Last time I introduced you to a book that specializes in top-down garment construction. There are a whole bunch of reasons that top-down is a smarter idea than working your sweater in the more traditional method: 4 pieces worked separately from the bottom up. The reason that stands out the most to me is an issue of fit. When you start at the collar of your sweater and work downward (increasing along raglan seams as you approach the armholes) you have much more working control of… Read More

One book that I steadfastly recommend to anyone who is trying to expand their knitting library (as well as their knitterly horizons, in general) is "Knitting From the Top" by Barbara Walker.

Now, Ms. Barbara Walker ranks right up there with other knitting gurus like Elizabeth Zimmermann (in fact, these two patron saints of knitting were personal friends, from what I can gather.) I make this comparison because the basic principle of both Zimmermann and Walker is that you, armed… Read More

I finally got around to working all the finishing touches on my Aran Cardigan. Pictured you see the finished sweater in all of its glory.

The pattern is available through Schoolhouse Press in "Spun Out" Issue 49. I used 12.5 balls of Classic Elite Skye Tweed (that's approximately 1300 yards of an aran/worsted weight 100% wool tweed) after all was said and done. The majority of the sweater was knit using US 8 needles (I used US 7's for… Read More

I finally got around to playing with some of my new Noro yarn. This weekend I started a scarf utilizing the clever little trick of using self-striping yarns together in a manually striped garement. Sure stripes are fun, but striping two yarns manually that already stripe themselves?! Now we're getting crazy.

Noro yarns come in an array of bright and crazy colors - for this scarf, though I chose a couple of dyelots that were a little on… Read More

I couldn't do a feature on self striping yarns without talking a little bit about Noro. Noro yarns are manufactured in Japan and are basically unmatched not only in their beautiful self striping qualities (gradual changes in deep saturated colors and wonderful textures) but also in the quality of their fibers and the true artistry of the dye jobs that each unique colorway features.

Noro stocks many beautiful lines of all natural (often luxury) fibers in their ranks,… Read More

Another awesome type of self-striping yarn (probably the most unique) are those that are hand painted by dyer's specifically for the striped effect. While working with these yarns a dyer will delegate a much longer section of yarn to a specific color so that, while knitting the stripes form themselves.

One of the great qualities about handpainted stripes are the subtle variations among the 'solid' portions (the saturation and slight variation of colors adds an unmatchable color depth)… Read More