Swatched Aims to Share the Art of Knitting and Crochet

Have you ever watched the Netflix show “The Chef’s Table”? I find it really fascinating to learn about people who are really good at what they do and really passionate about what they do and who have creative careers and lives. I feel like that’s inspiring to me as a creative person.

Cereal Made is looking to produce a similar show focusing on fiber artists called “Swatched.” They’ve made a brief proof of concept video featuring knitter, weaver and creative spirit Angela Tong.

She talks about growing up near Boston a child of immigrants, going to art school and ultimately learning to knit, which opened the way to her creative career. She talks about the problems that have been coming to light in recent months having to do with diversity in the knitting and fiber arts communities, and her place on the recently formed Vogue Knitting Diversity Advisory Council, where she hopes to have a hand in making the knitting community more welcoming.

The video is well worth watching and the project sounds like a great one. They are currently looking for funding partners to make it an ongoing series that will “delve into the forces that drive these obsessive artists in their quest for creativity and perfection.” Sounds amazing to me.

[Photo: Swatched.]

Last year I shared a roundup of shorts knitting patterns over at Our Daily Craft, and it’s consistently one of my most popular posts this time of year.

What that post lacked, though, was any projects of mine, because I have never written a shorts knitting pattern before.

And I guess technically I still haven’t, but I have written a detailed tutorial of how to knit shorts that fit you. Use whatever yarn you have, at whatever gauge you like, and knit using whatever stitch pattern you want to make the size you need.

The “pattern” walks you through knitting a swatch and the measurements and math you’ll need to do to make sure your shorts fit. Yes there is math. It’s not terrible, I promise. And because gauge is sometimes a liar, I talk you through all the points along the way where I tried the shorts on as I went to adjust the fit as needed.

This was actually a really fun project. I used yarn I’d salvaged from ripping up one of my husband’s old sweaters (with permission, of course!) and made a really simple pair of lounge shorts that’s all stockinette stitch with knit hems.

But it’s really easy to change it to make ribbed edges, or throw in an allover stitch pattern, or stripes, or whatever else you want to do. I love writing tutorials like this instead of patterns because I don’t know what your body is like or what kind of fit you want, or how long you’d like the legs on your shorts to be. And it’s really satisfying to be able to figure it out for yourself.

And once you know how to knit shorts that fit you, there’s nothing stopping you from keeping on with the legs and knitting a pair of pants in just the same way.

I’m actually really tempted to do just that. Good thing I’ve got another sweater to unravel.

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