bold stripes in lace weight yarn
Not every lace weight yarn can be supple while still standing up to the angles and (frankly) bizarre construction that I was intent on in this book. Isager Wool 1 does. It is occasionally hard to recognize the simple pleasure of a hardworking single-ply 100% wool yarn. I do find myself drawn to hand dyed luxury fibers that knit into beautiful concoctions. Though these yarns easily outshine the classics I find I don’t wear things made from them as frequently as I want to knit with them.
Sometimes I attempt to restrain my sketchbook scheming to things that can be worn, but I just couldn’t avoid the constant attraction, the pull, the fact that I currently revolve around certain ideas like a planet around a sun – stripes, angles and chevrons. I was afraid that I was wandering into surface design until I was distractedly browsing my book shelves and realized that these ideas I orbited could be manifested and wonderfully with knitting. This book is the end result of my letting myself tread upon that slippery slope.
I hope that you find that these patterns will exist in the same place for you, that they will function for you as they do for me – easy to wear and interesting to make.
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Volt
the line between energy and charge
The dissipation of current across a conductor is measured as a volt. I’ve interpreted this as the dissipation of the chevron from the center of this wrap to its ends, highlighting it with the contrast color marching through the middle of dissipating shades of gray. Though the central theme of this piece is its diminishing – something I would usually classify as subtle – I was surprised to find how striking this effect is. View more Volt.
Shale
the line between rock and sea
Shale is commonly found in slow moving bodies of water. It is characterized by the thin parallel layers of fine grain mineral fragments and is formed by compression. The classic lace pattern manipulated here into twelve different iterations is called old shale. Spread out along the length of the stole from smallest to largest, each version is given a chance to fully display its ability to manipulate the stripe. I left the stole unblocked to highlight the shaping and the corresponding expansion of the wave it creates. View more Shale.
Dusk
the line between day and night
Nightfall is forever encapsulated in my mind as a gentle rolling of darkness over the day, a giant shade slowly enveloping the sky. Dusk is the representation of the lingering blue that clings to the early evening just after twilight. In this shawl, I blended the classic construction of the square Shetland Hap shawl with contemporary ideas about corner shaping. All the increases happen in the eyelet rounds by eliminating the corresponding decreases. Though knit seamlessly in rounds, I have placed slip stitches at the corners to both hide the color joins and to give a nod to traditional seaming. View more Dusk.
Dawn
the line between night and day
Daybreak is thousands of tiny beams of pinks, reds and golds bursting forth as balance to the encroachment of night. For Dawn, I placed the entire stole on the bias, or rather on two biases. The center section is worked in one piece as a triangular shawl then each half is worked separately on the bias then decreased to form a corner. This is made by a dislocation in the shaping – increases in the first section, paired increases and decreases in each of the sides, then corners created by only decreasing. View more Dawn.
Horizon
the line between earth and sky
Not only is horizon the line hidden behind a scenic range, it is also a limit, usually of one’s knowledge or interest – the perfect encapsulation of my introduction to the mountain west. Having spent my entire life on the east coast, I thought “purple mountain majesty” was just poetic license. I also thought I knew all the ways to knit a rectangle. It was not until I was forced to eclipse my personal horizon that I began to see the angles within the rectangle. Created from four differently sized triangles joined to create the correct length, then worked as chevrons of various sizes until the correct width, then decreased into separate triangle sections, this unique construction may change the way any knitter looks at the rectangle. View more Horizon.
Smolder
the line between heat and flame
Slow, low-temperature, flameless combustion formed on the surface of a solid is the phenomena of smoldering. With that as inspiration, this stole is brought to the brink of combustion by the interplay of three contrast colors within the ever-compressing stripe sequence. The first two are worked only one row at a time to give the illusion of flicker and the third is held until the finishing when the four separate triangles ultimately form the rectangle. View more Smolder.
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