OLGAJAZZY

Speaking of last year’s Shadow.

 photography ©BrooklynTweed
I am WAY behind, so I am catching up. Today I want to tell a little bit more about an exciting collaboration I was lucky to be a part of last year. I felt so very honored to be among many great knitwear designers and talents in BrooklynTweed | Wool People Vol.1.
I am sure everyone knows Jared Flood, a fellow knitwear designer, amazing photographer and a genius mastermind behind BrooklynTweed. Who not so long ago has started his own yarn company with his namesake and a desire to bring all American grown soft wool to the knitting world. As a result, wool from Targhee and Columbia sheepies that live and graze in Wyoming, US is blended, then spun in historical Harrisville mill in New Hampshire into wonderful squishy skeins of Shelter and Loft. And now many of us are eager to get our hands on these exuberant heathers that both yarns come at. This yarn is not sold in every yarn store, but only several flagship stores or directly online and it’s worth every little yard and penny.

At first, when I have swatched a variety of stitch patterns using Shelter I was amazed how great it looks with cables. They are delicious and fluffy and texture just pops. And at that moment it has become obvious that I have to create something cable-y since it had been way too long from my last cabled project! I honestly have hard time finding adjectives to describe my experience on working with this woolen spun yarn. I don’t think in my knitting life I have worked with it ever before. You have to try it for yourself – this yarn is sticky so it’s great for colorwork, yet it bounces, it feels a bit like sponge when you knit with it, yet soft and malleable, really like a marshmallow! And once it’s washed it blooms a great deal. Garments produced barely weigh anything versus when you knit a sweater in worsted spun. I have re-discovered what it’s like to have a cabled knit sweater that weighs only 300 grams?!! That’s why I gave my Shadow a lot of love and wear this winter.

But back to the origins of it. As my path was set onto cable-town, I wanted to preserve a bit of my personality in this design. So with little geometric cable texture, flattering fit and a whimsy to keep it modern yet balanced. The swatch below is not knit in Shelter though. And my doodle called a sketch, but you get the idea.

I have used telescope lattice stitch as a starting point. That stitch has always reminded me of the famous French luggage company Goyard Monogram logo, but I wanted to customize it and make it more distinct. Those cables had to have more “breathing room” to stand out and not look crowded. And in the pullover itself,  idea of having cables right under your arms and sides can get a little bulky, so I have chosen to go with a reverse stockinette stitch to ease that part up. And little pockets are given as an option, you can knit them, you can skip them entirely, but they felt organic that can make this sweater “young” without tipping the overall texture and cables balance. Stand up neckline shaped into a collar and is backed with a knit facing worked in the same yarn, but provides the necessary structure for it.

After I have worked through the design and have sent off the sweater, there was this new X-men movie out in the theaters and my eyes kept staring at the wallpaper in one of the scenes. This was interior of a submarine believe it or not, but I couldn’t move my eyes away from the Goyard-looking wallpaper. It just looked so good and after having worked through my own design process, this print had me excited all over again.

I had to do a little bit of research to find out that this wallpaper is being made and in several colors by Osborne & Little and this print is called Trifid. Neat, isn’t it?

And here are couple more detailed images of Shadow on a grey Japanese January afternoon a year ago.

There has been many great variations of Shadow since the pattern has been published last August. Make sure to check them out and queue your own on Ravelry. You know you absolutely need one!

View colors of Shelter yarn
Shadow Pullover on BrooklynTweed site