I’ll Knit If I Want To; Episode 273.

Hello, welcome to All Knit If I Want To. I'm Andrea Mowry of Drea Renee Knits, and this is a little weekly podcast where I try my best to answer some of your questions. Right out the gate, I want to make sure to mention the birthday sale because it's almost over. So, if you are watching this before midnight Eastern Standard Time on August 7th, then you still have time to take advantage of my biggest sale of the year. So, right now all of my independently published patterns, except for my July releases, which includes Antipodes and the Fox Pullover. Everything else that I've independently published is on sale for a whopping 43% off with the discount code DRK43. So, those are capital DRK, and then the number is 43. I'll put it down below too so you can see how it's written. But you can see 43% off, and I don't include my brand new releases that were literally just released. I just released the Fox Pullover on Friday, but I still wanted to be able to offer a bigger than usual discount on those two new patterns that I released in July. So, you can still save 25% off on Antipodes and the Fox Pullover using the discount code FLOCK in capital letters, and then 25, the number 25. So, F-L-O-C-K, all caps, 25. And again, I'll write that all down below. Originally, you will see last week I had said that it ended Thursday, but I managed to give one day and then the wrong date. So, I'm throwing in an extra day for everyone. So, it doesn't expire until August 7th. But yeah, it's my biggest deal of the year. I hope if you've had anything in your wishlist that you get a chance to take advantage of that. And now, let's go ahead and jump in to today's episode. Today, I am wearing my DRK, nope, I am not wearing DRK anything. I am wearing my Weekender Crew. This is knit up in my hand spun that I spun out of CBM fleece from a farm here in Michigan. And I have to say it might be my favorite. I know it's bold to say, and it's really hard to pick a favorite, but it's just so special. Like, the fact that I spun this yarn and I just, so that's what I'm wearing today. This sweater comes with me on almost every trip I go on, because it very much ends up being like my cozy comfort piece of clothing that I bring with me. So, that is what I'm wearing today. I've got my matcha. Let's answer some questions. Question number one. I'm very much enjoying the process of knitting the Antipodes sweater because of the ways that the structural elements develop. Given the complexity of the Antipodes design, I'm wondering about your process. Where did you start from? The saddle? The color work? In what order did you pick the phases of the pattern? And if you're willing to share, were there any false starts? That is, places where you started one strategy, but then backed up to take another. So, yeah, I mean, I'll start right out the gate by saying that all of the patterns that I design usually have a couple false starts. I very much need to work something out for myself physically on the needles to see how it's going to work out and see if I'm going to like it. It's probably the slower way to do things, but that's just the way my brain works. I can have a theory in my head and I can think it's going to work out a certain way, but until I really apply it, I just don't know. So, the color work portion of that sweater is what came first. I started playing with that color work. I probably have the swatch. I was going to go get the swatch. I'm very tempted to go get the swatch, but you know what it looks like. But I started playing with that. I had been looking at rugs and I just saw a rug that had like a fun little chevron design, like a zigzag. I've always been drawn to that style of motif, and so I decided to play with doing it striped. And as I was doing it, I realized I could do like the negative version of that where I could flip where the color work was laying and then where like the main color empty space, like the negative space was, and I could put the color work there leaving the zigzag empty, so that became the negative space. And I really loved how looking at like that mirrored image next to each other. So, originally I was thinking to use that color work back for 2025's sweater that I wanted to do for the little sweater that I host every year. And then I kept, I was still playing around though. It was still very much in like the research and development phase, and I started playing with it legally a motif, which ended up being my 2025 sweater for New York sheep and wool. And I knew I wasn't done with that stitch pattern. I knew I wanted to play with the initial one I had worked on, so I was like, all right, well, I'm going to tuck this away for next year. So, then this past winter, I was heading to Vogue in New York City, and I started playing around with a saddle shoulder construction, which ended up being the flock pullover. So, last week I talked about how the flock pullover actually came first. It came before Antipodes when I designed them. I had really been wanting to play around with a saddle construction. I hadn't done any saddle construction since my Daydreamer sweater, which I released quite a long time ago. For all of you who always want me to do more V-neck pullovers, that is one that I've done. I have the May pullover, and I have the Daydreamer that are V-necks. The Daydreamer is a V-neck, and it has a cable saddle. So, it had just been a long time since I put up that construction. I really wanted to. So, I started out with just very traditional saddle shoulder construction, where I was basically just doing, you know, you do a rectangle for each shoulder top, and then you're going to connect the back neck, and then you're going to connect the front neck, etc., etc. So, that's how I started. And I kept playing around, and then I was thinking about the slope of our shoulders, our body shape, back neck shaping, and all of these things. And because the flock pullover came first, I was working with a very specific striping sequence pattern. I wish I had the flock pullover up here earlier. I think I just did that. But I had to work within this specific amount of space I had given myself between stripes. And so, when I was thinking about, like, the shaping that I use, let's say, in the Weekender sweater, I have short rows on the front and the back that help create a shoulder slope. Because our shoulders, while it's all to different degrees, depending on your body, we generally are higher close to our neck, and then we kind of dip down to the corner of our shoulder here. So, it's nice to put in a little triangle wedge of fabric on the front and back to help shape that area. And then also, we generally want to lift this back neck up a little bit so it lays comfortably. So, I started playing around with how I could do that, but also make it work with my striping situation. So, I wasn't running out of room with all of these short rows and whatnot I would use to shape things. So, anyways, I decided to shape the back within the saddle itself, and then I mirrored that shaping with short rows in the front. And I just had so much fun with it. It really was like a puzzle, and I found that I was just, like, blowing through knitting it because I was so excited to get to the next piece of the puzzle. So, I have a couple other designs that I'm using that same construction in that I'm really excited about, and I hope that y'all love knitting it because I think it's pretty fun. But yeah, I mean, throughout that process, trying to figure out how I wanted that shaping to work out, it's, you know, some different moving pieces. So, there was definitely a let's try it like this and tear it back out and playing around with rates of picking up stitches and all those things. So, there was definitely fits and starts, but once I had gotten through the flock pullover and was thinking about the DRK Rhinebeck sweater for this year, I was like, ooh, this is why I had to wait to cast that sweater on because now I have this idea to play with this construction and bring in this color work, and it all just kind of came together from there. So, thank you for the thoughtful question. All right, question number two is also about Did you see that? I couldn't find my straw. So, very necessary matcha today. A little tired. Okay, I'm knitting the Antipodes sweater and I'm absolutely loving it. I've gotten to the bottom of the color work on the body and recently tried it on. I noticed that the bottom hem on the back is sitting lower than the bottom hem on the front of the sweater. I was wondering if it would look weird to add some German short rows to lengthen the front of the sweater by about an inch so there isn't such a big discrepancy between the front and back. How would you recommend doing that? So, as I've talked about in the last couple episodes here, and I was talking about it a little bit in the Knit Along Forum as well, there is a little bit of a drop hem to Antipodes and the flock pullover. So, basically within that there is shaping that mirrors not nearly as drastic as Nebula, but similar idea of where it's going to drop that back hem a little bit. So, if you prefer a more even hem, you don't want it to drop. Yes, I definitely think you could play with adding some short rows to the front to curve down the front. If you just want your front longer, you could also just knit the sweater a little longer as a whole, but here is what... I actually drew this out for the Knit Along earlier, so I'll kind of show you. So, depending on... this is for somebody who has a fuller bust, and so with the drop hem and a fuller bust, they would just like a little bit more length in the front. And a great option for that generally in knitting is to add bust darts, but with the stranded color work that's happening in Antipodes, it's definitely going to be a trickier and higher level modification. So, one thing that we were also talking about going through some ideas of what people could do if they wanted to have that front of their sweater hang a little bit lower is they could... my little drawing here... so I would find kind of like the apex of the bust, which generally speaking for a lot of us is going to be around where our nipples are. And then I would imagine lines going straight down from there, and this is where I would consider like two points. And I would want to work short rows so that I'm going back and forth over the center of the sweater, gradually working more stitches on each side outside of those apex points. So, let's say I'm starting over here, I'm going to work up to the apex, and then I'm going to turn back to the other, and then I'm going to go a little past this first apex this time, and then a little past the other apex. And I'm going to keep doing that back and forth. I would not overdo it. I would err on the side of less is more for this, maybe an inch tops. So, let me see what our gauge is. I feel like I had Antipodes open earlier, so let me just pull that one up. There we go. Okay, so Antipodes row gauge should be a little over eight rows per inch. So, I would think about doing like eight short rows. And another idea I had, especially if you want to kind of sneak this in, you don't want it to be obvious, I would do these short rows, you could even divide it in half. So, you could do four to six of them up here above the color work before you start the color work, and then down here between the color work and the hem. So, if you did four rows above and four rows below of short rows, that is going to lower the front by an inch and not be very obvious in your sweater. So, I think that that would be a really nice option. And again, you could even just put stitch markers around where you think like the fullest part of your bust is. So, it's kind of in line with that. So, that's where you're building up the fabric, which is going to help accommodate a bust if you have a fuller bust and that's what you're trying to do. So, that's just some ideas I had. Another thing that could be considered if, um, if you hadn't started, let's say, the flock pullover or antipodes, which are both going to have a bit of a drop hem, it's about one to one and a half inches. It's not a super aggressive drop hem, but let's say you just know you don't like a drop to the back of your sweater. Um, one thing you could also look at doing is doing less shaping on the back of that saddle. So, the way that we work that saddle, I'm going to do a very rough sketch. Oh, this is bad, but that's okay. So, the way that we work those saddles, we're working this sideways and we are increasing along here and then we work even for a little bit and then we decrease back down to our original amount. So, you could work less increases and decreases. You could work no increasing and decreasing. Um, you could play around with that if you wanted to. So, that would remove some of that drop from happening. Um, so there you go. There's a couple ideas there that I hope you find helpful. All right, gotta get back to my questions here. Okay, I have just started knitting your Harlow flip hat and I'm wondering if you have any tips on weaving in ends as discreetly as possible to make it truly reversible. My two colors are quite high contrast, so I'm worried about the yarn tails being quite visible where I weave them in on which side of the fabric I do it. So, honestly, I have done even like a black and white, so very high contrast, um, two-color brioche hat in the past, my vintage prim hat from way back in the day, and I just go under what I call the fish bones of the brioche. So, I do not do duplicate stitch. I literally just go when you kind of spread your brioche apart, you'll see these lines like this, these little like diagonal lines coming out of the purl row, column, and whatever color those fish bones are, that's the tail that I'm going to run underneath to hide it. And then I'd flip the hat to the other side where you're going to see the fish bones are going to be the other color, and that's where I would weave in the color that matches those ones. And that's all I've ever done, and I have never noticed the tail ever again. That's kind of one of the things I love about brioche is even though it tends to be a little bit of a more advanced technique, it has the easiest ends to weave in because you can just under those little, um, you could also try duplicate stitch. I just personally haven't found it necessary, but try out a couple things if you, even if you just have like a little brioche swatch lying around, you could practice there, um, but, and if you think about it too, um, but yeah, that's really all I do, and I've never noticed them even with high contrast yarn, so that would be what I would do. Um, you could also, oh, under like the brioche knit column, you can weave like an s-curve going back and forth, weaving that tail in and out, um, behind, again, the matching color of that tail is another way you could do it. All right, question number four. I was bit by the spinning bug last fall, and I'm loving spinning on my Daedalus Dove, but I have also always been fascinated by a traditional manual wheel. I would like to purchase a spinning wheel, but unfortunately I cannot find any dealers in my area within a reasonable driving distance. I also can't seem to find a spinning guild nearby, so I'm at a loss of how to choose a wheel that would be good for a first timer without actually trying one out. Um, do you have any brands, tips, or criteria to consider when buying a wheel without the opportunity to see it and try in person? I am looking at the LendermDT, Shocked Lady Bug, and Ashford Kiwi, but perhaps there are others I should consider. I'm afraid of making the purchase and then feeling like I chose wrong or ended up buying a wheel that is too complicated for a newbie. I think this is a great question, and I know everyone has their favorites and their opinions, um, so I'm sure like if anyone wants to chime in, especially if you can keep in like somebody being new to a treadle spinning wheel, um, but please feel free to share. I have a few wheels, and so I will say from my own experience, I got a Shocked Matchless as, is it Shocked? Shocked Matchless. Um, there is a little squirrel like right here. If I trusted my camera abilities of not dropping this and not being able to get it back on the thing, I would show you, but it's also just a squirrel, so maybe not that exciting, but it's funny to me. Um, okay, spinning wheels. I love my Matchless. I would recommend that wheel to anyone. The thing I love about that wheel is that they can do kind of anything and everything, so it's a great, like I, I don't think I will ever outgrow that wheel. Um, I would say the only thing that I would consider in hindsight now is considering, um, the difference between a Castle-style wheel, which would be like the Matchless, the Lender of DT, the Ladybug, and I think the Kiwi. Um, those are all Castle-style wheels, so you have the entire wheel is sitting right in front of you, and you're treadling, either double treadle or single treadle, but it's mounted in front of you to spin. The only thing I found is I did struggle when I started doing long draw. I found that I had to twist my body, and it hurt my back for long draw, so then I purchased a shacked flat iron wheel, and I love that for long draw, but it's very much my long draw wheel. I don't really spin or stood on there. Um, and I have had to do some fiddling with my flat iron. There are times where I don't know if it's gotten knocked, but like at one point I thought I was going to just take it apart and put it back together, and then thankfully I had friends come to the rescue who were like, wait, have you checked this one screw? There was one screw that was just giving me trouble, and thankfully one of my friends was like, wait, check that screw and see if it's loose, and it was, and I was like, oh my gosh, so by the way, to all of my wheel spinning friends, check your screws, because over time they can loosen up. Um, so consider, do you want a Saxony style wheel, which picture like Cinderella, like a princess kind of wheel, um, where it's mounted kind of sideways, or do you want a castle wheel that's head-on, and that being said, I'm sure there are tons of people who long draw just fine on a castle wheel, so I'm not trying to deter that. I just, that was something that came up for me. Um, okay, so that being said, I love my shack wheels, but I was talking to Jillian Moreno, and we were talking about wheels, and we started chatting about the Lendrom DT, and I have a Lendrom DT, and I will now say to my new spinning friends, that's probably the wheel I would recommend, because it is so easy. It's just a very easy wheel to use. I feel like its ratios are great. It's, the bobbin comes off so easy. Everything on it just feels very simple and easy to me. Um, so that is what I kind of consider like a comfort wheel for me to spin on when I have no plan, and I just have a pretty printed, painted braid, and I just want to spin. That is a great wheel, so I highly recommend that one, especially if you're thinking about kind of like that, a newer wheel that you won't feel intimidating. I really think it's a great wheel. Um, I have not personally used the Ladybug or the Kiwi. That being said, I have friends with both, and they love them, so the good news is you're not going to make a wrong choice. Like, I really think that whatever you get, you're probably going to love. Um, and it's just going to kind of come down to personal preference and price points. I mean, they can vary drastically, um, and it's not a small purchase. You know, our spinning wheels are definitely investments, so yeah, I'm sure other people will hopefully weigh in with their experiences. I can only speak to the ones that I've spun on, um, but if I was going to say this is the one I would get, I would probably say Lendroom DT. It's a great, great wheel. Okay, um, last question. My question is about blocking. I have just finished a pattern that directs one to block the sweater pieces separately, then seam and either steam the seams or re-block the piece in its entirety. The sweater also has pockets that need to be seamed, and it has those seams sewn after the initial blocking. I am concerned about stretching the not sewn pockets when the sweater is wet. The yarn used for the project is Mayak, so it does have a lot of bloom. What are your thoughts about blocking first, then seaming a sweater? Does the yarn content factor into this decision, and does the pattern matter? My project is plain stockinette, but perhaps the lace pattern may benefit from a separate unsewn blocking first. So I absolutely would block my pieces before sewing them together, even just because it's gonna be so much easier to do your seaming with blocked pieces than unblocked pieces. So if you block and you use pins when you block, you're going to have nice flat pieces to then sew together instead of ones where all the edges are rolling in on themselves, especially if it's in stockinette. So that's really to me the purpose of blocking and then seaming and then doing another steam block or full-on block of that sweater. It's just because you are going to have an easier go-around sewing that sweater together, seaming it up. If everything's flat, you can see what you're doing really clearly. It's going to be a more enjoyable process, at least in my experience, so I think that's why they're telling you to do that. Plus, you can look at the schematic in that pattern and look at all the measurements and make sure that you have blocked out those pieces to those specific measurements, which is also going to further ensure that when you go to seam them together, everything's going to line up nicely and come together the way that it should. So I would definitely block and then seam. All right, I think that is everything for today. So again, take advantage of the birthday sale before it ends if you've got anything on your list and I just want to say thank you. Thank you so much for watching these little videos. Thank you to everyone who I got to meet at Flock last weekend. That was such a memorable way to spend my birthday. I felt so special and had so much fun talking to so many incredible knitters. I had people share their stories with me about their own knitting journeys and just it was a really, really, really special weekend and I'm just so grateful that I get to be here and doing this with all of you. So thank you very much and I hope to see you back here next week. I won't be here. I am going to take a little time off to spend with my family. Summer is coming to an end so quickly, so next week I'm just going to soak up some time with my family and my kiddos before they head back in for another school year, but I will be back the week after that. So I hope to see you back here in a couple weeks and that's it. Have a great day. Bye.