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Twist Collective BlogDesign Process: Chione
I'm very happy to get the opportunity to show Chione along with many famous designers in Twist Collective. It's an honor and very exciting experience to me.
I got the inspiration about Chione from falling snow. I grew up and spent most of my life in the big city and started country life just a few months ago in Eastern Ontario. Life in the city and the country is totally different, especially in the winter season. Thankfully falling snow is the same in the city or the country.
 A snowy day in Athens, Ontario
With my head up and eyes closed, I could feel the cold snow flake on my face and in that moment I’m in the Lantern field in Narnia and I’m in the forest of Snow Queen.
I tried to make random eyelets to express falling snow in my first attempt but I was worried this would be confusing, so I designed a 20 stitch eyelet repeat. When I began swatching, the repeated k2tog decreases put the side 'seam' off-kilter. I experimented with some techniques and found that alternating right and left-leaning decreases corrected this tilt. If you would like your falling snow to appear more random, feel free to add more yarn overs into the yoke pattern, just don't forget to add a corresponding k2tog or ssk to each compensate for the added stitches.
 Some of the folks who have been knitting this pattern have had questions about the sleeve cuff; you can adjust the size of it to suit your style, as long as you can do a little bit of math, and check your gauge as you go. Here is a picture of the version of Chione I made for myself! I had to do a bit of math myself to make it fit the way I wanted. Check out also the Style Friday post featuring my design.
Quick Dispatch: Spring is coming
The season, of course... and also our next issue is coming together. You should be excited; we definitely are. Here is a little sneak preview of Marnie's spring project.
Twist Style Friday: Zenith
Every Friday we feature one of the garments from the magazine in a post about styling. We suggest different ways to wear the garment in question using mock-ups from Polyvore. We encourage readers to tell us what they think about these outfits via our Facebook page or Twitter, and if folks want to make their own outfits, please tweet them at us with the hashtag #twiststyle. You can find all of the Style Friday posts here.
So I bought the plainest fitted black tank dress, and also a loose black tunic shirt/dress thing and have literally worn one or both of them almost every day for the last two weeks. Sure, sometimes I wore my absurd wooden platform cheetah boots, and sometimes I wore floral tights, but still. Solid black as my go-to? Am I okay?
Enough about me. Want to see this week's gorgeous sweater? Of course you do. Meet Zenith.
This sweater is cozy and comfortable, but also polished and elegant. It wears a bit like a blazer, with the delicate patterning and petite collar. Feel free to wear it sometimes with a wide leather belt or a skinny metallic one in place of the lovely knitted sash. Here are some of my other ideas about how to wear this lovely wrap cardigan:
How would you wear Zenith? Design Process: Uji
Like many knitters, I'm fascinated by cables. I particularly like traditional aran sweater cables; the overall honeycomb cable that's often worked into a wide centre panel on the front or back of the garment was my inspiration here. I wanted an oversized cardigan or coat, and thought that overall cables in a bulky yarn would be perfect for a heavy, textured, sink-your-fingers-in fabric.
Inspiration. Clockwise from top left: undyed yarns, even Steve McQueen liked Aran sweaters, INHABIT baby camel cocoon cardigan, Anthropologie cardigan, 1960s Bear Brand & Fleischer Yarn pattern.
Uji is worked flat in pieces that are seamed together after blocking. I know seamless garments are very popular right now, but seams are more necessity than preference for this sweater. Although the cables give plenty of structure and strength to the fabric, Uji is heavy and needs seams to prevent pulling, stretching, and shapelessness. It's finished off with generous buttonbands and a big cozy collar. At the last minute, I decided to add pockets, because no coat can do without pockets.
Did you notice that the two cables used on Uji are essentially the same cable? The chevron cable is the bottom half of the honeycomb cable. It seems an obvious design move now, but it didn't start out that way: I swatched several different cable combinations (some of them nearly impossible to fit together) before I decided on these two. They're the simplest and, I think, the prettiest of all my swatches. Occam's razor strikes again!
Quick Dispatch: Lending a helping paw
Marnie's pup Panda helps prepare her Fall submission.
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This week's post is brought to you by Maria Leigh, designer of the lovely pullover 
Today's post is brought to you by Ann-Marie Jackson, designer of the wonderful textured coat, 
