One of the new knitting books to hit the shelves this month is Brave New Knits by Julie Turjoman.  In her book Julie profiles 26 knitting bloggers, each of whom have submitted a design of their own to create a collection of patterns that has a lot of wonderful variety.  I was honored to not only be asked to be a participating blogger for this project, but also to be hired as the book’s photographer.  It was so much fun seeing so many pieces designed by many of my friends and colleagues and putting it all together into one cohesive collection of images.

We shot the project on a steamy September day last year in one of my favorite natural-light studios here in New York.  I’ve put together a quick sampling of some of my favorite images from the shoot, as well as sharing my own personal pattern contribution at the bottom of the post.  I hope you enjoy!

Knitted flowers by Kat Coyle

Shrug by Melissa Wehrle

Cardigan by Mari Muinonen

Mitts by Clara Parkes

Pullover by Stefanie Japel

Hat by Woolly Wormhead

Cardigan by Hilary Smith Callis

Pullover by Connie Chang Chinchio

Cloche by Norah Gaughan

There’s many more patterns and interviews contained in the book than shown above, so please feel free to check it out if these images have sparked your interest!

In putting together the book, Julie also worked to include smaller yarn companies that sell online and have their own ‘following’ in the way bloggers do.  When Julie asked me to design an accessory pattern for the book, of course I asked her if I could call dibs on Beaverslide Dry Goods — one of my favorite small American wool suppliers.  Armed with fingering weight American Merino, the Woodsmoke Scarf was born.

The scarf is a very simple concept — central garter stitch rectangle is knit length-wise (using a provisional cast-on) knit in one color and not bound off. The second color is used to work a knitted-on lace edging, also in garter stitch to frame the whole piece.  I chose a long, skinny proportion for a lighter, spring scarf that could be wrapped a generous number of times around the neck, but the pattern can be very simply adapted to make proportions you might find more suitable for your wardrobe (wider, shorter, etc.)

I had a lot of fun working with Julie on this project, and I think it’s a unique addition to the Knitting Section at the bookstore/library and helps promote the lives that go on behind the curtain in knitwear design.  Happy reading!

My time in Scotland will soon be coming to a close and as I reflect on all I’ve seen in the last two weeks, my mind boggles.  I’ve referred to Shetland as knitter’s Mecca and maybe this sampling of images will give some evidence to that end.

I’ve gotten to see a lot of hand knitted lace here — both historic and contemporary.  Some of the shawls I’ve seen are knitted from the finest threads you can possibly imagine.  The craftsmanship is staggering.

The traditional scarves are knit tubularly and pressed flat, using lace-weight or jumper-weight yarns, and often sport a multi-colored fringe worked from leftover scraps.  I’ve seen so many unexpected and wonderful color combinations — I particularly like this sweet scarf which is housed in the Shetland Museum.

One of the notable highlights of the trip has been the time I’ve gotten to spend with the amazing and hard-working people at Jamieson & Smith.  Their passion for the preservation and promotion of Shetland wool has been inspiring, to say the least.

85% of all authentic Shetland wool passes through their humble doors and undergoes a rigorous hand-sorting and hand-grading process.  The wool from a single fleece often needs be sorted into multiple grades — a labor intensive process that I’ve found fascinating.

Here we see piles of the natural colored wools waiting to be sorted.  These fleeces come directly from local crofters (farmers) whose sheep roam all reaches of the island in flocks large and small.  I was lucky enough to meet one crofter dropping off his most recent batch of fleece one morning that I was there.

I feel so fortunate to have been able to visit such a special place and look forward to the day I’ll be back here again.

A picture can say a thousand words… needless to say, I’m in paradise.

Sheep, sheep, everywhere you look.

Hand-grading and hand-sorting of Shetland wool at Jamieson and Smith.

Fishing boats in Lerwick.

Laceweight Shetland wool on a sunny windowsill in the Textile Museum.

Stone boat houses.

Robert Williamson‘s original hand drawn notebooks

Fair Isle stocking cap from the Shetland Museum archive.

Flowers cling to cliffs.

Sunset near Sandness.

Be still my heart.

Brooklyn Tweed has gotten a face lift!  Welcome and thanks for trekking over.  The blog will now be updating from this address — please update your bookmarks and feed readers!

Lots of exciting things will be happening here in the next few months… I hope you’ll keep coming by!

Today’s sweater is a rare and special bird. Last Fall I was given the opportunity to produce an art-sweater for ESOPUS magazine — a very special publication that is produced by the ESOPUS foundation here in New York (read more about the ESOPUS Foundation here). I spun my wheels on this project for quite a while trying to think of a way of incorporating knitting into the publication in a fresh and interesting way. After enduring a long creative void, I found myself thinking about the Exquisite Corpse process-drawings that were done by Surrealists in the 1920′s.

The Exquisite Corpse is a collaborative process in which multiple artists create a single image (typically the human figure) in sequence with one another. Each artist is permitted only a glimpse at the contribution of the previous artist without knowing its connection to the whole. The imaginative drawings that are created in this way are spontaneous, random, and very interesting.

With this process in mind came the spark of an idea for a design experiment that resulted in the sweater you see photographed here.

I got in contact with a few of my favorite indie-designers to see if they were up for a design challenge: to create a collaborative garment in random sequence working directly off of the piece or pieces that were presented to them from the previous designer. Starting with a general set of garment dimensions provided by me (so that the garment would fit the body at the conclusion of the process) each designer was given complete creative freedom for their portion of the sweater.

I chose a bulky, rustic sheepswool in hopes that the materials would inspire textural experimentation and highlight the multi-directional quality of the fabrics. As you can see from the images, the garment is a veritable explosion of texture!

I want to give a special thank you to all the designers who joined me to put this together as well as my lovely model (does she look familiar? Yes, that’s famed Cookie A. looking fierce).

I’m so happy to share with you a new lace design that was published this week — I’ve been itching to show you photos ever since I finished it in January. I designed this lace triangle for Veronik’s second issue of St. Denis Magazine and got another chance to use her lovely wool Nordique.

Shortly after returning from vacation, I completed work on this simple handspun triangle. Since I was shooting to use up every last bit of this special yarn, I waited until I was home again and armed with my trusty kitchen scale to aid in calculations so that every last yard could be enjoyed, stress-free.

It’s probably no surprise to anyone, but a simple shape of fabric with a good wool and suitable texture is a recipe for success every single time in my book. Simple knitting allows for the enjoyment of the special characteristics of our materials and I think this might just be one of the things that keeps me devoted to my knitting. One of the many things.

This piece was worked in the standard method, starting with just 10 stitches at center-top and increased regular along both edges as well as the center ‘spine’ to create a simple triangle. I love working from the top down (from the top ‘out’ seems more appropriate in this case) when you know you have limited yardage and want to stay in control of your process. By working with with a scale and measuring the remaining grams of unworked yarn remaining, you have good solid numbers telling you when you need to start thinking about binding off. This scenario is almost always better to me than spending the last 20% of the project wondering if there will be enough yarn to get me across the finish line.

The simple stitch pattern is a subtle variation of garter stitch — knitting, knitting, knitting, and purling every 6th row (or every 3rd RS row) to create a ‘valley’ in place of every third Garter Stitch Ridge. I think this stitch pattern is beautiful in its simplicity and highlights the diagonal directional fabric in a sweet way. I kept the first and last 3 stitches of each row (the stitches running along the top, flat edge of the triangle) in pure Garter Stitch and ended with 3 consecutive ridges to give a touch of weight to the outer edge of the shape.

I estimate that I used approximately 275 yards of a very light, handspun 2-ply yarn, the weight of which danced around between a DK-weight and a light-worsted weight, as handspun yarns tend to do. I loved the lightness of this yarn and wanted to play that up by knitting it at a looser-than-average gauge and block the finished piece as for lace. The result is a feather-light fabric that is toasty-warm and wooly-soft. Surprisingly soft for a Romney, but that has a lot to do with the amount of air that is trapped in the finished yarn.

The finished dimensions of the piece came out to about 43 inches across the top, flat length of the triangle, and a 21 inch depth at the center ‘spine’. Perfect size for a wool-lovers alternative to a bandana, no?

I don’t know if I’ll ever stop singing the praises of blocking wires — their precision in making perfectly symmetrical shapes while blocking brings me an unlimited amount of satisfaction. They really play to my inner Geometer. To maximize the blocking potential, I worked a sewn bind-off for as much added elasticity as possible. Traditional bind-offs, when worked along the perimeter of larger pieces that will be blocked severely is a recipe for disaster. The sewn bind off, while taking a bit longer to execute is so absolutely worth the fuss.

Wool-wearing weather is beginning to slowly retreat, but at least this little triangle will provide a graceful (desperate) transition before the official hibernation of my cold-weather wardrobe.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last two months giving the patterns in Made in Brooklyn a complete make over for their release as individual PDF downloads. I’m very happy with the result, and even happier to announce that they are all now available both through my Ravelry store as well as BrooklynTweed proper.

One of the most beautiful things about PDF downloads is that there are no page restrictions. Thanks to my rather verbose style of writing patterns, I really pushed the limit on my page-count when writing the print-version of the book, which ended up significantly affecting the size of the charts which was, while understandable, a real bummer.

That said, the biggest change to the patterns is definitely chart size and clarity — in most cases they have been re-illustrated and blown up to have their own, spacious page to spread out on. The texts have also been given more breathing room and in some cases have been extended. Each pattern begins with a Pattern Blueprint page which lists all the specifics about the garment and needed materials and includes an alternate photograph as well as a large, clear schematic.

As mentioned above, all the patterns are available either through my Ravelry store or through BrooklynTweed.net — follow the buttons below to visit either:

I worked closely with a tech editor for all the new layouts and corrected any existing errata that was present in the 1st edition of the print version. I hope you enjoy them and thank you so much, as always, for your continued support!

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

I figure I might as well use this post to discuss a few of the other things that I’ve been meaning to bring to your attention:

Social Media: I finally got around to setting up a Facebook page (took long enough, right?) — please feel free to stop by or to become a fan if you’re a Facebook user. I plan on using it as an alternate way of posting my teaching schedule and teaching-related announcements (Dates are also always posted on my website), as well as other informal announcements, snapshots, etc.

And if that isn’t enough social media for you, you can also catch Brooklyn Tweets (sorry, I had to) on Twitter here, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Pattern Wholesale: In the last 6 months I’ve been wholesaling many of my designs to Local Yarn Shops. If you are a shop owner and interested in wholesaling print patterns, please send me an e-mail and I’ll be happy to put you in contact with my distributor.

Phew! I think that’s all the housecleaning for the day… although I’ll expand this post if I realize there is anything that I’ve forgotten, which there most likely will be.

Thank you!