Welcome to Project Knitway or should I say Project Renottaway? It's my cyberspace place to post my favorite things...thoughts about family and creativity and design. One of my favorite things is making stuff, specifically clothing and accessories from fiber and metal. So you'll see a lot about that here. I also love spending time with my family, so there will be a bit about that too. When I'm not with my family or in my studio, I am most likely at nextdoor, my store. I have always had a store ever since I was a young woman. I started with a weaving store called the niddy noddy in Waukesha eons ago. I ended with nextdoor in Brookfield. It's my dream store filled with great clothing, especially denim. Really nice women work and shop there, it's a fun place to be. You can find us there every day and online at www.shopatnextdoor.com So come for a visit here and there.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Betwixt and Betweed or a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

In my last post, Take Cream, I gave the directions for one of my favorite jackets. Hopefully, the directions weren't too confusing. Just in case, I made the jacket again with a different yarn and stitch texture, but with the exact same measurements. This time I took photos of each step. It's fun to see how different the piece turned out by varying the materials. I used  Lion Brand's Germantown wool worsted tweed yarn instead of Homespun. I also used a machine stitch called a tuck stitch. If you're a hand knitter, you could use any one of many textured stitches. For the front/collar I used a faux rib stitch pattern that gave a nice drape. You can refer back to my blog on 12/1/2010 for more on this stitch. Again you could substitute any rib stitch if you're hand knitting. By the photos below you can see the step by step process, starting with the sleeve/back piece. Then folding and cutting this piece. Next attaching the back piece and sewing up the underarm seams. And finally, attaching the front/collar section. I blocked each piece as I went along using my steam iron. I also like to press open the seams as I go for a nice finished look. It's wonderful working with wool and I love the tweeds. By the way, if you're not a knitter and would like to purchase this jacket, go to the link below. The proceeds go to supporting my scarves for shelters project. In the meantime, stay warm and stick to your knitting!
http://www.shopatnextdoor.com/ecommerce/projectknitway.html