kitty: thoughts of the design processes

A few weeks ago, I aimed Olga in somewhat of a knitting breakdown. I told her that I was contemplating burning all of my yarn and giving up knitting. (Ok, it was a bit dramatic I admit it, but I had spent 3 hours looking for a yarn I knew was in the stash only to find I had no idea how much yarn was on the cones. There were three garments I wanted to make and I could find nothing.) I had, had it. I did come to my senses after she calmed me down. So I just picked up the green jungle cashmere and did a swatch / figured the numbers and started to knit. I really had no idea what it was going to be. I just wanted ridges. But more importantly I needed something for itchy fingers. So after I had finished the body, I started to think about what the sweater wanted to be. So here are my thoughts and design processes I have been working on.

Mihara Yasuhiro '07, Akris Fall 2008, Akris Fall 2008, Akris Fall 2006, Akris Pre-fall 2008 Disel '08, Dondup, Martin Margiela '08, MARC by Marc Jacobs '08 (All Photos were from style.com, yoox, Net a Porter)

Bloggers: Virtuaalisilmukat - Harmaa pusero (Raverly link) SheBakesCakes - My very own Stehkragon-Rolli im Stil von Akris (Raverly Link) amimemo - N-Cap (Raverly Link(

Commercial Patterns: TWEEDY ALPACA Ridged Tee Shirt - Tahki Stacy Charles Inc (Thaki Tweed 2nd Edition) Stehkragen-Rolli im Stil von Akris - Fur Sie

Inspirational Stitches -

Larger View One of the popular stitches you see in a lot of the Akris sweaters is the loop stitch. Which gives a raised ridge to the design. Loop Stitch - The first one is worked 3 rows and the second one is worked 5 rows Beginning with the RS row, work 5 rows of stockinet stitch (Knit on the RS and Purl on the WS). Making sure not to work the first stitch or the last stitch of the row. Just work between those two stitches of the row since you will be creating your loop on that row. 1) Close the loop Turn the works so that the WS is facing you. * Slip 1 stitch from the left hand(LH) needle to the right hand needle (RH). 2) Insert RH needle under the strand running between the first stitch and the second stitch on the first row of the loop stitch. 3) Slip stitch on RH needle over stand, continue to work across the bottom of the loop stitches. 4) Slip stitch on RH needle over strand and continue form the * across the loop stitch 5) At the end of the row, slip last stitch on LH needle over the RH needle Note: if you are having problem keeping on the right row, Knit the first row of the pattern with a piece of brightly coloured sewing thread. This can be pulled out after you have joined the stitches in the back Method two Beginning with the RS row, work 5 rows of stockinet stitch ( Knit on the RS and Purl on the WS) Making sure not to work the first stitch or the last stitch of the row. Just work between those two stitches of the row since you will be creating your loop on that row. 1) Close the loop Turn the work so that the WS is facing you. With the RH pick up the first back Purl loop from the first row of the pattern and place it on the LH needle. 2) P2Tog (Picked up stitch and the one from the needle 3) Continue Step 1-2 until you reach the end of the row. Note: if you are having problem keeping on the right row, Knit the first row of the pattern with a piece of brightly coloured sewing thread. This can be pulled out after you have joined the stitches in the back

Larger View Several of the designs that I looked at for inspiration just had a simple Garter Stitch stripe. The old Adrian Vittadini Sweaters during the early '90's were done with 4*4 ribbing. Garter Stitch Ridges - This is done by essentially knitting 4 rows of stockinet and 2 rows of garter.

Fake Seams -

Larger View Right to left The Big problem though with any striped garment is that you have to deal with the jog at the start of the row. So I did a test of several types of fake seams

The first method was to just slip all the knits and purl them on the following row. Looked ok.. but something odd about it. The second method was to knit every row, then drop all the stitches and pick them up again when you finish the body. Looked like a normal knit row, but had a lot of uneven spaces. There was always the option to just knit one stitch and the beginning and middle of the garment. At least the stripes didn't form an ugly job so it worked. The fourth method, was to knit one stitch then when the body was finished drop all the stitches to the bottom. Then when you pick them up alternate by picking up two threads and then followed by picking up one thread to the top of the body. This is often referred to as the EZ method for stockinet patterns. The final method was to knit one stitch then when the body was finished drop all the stitches to the bottom. Then you would pick up two threads at a time to form the new stitch. This really looked the most like a real seam, but it does change the stretch obviously of the garment.   This is often referred to as the EZ method for garter stitch.