[photo of a smiling tan skin knitter with red lippie holding a neatly folded stack of colorwork sweaters in front of a Christmas tree] [calm, cheerful music] [tan skin bespectacled Asian knitter wearing a colorwork sweater while knitting a sock] [knitting the sleeve of a colorwork sweater whle wearing a knitted shawl] [poinsettias] [avocado plant and little jade plants] [colorwork sweater hanging by a window] [it's heathered brown, green, red, and sky blue with elbow-length sleeves and cropped body length] [wall of air plants and dried hydrangeas in a woven basket above a large jade plant] [zooming in on sweater] [close-up of yoke, red arrows over sky blue section] [fuzziness of baby alpaca] [zooming back out [Christmas tree] [tan skin bespectacled Asian woman with long dark brown hair wearing the sweater that was just in the video hanging up] [rearranges an ornament] [neatly folded stack of colorwork sweaters next to a floral notebook] hi welcome to edible fast makes my name
is Stephanie and this is my channel where i share with you work in
progress finished projects things I'm cooking up and just things that inspire
me every day I hope as you watch this you will find something that inspires
you along the way if you are new here welcome if you are
returning thanks so much for coming back it is so much fun to chat with you and
share with you what I am up to so I'm really excited about today's episode I
have seven sweaters to show you these sweaters I started over the summer and I
was so excited about all the different color combinations and the options that
I ended up making seven of them this is the Soldotna crop by Caitlin Hunter of
Boyland Knitworks and it is a very fun color work sweater that you can do many
different things to to make it your own even though I'm featuring this
sweater in this episode, the main purpose of it is to encourage you to make
something your own and how you can do that the sizing goes from let me just
look at my notes over here goes from a 32.75 inch finished bust circumference up to a 67.75 inch bust circumference for centimeter that's 83 to 172 centimeters and that comes in ten different sizes. It is worn with some positive ease so you want to find the size that best works for you. I knit between the seven of them anywhere from
the first or the second size and then depending on how I blocked it or how I
did my modifications my finished bust circumference would vary between the
sizing so like I said it is a color work sweater you could knit it in the entire
pattern is written for color work all the way throughout
and then there are different ways that you can modify it to include all the
color work or not all of it some people decided to omit the color work and the body like I did on this one [moves up to show body of sweater] but I'm getting ahead of myself so let me show
you the ones I made. so it is designed to be a cropped length but it is very easy
to lengthen the body of the sweater now you do need to take into account the
yardage that you will need to lengthen it and I will talk about how you can
calculate that now of course you will have already started in order to
calculate out the yardage for lengthening it so when you're ordering
yarn if you're doing in the beginning that might be a little tricky for adding
on later but if you can get a hold of extra yarn then you can calculate how
much yardage you need for how many extra repeats you're going to do to lengthen
it so let's get started here so oh I wanted to say so 2019 I would
say it's my year of the color work sweater I started out the year wanting
to make an adult-sized color work sweater and I did that I mentioned it in
a previous episode it was that arboreal sweater by Jenn Steingass and I really
enjoyed making that and then I made a few other ones and then once I started
this one this was the one that I made multiple of one because since its
cropped and short-sleeved it goes a lot quicker than a full length sweater with
full length sleeves and color work I feel like just goes faster for me
because I'm really excited to see how the fabric is growing and how the
pattern grows and the colors work together so it's just exciting to keep
going and it's in the round top-down which is my favorite style of knitting a
sweater and as the yoke grows it becomes this work of art that is just so fun and
then you get to wear it at the end so there's different color combinations you
can do this color work sweater is designed to have four colors so you can
pick four solids, heathered, specked, tonal, semi-solid, variegated you can go warm tones you can go cool tones you can go earthy or pastel or neon since
yarns come in different you could say finishing us I guess there's you could
go with a matte yarn or something that's a little shinier that maybe that has
tencel in it or a tweedy yarn there's 2 ply 4 PI there's just so many different
options it's knit and DK weight so some people might choose to hold to fingering
weights together to make a DK weight the most important thing is if you gauge
swatch just to make sure you're right on for what the pattern states and if you
aren't that's ok to just know that your measurements will come out a little bit
differently and then you can calculate that out as well like if you know your
gauge as X number of stitches for 4 inches look at what the cast on or the
number of stitches are for that particular for a particular section and
do the math to figure out what the circumference will end up being based on
your gauge and then once you know that then you can decide to size up or down
per pattern to make the size that you want different color combinations can
help you create different moods in the fabric so maybe you want it to look more
watercolor or you want it to look more like stained glass or you want this bold
graphic look that will go into how you choose your colors as well I will show
you my collection here and talk you through a little bit how I chose the
colors for all of them I love it so much ok so the first one I made here and I
named all of them too so this one is called Dance. This is the very first one I did [holds up colorsweater in green, purple, coppery brown red, earthy orange] I didn't do any modifications since it's the first one I kind of treat
it like I treat recipes when I start trying new recipe for the first time I
like to follow up pretty exact if I can that way I know how it turns out and
then after that if I want to modify then I know more or less how it will affect
the end result and then I have something to compare it to so like a baseline and
then I can make adjustments so same with a sweater pattern. I try to make the first one the way the pattern is written and then unless I'm
really confident about my modification and how it'll turn out and then from
there on I can adjust things as I go and change variables here and there and then
I have a comparison to baseline so I really really loved how this turned out [holds up same sweater] two of my colors ended up looking pretty similar so then in this body section it's a little bit harder to tell one of [close-up of dot section on body] the dots from the background but I
really love how this fabric turned out it is so smooth and soft and very
cohesive so I love how this turned out it's beautiful my second one is called
sparkling waters I wanted a water [holds up dark blue, turquoise, golden yellow, teal colorwork sweater] color effect on this one I believe I
lengthened the body and the repeats on here so each of these sections are
repeat so that's where it comes into play where you decide I don't want super
cropped well you can add in more repeats determine how many inches a repeat is
for you and then you can try it on as you go because it's a top down sweater
and figure out where it hits you is where you would like it to be just note
that because it is color work once you wet block it the yarns will relax and
the fit will be different than pre blocking a color work sweater so I
believe I did the sleeves as is on this one but some of my other ones I've definitely lengthened the sleeves as you [close-up of sleeve] will see I really love how this gold
played out here with the blues [close-up of yoke] and the turquoise and it really does remind me
of some sparkling on the lake I'll show you the inside for this one [flips sweater inside out] and no I don't plan on wearing my sweaters inside out so it doesn't really matter how it
looks like on the inside but you can get an idea of how it affects the outside
fabric so that it's very smooth I feel like my floats are pretty even here no
puckering or really really loose threads [close-up of sweater interior] and that results in a really nice smooth fabric. my third one is called berry pie I also
lengthen the body on this one and I lengthen the hem a lot of times I like to use up whatever yardage I might [holds up iridescent violet, light pink, purple, tonal hot pink colorwork sweater] have just to not waste especially
there's only going to be a little bit left that can't really be used much in
another project so I try to increase the yardage in areas that I can let me see
if this one um look at my notes here okay so this one I did two extra body
repeats and a little bit extra here before the ribbing to balance it out and
then one way you can figure out what you have for the sleeves is sometimes after
you split off the body and the sleeves do the sleeves first if you want to make
sure those match and you have the link that you want for the sleeves because
for the body you could play around a little bit more with different coloring
and change that up but you don't really want like one sleeve hem one color and
then the other sleeve have a different color because you ran out so I feel like
when I was really playing yarn chicken I would do the sleeves first and then go
to the body my next one is called blooming irises this one I did the body
length as written and I left out those little polka dots because my yarn was so variegated the polka dots would have colorwork sweater that's purple, varigated blue and purple, light pink, gray] just gotten lost and it would have been
kind of a wasted effort to do them now just know that if you omit the color
work in the body section the body section will be a little bit wider than
if you did the color work because the color what kind of brings it in a little
bit so you could do some decreases on the side I did not but if you wanted to
you could so that's this and then you can see here that I did
lengthen the sleeves but most of the time if I'm layering it I will wear it
with sleeveless top or if I wanted sleeves I will wear a
collared shirt with sleeves or like a button-down or a dress like that or like
a more fitted long-sleeve shirt that I would wear like under long-sleeve
sweaters I could just wear under this and then just have the sleeves
sticking out so yeah if you decided you didn't want to do polka dots on the
bottom you could pick a busier yarn and that would give you similar effect of
like that look of color work throughout just without the need to do color work
at the bottom now a lot of people I noticed just looking at Ravelry notes
have a lot of issues with a neckline so between the short rows and the neckline
they were kind of getting this funnel funnel neck effect it didn't seem to be
as prominent in the first two of the smallest sizes but as you went up it
seemed to be more of an issue and something that I noticed is that none of
the projects ended up looking like the modeled photo of the sweater on the
pattern if you can see here look at that [holds up printed pattern with a sweater over a dress on a hanger] big boat neck I didn't see anybody's
sweaters turn out like that unless they did modifications so the one I'm wearing
right now is definitely modified and I will talk about that but I didn't see
that on anybody else's so I'm not sure what happened there but a lot of talk
has gone around about sharing modifications to make that neckline less
of a funnel neck so this one is number five I named this one Sun Showers I love
love love how the blue and the yellow [holds up denim, white, sky blue, tonal yellow colorwork sweater] and the white play together so you can
see this neckline here is definitely a little bit wider [stretches neckline] so what I did what this one is instead of using the smaller needle recommended to cast on the
neckline I did my neckline ribbing and one size up so instead of using let me
see here US3 or 3.25mm I did a US4 which is a 3.5mm needle and just doing that and not changing any of the numbers it widen it up and then when
I block I just made sure to block it real wide another tip is the increases
don't start until a little bit later into your color work so I think a lot of
people run into the problem where you're a lot looser up here and then once you
start the color work it tightens up so then it automatically shrinks in that
neckline so then you get that funnel effect but if you make sure to keep
those floats really nice and loose maybe even a tad looser than you would
normally do it then it opens up this part of the yoke a
lot more and then when you block it you can really pin that and block it open so
that the whole neckline area is less tight I'll show you here than the inside
again of this one so these floats are nice and loose and stretchy [shows inside of sweater] and then this one I lengthened the sleeves too I really like the slightly longer
sleeves [close-up of sleeves] so even just changing out the needles
for the neckline ribbing made a huge difference okay and then number six
it's called Secret Garden now another way you can modify is by adding in more colors so once you understand how each [colorwork sweater in orangey-brown, light pink, yellow, green, hot pink, coppery red-brown] section works in the color work chart
you can mix and match as much as you want to so this one I used a lot of
different colors from the previous Soldotna crops and I would just play
yarn chicken constantly through the entire color work chart and when I felt
like it was gonna run out then I would try to stop at a good stopping point
like at the end of a round and then add in another color so I think I ended up
using six colors seven colors and then I didn't do the dots because I was
modifying so much with all the different colors that it was going to be a little
too stressful just doing the dots and then you can see I could have added in some extra colors here along the bottom [close-up of yellow, light pink, green hem] and then I did want slightly longer
sleeves here so in order for me to organize how I was doing the colors here
I would say okay for this section what colors do I want for these vertical
stripe sections what colors do I want for the arrow section of what colors do I
want and then I wanted these parts for the striping parts to match and then
this V part on the bottom what colors do I want there what colors do I want the
body so ahead of time in my notebook I would write out the different sections I
would write down how much yardage I have of each color and then I would try to
like mix and match as I went to see what would fit best wear and having made so
many of them already I was being pretty aware of grams for each section as I
went so that I had a better idea of how to place the best-fit yarns for the best
sections so this one I think let me see did I do the neckline yes I
did the one size up for the ribbing neckline here too so you can see that's
so nice and wide and fits nothing sits [stretches neckline] nicely on the collar and I didn't adjust
anything to the short rows I don't think on this one just that top so I'm to
number seven now this one is a little but different from the others the other
ones I used I think all merino wool super washed hundred percent merino wool for all the different combinations now for this one I used the alpaca so it's
super soft super drapey I don't think alpaca is generally recommended for
color work because the yarn doesn't grip together to make like a tighter maybe
tighter is not the right word to make it more of a cohesive fabric but I didn't
know that when I started and I just did it anyway I really like how these colors
play together they kind of remind me of pottery these are all heathered colors I
don't maybe the red isn't as heathered but the other ones are all heathered and
it has like a really soft halo to it now this one for the neckline I instead of
casting on the number of stitches that were recommend for the neckline ribbing, I cast it on the number of stitches for the first increase numbers
and that way when I got to that increase I didn't need to do that increase
anymore because I was already at that number of stitches and that opened it up
a lot but in a good way so it sits really nicely just along my collarbone
and then I didn't do as many rows for the neckline ribbing let me see my notes
here I started this one in the summer and then took a break and then just
finished it up because I really wanted it for Christmas this one I'm calling
mistletoe so I did not change my needle size for the cast on for here I stuck
with the needle size per pattern but then change the number I cast it on I
also if you have noticed changed the colors around a little bit
your body would normally be the same color here for the sleeves but because I
was running out of the brown and I wanted to keep this body
section Brown I change the sleeves to green so I like how it turned out and
because I also ran out of brown I had to modify this bottom part so I added in
some stripe being changed up these little block parts and then did a red
hem which balances out the red on top and I really really really like how that
turned out this one I can't remember if I change
the body length and all it must have changed it a little bit but I definitely
add it on more to the bottom and if you are looking for any of my notes I have
them all up on my Ravelry page at Edible Thoughts. So hopefully those give you an idea of how to make it your own based on colors based on types of yarns or adjusting the sleeve lengths and the body it's just such a fun knit to make
your own I've seen some out there that are completely long sleeves and some
people have done the color work through the entire sleeve like the polka dots
all the way through and that looks really fun some people have done like a
full body length I really like this length when it hits maybe right above my
hip [points to hip and bottom of sweater] so that high skirts or you can wear it with high waisted pants or with
dresses and they seem to hit at a really nice spot. so with that cheers to being
creative I hope [holds up neatly folded stack of sweaters discussed] this helped you think about sweaters and different projects in
a way that inspires you to make things your own you don't always have to follow
patterns per written you can modify them as you need to fit into your lifestyle
to fit into your mood to make it what you want it to be so a wonderful day and
cheers to being creative take care! [music fades in] [wearing the green, purple, orangey-brown, coppery brown swater with a yellow elastic high-waisted skirt with pockets] [image from above at denim blue, turquoise, golden yellow, teal colorwork yoke in the works next to cakes of yarn] [sweater hanging up on wall with sleeves separated from body and circular knitting needles at bottom of body section] [wearing said sweater over a striped linen dress tending to house plants] [wearing same sweater over collared linen shirt with jeans] [start of another sweater in iridescent violet next to mug of beverage] [more of sweater worked up in yoke next to yarn cakes in hot pink, plummy purple, light pink, and iridescent violet] [completed sweater blocking on towel and alphabet foam mats] [wearing the sweater over a blue collared shirt and jeans] [wearing the same sweater with a long coral linen skirt] [start of a plummy purple sweater with light pink, grey, and varigated yarn next to a mug of beverage] [yoke of sweater in progress] [sleeves separated from body and sleeves are done] [wearing the finished sweater over a heathered t-shirt] [four yarn cakes balanced on top of each other in white/blue, tonal yellow, blue, denim] [start of the sweater just casted on the neckline] [more yoke worked] [close-up of yoke] [finished sweater worn while cutting lilac blooms] [yarns caked up in prep for next sweater in shades of pink, green, orangey, coppery brown next to lilac blossom] [start of neckline ribbing next to yarn cakes] [yoke worked up next to yarn cakes and bleeding heart blossom] [knitter working on the sweater next to project bag and library book bag] [sweater in the works on the grass next to a sun hat, project bag, dried mango snack, and coral and ecru windmill-patterned woven wrap baby carrier] [finished sweater worn over a floral linen dress with peony blossom in hand] [last colorwork sweater work worn with a black satin skirt, in front of a Christmas tree] [video of sweater worn to show drape and movement] [person turns around to show all angles of the sweater] [dancing shoulders] [close-up of yoke] [one last twirl] [off screen] [two photos of smiling knitter holding neat stack of colorwork sweaters, in front of Christmas tree] [music fades out]
