Pattern Release: Tweedy
Petite Purls Fall 2011 issue went live today. And in it was my pattern, "Tweedy."
When I saw the Petite Purls submission call, by accident, I wondered if I could do it. I have no children on my own, but have few friends who do and I’ve been really wanting to make something really cute for them.
With colorwork in trend this season, I wanted to create a garment that has some colors but very simple stitch pattern so that I can knit without looking at the pattern all the time.
I experimented with this Tweed stitch with solid yarns first, and liked the look… But something was missing. More colors? Texture? I wanted to see how it would look in variegated yarn.
While shopping for an appropriate yarn, I fell in love with Ultra Alpaca Tonal yarn I saw at my LYS, and instantly knew this yarn would be in my project. It adds the soft halo because of the alpaca content, and the light-to-dark tonal quality of this yarn adds subtle but interesting tweed look.
Then I created a silhouette that looks really grown up. This meant waist shaping and choosing grown up colors. Instead of casual-looking ribbed hem, I opted for i-cord hem. Really, this garment was more or less inspired by the boring navy-colored school uniforms at clothing stores during the Back-to-School season.
If you know how to do i-cord cast on, you can certainly start with i-cord cast on, instead of the provisional cast on and then doing i-cord bind off. My i-cord cast on is a little bit sloppy looking so I chose to do the i-cord bind off.
And one word of caution, taking gauge swatch for both St st and the Tweed stitch is really important, especially the row gauge. The first version I made turned out really droopy in the middle and the tight at the color change.
