Hello Everyone!
We have been waiting for Spring to show up in the Northeast and with
temperatures climbing from the 30’s to 50’s then to 80’s and back down to the
40’s, our typical New England Spring has arrived in all its asymmetrical glory.
And coincidentally, if you've read our newsletter, you know it's Asymmetric
April! Our April is not be filled with varying weather fronts, but we do have
projects where the yarn is knitted in different directions only to come
together in stunning ways, much like the appearance of a beautiful rainbow
after a weather event. Our designers this month, Josh Ryks on the Rebel hat and
Stephen West on the Tripartite garment both take the venerable garter stitch
and the versatile short row technique to new and incredible levels. According
to his Ravelry profile, Josh Ryks is a color-obsessed knitter and designer
from Minnesota. As a self-taught knitter, Josh has been altering patterns since
the moment a pair of sticks and string was put in his hands. Josh got
started on his “official” design career after knitting a shawl by Stephen West.
The shawl opened his knitting world to a wonderful playground of shape, color,
texture, graphic detailing, and lines - as well as creating a shawl-obsessed
knitwear designer. Short rows, color, lines, endless garter stitch, and
graphic punch can be found in his designer tool belt at all times - and he’ll
always have at least one shawl in his project bag! His Ravelry username is
SwordofaKnitter and his website is www.swordofaknitter.com,
a combination blog and vlog (video blog). Check out his other patterns. They
beautifully show what you can do with garter stitch and short rows.
As you can see from Josh's profile, he is inspired by arguably the
most creative designer using the garter stitch (and short rows), Stephen
West.
According to his website, www.westknits.com, Stephen
West was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He studied dance at the University
of Illinois where he encountered his first yarn store, Klose Knit in Urbana,
IL. The creative atmosphere of that local shop spurred Stephen to start
designing knitting patterns and he was quickly featured in Knitty’s fall 2009
issue with his Colonnade Shawl. Soon after, he began publishing more patterns
and launched a series of pattern books under the brand Westknits. He
continues to produce pattern books and hosts several online knit alongs each
year like the Mystery Shawl Knit Along, Yarn a Long and Westknits Shawl Club.
His simple clean designs have now been knitted by thousands of knitters all
around the World.
So here we have two very creative designers using relatively simple
techniques in unusual and dynamic ways. For this blog entry, I will
concentrate on our Rebel Hat. Linda says the hat’s name fits me well.
Hmmm…..
As a departure from the bright colors our designer favors, I am
knitting my Rebel hat in white, black, gray, and tan. I prefer muted and more
natural colors (but a burst of orange has been known to find its way into some
of my knitted work!). I suggest reading the entire pattern to plan out your
color arrangement. I am using four colors so I will have more weaving in of the
ends, but picking two colors for the Main and Contrasting Colors certainly has
great appeal, which I am sure I will think of as well when it comes time to actually weave
in those ends! The pattern is straightforward aside from the make One Left
(M1L) and Make One Right (M1R), which are very well explained in the pattern.
As I was first knitting this pattern I though how is this ever going to get
into a hat shape? I usually knit in the round and this hat is knitted flat, but
not in the usual way. The shape grows through the added stitch placement and
the ingenious use of garter stitch. It is important to keep track of the rows
as they are key in the shaping, particularly with garter stitch. The only thing
that really gives the Right Side (RS) and Wrong Side (WS) definition in this
phase of the knitting is how the striping looks in the beginning of the hat. It
looks like the striping would look on the WS of the hat until you get to the
directional knitted fold. I use old school pen (in different colors) and paper
to keep track. I have used every tool, electronic and otherwise and for me, the
old school method works best. I find the combination of tracking works for me,
but use whatever works for you. As with most knitters and crocheters, I
multitask (TV, coffee drinking, you get the idea) so tracking is crucial to
bring me back on point. It also helps with Works in Progress (WIPs), where we
all have a few (blog on WIPs in progress, how fitting!).
I am at the point where I have come to Section 4 of the pattern, the
German Short Rows! I found that the description in the pattern of the SLPYO to
accomplish short rows wasn’t as descriptive as I needed to this critical
shaping of my Rebel hat. So this is where I turn back to “new school” and I
found a great tutorial on German Short Rows at Tin Can Knits, https://blog.tincanknits.com/2015/05/.
Although I have knitted short rows in the past, it’s been quite a while, so I
need a refresher. I am working my German short rows as I write, and I will show
my progress and a finished hat in the next blog. Here
I will post my Rebel hat completion in the new few days. I will also post about the amazing Stephen West project. Enjoy knitting this hat and let your inner Rebel free!
Knit On! Lisa
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