In Episode 33 of the Fruity Knitting Podcast we speak to Andrea Mowry, best known for her two most popular shawls, “Find your Fade” and “Briochealicious”.  We’re then heading north, to Oslo, Norway, to meet Marthe, our guest on Knitters of the World, and then on to Reykjavik, Iceland, to meet Chantal Belisle, who will present her pattern House Dressing in New Releases.  Madeleine has progress on her Sarah Hatton sweater, we have one Bousta Beanie, and there’s a tutorial on cutting and grafting.  Enjoy!

Andrea Mowry Interview

Although Andrea is a fairly new knitwear designer having published her first pattern in 2014, she already has a prolific output of designs.

She has used shawls and ponchos as a canvas for exploring color, texture and techniques like brioche. Andrea has been instrumental in empowering knitters to creatively play with color through her very famous Find Your Fade Shawl. Her very popular Briochealicious shawl has also made it easier for newbie knitters to try out the Brioche technique. Andrea does her work in the context of maintaining a healthy, sustainable lifestyle where the concept of handmade plays a key role.

Finding Andrea Mowry

You can find Andrea Mowry at:

• dreareneeknits.com
• On Ravelry: Andrea Mowry
• On Instagram: dreareneeknits

Chantal Belisle – House Dressing – New Releases

Finding Chantal Belisle and House Dressing

You can find Chantal Belisle and her patterns at:

• The House Dressing pattern on Ravelry
• Designer Chantal Belisle on Ravelry
• Chantal also appears as The Flying Yak on Ravelry

Marthe Sveen Edvardsen, Oslo – Knitters of the World

Finding Marthe

You can find Marthe:

• On Ravelry as ARTKNITSTUDIO

Lantic by Sarah Hatton

Madeleine’s current project is the Lantic sweater by Sarah Hatton, and she is using the Rowan Softyak DK.  As mentioned in Episode 31, there was a slight issue with the lengths of the front and back – one was too short, or maybe one was too long…

Rather than ripping back and re-knitting, Andrea agreed to cut, rip, and graft.You can see the tutorial of that in the show. It’s pretty much like kitchenering up the toe of a sock, except that instead of being tucked away in a shoe, this fix will be right across the front of the sweater.

Andrea has a few good tips for getting a good result, including:

• Use a new piece of yarn for the graft, so you can adjust at both ends. Give yourself plenty of yarn – Andrea suggested four times the width of your work.
• Do the graft loose initially, then adjust the tension afterwards.
• When adjusting the tension, start from the center and work out in both directions.
• Also… watch out for increases and decreases.  The two pieces to be grafted should have the same number of stitches.  (If you do have decreasing/increasing, I guess you would have to think about how to add those decreases to your final piece. If it’s only a few stitches, then maybe you could add it to the grafted row. If it’s more, then you may need to rip back a few extra rows and add the decreases or increases more gradually.)

Madeleine now only has the one sleeve to go and then she is up to sewing up the seams. I’ll be keeping an eye on the length.  In our last Fruity Knitting Live event, Ann Budd told us she was an advocate of mattress stitch for seaming, but I am sure Andrea will be bringing Madeleine into the backstitch camp.

Andrea is wearing…

Andrea is wearing the Pullover Number 27 from the Filati Magazine 35. The magazine is out of print, and I didn’t see the pattern online, so you’ll have to keep your eyes open for a copy.  The wool is the Lana Grossa Cambio, 70% cotton and 30% microfiber, which also seems to be discontinued… I think the message here is, there are lots of new patterns and there are lots of new yarns.

Bousta Beanie by Gudrun Johnston

I really enjoyed knitting up the Bousta Beanie, created by Gudrun Johnston for the Shetland Wool Week 2017 – in her role as Patron this year.  Although I made the beanie shorter, I do think the original design by Gudrun is really cool, and I would recommend that any non-bloke knitters stick to the original. Andrea says that she really ought to have a Bousta Beanie too, so we may see a complete sample on the show yet.

The Shetland Wool Week has a tradition of having an official pattern created by the Patron for the year. Donna Smith’s Baa-ble Hat was hugely successful, and I think this design by Gudrun Johnston should be just as popular.  It looks great and if I can knit it, then anyone can.

Pick a nice colorwork yarn. We had some Virtual Yarns Hebridean 2-Ply around, but the pattern recommends the Jamieson and Smith yarns.  If you’re in the US, then you can buy Jamieson and Smith yarns from Claire at The Woolly Thistle, and save on shipping costs. There are some color recommendations with the pattern, but be creative and you shouldn’t go far wrong – one dark and two lighter, or two dark and one lighter. Put yours up on Instagram and include a #fruityknitting tag to let us know!

Arielle Skirt – Tilly and the Buttons

This gorgeous little pencil skirt can be made knee length or as a mini skirt. Here is Madeleine modelling the mini skirt version. I made an unlined version because I didn’t have any stretchy lining to go with my stretchy skirt material.

The project was an easy sew but making the button holes really tripped me up. I practiced many times but because the material has a strong stretch and the button holes lie horizontally, they always had a puckered look. I tried ironing on a non-stretch facing to help keep the fabric stiff and also sewing over a thin cord. The button hole looked neat until I cut it open and then it looked like a dogs breakfast. I was really scared of wrecking the whole project with ugly button holes so I decided to sew the buttons on the front for show and use press studs. I know it’s cheating but it works!

Music Credits

• J. S. Bach, The Well Tempered Klavier, Prelude No. 3 in C-Sharp major, BWV 848
  performed by Kimiko Ishizaka, used under Creative Commons Zero license
• Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major Eroica, Op. 55 – IV. Finale Allegro molto, Public Domain Mark 1.0
• Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, Souvenir de Florence, Op. 70, 1 – Allegro Moderato, US Army Strings, Public Domain
• Rimsky-Korsakov, Tale of Tsar Saltan – Flight of the Bumblebee, performed by US Army Band, Public Domain
• J. S. Bach, The Goldberg Variations, Aria, BWV 988, performed by Kimiko Ishizaka, used under Creative Commons Zero license
• Montana Skies – Gringo Flamenco and December Mourning, used under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license

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