Knit Bits: A Look at a Fashion Design Pro, Stylecraft Seeks yarn Line Input and How to Be a Good Knitting Student

The New York Times recently ran an interesting profile of Vladimir Teriokhin, a former ballet dancer in Russia turned sought-after high-fashion knitwear designer. He makes sweaters for the likes of Oscra de la Renta and Marc Jacobs, as well as his own line, called Spencer Vladamir, which retails for $800 to $2,500 per garment at Barneys. Gwyneth Paltrow has called him the Sweater Whisperer, and he’s known for using chunky yarns and large-scale designs with lots of cables.

British yarn manufacturer Stylecraft Yarns is looking for help picking colors for the expansion of a couple of its yarn lines. The company has more than 80 shades in its Special DK weight yarn line, and it wants to add some of the colors in Aran and DK weights, with the help of fans. They’re taking nominations for favorite yarn colors through the end of February, at which point the 12 favorites will be announced. Then voting will take place to determine the six favorites that will become new colors in both lines (check Facebook for more details). Voting will run through the end of March and the new colors are expected to be released in October.

Red Heart has a new free collection of 10 knit and crochet patterns for the little ballet dancer in your life. From little sweaters to leg warmers and bun covers, there’s lots of cute stuff here.

CouponBox recently did a survey in which they asked people about the indoor hobbies they most wanted to try in 2016, and knitting ranked number one, with 16 percent of the 3,500 Americans surveyed saying they’d like to give the hobby a try. Second place was rock climbing, followed by reading, yoga and soccer, which I didn’t realize was an indoor hobby, but still. Hooray for new knitters! (Click the link for the full range of responses.)

Finally, Franklin Habit has been a popular knitting teacher for years, and before that he was a student, so he has lots of thoughts about how those of us who enjoy taking classes, whether at a festival, conference or our local yarn shop, can be better knitting students. I won’t give you the whole story (and this is only part one, focusing on what to do before class), but it amounts to knowing what you’re getting into and bringing what you actually need for the class, including any homework the teacher asked you to do. Seems simple enough, right?

[Photo via CouponBox.]

Next Pattern:

The other day I saw a post from Pinterest about trends for summer and it said one of them was “cultivating whimsy.”

Well, I don’t know where Pinterest has been all this time, but we’ve been cultivating whimsy here at Craft Gossip for a long time. I love sharing projects that are a little different, things that make you smile when you see them, and will make you smile when you knit them and wear them or use them.

Such it is with the Tutti Frutti tee knitting pattern from Bea Creative Knits.

This cute little baby tee is worked top down in the round with contiguous shoulder construction to shape the sleeve caps. There are short rows for the neckline and folded hems with picot edging at the hemline, neckline and edges of the sleeves.

All of this would be great on its own, but then there’s the addition of a super cute fruit icon, which is added with duplicate stitch. There are a lot of options, including strawberry, banana, orange, cherries, watermelon, lemon, blueberries, kiwi, peach, dragon fruit, apple and pear, so it’s likely you can add on your favorite fruit.

It is offered in eight sizes, to fit a bust measurement ranging from 28-30 inches (71-76 cm) to 56-58 inches (142-147 cm). The design is meant to be worn with around 6.3 inches/16 cm of negative ease, but you can choose the fit you prefer. There’s also optional bust and waist shaping included in the pattern if you want to make it even curvier.

This is considered an advanced beginner or intermediate project because of all the skills involved, but it’s sure to be a lot of fun even if some of these techniques are new to you.

Grab a copy of the pattern for yourself form Bea Creative Knits on Etsy.

[Photo: Bea Creative Knits]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?