Paula of the podcast Knitting Pipeline is sponsoring an Estelle knit-along. To entice you to join the KAL, I’ve posted a few more pictures of Melissa LaBarre’s pretty little cardi. She used the ever lovely feather-and-fan pattern as a border, a feature that’s a bit hard to see in the big photo above. So much as I love seeing those lizard green shoes, here are photos of the back and a detail which shows how the stitch pattern works for the edgings. Estelle is knitted in Lark and the KAL begins May 1. For more details, listen to Paula’s podcast 39 or visit the Knitting Pipeline group on Ravelry.

Note: The Knitting Pipeline is all about knitting, yes. But as in all great podcasts, you’ll learn a little about a few non-knitting things as well. If you love the sound (and promise) of spring peepers as much as I do, Paula tells you where to go for a peeper ring tone. Cool, that.

Cecily Glowik MacDonald’s Solstice Cardigan is a concerto of interesting details that come together so perfectly that I, well—I want to let out a satisfied sigh. Nothing extraneous, nothing out of place.

We ran a full picture of the cardi in last week’s e-letter (have you signed up yet?), but I thought you might like to see some these harmonious details up close.

Note the interesting flat cable, worked by slipping stitches on one row and crossing them on the next. The cable runs up along each sleeve, down each side, and fronts each pocket. The waist is marked by a relaxed 4×4 cable. Note the subtle texture change between the fronts and back of the sweater worked in twisted stitch and the sleeves knitted in stockinette stitch. There are no buttons or buttonholes to interrupt the seed stitch front borders that overlap by a few inches.

And it’s knitted from the top down, raglan style, starting with the outer edge of the collar.

Sigh.

For reference: Here are the original Moira Mitts. (It was summer. Oh summer!)

All stockinette stitch, easy gusset-less thumb, waiting for your stripe idea, Fair Isle pattern, or embellishment. Soft and warm in Lark. (Oh, Lark!)

Way at the beginning we made a pair of Apricot fingerless mitts in Lark and called them Moira Mitts. Then, just recently, we made More Moira Mitts in River to wear with a sweater in Marsh that we’re going to show you soon. But the River mitts and Marsh sweater didn’t look quite as great together as we had imagined, so today we’re presenting More Moira Mitts on their own.

All we did to make them more-than-Moira was to start them on larger needles to better fit the upper arm. Then, when we’d gotten to just below the elbow, we changed to the smaller needles called for in the pattern.

So warm, so cozy, so French, so Degas.

Carrie shot Bristol’s Cowl on one of the last mild days of October—(oh where have they gone so quickly?).

Take a look at the strong linear patterns in Bristol’s lace stitch.  They come from working yarn overs on every round, as opposed to every other. Lately, I’m wildly attracted to every-round lace patterns. They seem more modern somehow, edgy and deconstructed with their reaches of single strands suspended between stitches.

Bristol’s Cowl is just that—a little edgy in its linear lace pattern, but trimmed, for contrast, with a sweet picot border—a tiny double layer that adds substance to the lower edge.

Bristol talks about her cowl, an exquisite lace shawl (breathtaking) she recently made, and more, here:

http://blackbirdturning.blogspot.com

Here’s a pair of socks—featured in Twist Collective—that makes use of a stitch pattern that resembles smocking. Although there’s a knitted version of smocking that involves wrapping a few stitches with the working yarn, the faux-smock stitch used in the Tern socks is an asymmetric cable that crosses one stitch over five. (Did anyone say that cables have to be balanced?)

We named the socks Tern, after the yarn they’re worked in. We developed the yarn for socks—it’s 221 yards to 50g. But we didn’t want to add nylon (a petroleum product) to the mix. So in order to add strength to the yarn, we put in silk—tussah silk, to be exact. Silk has sheen, drape, and softness, but did you know that it’s incredibly strong as well? Try breaking a 100% silk yarn sometime with your hands and you’ll see what I mean.

Tussah silk, unlike it’s pampered sister mulberry silk, is a ‘wild’ silk. It’s a kind (as in kind and gentle) silk. The larvae that make the lustrous mulberry silk are killed before then can hatch into moths—the better to keep the long fibers long. But tussah silk is harvested after the moths have hatched and flown away to live a short but winged life. The staple of tussah fiber isn’t quite as long as that in cultivated mulberry, and the color is more varied and tannish, but tussah is a silky silk, nonetheless.

For the Tern sock pattern, click here.

to another. In this case, Annabel (see patterns/osprey), Carrie’s garter stitch pullover, was the starting point for her Camilla pullover. Annabel is worked from the top down, but Camilla starts from the bottom. Note how the fan panel flares and dips at the hem. An unexpected, but welcome, result of the stitch pattern.

Camilla is knitted in Osprey—the perfect yarn for garter stitch. It’s squishy, relaxed, and smooth to the touch. Note, there on the model’s left shoulder, how nicely defined are the garter ridges.

Okay—that’s the markety part of this blog. Behind the scenes over here, we’re shipping, shipping. And figuring out how to make a yarn business work. The details, the details. One’s head spins.

Less is more, wouldn’t you agree? Clean lines and a few well-articulated details resonate with me. Cecily MacDonald’s sweater is the classic example of how elegant constraint can be. You begin the sweater at the neck with a few rounds of a simple lace stitch that yield a softly scalloped neckline. From that point on, it’s stockinette stitch down to brief ribbed borders on body and sleeves.

Less is more, so I’ll keep this short. But I wanted to show you this picture. We ruled it out for our e-letter because the truck looms a little too prominently in the background. (Beauty and the Beast?) But I like it because it’s a reminder that Portland still values its working waterfront. Not always pretty, never quiet, usually smelly, but hey—it’s about the fish and the tides and the people in thigh-high wellies. And we like that.

Crochet has its detractors, but I’m not one of them. I have a soft spot for funky granny squares, especially the ones in a zillion random colors. But crocheted squares don’t have to be idiosyncratically colored for me to appreciate them. Kristen TenDyke’s pretty Molokini shawl is constructed from single-color crocheted squares as delicate and intricate as any frost pattern. (Happens to be made in Chickadee/Glacier #105.) You’ll find the pattern for this shawl  on the just-launched Caterpillar Knits website—www.caterpillarknits.com.

Kristen’s website features knit and crochet patterns—all worked in eco-friendly yarns. And if you want to know more about what constitutes such a yarn, her website is the place to go.

Cecily MacDonald worked the Chickadee Aynia Shrug in one piece. Cast on stitches for the lower back edge of the back and knit up to the armhole, working a few increases along the side edge for shaping. At the armhole, cast on a few stitches at each end of the needle for the cap sleeve and its knitted-in lace border. Work across the back and sleeves to an inch or so before the shoulder. Mark off the center back neck stitches, plus seven each side of the neck stitches for the lace border and work the lace pattern for an inch before binding off the back neck. One half of the shrug is done.

Next half, the fronts. Place stitches for one of the fronts on a holder or waste yarn. Work the remaining stitches—front and cap sleeve—to the underarm. The first and last seven stitches continue the lace border along the sleeve and center front edges. A little shaping along the front edge, a quick bind off to end the cap sleeve and you’re almost home. At the hemline, bind off all stitches except for the seven that form the lace border at the center front edge. Cont working back and forth on these lace stitches to create a band that reaches from the bottom edge of the front around to the center back when the sides are seamed together. Second front same as the first. Seam the sides, sew on the border—and you’re done.