tin can knits

This year Jones has discovered Super Heroes. He loves them. He loves Superman the very best. He only found out about super heroes a couple of months ago, but he knows so many names and facts already, it amazes me! When he hit the dinosaur phase (which isn’t gone, just in the background right now), I had to bone-up (pun intended) on all my dinosaur facts. Now I find myself looking up the name of Superman’s mum, and any information on Krypton I can find. One of Jonesies favourite things to know is a super hero’s secret identity: Diana Prince, Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Arthur Curry, the list goes on! Super Jones secret identity is Professor Jones (I know, it’s not that secret when they are both named Jones, but he’s 5 and he likes it). And so I give you, Professor Jones.

Project Details:

Pattern: Gramps

Yarn: Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in ‘cast iron’

Size: 6-8 years

Mods: I skipped the elbow patches (for now)

Professor Jones is a Paleontologist. When he isn’t fighting crime as Super Jones, he is digging up dinosaur bones and trying to extract dino-DNA to make a real live T-Rex. You can find him in the field, presumably covered in dust, or in his office, pouring over dino books in the cozy sweater his mum knit for him. Every professor needs a tweedy cardigan with a shawl collar and pockets, and a bow tie to add a little eccentric flair. They just do.

Future knits for Professor Jones wardrobe:

It has been nearly a year since our collaborative charity ebook, Heart On My Sleeve was launched! Last year on Valentines day, we brought you this lovely ebook with designs by Shannon Cook, Romi Hill, Bristol Ivy, Tanis Lavallee, Joji Locatelli, Jane Richmond, and Ysolda Teague and Tin Can Knits too! Since then, we’ve donated every penny of ebook income to the Against Malaria Foundation, raising a whopping grand total of $63,127 USD as of January 10 2018! This buys 27,000 nets, which will protect 48,600 people people from malaria. To put this in perspective, this is the entire population of 90-100 villages. Learn more about the donation specifics here.

Why malaria? Malaria is cheap to prevent, yet half a million people die of it every year, and 70% are little ones; babies and kids under 5 years old. Malaria is also the world’s single largest killer of pregnant women. Learning these statistics, while I was pregnant with my second child, nearly broke my heart. But learning how a significant difference could be made in people’s lives with so little money inspired us both. It has been so rewarding to coordinate this project, which gave us a chance to work with designers we respect and admire, and we are so thankful to the yarn companies who contributed to this project. The support of knitters everywhere has been overwhelming and so positive!

The Heart On My Sleeve fundraiser ends February 28 2018! After then the Heart On My Sleeve ebook, which is a great value at $18 for 8 beautiful sweater patterns, will no longer be available!

So if you love this cause and the designs, get a copy for you or a friend right now!

The Story of a Collaboration

Heart On My Sleeve was designed in a special way. Alexa and I, here at Tin Can Knits, developed the ‘base pattern’ – instructions for basic a bottom-up sweater, with sleeves and body defined up to the yoke. Each designer took this basic sweater and created a unique design for the yoke! Some of them also ‘hacked’ our sleeves, adding lovely details at hem and cuffs. Tanis also added a subtle striping pattern throughout the body. So while these 8 designs share the same basic DNA, they’re all unique!

KAL details:

To celebrate these beautiful designs, and the project that we have personally found so inspiring, we’re hosting a KAL! The KAL will be run primarily in the Ravelry group, but there’ll also be chat on the Facebook group if you prefer!

Start date: TODAY!
End date: February 28, 2018
To enter to win a prize: knit a sweater (any size) from Heart On My Sleeve, and post your finished project in the FO thread on Ravelry, by midnight PST on Feb 28, 2018

Prizes YAY!

We’ll draw winners randomly from among the folk who list their finished knits in the FO thread here, and announce winners on March 1st! We’ve got a bundle of LUSCIOUS yarn prizes from very generous yarnies:

5 skeins of Magpie Fibers Swank DK in your a single colourway of your choice of her lovely array of colourways… And you can follow the Magpie’s colour collecting here.

6 skeins of Biches & Buches Le Gros Lambswool – winner’s choice of one of these lovely undyed shades! This French company is curating a vision of moody natural beauty, I’m diggin’ it!

6 skeins of Rainbow Heirloom Sweater in the vivid ’princess rockstar’. Such hot hot heat!

A sweater’s amount of Sunshine Yarns Luxury Sport in the ombre blues and grey colourway of this beautiful Crazyheart Sweater! For a little more sunshine in your life…

The Tin Can Knits ebook library (yup, that’s all of our ebooks!)
And some more honourable mention TCK pattern prizes too…!

Even if you don’t think you can finish a sweater in the next 6 weeks, join us for the chat! We’ll be visiting the Ravelry group every day or two, to help with questions, yarn choices, modifications etc. We’d love to knit along with you!

Em’s KAL plans:

I’m going to make a sweater for me. But I’m not 100% sure yet which design I’ll use! Last year I made a Crazyheart sweater for Max… maybe I should have one to match?

Or perhaps a lacy Ironheart?

I was thinking it would be pretty lovely to throw a few more colours into the lovely lacy Brightheart by Romi Hill, so that’s a possibility!

Then again, I’m very intrigued by Bristol Ivy’s unique yoke construction featured in Wholehearted, Alexa raved about how the genius construction of the yoke while knitting one for Hunter, so I’m quite tempted to make one of those for me… I guess you’ll have to join in to see what I choose!

Bristol’s Wholehearted sweater uses a sideways bind off and short rows to shape the yoke.

So will you join in with this KAL and make something beautiful for you or a loved one? What will you knit?

A simple classic like Joji’s Heartstring pullover? A casual hoodie for every day like Jane & Shannon’s Lionheart?

Browse all of the designs!

Sweater possibilities from Heart on my Sleeve

Emily and I are usually in the same place at the same time about once a year. This year though, we managed to meet in the middle for Vogue Knitting Live in New York! We taught all weekend to a fabulous crowd, wandered around the market place, and even had a couple of extra days to see the sights!

One of my favourite things about shows is spending a little time with other designers. This time we managed to grab some dinner with Bristol and Veera, and we headed to MOMA with Veera and Melanie Berg. It is always nice to share a meal and chat, and Bristol and Veera are excellent company. It was also amazing heading MOMA, seeing all of the art through the eyes of designers, hearing what inspires them about each piece. Emily and I are currently on a colour kick so we were all about the palettes!

We didn’t have a lot of marketplace time at Vogue, but Emily made the most of it, picking up a SQ (sweater quantity) of Mewesik from Green Mountain Spinnery. We also headed out to see a couple of New York Yarn shops, Brooklyn General Store and Purl Soho. Way back in my knitting journey, when I decided to move away from my acrylic blanket obsession (how many hideous strip blankets can one girl knit?!), I discovered The Purlbee, the blog of Purl Soho. I was immediately smitten with their simple style, fabulous yarns and fabrics, and wonderful tutorials. I have been following along for years, and though I had been once before, at their old location, it was so fun heading there with Emily! We picked up a few precious skeins and Em decided to jump on the Fringe Supply Co Field Bag wagon. After Purl Soho we hopped the train to Brooklyn to see the Brooklyn General Store. It such a cute shop, full of yarn, fabric, and all sorts of treasures!

We also had a little time to see the city! In addition to our MOMA trip we saw the Statue of Liberty and took a stroll through Central Park. It is such a great city to walk around, and we stopped at many cafes along the way! Knitting and cafes might be our favourite things….

I finished up my Prairie Fire sweater just before I left (it may have been a tiny bit damp when I packed it in my suitcase). It is project that has been languishing without a second sleeve for WAY too long, and it was so great to get it finished and wear it. The yarn, beautiful Rainbow Heirloom Sweater in ‘black cherry’, was a Christmas present from Em back in 2015. Vogue was the perfect place to wear it out, there is nothing better than compliments from knitters! Emily got a couple of snaps of me in Central Park in my new sweater.

Hanging in Times Square

Empire State Building!

It is always so nice to be together, and it was so fun being together in another city, exploring, chatting, and planning!

Knits we wore in NYC

So you’ve chosen a pattern (it’s our Strange Brew colourwork yoke recipe, right?), and you’ve got a lovely bag of perfect yarn…

You made a swatch hat and discovered that you love the yarn, the colourwork patterns you chose are exquisite, and the fabric is LOVELY… but your gauge doesn’t match the pattern gauge (22 sts / 4″ or 5.5 sts / inch). Now what do you do?

One option is to swatch again, using a larger or smaller needle until you achieve the precise gauge called for by the pattern. But you may find that at the pattern gauge, the fabric is too loose or too tight. A second option, which we encourage you to consider, is knitting the pattern at a different gauge. Because Strange Brew is a round yoke sweater, it is very flexible, and simple to adjust for gauge.

These are a series of swatch hats made using the hat & cowl swatch recipe included with Strange Brew! Each would be a useful swatch for a yoke design. You can also knit basic version to check your stockinette gauge in the round.

If you’d like to tackle adjusting for a different gauge, here’s a helpful tool! We just updated the Strange Brew pattern to include an additional PDF, which will help you adjust for a slightly different gauge. You can download the supplemental PDF here, or if you already have a copy of the Strange Brew pattern, you can find this supplement in your Ravelry library.

How To Use The Off-Gauge Guidance Table

Swatch to determine your gauge. For a seamless sweater knit in the round, like Strange Brew, we recommend swatching in the round by making a swatch hat or tube (in fact, the Strange Brew pattern includes a swatch hat & cowl pattern). Wash and block the swatch in the same way that you would your finished sweater, then measure how many stitches there are per inch. Assuming that you have slightly less or slightly more stitches than the pattern gauge of 5.5, you can use the off-gauge guidance table. More on gauge and swatching here.
Check the column that applies to your gauge. Look down this column to find the finished chest measurement that you desire, then look left to see which pattern size this corresponds to. For example, if you want to knit a 37″ sweater, but your gauge is 5 sts per inch, follow pattern instructions for women’s XS (which will make a 36″ sweater) or women’s S (which will make a 38 1/2″ sweater). This is your ‘adjusted’ size.
Once you determine your ‘adjusted’ size, you will simply follow the pattern instructions for that size, however you will knit to finished lengths (at body and sleeves) that you desire. The yoke instructions you can follow exactly as written for your ‘adjusted’ size, without any length adjustments.

This is an excerpt from the Strange Brew off-gauge guidance table – download the full PDF here.

Cast on now!

So what are you waiting for? Get your copy of the Strange Brew pattern, and get started designing your own yoke now! If you’re a bit uncertain about colour, you may find our Week of Colour blog posts helpful, they are our attempt to demystify colour choices, and get you started on your colourwork journey.

What about adjusting other knitting patterns for working at a different gauge?

We have a tutorial here which describes the process, in a bit more depth, working directly from the math, and covering a few more considerations. This adorable little vest is an aran weight version of the Peanut Vest, which was originally designed in DK weight. It required a few simple calculations, but came out just as I hoped!

Fair Isle Knits from TCK:

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My KAL Record

Confession: I have a pretty terrible track record for KALs. I go in with a lot of enthusiasm, but then something shiny (or soft, or speckled, or otherwise exciting) crosses my path and BAM, my project is off the rails and at the bottom of the knit pile. This has happened *ahem* a few times and I almost skipped the HOMS KAL, (all the details here) admitting I might not finish even before it started, but I figured I’d give myself another shot at knitting with a bit of stick-to-it-iveness.

Now, I am an adult (mostly), and if I want to put some knitting by the wayside to work on something else, that is totally allowed (in my humble opinion). My Mum likes to call me a ‘creative type’, and sometimes that means jumping on an idea as soon as you have it, but there is also something to be said for finishing what you start, and this project is definitely gonna be the latter!

The Sweater

When we were putting together the HOMS book Emily and I got to knit a few of the wee sizes. I knit the beautiful Wholehearted for Hunter, the Brightheart for Bodhi, my own Tenderheart for Jones. I knit up an Ironheart for this tutorial, and for our HOMS kick off KAL I knit up a Hearthstone for Bodhi. There are only 2 sweaters in the book I haven’t knit yet! I’ve been so excited for the Crazyheart ever since I first saw it and I had the perfect yarn in mind.

Sleeves and body are accomplished and now for the yoke! It helps that the weather has been wet and terrible, and that I can knit a sweater body in the dark at the movie theater. I have been hanging on to these lovely skeins of Rainbow Heirloom Sweater in ‘wicked pacific’ for a while. They were always intended to be a sweater for Jones, and his sweater wardrobe is the slimmest so it was meant to be! I have a good range of blues and greys in Sweater, and I think this Crazyheart needs a hot hit of acid green…or maybe highlighter yellow?

How about you, how is your KAL track record? Do you also get distracted mid-project?

More TCK in Rainbow Heirloom Sweater:

Only 7 days left!

This is the LAST WEEK to contribute to this fund-raiser and get the limited-edition Heart On My Sleeve ebook! February 28 2018 is the last day the Heart On My Sleeve ebook will be on sale, after which this fund-raiser will be complete. With 8 designs by some of your favourite designers, this is an excellent deal for a very special collection, with all proceeds to a great cause. So get your copy right now! Or send a copy as a gift to a knitter you love!

70,000 people protected!

A couple years ago, I was pregnant with my second child, Neve (who’s now nearly 2), and had an idea. The thought was to bring our knit design friends together to create a collaborative fund-raising project. Heart On My Sleeve was born, 8 beautiful yoke sweaters for your knitting pleasure! As Alexa and I sought a charity that would do a lot of good for every dollar, I learned some of the heartbreaking statistics about malaria. While being cheaply preventable, malaria still kills 1-3 million people each year, and 70% of these people are kids under 5. It’s also the world’s biggest killer of pregnant women. Hauling one toddler and my pregnant self around Edinburgh, I was shaken as I reflected on the safety and healthcare I often took for granted, and the devastating thought of my little ones being in danger.

Since Feb 14 2017, the project has donated $79,327 USD – this buys 38,961 nets to protect 70,130 people (this is the entire population of 140 villages!). Check the fund-raising progress here.

Emily’s Tenderheart

For the KAL we’ve been running, Alexa made a Crazyheart sweater for Jones, and I’ve just finished a Tenderheart sweater for me!

This Crazyheart is made from Rainbow Heirloom Sweater in ‘wicked pacific’ with various teals, a grey and a vivid acid yellow! I love the colour combination Alexa used.

My version of Tenderheart used a warm, soft palette. For the main colour I chose a soft taupe, a delicious merino/cashmere blend called Sutak from Polo & Co. For the contrast colours I chose a pink and a pinky red, and a couple other tones of brown, using yarns from my stash. Alexa’s Tenderheart design samples were somewhat simpler; the child size in stark black and white, and the adult size in a single main colour with two tones of red for contrast.

I wanted to explore further variation in the yoke patterning through the use of more colours. Initially, I’d thought to use more than one foreground and background colour pair in each motif, using Fair Isle shading techniques. But as I knit, I found my attempts to change colours within the patterns detracted from the simple elegance of the design. So I reeled back my ambitions, and simply used two different combinations of MC and CC, alternating the red and the pink upon the darkest and medium brown. In the end, my completed yoke was not so far off Alexa’s initial colour concept.

I’m very happy with how it turned out! I was worried it might be too tight, but then I blocked it and I am 100% satisfied with the fit and think this makes another glorious addition to my sweater wardrobe! Wondering how we block our sweaters? We’ve got a tutorial here. In the case of this sweater, I used blocking wires, and stretched it a little bit to fit.

Are you Knitting Along?

There’s still a week to knit your way through a baby size sweater if you’d like to participate! Be sure to list your FO in the Ravelry thread here in order to qualify for our LOVELY prizes from Biches & Buches, Rainbow Heirloom, Sunshine Yarns, Magpie Fibers, and Tin Can Knits too! More prize and KAL details in this post.

Click to view slideshow.

More TCK yokes for your knitting pleasure:

I did it! I broke my streak of not finishing KALs. This sweater was just a delight to knit. I got through the body and sleeves, knitting during movies, on car rides, and at parties. I added a heart motif at the sleeve, because I love it! Then it was time for the yoke, you know, the fun part!

PSA – today is the very last day to get the Heart on my Sleeve ebook, go get it right now! This collection will no longer be available after February 28, 2018.

The yoke took a bit of thinking. I perused the Ravelry projects, looking for the perfect combo. I had a beautiful Sunshine and Storm kit from Rainbow Heirloom on hand, which gave me a LOT of colours to choose from. The nice thing about taking them from a kit was that I already knew they would work together. No guess work on this one. I decided on some tonal pairings, lighter and darker. It gave the sweater the look of larger triangles, rather than smaller ones. Reminiscent of flying geese quilts. Jones loved it and wore it to school right away. He is still an excellent recipient of hand knits!

Project Details

Pattern:Crazyheart by Tanis Lavallee from Heart on my Sleeve

Yarn:Rainbow Heirloom Sweater in Wicked Pacific with Blue Raspberry, Snow Melt, Jewel Sea, Blue Planet, Glow Stick Girl, Almost Spring, Cold Logic, and Grey Goose, (contrast colours were from the Sunshine and Storm Bounce blanket kit)

Size knit: 8-10, which leaves some room to grow.

I’m sorry to see the end of the Heart on my Sleeve project. It was an amazing thing to be part of. It was so much fun to work with designers we admire, and it was great to be able to do a bit of good in the world. It wouldn’t be possible without the awesomeness that is the knitting community and for this we THANK YOU!

More lovely knits from HOMS

Marled… Ombre… it’s a SNAP! What’s not to love?

This design was just a simple project that called my name. Once the idea popped into my head, despite all the many and various other things I was SUPPOSED to be working on, it would not shut up. It crooned ‘knit me, knit me, say that you’ll knit me’ (think The Cardigans – Lovefool circa 1996). And so, obviously, I had to knit it. What else could I do? I hope you’ll enjoy the Snap hat as much as I have!

This hat is a snap. There’s absolutely nothing complicated about it, it knits up in 2-3 hours.

The most joyous part (for me) was seeing how the colours combine! You’ll need a pile of odds and ends, but if you’re a knitter, I’m going to speculate that you probably have a basket of little lovely bits which you couldn’t quite bring yourself to throw away.

I used A LOT of colours. I’m not going to lie, I’ve been knitting for years, and I have many tiny balls of leftover sock yarn. But you could make an exquisite Snap hat in two colours as well: start with 4 strands of a single colour, and then gradually swap out one strand of the first colour for the second until all 4 strands are your second colour.

When creating marled combinations, you will find that you achieve different effects depending on the contrast between the colours. Lower contrast combinations will be more like blended solid colours whereas higher contrast combos are ‘sparklier’ or ‘specklier’ (both of those are totally words). We’ll talk about the technique of marling in more detail next week!

The joy of this pattern is that you can simply experiment as you go. And if the finished hat isn’t exactly to your own taste in terms of colour, you know there’ll be somebody you know who REALLY WANTS TO STEAL IT! If it’s not for you, let it go.

I photographed Snap on Nina and Max during last week’s cold snap in Edinburgh! This photo-shoot had the most extreme weather conditions we had yet experienced… intense blowing snow and icy winds. But Nina (our lovely model, friend, and the dyer behind Rainbow Heirloom) was a sport, as always! And we warmed up with cake and coffee after surviving the Arctic blast!

Excited for EYF:

I’m eagerly anticipating teaching two classes at this year’s Edinburgh Yarn Festival. I decided to forgo having a Tin Can Knits stall in favour of teaching, meeting up with knit designer friends travelling here from all over the world, and fully enjoying the marketplace and events! I’m particularly excited to show off my new sweaters and my ceilidh dancing skills… Are you coming along?

Throwback to the inaugural Edinburgh Yarn Festival in 2013! This was my very first show (note the highly professional hand-drawn sign that I made that morning, as folk were arriving). I was wearing my original Lush cardigan sample, before the book Handmade in the UK was even published!

This year I’m teaching ‘Off The Charts’, which is an ode to my love of charts as a design tool, and ‘Strange Brew‘ in which participants design their own colourwork yoke, using our recipe pattern Strange Brew. If you’re not coming to the show in person, I’ll be sharing the excitement on Instagram, so follow us or surf the tags: #EYF #EYF2018 #EdinburghYarnFestival

Super Simple Satisfaction from TCK:

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speckly, pebbly, lovely marls

A marled yarn typically has two, but sometimes more, plies of different colours. Knit up, it creates a delightfully speckly fabric with delicious texture and interest.

This is a marled yarn, Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in ‘Newsprint’, you can see how there are 2 plies, one white and one black.

The marled yarn knits up with a sort of pebbled look. This swatch is garter stitch.

You can create a similar effect by holding yarns of different colours or tones together, without the need to purchase a marled yarn. We’ve done this in a few different projects, most recently the Snap hat, but also in the Marley blanket from Mad Colour and the Sea To Sky blanket from Pacific Knits.

The Marley blanket is a real stash buster! Emily used her mighty stash of odds and ends to create an ombre from yellows and oranges through to reds and purples, by holding multiple strands together at the same time.

The joy of this technique is that you can use lighter-weight stash yarn that you don’t think you’ll end up using knit singly (like lace weight skeins) by holding them together with other yarns, creating a marled fabric at a gauge that knits up more quickly. You can also use up lots of odds and ends this way, especially if you are ‘moving’ from one colour to another like in the Snap hat.

By swapping out one of the 4 strands held together for the Snap hat, Emily was able to use small leftover balls of sock yarn to create a beautiful ombre effect.

Also, when you’re creating a marled fabric with two or more yarns, you can easily create ombre and blending effects and make use of odds and ends of stash yarn, because the continuity of one of the yarns throughout can make the changing of colours quite subtle and beautiful. So holding yarns together to create marled fabric is a very practical and adaptable technique.

For this swatch I used 2 colours, Hedgehog sock in Coral and Poison.

For the swatch above I cast on holding together 4 strands of coral and worked as follows:
6 rows holding 4 strands coral
6 rows holding 3 strands coral and 1 strand poison
6 rows holding 2 strands coral and 2 strands poison
6 rows holding 1 strand coral and 3 strands poison
6 rows holding 4 strands of poison
Bind off.

You can see how lovely the blending effect is using only 2 colours!

A Needle to Start With

When you hold two yarns together, you need to use a larger needle size than you would for a single strand of the yarn. How much larger? Well one typical rule of thumb for doubling is that if your gauge in a single strand is, for example 26 sts / 4” (this would be a typical sock-weight garment gauge), then multiply that number by 0.7 or 70% and you will get 18.2. So your doubled gauge will be approximately equivalent to 18 sts / 4”, which is typical for worsted / aran weight yarn which you might knit on a US # 7-9 (4.5 to 5.5 mm) needle.

Based upon my swatch tests (this is the very unscientific sample size of one):

2 strands sock weight held together:
18 sts & 26 rows / 4 inches on a US 7 / 4.5mm needle

3 strands sock weight held together:
16 sts & 22 rows /4 inches on a US 9 / 5.5mm needle

4 strands sock weight held together:
13-15 sts & 19-20 rows / 4 inches on US 10.5 / 6.5mm

This should give you a starting point, you may need to go up or down a size or 2, depending on your personal gauge, and the gauge at which you achieve a fabric you like for your project. Holding 4 strands together for the pink-to-purple swatch above I used a US 10.5/6.5mm needle. You may want a slightly denser/tighter fabric for a hat, but something a little looser for a blanket.

Of course your stash might not be made up of sock yarn scraps, you can substitute a worsted for 2 sock strands, 2 strands of worsted for about a chunky weight, throw a lace weight in with a worsted for an aran weight, the list is endless! The most fun thing is a little play!

What about colour? ALL THE COLOURS

As you can see, the level of contrast between the yarns used has an impact on the effect of the finished fabric.

These swatches were made with 2 strands of worsted weight yarn. I used the same red yarn throughout and changed the grey yarn.

I find marling is a nice way to use variegated and speckled colourways that might be too much of a ‘dog’s breakfast’ when knit on their own. Speckles are so hot right now… but that doesn’t mean they will always shine, or shine in every project. Holding a speckle or variegated colourway alongside a kettle dye or solid colour yarn can tone down the crazy and add a level of sophistication and polish to the finished fabric.

This swatch (knit in Hedgehog Fibers Sock) was made holding 2 strands of a pale grey (Crystal) yarn with a wild speckle (Oracle). The effect is much more subtle than the speckle on its own.

This is Oracle knit all on it’s own, a bit wilder than the marled swatch with pale grey mixed in.

What about pattern? KISS

I’m a big fan of garter and reverse stockinette stitch in marled fabrics. I think they look better than plain stockinette, because they break up the dots of colour even more effectively than stockinette does. They look more pebbly and speckly rather than striped.

The Bottom MARLED Line? Cast on and start experimenting!

Just like knitting with speckled yarns (which are SO MUCH FUN), making marled, scrappy versions of projects is SUPER FUN. You’re going to have a great time, and learn through experimentation. All of the above info is just to inspire you to get started and experiment on your own.

It’s a SNAP

We’ve just released this snappy little hat that is the perfect project for experimenting with marling!

TCK projects that would look great marled:

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Mini Skeins at The Little Grey Sheep stall

While Alexa has the fabulous Knit City in Vancouver, for a home knit show I am lucky to have the top-notch Edinburgh Yarn Festival on my doorstep! Since the beginning, I have always brought a Tin Can Knits stall to the show, but this year I decided to do something different and teach classes rather than being a vendor in the marketplace. This was VERY exciting, because it left me oodles of time to shop the show! I was able to chat with many of the yarn producers and dyers, make connections with other designers and industry people and enjoy the Ceilidh too.

One of the purchases I was very excited about was a range of colours in Woollenflower’s natural-dyed fingering weight. Jules has dyed on a really lovely base, a woollen-spun yarn made by Polo & Co from French fibre milled in France.

I acquired A LOT OF YARN this year (it really needs to be in all-caps folks, seriously). And what I discovered was that in previous years I had really been missing out on a critical research trip, because I’d been too busy chatting about my own work to look around and focus on the exciting new yarns and products that were available! So this year I basked in the excitement and shopped till I very nearly dropped!

Another bundle that made me swoon was this delicious yarn from Germany. Rauwerk is a woollen-spun DK/worsted weight, and I went crazy over those blue shades… And the grey… And the ochre which is dyed by Hey Mama Wolf… These were the very first skeins I wound up for swatching!

But my own current interest in woolly and natural dye tones aside, I feel like Mini Skeins were the theme of Edinburgh Yarn Festival this year. Most hand-dyers booths included a great selection of single minis or gradient kits. And many of the producers of mill-dyed yarns offered ‘little’ options too. Being currently obsessed with colourwork, I felt literally like a kid in a candy store, I wanted to try one of each!

Max was VERY excited about these mini skeins from EasyKnits – especially the hot pink, which is his favourite colour!

A small selection of the mini skeins that drew my eye!

What patterns work well with mini-skeins?

Well… we’ve got a colourful suggestion or three!

Undertone, from our book Mad Colour, is a lovely cowl for using up odds and ends and mini-skeins! If you have fingering-weight yarn, you could hold it double in place of the DK weight called for in this pattern.

The Twisp hat was designed in sport / sock weight, so would be perfect for playing with sock-weight minis!

Wenlock has a colourful yoke that would work using DK weight mini-skeins, or you could hold 2 strands of a sock-weight together while working the colourful yoke section.

Scrumptious Shetland

Another thing that particularly caught my eye this year were Shetland yarns. Because of our current colourwork focus I’ve been collecting colours in J&S, Jamieson’s of Shetland, JC Rennies, and a few other These companies have, for decades, been selling the original mini-skein put-up; 25 gram balls that allow you to collect the wide range of colours that are the required palette for Fair Isle style blending in stranded colourwork.

I’ve added to my palette of Shetland ‘jumper weight’ colours. The blanket shown is the Vivid Blanket, which was designed in Jamieson & Smith jumper weight, because of the colour possibilities! I was able to eke 2 squares out of a single 25 gram skein!

Lastly, I think that PINK was probably a pretty major theme to my EYF too… And I’m falling in love with it a little more every day!

I picked out several pinks that I plan to use in the yoke of a brilliant green sweater (next year’s Christmas outfit plan). I plan to make the body and sleeves of this sweater on my knitting machine, and then work a delicate yoke in some of these greens and pinks.

Do you get a chance to visit a wool show and shop the wide range of delicious offerings? If you haven’t had a chance to try it, I’d recommend you head to a show near you, there’s such an excitement and energy when so many creative businesses and shoppers converge!

When Making Magazine first came out I knew I wanted to be a part of it. It is a publication that combines many of my loves: sewing, baking, crafting, and (of course) knitting! I love the beautiful, clean, esthetic of the magazine and it is put together by some wonderful ladies in the fiber community, Carrie Bostick Hoge of Madder and Ashley Yousling of Woolful. If you haven’t had a chance to check out Carrie’s amazing designs or Ashley’s insightful podcast, I highly recommend it!

The Lines mittens are now available in Making No. 4 or as a single pattern here.

We were first published in Making with the Waves mittens, but Ashely and Carrie were smitten with the idea for the Lines mittens as well so we did those ones too! The idea is a simple one, and emerges from a common inspirational theme in our work: the rain! Coming from the wet coast of Canada (and the rainfall in Edinburgh is nothing to sneeze at either), we find ourselves looking through rain streaked windows quite regularly. The lines in these mittens appear as droplets at the finger tips and streams near the cuffs.

My modeling instruction to Gary: just make your hands look normal. This is what I got……

Pattern Details

Pattern: Lines by Tin Can Knits

Sizing: toddler (child, adult S, adult M, adult L)
to fit hand: 5 (5.5, 6, 7.25, 8)” around at palm
total length: 7 (8.5, 10.5, 11, 13)”

Yarn: DK weight yarn
MC: 70 (90, 130, 140, 150) yards
CC: 60 (80, 110, 120, 130) yards
(sample shown in Purl Soho Cashmere Merino Bloom in ‘heirloom white’ and ‘charcoal onyx’)

Needles: US #3 / 3.25mm and US #6 / 4mm DPNs or long circular needle for magic loop (or as required to meet gauge)

Gauge: 22 sts & 24 rounds / 4” over colourwork pattern on larger needles

Notions: darning needle, stitch markers

A soft and special yarn

The yarn I used for these pretty mittens is Purl Soho Cashmere Merino Bloom. This yarn is BUTTERY soft, making for a pair of delicate and oh-so-warm mittens. I love the way the yarn blooms (ah, I see where the name comes from there) once it’s knit with, creating a slight halo. I couldn’t let a single drop of this yarn languish in the stash, so I acquired 2 more skeins and knit up the mitten leftovers into a Grain shawl. It was the prefect thing to keep out the cold as Em and I wandered around New York this January! I couldn’t resist picking up a couple more skeins when we popped into Purl Soho too, I feel Gary needs a little something soft and special around his neck next winter too!

Me and my leftovers Grain shawl in NYC

More Colourwork Mittens from TCK:

Cordova, AK

I have come to realize I am the type of person who is really inspired by place. Much of my work is inspired by the place I live, the west coast of Canada. The Pacific Northwest is rainy and lush. There are mountains, forests, and the wild Pacific ocean. I have expounded on my love of Tofino on many occasions too! As I may have mentioned before (here and here), I found Cordova, Alaska and The Net Loft to be pretty awesome and inspiring places as well.

Although my visit was short, it will now always hold a place in my heart. When I was in Cordova last summer there was talk of a project. A birdie project. Well, it has taken me awhile, but I finally finished my birdies!

The Copper River Delta Birds by Hand project is inspired by the great migration of birds (and fisher folk) that head to the Copper River Delta every spring. Over 1.1 million shore birds head to the Delta during their migration (the peak is April 25-May 15) on their way further north to breed. The goal of the project is to collect 1000 hand crafted birds to hand in to the museum there, birds that have migrated from all over!

I knit 3 birds using Arne and Carlos book, Field Guide to Knitted Birds. I knit 1 for each of my three little hatchlings, a Jonesie bird (in yellow of course), a Hunter bird (in peachy speckles), and a Bodhi bird (in purple speckles). I used bits and bobs leftover from other projects, enjoying using up every drop of these speckled lovelies. These birds are already winging their way to Alaska as we speak!

For all the details on how to join the project and more information on the yearly migration, check out the Copper River Birds by Hand page here. You can also follow along on Instagram here.

It’s spring. The daffodils are out! Cheery (and local and cheap!), daffodils were my wedding flowers, so they hold a happy place in my heart. Here in the UK it’s been a cold and slow-to-start springtime, and still hasn’t warmed to my satisfaction (although extended opportunities for the wear of sweaters and woolly socks is an upside!).

When springtime comes, I tend to explode with ideas for lace, and I love to knit in bright bright colours! This one is no exception, although I’ve had to rein in my lace loving side. We are deep in the depths of completing a new colourwork collection, which is VERY exciting, but also requires so very much knit, knit, knit, think, think, think, work, work, work. I did recently manage to fit in something lacy for a spring wedding… here’s a tiny sneak peek!

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Are you knitting lace this springtime? Fancy an adorable sweater for you, or a matching set for you and a little one? I designed Lush before I was even THINKING of babies, but when I began to think about little ones, I knit a teeny tiny version of the jumper in anticipation.

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Some years later I was able to get the obligatory Mum & Daughter shots of me and Neve in matching sweaters! For all the designs that Alexa and I have published, most of which are sized from baby to big, we really haven’t made very many matching jumpers for us and our kids!

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Neve’s Lush cardigan is made in Sweet Fiber Merino Twist DK in ‘something blue’ and mine is in Rainbow Heirloom Sweater in ‘favourite aunty’. They’ve both been favourite items for both Neve and I to wear!

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What are your favourite lacy spring knits? Are you a shawl knitter? Perhaps a lacy sweater?

More lacy knits from TCK:

West Coast Cardigan

Emily and I both grew up on the coast of British Columbia and one of the most iconic knits from this region is the beautiful Cowichan sweater. Growing up it was the kind of sweater that your parents or aunts and uncles would own, maybe as a kid you had a vest in the same style. These types of items are ones that are passed down, patched when worn through, and generally well loved. The bulky wool was perfect for the cold damp days here. Of course I adore the designs, containing both geometric patterns (my favourite) as well as traditional First Nations imagery.

These beautiful sweaters have a complicated and often exploitative history. I have had the opportunity to hear Sylvia Olsen speak on the topic a few times and she is absolutely riveting. The story of her own history living and working with Cowichan knitters on Vancouver Island and selling Cowichan sweaters is fascinating. I really loved her books Working with Wool and Knitting Stories; I couldn’t put them down and one of her stories even had me shedding a tear in the middle of a crowded airport. I highly recommend giving them a read! Cowichan knitting is more than just the garments themselves, it has a specific style. While I personally almost never catch my floats when knitting stranded colourwork, the Cowichan style catches with every stitch. Sylvia offered a wonderful class in which we made a hat using this technique.

So, with my interest in these beautiful sweaters piqued, I was so pleased when my friend Jane Richmond came out with her West Coast Cardigan pattern! The geometric patterning appealed to me immediately and I had to cast on. There are a lot of great projects on Ravelry here in all different colour combinations, it was nice to be able to look through them before choosing my colours. I planned to knit a West Coast Cardigan for my aunt, Tessa, and I knew she would like it in some cool neutrals, so I decided on greys. I picked up some Briggs and Little Country Roving and away I went! I had to make only a few modifications. I knit the yoke as written, then I wanted to make the sweater longer, since Tessa is pretty tall. I added in a few extra rows of stockinette in MC between motifs, and I added in an extra motif at the end as well.

There is really only one thing I would do differently next time: I would follow Jane’s advice (that is written right into the pattern), and knit the sleeves with the wrong side facing outwards. This would force my floats to be a bit longer. This wasn’t a problem in the body, but my sleeves came out a smidge tight. When my Dad saw the sweater he immediately declared that he needed one too, in exactly the same colours. I will have to get on that!

Some chunky knits from TCK:

Alterknit Stitch Dictionary

I recently got my hot little hands on Andrea Rangel’s latest book: Alterknit Stitch Dictionary and I love it! I wanted to share it with all of you.

Who is Andrea Rangel?

Andrea is a designer I’ve known….I think since I started designing! She lives near by (ish) in the Cowichan Valley, Vancouver Island, and Andrea draws inspiration from the beautiful world around her. I first knit her Dude sweater (which has since been upgraded to the Knitters Dude) during a KAL for the 2010 Winter Olympics. I have always liked her style; Andrea’s designs are often rugged knits, meant to be worn! I have also knit up a Little Dude sweater for Ellis, and it is oh so adorable.

Ellis’ Little Dude details: I knit up the 2-4 so he would have a little room to grow.

Yarn: Quince & Co Lark in ‘audoin’, ‘bark’ and ‘caspian’

The book

Andrea’s latest work is the awesome new: Alterknit Stitch Dictionary. The timing couldn’t be better for us as we are neck deep in Fair Isle these days! What is a stitch dictionary you ask? It is a big book of inspiration and, you guessed it: stitches. My personal knitting book shelves have a few choice pattern books and a whole lot of stitch dictionaries, a designers best friend. Some are texture heavy, some are full of cables and lace, and some are full of colourwork stitches. Andrea’s book is a very welcome addition, full of stitch patterns that are new and different, not an easy feat in the world of knitting! In addition to colourwork stitch patterns, this book is full of tips for choosing a colourwork palette as well as ways to manage your yarns and hands when knitting with multiple colours.

The process

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Andrea’s process for the book. She worked closely with her husband Sean, who isn’t really a knitter, but comes from a Fine Arts background. He would create a chart, she would bust out the needles and yarn and try it out. Motifs were tweaked and changed from there. This process is one that is somewhat familiar to Emily and I, designs often start out with a sketch, we will discuss changes after the prototype has been knit, charts or pattern writing will be tweaked etc. It is nice to have 2 minds thinking about the same project or idea, but often from different angles!

Combining Alterknits and Strange Brew

Alterknits and Strange Brew make a perfect combination. A book of inspiration to go along with all the sweater/hat/cowl math? The design possibilities are endless!

More TCK that would blend with Alterknits:

Is it small and squishy? Put a bonnet on it!!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – one of the most enjoyable things for me, as a knitter, is watching my kids play in beautiful knits! This is definitely the reason why Alexa and I decided to size our patterns from ‘baby to big’. However, despite making piles of knits for our babies over the years, this is our very first bonnet pattern… and I’m so proud of it! Beloved is a joyful, clever little knit which I’m quite sure you will love. Get the pattern and cast on today!

I made Neve’s bonnet in Hedgehog Fibres Merino DK in ‘genie’

After experimenting with MANY bonnet prototypes (four or five in total) I hit upon a design that really worked. Beloved is knit from the i-cord on one side to the i-cord on the other, so it requires zero finishing. It’s shaped with short rows (these are described step-by-step in the pattern, don’t worry!) so it hugs the nape of the neck for a perfect fit.

Crisp details make this bonnet joy to make; the i-cord ties flow into i-cord edges, and short rows make the nape of the neck pull in for a perfect fit

Once I had finalized this delicious little knit, Alexa took it up with force. Her nephew Arlo was a tiny newborn so she grabbed a skein and cast on. ‘I have to test it!’ she cried. Well, it didn’t stop with one, she knit one for Hunter too, then embarked on a grown-up size. Now, we should say we weren’t entirely sure adults really ought to wear bonnets, but there is something hilarious and excellent about this one. Natalie, our model, said it looked very ‘Handmaids Tale’.

Brand new baby Arlo is wearing the newborn size in Hedgehog Fibres sock, held doubled.

It’s hard to explain the addictive and fun nature of this knit (you might just have to knit one and see). The bonnet is worked from i-cord to i-cord, has a memorize-able repeat in the middle, and the whole thing is just a joy to knit. It has only 2 ends to weave in, works in pretty much any DK weight yarn (or fingering/sock held doubled), and is there a small child alive that wouldn’t look adorable in one of these? Nope.

As if that weren’t enough, the practicality of a bonnet is high. My daughter Neve has worn hers non-stop for the last year; first in a baby size, then toddler size, and most recently I had to knit her a child size since little noggins grow so fast! I designed the bonnet for DK weight yarn, but Alexa made all her versions by holding sock yarn doubled; it’s a versatile pattern for leftover bits and bobs.

KEEP YOUR HAT ON!!!

I suffered the keen disappointment of many a lost hand-knit hat when Max was small. He pulled them off when he was in the sling on my back, and John or I wouldn’t notice until we were miles down the road, or already home. Beloved keeps tender little baby ears covered, without a hat brim getting in baby’s eyes. With soft i-cord ties it’s perfect for little monkeys who constantly pull off their hats the instant you pop them on!

Big but still Beloved

Of course, it would never do to leave this level of cuteness to the babies alone!

Hunter is wearing the child size in Hedgehog Fibres Skinny Singles in ‘monarch’ (sock yarn held doubled)

Natalie is wearing the adult SM in La Bien Aimee Merino Twist Sock in ‘pop grunge’ (sock yarn held doubled)

Beloved is darling on girls and boys, and cute on grown-ups too! Really, who DOESN’T need a bonnet? Bonnets are so hot right now.

We don’t often make patterns that are this purely adorable!

More TCK adorableness:

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Recently I’ve realized that I am at a point in my life where many of my current projects require PRACTICE, repetition, and solid habits. Maybe its the theme of this decade (my 30’s)?

The things that I’m interested in taking forward in both my creative work and my personal life are the sorts of things that don’t come easily or quickly. These kinds of projects require daily or weekly attention, a load of work, and seem to develop so very much more slowly that I’d prefer!

Just a few of the swatches and prototype projects that I’ve made as I develop colourwork designs for our upcoming collection.

A few things I’m working on personally are my posture (pilates), fitness (regular running), and re-learning piano (I just started lessons). In my knitting and design I am focussed on building skills and experimenting within stranded colourwork, as Alexa and I put together our next collection.

Let me tell you, designing in colourwork requires A LOT of practice! These hats are from our Week Of Colour blog post series that explores different colour strategies.

Perhaps somewhere between the professional and the personal floats my grand ambition to develop a more interesting wardrobe for myself. For as long as I can remember I have bemoaned my lack of an ‘interesting’ wardrobe. Despite being a designer, my clothes have always been woefully boring, and yet I’ve always admired women and men who let their personalities and playful sides show through clothing.

As I write this post, I realize I have a load of stylish friends who inspire me; Ysolda puts together quirky yet thoughtful combinations and wears loads of hand-made items, Jess of Ginger Twist Studio rocks vintage pieces alongside a stunning array of knits, and the lovely ladies of PomPom never fail to impress with their whimsical mix of delicious colours and modern designs.

Sonya Philip, creator of 100 Acts of Sewing

A view from the Instagram feed of Sonya Philip, textile artist and creator of 100 Acts of Sewing.

I recently met a woman who REALLY knocks me out with her fashion sense and creativity. At the Edinburgh Yarn Festival this year I ran into my current style idol, Sonya Philip in person! I’ll have to admit I butted right in to her conversation with ‘OMG I LOVE YOUR WORK SO MUCH’ in true awkward fan style. Luckily I ran into her later on and apologized!

Sonya and I headed to EYF 2018 – we made a pretty great colour combination eh?! Photo by Jeni Reid

Sonya is a San Francisco-based artist and the creator of a series of sewing patterns, called 100 Acts of Sewing. In 2012 she began a project to sew 100 projects. In her words: “What began as a personal challenge to make 100 dresses in a year, has developed into a larger exploration of praxis.” Read more on her site.

Sonya’s Instagram feed is one of my very favourite. Ever. It just makes me crazy happy! There are many things that I love about her work, but the thing I want to focus on is PRACTICE.

100 Acts of Sewing patterns

With the 100 Acts of Sewing patterns, Sonya has created basic patterns which erase any barriers to creation. It is in each person’s use of these patterns, their curation of fabrics, pattern, and details where these patterns really shine. For me, Sonya’s work is an invitation to play, to practice, to become proficient. Not to BE perfect, BE proficient, or HAVE the ideal thing instantaneously, but to create, step by step, day by day, and revel in the joy of this process and its results.

Sonya wears her designs so well! I find her combinations of colour, pattern, texture so joyous and inspiring. How can I drool over this endless source of inspiration, but then pull on the same jeans & tank top every day?! Well… because it is a long process, a daily or weekly practice, to go from boring shop-bought wardrobe to interesting hand-made wardrobe. And to be honest (and make my excuses!), my kids are 2 and 3.5, so life is only just now becoming a tiny bit easier!

an interesting wardrobe for me

So there it is, a 30’s life goal … making and wearing clothes that speak a little bit more of me, who I am, and what I love. I’ll be starting with sweaters (naturally!), and moving from there. I made these swingy tank tops last year, and I think I’ll make a few more because they’re what I really love to wear under my sweaters.

To move beyond jeans, I think the sewing project that I need to ‘nail’ is trousers (I suppose that 7 years in Scotland means I’m converting from ‘pants’!). So I’m hoping to find or develop a perfect pattern for a) high waisted wide leg trousers and b) slim trousers, like a jeans fit but made in other fabrics. Any suggestions for likely sewing patterns that might fit this bill? I’ve got some great woollens collected to get started on…

As for the sweaters I have planned… Well it’s all about yokes for me for at least another year! I’ve got A LOT of sweaters planned for me. In the past I’ve had very few handmade sweaters for myself, but recently I acquired a hand operated knitting machine. I’ll talk more about this useful tool in a future post, but suffice it to say that it’s allowing me to complete some sweaters for my own wardrobe, something I have seldom had time for in the past few years.

A few initial concepts / colour explorations for the sweaters I have planned

I may work on adding to my wardrobe in ‘outfits’; one sweater plus one pair of trousers. Conceptually, I don’t want to do a lot of different things, I want to take 2 or 3 basic patterns: our Strange Brew yoke sweater recipe, and two styles of trousers, and work various iterations within these basic patterns. There are SO MANY ways I could do a yoke sweater, right?

Here are a few of the recent yokes I’ve made, but this has only just whet my appetite for more!

And with one or two trouser styles, and a stack of different colours and textures I am sure I will be able to build a handmade wardrobe that I find both interesting and practical. Inspired by Sonya Philip’s iterative exploration of simple basics, I will work within the canvas that I’m loving (the yoke sweater), and practice; again and again.

Concept sketches of my new ‘uniform’ … let me tell you, yoke sweaters are featuring BIG in my imagination! And sexy trousers… and boots that go stompity stomp.

Neon… it goes with everything, right?!

This amazing green has been especially calling to me lately. Next year’s ‘Christmas Sweater’ is going to be this vivid ‘Vintage’ green with pinks and deeper greens at the yoke. I swear, I probably told everybody I met at EYF this year about this green sweater idea I was obsessed with… So after talking it up so much, it had better be good!

I just need to swatch to determine which pinks & greens to use through the yoke. Or maybe a little of all of them? The cone is Rennie’s Supersoft, and the balls are from Jamieson & Smith, Jamieson’s of Shetland, and Rennies.

Do you have grand master plans for a handmade wardrobe? Or to bring more of your personal style out through the clothes that you choose to buy?

Tin Can Knits sweaters that make great wardrobe additions:

The whole gang in Iceland! Seljalandfoss in the background

About a year ago Emily and I were on the phone, as we are every Monday, and we were discussing the things in our lives we would like to do. Some goals were craft oriented (sewing projects and sweater wardrobes), some were food oriented (learning a few new ‘everyday’ recipes is always on my list), and some were travel related. What places did we want to see? And then we had a crazy idea: we should go to Iceland. Not just the 2 of us…..ALL of us! So 3 weeks ago we packed up our husbands and kiddos and jumped a plane to Iceland for a 16 day trip all the way around the land of fire and ice!

This adorable couple was along for the wild ride! Rain, sleet, wind, sun….all in 1/2 hour!

It wasn’t really an ‘all play’ vacation. We were on a mission to photograph our upcoming collection (be ready for September!). In addition to our two families we had Nina of Rainbow Heirloom (our lovely model) and her fiancée, Ross, came too. For the first few days we just drove around Reykjavik taking thousands of photographs against the stunning backdrops….and stopping regularly for coffee and pastry of course!

We had the pleasure of spending an evening with Helene Magnusson , the Icelandic Knitter, while we were in Reykjavik too! We headed to her beautiful studio where she let us comb through her beautiful trunks of samples (and a whole drawer of beautiful colourwork mittens!), while she described her knitting journey, her special Icelandic yarns, and her wonderful knitting and hiking retreats. Hiking in Iceland with Helene has been officially added to the bucket list!

One of our favourite days was our trip to the Blue Lagoon, we all piled into the cars and headed for the warm blue waters. They were amazing! It was a perfect sunny day (a rarity on the trip), the kids were happy to be floating, grown ups enjoyed the steam and sauna, and the view couldn’t be beat! That blue is indescribable!

The best part of being in Iceland was the amazing outdoors. Both the weather and the scenery changed frequently, one minute you were looking out at the vast Atlantic, the next you were on a mossy hill, then passing a field of Icelandic horses! There were mountains, vast expanses of volcanic rock, green and brown mossy hills, and black pebbled beaches. It was a wonder everywhere we turned.

Changing weather meant improvising! This is Emily’s ‘sweater-turned-scarf’ look

We had a wee chance to check out the local yarn shop and we couldn’t miss the Alafoss shop as well! There were beautiful lopi sweaters everywhere we looked. At the coffee shop, on the street, in the shops, and yes, there was lopi yarn in the grocery stores too! There was too much to cover in just one post so there is more on our fantastic journey to come!

More Road Trip Knits from TCK:

I had such good intentions of posting about this during Me Made May, but we were frantically packing for Iceland (and maybe there was some last minute knitting), and….well….here it is now!! Best intentions right? I, like a lot of knitters I hear from, knit a lot for other people. I LOVE to knit for my kids, I like to knit for my Mum, I knit a lot of samples for our patterns, and I have knit things at various times for just about everyone I know. Last year there were a bunch of new babies in my friend group and I knit wee sweaters and hats for them too. I don’t take the time though, to really knit something for myself. A couple of years ago I decided that needed to change (I mean, who shows up at a knit conference and doesn’t have a suitable hand-knit sweater?! Embarrassing), and this is a record of my progress this far.

First up, the most recent finish. This is my Strange Brew sweater, knit up in Brooklyn Tweed Arbor I picked up on my first trip to Alaska. (Side note: isn’t it nice to pick up yarn on vacation? This sweater will always remind me of the Net Loft). The thought behind this sweater is that I love to wear black and grey. I love to knit with colourful yarns, but what I wear 99% of the time is jeans and a hoodie, so I needed a sweater that fit into that wardrobe. I went with a dark grey body (I am mostly too spilly to wear light colours) and a neutral palette for the yoke. I was so very pleased with Bodhi’s Christmas sweater this year, that I decided I needed to size that chart up for me.

Just ignore that lovely piece of lichen trying to blend in with my hair….

After SWATHES of grey stockinette I had a little party in the yoke, and voila, a sweater for me! It’s the first sweater I didn’t have to immediately adjust in some way to fit more to my liking, which was also a huge win. I called on my photography buddy, Tessa, and we headed out to Buntzen for a few glamour shots.

The rest of my sweater wardrobe has been seen before, there is my lovely red Prairie Fire that I love to bits, my brown tweedy Antler sweater (that I snapped the back neck on yet again, so it is in the repair pile), and my mustard Flax sweater.

I really adore the colour of my Flax, and I’m mostly quite happy with it except….it’s too short. I ran out yarn (rookie mistake), and it’s a hand dye so my hopes of matching dye lots are rather slim. The sleeves are a bit too short for my liking, and the body is also a smidge shorter than I prefer. They are so close….only an inch or an inch and a half off…..but sometimes that’s enough to leave it on the shelf.

With a hand knit sweater it is just so worth the effort to make your sweater perfect. So, with that in mind, I think I’ll have to colour block that sweater. I’ll take out the cuffs and maybe an inch, and I’ll do a few inches in a new colour at the cuff and hem. Now, I said this to Emily and she immediately told me to throw some pink at it….my initial instinct was grey of course……thoughts?

It’s always good to have a photographer friend, this pic is from Sylvia

So I’m curious, are you a sweater wearer? Do you have a horror story about a sweater you have knit and couldn’t fix the fit on? Tell me your sweater stories, I am dying to hear them.

Sweaters to add to the wardrobe (Are you sensing a theme?!):

I have long been intrigued by the idea of a backwards cardigan. I started sketching this idea years ago, around the time Tin Can Knits first started. It’s sort of a vintage look, somewhat impractical (I mean, you pretty much have to button it up and put it on as a pullover), it’s a bit different, but not totally odd. It’s a look I quite enjoy and so I finally pulled out my sticks and string and knit one up. It seemed sensible to make it an otherwise simple sweater, with the sole details being crisp raglan lines, sweet little split hem, and the buttons up the back. When I was finished I was completely smitten, it was exactly what I wanted!

Button it in front or back!

Of course not everyone wants a cardigan worn backwards, so Boardwalk can be made with 2 options, the frontwards, or the backwards. The sweater is completely the same except for the shaping at the top neck, so you can wait until the last minute to decide. Short rows lower the neckline depending how you want to wear it.

This is my nephew Arlo when he was brand spanking new. He is wearing his teeny tiny Boardwalk and a Beloved bonnet to top off the look

The forwards version is a perfect wardrobe staple. Simple and straightforward, perfect for that SQ you have stashed in your favourite colour. It works well with tweeds, woollies, speckles, or hand dyes, a canvas that lets the yarn shine. Boardwalk is perfect layered over a tank top and jeans or a summer dress for cooler evenings.

Neve looking oh-so-adorable in her speckles!

Lately I’ve been thinking about my own sweater wardrobe from the practical perspective of what I actually like to wear (vs what I like to knit, the 2 don’t always go together). I think I’ll be knitting up a Boardwalk sweater for me! I haven’t decided whether to style it forwards or backwards….but I don’t have to decide until the neckline shaping so I can cast on anyway!

Sweet little split hem detail

Boardwalk details:

Pattern: Boardwalk by Tin Can Knits
Yarn: 300 (350, 400, 500, 575, 675, 775, 850, 1050, 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1475, 1550, 1600, 1700, 1900, 2100, 2250) yards DK weight yarn.
Samples shown in: Natalie and Hunter are wearing YOTH Big Sister in ‘Portobello’ and ‘Sea Salt’, Neve and Arlo are wearing Hedgehog Fibers Merino DK in ‘genie’ and ‘pollen’
Needles: US #4 / 3.5mm & US #6 / 4mm (or as required to meet gauge)
Gauge: 22 sts & 30 rounds / 4” in stockinette on larger needles

Hunter’s sweater love

I never know which sweaters my kids will REALLY love. They will wear any of them without fuss and of their own free will, but sometimes they just LOVE a sweater. Jones and his Gramps sweater, Bodhi and her Antler sweater. Well, Hunter couldn’t get enough of her Boardwalk cardigan. She wore it non-stop after our photoshoot! Her cool teenage cousin told her it was a good look and she beamed with pride. She also started wearing her Lush cardigan backwards, just 2 buttons done up at the top. What a fashion forward little 7-year-old!

So, grab your fav yarn, the Boardwalk pattern, and join me in knitting up the perfect sweater for fall!

More stylish staples from TCK: