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A not so Valentina Vest
In 2001 I went to Taos, New Mexico to attend my first Cheryl Oberle's knitting retreat.
While I was there, a stop and shop at La Lana was a requirement.
Trust me to find a Valentina Devine pattern that isn't
"typical" Valentina.
Then trust me to view the pattern as a "suggestion."
So, crochet round the edges? How about a selvedge of ssk yo
pattern yo k2tog instead?
Sew back to fronts? How about knit the fronts and back together and bind off? Sew sides?
Co-ordinating ribbon. And I even cheated on my shaping.
La Lana Cotton rayon?
Well, Crystal Palace's Waikiki is a cotton & rayon blend and I did buy those hanks while in Taos.
And yes, I knit the two fronts at
the same time. It should go without saying I knit this while walking and sometimes swearing.
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Strip Knitting or Gee String's fun
A couple of years back, just to remind myself of the nature of short rows, I started
a garment that was really nothing more than a narrow strip of knitting and short row "blocks"
The first one, still in UFO state started in the centre and worked out. I found a very
a very nifty way to create "modular" sleeves and I did an ad hoc demo mini class on the topic
at a 2002 Knitaway in the Rockies.
That year, we were doing vests and decided to try my hand
at using the cardigan technique in a vest -- this is the teaching tool result.
Garter stitch in cotton
the whole thing is three 8 stitch wide strips of knitting with some assembly required.
You could consider this the short row equivalent to Debbie New's Labyrinth knitting. BTW, I had
only heard rumblings of Debbie's technique and carefully avoided her work and her classes until
I had worked this out on my own. It was fun to be able to compare notes at SW in 2003.
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Strip Knitting or Gee String's fun -- round 2
After playing with the vest. I set about the task of trying to write the idea up in
a way that even some one who doesn't share my odd way of looking at the world could do their
own version or at least grasp the concepts fairly quickly.
This was SW 2003.
I enlisted the aid
of knitting friend who just happened to have had a a bit of a miracle grandchild by the name of Kathryn
recently join the family.
So, as you do, I decided to design and knit some strip knit garments for said Kathryn
(known as K's Kimonos) in return for grandmother being a bit of a usability experiment. The study worked, but alas the projects didn't make the publication cut at IK.
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