Earlier this winter, Amy, one of my shop crochet gurus, sent me the picture of a sweater that combined crochet and knitting (in a meaningful way, not just edging or a neck band). It wasn't something either of us wanted to make, but she wondered if it wouldn't be fun to work together on something and then teach it.
I've been thinking about Amy's suggestion and watching sweater trends. So many sweaters that combine the two disciplines graced the runway for winter and spring. I hunted around on Pinterest (what is 'knitcrochet' anyway?!) and googled designers.
I made a crochet piece, or most of one, in a class I took with Amy last spring. It's this Swing Jacket from Interweave Crochet and I finished most of it and realized that the construction emphasized, even embiggened my caboose... not necessary at all and certainly not desirable.
See? Miles of crochet. And it's pretty even and I used Rachel's highlighter yellow Polwarth silk. Yum.
Hmm, I thought. 2 crochet rectangles (if I pull this jacket apart) , one embellished with burlap colored inserts. What to do? What to do?
In my Pinterest diving, I came across this Helmut Lang pullover from Bergdorf Goodman's collection, maybe last winter? I like the asymmetry here.
Isn't it interesting? That's the back of the sweater you can see there through her legs at the bottom. It's about 10 inches longer in the back than in the front and the juxtaposition of openwork and knitting is kind of what I was thinking might be fun in a transitional season pullover.
More shaping inspiration from Joji's Boxy and I have the germ of an idea. It'll be up to Amy to tell me if we can duplicate it.
Meanwhile, I've been knitting miles of stockinette too -- trying to get a handle on Dahlia for the spring knit along. It's easy to forget how satisfying it is to knit with your hand spun yarn when you don't do it too often.
I looked up the Hello Yarn club colorways for about the time I spun this (hip replacement/Vicodin fog) and I've decided I must have combined the April 2011 colorway Sprout with the January 2011 club colorway called Shaking leaves. I had 8 ounces of each. This is one ball of three. See how the collar folds down at the top right hand of the photo? And the stitch marker marks the placement of the afterthough sleeve.
Kind of rustic, but mine. All mine.
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