Introducing: Hemingway

It's August, but that doesn't mean its not sweater season at Ms. Cleaver Creations!

Hot on the heels of the Cormac release, I'm pleased to present, not one, but two new sweaters - Hemingway: Men's and Women's. Or as I call them, Him-ingway and Her-ingway. 

This design can be credited to power of the corkboard squares in my studio space. Sometime, a long time ago (before July 2012 at least), I had the idea of trying to design a pattern that used knit and purl stitches to make a plaid fabric. I was pretty happy with the way the swatch turned out, but I never quite figured out what to do with it. So it stayed pinned there on my corkboard for ages.  

Then I started playing around with a simple, pieced shawl-collar men's pullover. And thought, hey, that plaid thing just might work! The folks at Twist Collective seemed to agree, so much so that they asked to do a women's version too. I panicked briefly, said yes, and then started looking for my first ever sample knitter. 

The main differences between the two are that the women's has waist shaping and is generally shorter in the body, sleeves, and armhole depth, as well as narrower in the shoulders. The men's is straight through the waist (easy to lengthen for the extra-tall fellas) and has a slightly wider collar and ribbing. Both are worked in pieces and seams, with the shawl collar that is picked up and worked after seaming. 

The sample yarn used for both sweaters is Valley Yarn's Northhampton, which I really enjoyed knitting (the men's sweater) with. It's just a super solid 100% wool yarn. I just kep thinking, yeah - this is wool. Its not too itchy, but it's not so soft that you think it won't hold up in a few years and it comes in some really pretty heathered shades. 

If you knit this one up, I'd recommend choosing a size with 2+ inches of positive ease for the best fit. In the photos above the women's has about 4"/10 cm of positive ease and the men's has 2.5"/6 cm positive ease. Not sure what I mean when I'm talking about ease? Check back later this week for a post all about it!

Hemingway is now available for sale through Twist Collective. You can buy each pattern individually for $7.00 USD or get both for $10.00. You can also find the pattern on Ravelry.

All modeled photos courtesy of Twist Collective/Crissy Jarvis. 

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Introducing: Wetherell

It's been a big week for me a designer, I've had not one, not two, but three designs come out in the past four days. The one I'm perhaps most excited is Wetherell, which came out in the Winter 2011 issue of Twist Collective.

This design started way back in the early days of 2010, when I challenged myself to design a sweater as my 2010 knitolution. I've knit plenty of sweaters, and adapted a few, but I wanted one that was all me.

As with most deadlines, I procastinated and didn't even start thinking of my design until early October, when I was doodling during a meeting and came up with this (and promptly dripped water on it):

The big question was how to do the diagonal feature on the yoke. After flipping through some stitch dictionaries, I deciding on modifying a slip stitch pattern. I love slip stitches because their woven-look texture and I find them less commonly used than other stitch patterns (though it is my second Twist pattern featuring slip stitches).

The downside to this heavy of a slip-stitch pattern is that is takes almost twice as many rows to get get the same length as Stockinette stitch. The upside is that it looks great and since it's confinded to the yoke and the cuffs, it isn't overwhelming. The name for the sweater came when Bristol Ivy and I did this photoshoot in March. It comes from the copy of The Wide, Wide World, I'm holding in the shoot, a 1850 novel by Susan Warner, published under the pseudonym Elizabeth Wetherell. According to Wikipedia, it is often acclaimed as America's first bestseller  (if you're interested you can read the whole thing here.)

The front and back of the sweater are knit flat, while the sleeves are knit in the round until the sleeve cap, then everything is blocked and seamed to together. The sweater is finished off with a knitted hem on the bottom. All together it's a simple sweater with the right amount of detail.

Both my prototype and the Twist sample were knit in Valley Yarn's Williamstown, a worsted weight wool/acrylic blend in a lovely range of tweedy shades. I even found matching buttons 8 months apart in the button box at Z Fabrics.

The pattern is available for $7 USD via Twist Collective or you can queue it up on Ravelry.

Photos 1-2: © Jane Heller, via Twist Collective

Photos 3-5: by Bristol Ivy

Finished Object Roundup #2

This finished object round up to you by nearly fall weather, a willing photographer, and the letter 'B.'

This number was completed and worn for the first time yesterday.

The pattern is the Zick Zack Tunic from the Spring 09 issue of Interweave. I was in love with the pattern, but wasn't sure how it'd look on my body type. I can happily say that I love the way it looks.

Obviously I didn't stray too far from the magazine's  version here  in terms of look, but the yarn used was 1 cone of Valley Yarns 2/10 Merino Tencel in Grey Blue and 1 card of shell buttons. The yarn has a lovely sheen and drape, it was perfect for this project and I'd definitely use it for a laceweight project again. All in - project cost about $25. Not too shabby, considering the results.

And just so ya'll don't think I only work in shades of blue, I've included my "Bumblebee" socks.  Just a pair of ribbed socks in knit picks palette (which I don't like and still have another project worth of yarn to knit in).

Because the whole sock is ribbed, it has something around 50% negative ease. When I was working on them, no one believed they would fit, but they do, nice and comfortably snug.