Sweater knitting doesn’t have to be daunting! With a comfortable understanding of your own style and a few basic tricks, you’ll be making wardrobe staples in no time. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE UNIQUELY YOU: YOUR SWEATER STYLE, DEFINED CHAPTER TWO SWEATERS, DECONSTRUCTED THE META-PATTERNS THE PULLOVER THE CARDIGAN THE VEST THE COWL THE TUNIC THE WRAP THE TANK THE BOLERO CHECKLIST FOR SUCCESS YARN DESCRIPTIONS RECOMMENDED READING ABBREVIATIONS BASIC STITCH PATTERNS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION Whether it’s an occasional hobby or a deep passion, knitting can offer us many things: a chance to relax and be creative, a challenge to overcome, the pleasure of looping our experiences and memories into something tangible. Fundamentally, though, our knitting experience and process is a productive one. We’re makers. Our sticks and our string and our brains all get together and create something that has utility, for us or for our loved ones. Handknitting an item is not the fastest way to get it (and often not the least expensive, either!), but it is the most satisfying. Hand knitting allows us to imbue our garments and our gifts with love and good thoughts and to make them exactly as we wish them to be. In this book, I urge you to use your talents and your passion to give yourself one of the greatest gifts of all: garments that are uniquely, beautifully you. I hope my first book, Knit to Flatter, started you on this journey by helping you understand the kinds of silhouettes you like to wear and how to modify a sweater pattern so that the result will fit you perfectly. But there’s more to a sweater than just the silhouette and the numbers. Many of us tend to think of our sweaters as projects, but fundamentally, our handknit sweaters are clothing. In fact, our handknits are essentially couture— wait, don’t put the book down! Couture, these days, is shorthand for haute couture: the by-hand creation of a clothing masterpiece that is priceless, elegant, and intended for something other than daily wear. But there was a time, not so very long ago, when all clothing was created to match the individual’s measurements and specifications (whether by a fashion house, seamstress, relative, or oneself). And the original meaning of the word couture is simply the making of clothes for an individual. I think it’s time for us to reclaim this word, because when clothing is made for you, and only you, wearing it feels like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. All of us spend our days in clothing that was made for someone else (I affectionately called her “Ms. Average” in Knit to Flatter). Wherever we aren’t the same as Ms. Average, our clothing tells us “You’re wrong.” Hundreds of times a day, our clothes tell us things like “Your arms are too long. Your legs are too short. Your shoulders are too broad.” But custom-made clothing moves with you; it makes you feel right. Clothing that’s made for you sends the message “You’re awesome, just the way you are.” This may sound like a luxury, but as sweater knitters it’s one that we can create with our own two hands. For most of us, fashion isn’t really about feathers and beading or impossibly high heels and dramatic makeup on a runway. Fashion, in our real lives, is about clothing that drops seamlessly into our daily experiences, that’s creative, fits us perfectly, and is intimately personal. Our clothes express who we are, in the here and now—and that’s the kind of couture I hope you’ll achieve in your sweater knitting. I wrote Knit to Flatter to help you learn to love your natural assets and build a wardrobe full of sweaters you love to wear because they fit properly and look great. I focused on shape and proportions and the simple concept of creating visual balance. Knit Wear Love is the next step in the “love thy self, in thy sweater” journey. Here I help you create garments that not only suit your shape but also your sense of style. Sweaters are inherently flexible, changeable things. In the pages that follow I teach you how to look beyond a pattern’s main photo and explore how you can turn any sweater into a garment you can’t wait to wear. In Chapter One, I explain how to identify your personal style (as it applies to sweaters, anyway) through a series of fun mood boards and exercises. In Chapter Two, I deconstruct sweaters into their fundamental parts and give you lots of practical information about changing this or that to create the sweater of your dreams. Once you’ve identified your style and have your “sweater personality” in mind, this chapter gives you the technical tools you need to knit sweaters successfully. Next I present what I call metapatterns: instructions for making the eight most popular sweater silhouettes—pullover, cardigan, vest, tunic, cowl, wrap, tank, and bolero—each one in three gauges and twelve sizes, with multiple options for style customization. To show off the flexibility of the metapatterns, I am happy to present a cast of six amazing models (some of whom you’ll recognize from Knit to Flatter), each one a different shape and size. For an example of how different the “same sweater” can be, check out Courtney and Morgan in their pullovers on this page and this page! The metapatterns are set up so that you can easily adapt them to suit your choices of size, gauge, and style. I’ll be honest though—there are a lot of numbers included in these patterns. So, to make your knitting easy, for each one I’ve provided a worksheet that you can fill out with the numbers that pertain to the size and gauge of your specific garment. Download fresh copies from my website: http://www.amyherzogdesigns.com/books/knit-wear-love/kwl-pattern- worksheets/. You’ll be amazed at how quickly your sweater knitting goes when there is just one set of numbers to follow! I wrap things up with a crisp checklist for moving forward in the creation of your own sweater wardrobe. Sweater knitting can sometimes be intimidating, so I leave you with a short reminder of the most important steps to getting a sweater you adore. I’m honored to be part of your sweater-making journey. My goal is to help you create sweaters that immediately become favorites in your wardrobe: the ones that make you look and feel your best. A UNIQUELY YOU: YOUR SWEATER STYLE, DEFINED Making sweaters that suit you is easy if you have a comfortable understanding of your own style. Discovering your own style—and translating it into the materials and shapes you’ll use when knitting your sweater—is what this chapter is all about. While pattern photos invite us to step into a very specific daydream about the life of the model wearing the sweater, all sweaters are much more alike (and flexible!) than those photos might suggest. Though sometimes it can be difficult to imagine, the look of a sweater can be changed completely simply by using a different yarn or color. In this chapter, I step through the specifics of finding your own fashion style and translating that style into yarn, color, and fabric choices that will make any sweater you knit one that you love to wear. I’ve selected eight major fashion styles to showcase here and throughout the book. If more than one of these appeals to you, of course that’s fine! We all have different facets of our own style, and it’s great to be able to express those through clothing. It’s likely, though, that you have a main style and a couple of backup singers (so to speak) that you’ll turn to time and time again. If after reviewing these style overviews, you’re still not sure how they apply to you, check out the fun exercises that begin on this page. A VINTAGE / Vintage clothing borrows the best ideas from decades past and carries them into a current setting—without too much messing around. For an outfit that doesn’t feel strictly retro, they work especially well when paired with a current trend or silhouette. Visible darts, substantial waist shaping, and tailored details are all common for vintage (and vintage- inspired) pieces. Natural fibers, often in single-fiber FIBERS yarns rather than blends, play most faithfully to vintage styles. Conventionally plied yarn construction is also the most well-suited to this style. A sturdier, elastic fabric tends to be FABRICS best for the structure and tailoring involved in vintage styles, often in a lighter-weight gauge. (Hint: Since these styles often come from time periods when women had fewer clothes and wore what they had a lot, to channel the vintage vibe, ask yourself: Could I wear this fabric day in and day out?) While there are definitely exceptions, COLORS overall, most vintage clothing tends toward a