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Strophe pullover

For amirisu’s 17th issue, I designed a luxurious and super easy to wear dropped shoulder sweater, Strophe. Overall it’s an easy and relaxing knit, quite straight-forward, with a couple of big and small details to keep things interesting!

I named it Strophe after the Greek word for turn, though actually thinking about boustrophedon writing (but could you think of a weirder name for a pattern, haha), which is a style where the writing direction changes on every line, from left to right and then from right to left. The reason for this is that there are some extra turns to this sweater. It’s knit from the bottom up, flat (like a cardigan), with stitches are picked up at the fronts to make a band (like a cardigan) which is then joined together at the front – unlike a cardigan. The remaining stitches are bound off for the neck opening. This means you can make the v-neck just the perfect depth for you. It also means you could just not join the fronts and wear it like a cardigan 😉

Another couple of details I like are the bias rib texture, it’s so easy to memorise and wraps really nicely around the back of the neck, and of course the gentle bubble sleeves. The sweater was knit in mYak Baby Yak Medium and it’s so dreamy! It’s light and incredibly soft and the drape is wonderful for this design. The colour Mustard is really beautiful and deep, I’m a little surprised by how much I’d like to incorporate this colour into my own wardrobe.

Minamikaze tank top

This past summer I had a design published in amirisu’s 16th issue, the Minamikaze tank top. It’s a layered tank, with the base layer being a simple a-line bodice with no ease, knit from the top down. The overlay top begins exactly like the base, until the shaping begins to give it that flared shape with the lowered back. Finally, the two tops are joined at the neck and arms.

I really like this design, I think it’s understated, feminine, and flattering. The front above the bust is a bit narrower than the back, the straps are wide and comfortable, and even though it’s knit at a loose gauge, the double layers keep it from being see-through. But of course, if you just wanted a simple basic tank, you could just skip the overlay!

Perfin cardigan

All photos by Amy Gwatkin for Pom Pom Quarterly. Illustrations by Elena Skoreyk Wagner.

Have you seen Pom Pom Quarterly’s new spring issue? This one is all about stamps, with each design inspired by a stamp from a different country, and a couple of really lovely articles about mail and knitting as well. It’s a beautiful issue, really thematic and with such the attention to detail in the graphic design and the paper cut illustrations by Elena Skoreyko Wagner.

My design, the Perfin cardigan, was inspired by this Brazilian stamp. The single, bright red colour was the first thing that caught my eye when I saw it in the mood board, and when I noticed where it was from, I felt I just had to sketch a design with it.

Originally, the idea was to knit the sample in a yarn from the stamp’s country of origin, but in the end we settled on a yarn local to me instead. Because I’m from Brazil myself and emigrated to The Netherlands in my childhood, I really liked the idea of bringing the two countries together – like a stamp might! The yarn is Ovis et cetera’s Shetland DK, spun from Dutch sheep and dyed by the talented Saskia, who was born and raised where I now live. And who, by the way, used actual stamps to ship the yarn to me!

The cardigan itself was inspired not just by design on the stamp but what it celebrates too – the advent of airmail. The stitch pattern was derived from the grid in the background and I wanted to use a single colour like the stamp, so instead of colourwork, the grid is made with eyelets – which makes this cardigan not too warm even though it’s knit in wool, perfect for spring. I also wanted to reference the aeronautical them in a small way, so the double breasted buttons are a little nod to pilots’ jackets.

Minamo for amirisu

Issue 12 of amirisu magazine was published this weekend and I designed a pattern for it, Minamo! It’s an a-line shape pullover, with contiguous set-in sleeves and a lot of short-rows – with plenty of stockinette but definitely not a boring knit. As it’s knit top down, in the round and in one piece, there’s very little finishing involved.

the submission sketch; hi faceless ladies!

For this pullover, I wanted to combine a geometric element with a more organic one – the parallel stripes playing with the flowing, irregularly shaped hem. Instead of having the stripes independent from what’s going on in the rest of the sweater, they follow the shapes of the sweater itself: dipping at the back along with the hem, and also following the shaping at the front.

After shipping the sample off, I knit myself another one, this time in that dark green unravelled Colourmart yarn from my last post. The yarns are quite different – even though they’re both merino wool – so the finished pullovers look a little different too. My row gauge for the second one was off, which I figured would be fine as I’m a bit taller than the amirisu model. It does mean the armholes are a fair bit deeper too, and combined with the drapier fabric, the fit of this second version is more casual and relaxed.

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