Brooklyn Tweed obsession

I've been knitting for 30 years and have never tired of it.  I love the rhythm and the pace.  One time I tried out a knitting machine and HATED it.  Production is not the goal.

About 2 years ago, I started working with a group of friends to teach them to knit.  It re-kindled my own passion for the craft and, in the past 2 years, I have knit A LOT.  About that time, I discovered the design house of Brooklyn Tweed.  The founder, Jared Flood, is an alum of my college -- The University of Puget Sound in Washington, although much younger than me for sure.

Brooklyn Tweed is American wool start to finish.  The colors are vivid yet neutral and the flecks in the tweed make for a garment with depth of texture.  Sure winner -- and I'm addicted.

The first BT sweater I made did not use their yarn but it is their pattern.  This is Runa but knit in luscious cashmere.  I made a cashmere sweater years ago that just kept getting bigger and bigger.  I had used 2 strands of 100% cashmere and knit it on a size 9 needle.  I knew someday I would rip it out and knit something else (I've done this several times with cashmere.  Too precious to waste).  Pulling out both strands was a total nightmare but I did it and had plenty of yarn for this hooded cardigan, 2 cowls, and some gloves.  I love the hood on this sweater and it was the perfect sweater to use a natural horn button my mom had given me many years ago.

Now I set out to knit a BT design with BT yarn.  This is Tilda knit in their heavier gauge yarn, Shelter.  This is a very neutral shade called Foothills.  The edging is in Artifact.  I followed the pattern pretty closely but found I needed WAY less yarn than called for.  I still have 3 skeins left and the sweater is a little big on me.  My gauge is markedly different from what the pattern says so I had to convert stitches and rows.  No big deal.  I used horn buttons on this one also.  BT patterns have lots of little details.  Tilda has a nice eyelet detail running parallel to the raglan sleeve and also has a beautiful cable panel up the front.  I especially like the rolled edge on the button placket and the way the buttons create a little wave up the front.  Nice.

The thinner BT yarn is called Loft and I have used that exclusively for the last few sweaters.  I knit it on a size 4.  First was Hitch.  Yarns are Blanket Fort, Faded Quilt, and Almanac.  The pattern only calls for 1 color but I needed some thing to hold my interest for that wide garter panel at the bottom.  My gauge variation caused problems on this one.  The pattern is a dolman sleeve with a panel of 5 cables up the front.  My gauge was so much bigger that I had to re-do the entire front of the sweater and only use 3 panels.  5 panels was too wide for the neck given my gauge.  Total pain to rip all that out.  I also did not like the dolman shape on my body.  So, when I ripped out to re-do the cables, I re-did the pattern and made it a standard drop shoulder.  DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.  Lots of effort and re-knitting.  But, the sweater now looks great and is flattering and I wear it a lot.

Lots of extra mauve yarn leftover after this one so I decided to do a little cardigan with some color work at the bottom to use things up.  The main color is Postcard which is a pale pink.  The bottom is a panel of linen stitch using the various colors.  I wish I'd made this one about 2 inches longer as it is a little cropped with the current state of my winter body.  But, with these spring colors and some winter workouts maybe I'll be less self-conscious in a few months!


Again, I ended up with tons of extra yarn even though I consciously ordered less than the pattern called for.  So, now I needed to use up some mauve, light blue, and dark blue.  Here is the current project on my needles.  It's my own pattern and design and uses a stitch pattern called Welting Fantastic.  I believe it's in Barbara Walker's First Treasury of Knitting Patterns, one of my most-used source books.  I've used this pattern on baby hats, scarves, and countless projects.  It makes it easy to add color or even novelty yarn to create interest.  I added 3 colors to the mix:  Snowbound (very pale grey), Button Jar (green), and Plume (purple).  I'm using the stitch pattern throughout the front and back.  I haven't figured out what I'm going to do for the sleeves.  I also made the bottom 5 inches a little wider by adding 2 stitches to each repeat of the pattern.  Then I decreased those stitches so the bottom flares just slightly.  This will be a pullover with rounded neck.

The yarns are beautifully spun and gorgeous.  I highly recommend the patterns as well.  Tons of detail and a modern twist on classic stitch patterns.  I really love the thinner Loft yarn.  Today's obsession with arm knitting and super chunky accessories appeals to me not at all.  I love a detailed cable or intricate lace done on needles so thin the develop a bend in the bamboo.  It might take longer, but I do believe I will wear these sweaters far longer than some crazy cowl that feels like a neck brace.  But that's just me, maybe.

I could look at this all day long...

When we last spoke, I was in the midst of some supply cabinet re-org.  I have completed the large cedar closet and the small cabinet that houses my beads, embroidery supplies, and some miscellaneous knitting stuff like my swift, ball winder, etc.  This was all an evasive maneuver, though.  The really task ahead was The Yarn (cue Beethoven's 5th, here).  The cedar closet was definitely a big job, but at least the stuff was all inside the closet to begin with.  The yarn...not so much.

I have been knitting since my junior year in college, circa 1984.  I visited my grandma that Christmas.  We were celebrating my grandparents' 80th birthdays, I think.  I come from exceedingly good genetic stock.  Both my father's parents lived to 103.  Anyway, Grandma taught me to knit that Christmas.  We went downtown and she insisted that I only buy 100% wool.  She taught me to cast on and knit and I was completely hooked (or perhaps that should be "needled.").  Since that time, there has never been an extended period of time where I wasn't knitting something.  That first project was a simple garter stitch scarf.  I remember having the finished scarf on the needles from about February until school let out.  Grandma didn't teach me how to cast off!!  But, I found a yarn store in Tacoma, Washington, where I went to school and learned.  I think my next project was a simple sweater.  It was supposed to be a crewneck but ended up as such a scoop neck that I had to pin the shoulders to my bra straps to keep it on!!!

25+ years later, I still learn a little something with every single project.  I've done hundreds of purses.  Literally.  I had a business for awhile making felted bags.  But, demand was high and I ended up with tendonitis.  I had to stop knitting for 6  months to allow my wrist to heal.  Pure torture.  After that, I switched to the recycled sweater bags that I still make today.

In case you're wondering the point of all this, when you've been a knitter for 25 years, you end up with a lot (A LOT) of little bits of leftover yarn.  I've put together a couple of purses simply by pulling all the yarns of a single color out of the cupboard and working them together.  Here are a few examples of those bags:

    The green bag I kept for myself.  The red one sits patiently in my Etsy shop for someone.  The yellow one sold to a lovely lady in Arizona who was rewarding herself for reaching her weight loss goals.  I liked that a lot.

The great thing about these bags is that they were almost free.  I had to buy handles for them, but the yarn was all in my stash.  Which brings me to today's project:  the single balls of yarn.  You never EVERY want to run out of yarn on a project.  By the time you get to that point, every last ball of your yarn in your color and your dye lot will have vanished from the face of the earth.  Better to have 1 or 2 (or 6) extra.  So, after all this time and all these bags and sweaters and scarves, I have hundreds of single balls of yarn.  Wool, cotton, mohair, eyelash, cashmere, etc.  Many times I group similar yarns together in my larger yarn storage cupboards.  But, for the onesy-twosy balls, I use a CD cabinet my dad made for me years ago.

How gorgeous is that!!  I spent about two hours today getting things squared away.  First step was to dump all the balls onto the foyer rug.  Then I sorted by fiber, then by color.  I have issues with putting cottons next to wools.  Maybe the cotton was allergic in a prior life.  I don't know.  But, I would never knit a garment or purse mixing fibers like that.  Wool with mohair is fine.  Cotton with silk is fine.  But, never wool with cotton.

The top 2 1/2 rows are all the wools.  Now, mind you, this is just the single balls.  I have TONS of wool since it's the fiber I prefer (thanks to Grandma).  It's funny how you have a pile of 6 different reds and they all seem to go together even though one is a rusty red, one a cherry, and one a burgundy. 

The bottom 2 1/2 rows are the cottons and miscellaneous.  This is every bit of cotton that I have in my house.  I really only use cotton for baby hats and sweaters.  There are many reasons for this and I'll come clean with all my fiber biases at another time.  But, I do like cotton for babies.

The cabinet is now a work of art.  I'm going to try to put together a new banner for the blog using the photo of the entire cabinet.  Truly, I could look at this all day long...