I do love Springtime in California… I hope you’re feeling the effects of Spring wherever you are. I’d like to share with you my latest published design, from the Spring Twist Collective, Colette (Ravelry Link)…
Photo copyright Jamie Dixon
Photo copyright Jamie Dixon
Photo copyright Jamie Dixon
Photo copyright Jamie Dixon
Photo copyright Jamie Dixon
Colette is a seamless top-down raglan sweater, worked in one piece. The sleeve stitches are put on stitch holders while you work the body and the sleeves are worked last. The empire waist and lower body ribbing lengthens the torso. Horseshoe lace emphasizes the empire waist and trails down the center of the short sleeves. A wide boat neck accentuates the neck, and is trimmed in 3 x 2 ribbing, matching the lower body. Waist and bust shaping occurs at both sides of the garment, hugging curves, providing a flattering elegant look.
In case you’re curious, you can see a few photos of what I and my mannequin look like wearing the sweater here.
The Design Process
When I first roughly sketched this garment, I knew I wanted lace or a cable defining the empire waist, the same lace or cable down the sleeves, ribbing on the lower body, and stockinette stitch on the upper body. I didn’t know what kind of ribbing I wanted, or what lace or cable pattern I wanted to use. You can see my very rough sketch below.
After this sketch, I poured through stitch dictionaries looking for the right stitch pattern to work with the concept. I decided to go with a lace pattern instead of a cable pattern, because lace would provide more of a light spring garment than a heavier cable. After looking through several stitch dictionaries, I settled on Horseshoe Lace. Then I thought about what ribbing I wanted to use. I didn’t want to go with 2 x 2 ribbing, because I thought it would be too plain, so I decided to go with 3 x 2 ribbing. Then I thought about what type of yarn would work well for the sweater. I decided to swatch with Tahki Sierra (62% silk, 30% linen, 8% nylon), because I envisioned a soft drapey garment.
After I swatched, I drew more detailed sketches with a front view (above) and side view (below), so I could get a better idea of what the completed garment would look like with the Horseshoe Lace stitch pattern.
After the piece was accepted into the Twist Collective Spring Issue, I spoke with Kate Gilbert about what yarn to use, and we decided on Classic Elite Wool Bam Boo (50% Wool, 50% Bamboo; 118 yds/108 m per 50 g skein) in Bay Blue, because it would hold the ribbing better than a silk or linen yarn like the one I swatched in. For more yarn choice options, see the Swatch It article by Clara Parkes from the same issue, in which Clara talks about several different yarns she used to swatch for Colette, including Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy (34% hemp, 41% cotton, 25% modal).
P.S. I’m off to Italy in about 2 hours for the next 12 days for a good friend’s wedding, so if I’m a bit slow to respond to any emails, that’s why. I will have intermittent email access, but I’m not sure I’ll have it every day. I’m going to miss my doggies! But they’ll be in good hands, with wonderful dog/house sitters.
I spent a good while yesterday afternoon sifting through the plums, Asian pears, and nectarines on the trees in my back yard, thinning them out so there aren’t any fruit closer than 6″ to each other on any given branch. It seemed like it took forever. At some point, I got really hot, and rolled up the sleeves of my sweater. I hope I didn’t sunburn my arms. I think it was probably like 75 degrees out. I’m always cold, especially at work, so I’m still wearing sweaters. I took my sweater off when I came inside, where it’s cooler than it was outside. The thermostat said it was 73. Anyhow, I’m hoping that this year, since I remembered by accident to thin my fruits early, that they will be even better than last year (if I remember to pick them before the squirrels get them all and if my parents don’t come to visit 2-3 weeks before they’re ripe and I ask my mom if she can go check on the fruit and she instead go picks it all — that’s what happened last year with the plums AND the Asian pears and the squirrels have gotten our nectarines 2/4 years, and we were on our honeymoon 1 year so we missed them that year too)! The trees are all a year more mature too, so that must help. I have to say, the nectarine tree has really sever peach leaf curl this year, but I don’t know if that hurts fruit production. It had a whole bunch of pea to golf ball sized fruits on it. The plum tree was the worst though, since it’s like 10 feet tall, and had by FAR the most fruit. I stood there for a LONG time, looking up, trying to figure out which branch to bend down next, and inspect, and trim the fruit off of.
This all came about because the fruit trees are fenced off from the dogs, at the far end of our (small) backyard, and I saw some rotting lemons on their side of the fence, and I decided to clean them up, so I opened the gate and squeezed by the plum tree to get to the rotting lemons, and what did I see? TONS of fruit, WAY too much fruit. I think I must have thrown away close to 100 plums. And we planted this tree I think last year? It was a pretty big tree when we planted it, but still. There’s this awesome nursery up in Portola Valley that has great fruit trees, Al’s Nursery. We’ve gotten all 6 of our backyard fruit trees from there (there’s also the ancient 7th lemon tree that came with the house), and they’re all awesome (except for the peach leaf curl, but that’s because our neighbor’s sprinklers rain over the fence on our trees… I’ve been meaning to go over there and have a chat with them…).
Anyhow… I was pleasantly surprised that I had the energy to stand out there for as long as I did and prune fruit. On Monday I was SO exhausted I wanted to fall asleep at 7:30pm, and I climbed into bed for an hour. I guess that’s how things go… More spoons yesterday. For those of you who haven’t read The Spoon Theory, I had it on my desktop to read forever, and totally forgot about it, because I didn’t use my computer for a long time, because my back hurt too much, and then Stephanie (who writes Handknit Heroes) told me about it recently and I looked it up and finally read it. It’s a really great way to explain chronic pain/illness. I have so many more thoughts I’d like to share about chronic pain and the possibilities for coping with it (mostly things I’ve tried and haven’t been able to stick with), but the hardest thing for me is finding a balance between living my life and sheltering myself, and I have to get off of the computer…
P.S. I’m working on a post about a sweater design, and the design process, and I hope to share it with you at some point in the near-ish future, when I’ve had the time to get all the pieces together…
