Kathryn essay 1: The evolution of my Sparrow Tee

When deciding what to make for myself, I usually leave it to the experts—my favorite designers—to come up with good sweater ideas, do the math, pick the yarns, etc. Even with several original designs under my belt, I'm much more drawn to the editorial side of pattern production (tech editing, proofing, etc.) than the design side.

But this one pattern…

I fell in love with Stripes Go Round by Lana Hames when it was first published in Interweave Knits in 2004. I really am a sucker for stripes, but I was scared to knit with hemp, and my curves can't handle a straight-waisted tee. So I never quite got around to casting it on.

Fast-forward 9 years to spring 2013, and I was working here at Quince & Co. We were introducing our latest crop of Sparrow colors: Fen, Viburnum, Pigeon, Paprika, Port, and Truffle. And Pam had asked our blog readers what they would want to see sweater-wise in Sparrow. Many of you, like me, love stripes. I took a skein of each color home and knitted up as many color combinations as I could fit into one weekend. My favorite swatch reminded me of the very tee that I had wanted to make for almost a decade. It was time.

But upon revisiting the pattern, I decided that I wanted to change a number of things in the sweater, and voila—a new design was born: Kathryn, a skinny-stripe, top-down, A-line, summer wardrobe staple. 

First change? Yarn and color palette, which I talk about tomorrow.