by Alina 5 comments

The season of fashion weeks has started and I am keeping a close watch on the knitwear pieces appearing in designers’ collections. Most of the them are not devoted to knitwear per se, but there is always something to find and see how knitwear is incorporated in the whole look. As usual, New York designers are edgy, unconventional and a little bit on the crazy side. Let’s see what techniques, forms and stitches are being used for the upcoming spring, 2018.

The tendency that seemed to prevail during New York fashion week was to combine classic knitwear sweaters in neutral shades with more elevated pieces like sparkly skirts, romantic dresses, high-waisted pants and even ball gowns. The main focus is on the material – cashmere, angora, wool, cotton…

Sally LaPointe, Brandon Maxwell and Brock Collection:

More casual sport looks were created with loose and off the shoulder sweaters made in variety of techniques, including intarsia, brioche and embroidery.

Monse, Baja East and Dion Lee:

The collections are made for spring, so cropped tops were in abundance, in all their shapes and colors.

Zadig and Voltaire played with color stripes and gradients.

Michael Kors offers to match the color of your knitwear to the rest of the outfit.

Graphic designs created with intarsia and stripes by Colovos and Zimmerman

Though it’s spring season, I still managed to find some cable knitting! Matthew Adams cable skirts are definitely something new!

I am happy to see that crochet dresses keep appearing in every spring/summer season. Beautiful craftsmanship by Jonathan Simkhai, Ulla Johnson and The Row.

That’s it for New York fashion week knitwear review! Next stop is London, let’s see what UK designers come up with in terms of knitwear!

Have a great day today!

P.S. All photos are courtesy of Vogue.com

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Knitting, Pattern

Vintage Collection

September 17, 2017 by Alina 16 comments

Happy Sunday! If you are following me on Instagram and Ravelry, you already know that Doina knitwear collection for Moeke Yarns is live! To say that we are all excited is to say nothing! It just feels so good to present the result of many many months of work, we’ve been through quiet a few bumps along the way, but at the end it did work out great. So, today I would like to tell you a little bit about my contribution. At the moment the sweaters are flying from the photo shoot with the talented photographer @satellitejune back to me and I’ll be excited to get back to them and create my own visual knitwear stories for you to enjoy here 🙂

My contribution for Doina is Vintage collection that includes Heritage, Ivy and Wheat sweaters. It took me awhile to come up with the name for the collection, but as it often happens to me, this kind of things come to me spontaneously. Our initial idea with Ioana was to create designs that would become staple wardrobe pieces, timeless and wearable. And so I thought how great it would be to make sweaters that will be knit by you and stay in your family for a very long time and become “vintage” one day. I know for sure, Moeke yarn can definitely handle the wear well! This is my little dream 🙂

Heritage

Seamless sweater pattern with the travelling cable and 1×1 rib side panels.

You are already familiar with this sweater. It was quiet amazing to see the response to this design – thank you so much for all the love and support sent my way!!! Love to see its growing project gallery and your mods (what a smart sleeve detail)! Looking forward to see more pieces flying off your needles!

Ivy

Seamless turtleneck cable sweater.

This design took me more time than Heritage and Wheat put together. I knew for sure I wanted to create a cozy turtleneck with the eye catching cable panel running in the center of teh front and back, but to find the perfect stitch combination was not easy, nothing felt quiet right for a while. There were 20+ swatches rejected – I just couldn’t catch this “aha” moment that I am always looking forward to in any design. Only after a couple of months of daily swatching, I finally came up with the stitch combination that I knew would work for it.

Ivy is a top-down turtleneck sweater with the yoke shaped as the compound raglan. For your convenience the yoke shaping is written out individually for each size in a concise manner that is easy to follow. The sweater is knit holding two threads of yarn to create a cozy warm fabric. The cable panel is running in the center of the body both at the front and back. The “background” fabric is knit in basic stockinette stitch. The hem features two small side slits for a better fit and the back is slightly longer than the front.

Depending on the amount of ease you choose, wear it as a fitted piece or as a cozy oversize sweater!

Wheat

Seamless sweater pattern with the simple cable running along the sleeves.

Moeke merino yarn is extremely soft and delicate and I wanted to make justice to it and show it off in a simple way. Slightly uneven thread creates beautiful fabric. Wheat is a top-down sweater with the yoke shaped as the compound raglan, which creates a natural line running along the shoulder – something between the classic raglan and set-in sleeve. For your convenience the yoke shaping is written out individually for each size in a concise manner that is easy to follow. The body of a sweater is knit in basic stockinette stitch and the back is shaped with the help of short rows, which results in a slightly elongated shape at the back.The hem is trimmed with the twisted i-cord that creates a nice texture contrast with the stockinette stitch body. The main detail is the simple cable panel running along the sleeves. If you are new to cables, this will be the perfect project to learn – the cable twists are very simple and the instructions provided are both in visual chart and written form.

Ivy and Wheat are listed at 15% off introductory price – today is the last day for this promotion! But if you like all three patterns, you can enjoy 30% introductory discount on Vintage collection – just add all three patterns to the cart. If you have already purchased Heritage before, you can add just Ivy and Wheat and the discount will be automatically applied.

Please, join us in Moeke Ravelry group and share your projects – there will be amazing giveaways with the prizes from the sponsors!!

Thank you for your support and I hope you will have a wonderful day!

As for me we are getting ready for the storm, hopefully it won’t hit us too hard! What a crazy weather this season!

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MY Make Along 2017 Countdown

September 10, 2017 by Alina 3 comments

Happy Sunday! It’s been awhile since my last blog post, but there was so much going on behind the scenes, I didn’t have time to slow down and write all about it.

The most exciting news is that the countdown for Moeke 2017 knitwear collection has started! On 15th of September Ioana will present you a beautiful lookbook with 7 patterns in Moeke yarns, designed by crazy talented Junko Okamoto and me. I am really looking forward to it and I hope you will join us in Moeke Yarns Ravelry group where you can share your progress, ask questions and win amazing prizes from the sponsors! I am sure it will be a fun place to be at with your projects!

Apart from Heritage sweater, you will see two more new designs from me – Ivy in Elena yarn and Wheat in Romanian merino. These sweaters are so different from each other and, I believe, will make great wardrobe staples. I will tell more about them on 15th of September with beautiful photos from the lookbook and all the technical info you will need! Also I am going to prepare a special collection pattern bundle. We are all very excited and a little bit nervous about this small collection and really hoping to see it on your needles this fall!!!

To keep up with all the updates make sure to check Moeke Yarns blog and Instagram. You can also read more about the make along here – http://moeke-yarns.com/index.php/my-make-along-2017-sheet

And I am off to finishing the last editing details of the patterns!!!

Thank you for your support!!

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Knitting Flow

August 23, 2017 by Alina 11 comments

Happy Wednesday! Just a quick work-in-progress update. Between never ending to-do lists, day job and last preparations for Moeke 2017 collection release (so, so looking forward to it), I try to devote at least 30 min a day to a simple, mindless and so delicious to the touch pima cotton sweater that’s been growing slow, but steady on my needles.

I am not sure what will come of it, as I am basically changing everything on the go, including the stitch pattern; but sometimes it feels so nice not to know and not to plan what iit should become in the end. Just enjoying this quiet knitting flow is enough for now. After this quiet hectic summer, this is exactly what I need right now.

I hope you also have something soothing and mindless on the needles that helps you to switch off your head and catch this knitting zen flow 🙂

Have a wonderful day!

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Knitting Tutorial – How To Seam Ribbing Impeccably

August 16, 2017 by Alina 15 comments

During the last months I receive quiet a lot of emails from you with different questions – helping with deciphering the pattern instructions, technical things, stitch pattern explanations, etc. I try my best to answer as detailed as possible, but after receiving several quiet similar questions, I thought that maybe I should start collecting them and later put the tutorials together, so I can refer you to them when you are missing this information.

So, if you have some knitting emergencies happening, please, feel free to contact me at alina@giftofknitting.com – I’ll try my best to help and if it is quiet a general question, I’ll create a visual tutorial for more people to use it. I usually answer during 3-4 days.

One of the recent questions that repeated itself over several emails was “How To Seam Ribbing Impeccably”?

In some patterns you will find instruction to seam shoulders using an invisible horizontal seam. The horizontal seam works great for the stockinette stitch, for example; but if you are trying to put together the ribbing the seam isn’t invisible anymore – you will end up with this “jog”:

As you can see the stitch columns are not perfectly aligned, they are slightly unbalanced. On one hand – who will notice that at the shoulder seam?! But if you are a perfectionist and this “hiccup” is bothering you, there are some ways to fix it.

First, you can ignore the knitting pattern instructions to bind off the shoulders and then seam them together. But instead place the shoulder stitches on the stitch holder and then use three-needle bind off. This way the stitch columns will be perfectly aligned. There are numerous tutorials out there that walk you through three-needle bind off, so I won’t cover it here.
There is one more way that you can use, especially if you want to have a pretty sturdy seam. Instead of horizontal seam, you will use crochet slip chain that will align the stitches perfectly.

Let me walk you through the latter.

How to Seam Ribbing in Knitting

If you need to see a bigger image, open it in the new tab.

And here is 2×2 rib fabric – both right and wrong sides. You can see how the jog completely disappeared and your perfectionist self can be happy now 🙂