Twist Collective Blog
Designer Post: Apple Catchers (plus bonus recipe!)
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Published on Monday, 11 November 2013 12:01
 Today's post is brought to you by Rachel Coopey, designer of the lovely cabled mittens from our latest issue. This entry is cross-posted from Rachel's blog, which you can find here. Rachel was one of the lovely designers we interviewed for our fifth anniversary designer spotlight series, so you can also learn more about her in that post. I was excited to see this post because I (Carly) am currently knitting myself a pair of Apple Catchers, *and* there is a recipe in the post that sounds extremely delicious. Dig in!
I've got apple trees in my garden. They are a blessing and a curse. At this time of year I have more apples (and pears, and plums) than I can cope with, as soon as you clear the fallen fruit, a new carpet has formed.
photo credit Rachel Atkinson
I designed a pair of mittens for the Autumn Twist Collective; Apple Catchers. I love working with Twist, they always, always do such an amazing job of styling and photographing the pieces in the collection and these photographs are the most beautiful anyone has ever taken of my work.
There are 2 versions, a shorter version and a more dramatic elbow length pair, the cable appears on the front and the back of the mitten. The samples are knitted in Shalimar Breathless - a yarn I have been very enthusiastic about in the past and I still love it deeply, it's a dream to knit with and the colours and beautiful (You can now get it in the UK at Loop).
I called the pattern Apple Catchers. It's a reference to my favourite thing about Autumn; the abundance of fruit (I also like the colder weather which necessitates the wearing of copious amounts of knitwear). One of the great things about apples is the baking they prompt; the pies, cakes and puddings that come out of the oven after a Sunday roast. I asked Rachel Atkinson if she would whip me up an apple recipe and she very kindly obliged.
Photo Credit Rachel Atkinson
Celebrate apple season with this delicious pudding; tangy sharp cooking apples stew in their juices underneath the fluffy Apple Catcher sponge topping making it perfect for lazy autumnal weekends curled up on the sofa with your knitting.
Apple Catcher Pudding
600g cooking apples - British Bramleys are perfect at this time of year
75g light soft brown sugar (demerara works fine too)
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
Grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
and juice of half a lemon
100g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the dish
100g caster sugar, plus a little extra for dusting
2 large eggs
½ tsp vanilla extract
100g self-raising flour
Set your oven to 180°C and place a shelf in the lower third of the oven. Peel, core and chop the apples into chunks then place in a lightly buttered 2 litre ovenproof dish. To the apples add the brown sugar, cinnamon, lemon zest and juice, mixing to coat, and set to one side.
In a separate bowl beat the butter and caster sugar together until pale and fluffy.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating to combine followed by the vanilla extract. Sift in the self-raising flour and gently mix together to a soft consistency. Spread the cake batter over the top of the apples covering them completely.
Pop in the oven for about 40 minutes, checking after 30 minutes to see how it’s getting on.
Insert a cake tester into the centre to check the apples are cooked; they should retain a little bit of bite but not be too crunchy, and the sponge topping will have bloomed upwards. Sadly it’s likely to collapse on cooling, so quickly sprinkle with caster sugar and eat it whilst still warm dowsed liberally with custard or cream. For a truly disgraceful indulgent treat add a dollop of clotted cream!
Yum yum!
(Apple Catchers are also giant pants, I really have to give credit to Jim for the name of this pattern, on whom I can always rely on to lower the tone - like the time I asked for name suggestions for my sock peacock...)
Twist Style Friday Double Feature: Sarannis and Silverstone
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Published on Friday, 08 November 2013 10:42
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.
Yes, sartorially inclined readers, this is our third consecutive double feature fashion friday. Yes, this means Winter (the issue, not the season... although... you know) is coming. I biked to work today and my fingers were awfully chilly. It's supposed to snow here this week. I have to admit that I never grew out of the wonder little kids feel about the first snowfall. I mean, sparkles literally fall from the sky; it is sort of amazing.
We're looking at two lovely garments this week. First up is Silverstone, an understated cabled henley that can be buttoned up into a cozy turtleneck.
 
To me, especially in this color, this top seems like a really really pretty version of a long underwear top. Perfect for outdoor activities in the cold, or snuggling up to a fire with a cup of hot cocoa. In a saturated color (especially a jewel tone!!) it would be more like a pretty blouse. You could wear it with a knee length skirt and suede heels. Or charcoal cigarette pants, ballet flats, and a big chunky silver cuff. Or like this.
See that burgundy leather jacket?? See it? It's perfect. With Siverstone, or just about anything else.
Well maybe not with Sarannis, since that is also a jacket. A really, really cute jacket. See?
 
Maybe we need to go in for a little closeup. There is some seriously squishy texture going on in there.
Make it with a little extra ease and wear it over a hoodie or other sweater and jeans for when the weather is really biting, or knit it closer to your measurements and wear it like a smart little cardigan to bring your summery dresses into a few more seasons.
Don't forget to wear cute shoes.
How about you? How will you wear Sarannis and Silverstone?
Five Questions with Amy Christoffers
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Published on Thursday, 07 November 2013 11:50
 Amy Christoffers is our featured designer in our ongoing anniversary interview series! You can follow the whole series here. Amy has contributed seven wonderful designs to our pages. Her work is detailed and understated, knitterly and extremely wearable. Keep track of Amy here. Enjoy!
(Lanata, Fara, Chime)
1. How did you learn to knit?
From a library book.
2. What's your favorite thing to knit?
Wool sweaters.
3. What is your worst knitting habit?
After I weave in ends... I don't trim them unless they show.
4. If you weren't a designer, what do you think you'd be doing with all the extra time you'd have?
Knitting! I need more hands so I can knit all the things.
5. Finish this sentence: If everyone knew how to knit...
the world would be a better place?
(Caprio, Clearwing, Fireside)
Twist Style Friday Double Feature: Charette and Bosun
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Published on Friday, 01 November 2013 14:01
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.
Happy Friday dear readers. It's the end of daylight savings time this weekend, and although I will be sad to see the night descend while it's really still afternoon, I will be very happy to see the light of day when I wake up in the morning. It just seems deeply wrong somehow to get up while it's still dark.
A friend from summer camp when I was a teenager told me about a town in Massachussetts where daylight savings time is optional, so it could be possible for your office to be running on "fast time" and your kid's school to be running on "slow time" and you would have to have clocks in different rooms read different times. Was he pulling my leg, or is this a real thing?
Either way, time is ticking by, and that's why again this week, I'm styling TWO gorgeous sweaters. Bosun and Charette are both cozy layers, perfect for the season we're in *and* the one that's quickly approaching.
Charette features squishy, all-over cables and a generous collar that you can leave draped over your shoulders, or buttoned up to keep your neck warm. You can make it in any color you like, of course, but this berry tone is epic, don't you think?
Let's take a bit of a closer look at some of those details.
 
Like most cardigans worn with a little bit of ease (this pattern recommends 2-4"), you can treat it like a blazer or a hoodie. Either way it's a gorgeous warm addition to any outfit. Here are a few ideas!
Bosun is a clever update to a classic boyfriend cardigan, with patterning and shaping to create or accentuate an hourglass shape.
Gorgeous, right?
 
In that closeup shot, you can see how the chevon bands alternate stockinette and reverse stockinette between the columns of travelling stitches. It's a subtle textural detail from a distance, but it really makes a yarn like this sing. Here are some outfit ideas.
How will you wear Bosun? What about Charette?
Designer Post: Farthingale
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Published on Tuesday, 29 October 2013 20:20
 Today's post is brought to you by Fiona Ellis, designer of the fetching Farthingale, as well as a number of other wonderful designs from previous issues (a few of my personal faves are this one, this one, and this one, just in case you were curious). If you want to know more about Fiona, check out her website or follow her on twitter.
If you have ever met me or have followed my work you will know that I have a thing for I-cords. I even wrote a blog post about it here.
So it wasn’t a giant leap for me to start looking at corset lacings as inspiration for cables. When this little obsession hit I will admit that I spent a lot of time of Pinterest looking at the myriad ways one can lace a corset. As I set out to design cable that mimicked the effect I knew that I didn’t want to simply have I-cords threaded through the fabric. So I started to develop ways of crossing cables to give the effect of lacing but have them as an integral part of the fabric.
As usual as I begin work on a new idea, there was much swatching at this stage and many samples that didn’t quite work. But working diligently through these false starts I find that you gradually find what is possible. When I am in the middle of one of these “periods” I spent lots of time trying to approach my initial idea from several different angles. This leads me to what I call “work in series”. Which mean that often times I come up with several different designs originating from the same source material. In the past I have had my Tree Bark period, my Celtic Knot period, my Morphing Cables period and so on…and that’s just the cable designs. So I began my Corset Lacing period- Farthingale is one of the resultant designs, but watch out for others coming along.
 
To further re-enforce the idea of corsetry, I placed the cabling at the sides of the garment and set waist shaping either side of the panels so that the cables appear to cinch the sweater in at the waist. The eyelet patterning is a reference to the lace that I think always goes hand in hand with corsets.I was thrilled when I saw the photos of Farthingale, as they showed it with just the perfect amount of sexiness that I had hoped for.
Yes Farthingale’s name is a reference to corsetry but really a Farthingale is a large hooped device worn under dresses in the 16th & 17th centuries, but hopefully you can grant me some poetic license on it.
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