Learning From A Master

A week ago Wednesday, my Ladies With Balls

and I struck out for Orillia, a new yarn store and a trunk show by Deb Gemmell.  We had Fun with a capital F.  Lots of laughs, lots of yarn and what I learned!

Deb Gemmell and the Cabin Fever group have a newly released book   - Need A Circular Yoke?  NaCY for short.  Like all the CF, Need a
 books, this one covers several yarn weights: from sport at 24 stitches through 22, 20, 18, 16 and up to 14stitches over 4 inches.  That means, in case the logic escapes you,  that any yarn from sport to chuncky that you might have in your stash or see on the shelf   will work for each and every one of the designs in this book.

 If you check out this book by flipping pages looking for 'a pattern'   you  will be disappointed.  That is not how the Need a books work. Instead, these books are not so much  pattern books , as  books with lots of design ideas and multiple choices that allow you to knit something that is exactly what you envision.  No designer ideas are ever imposed on you by my friends at Cabin Fever.  Page one of NaCY shows this little box of information. 

That pretty well says it all.  Read the book like a novel, make your choices, then knit the sweater of your vision.

As Deb explained her new book to the group, she also showed us some great new techniques.  She has mastered and improved upon the standard W&T short row with her Shadow or Twin Stitch Short Row.  You can see her you tube here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux1tviEa268 
Deb used these short rows to raise the back neck of the garments in NaCY.  And I would have to say they are the neatest - as in tidiest AND coolest  - short rows I have ever seen. 

My Raddicio was past the back- neck portion when I learned of Twin Stitch Short Rows but I always place a couple of short rows on the  back body of my sweaters to accommodate my dowager's hump and used the Twin Stitch type to do that.  You can see it here.

 Or rather you cannot see it here which is the beauty of them.

Deb also used a variation of the TSSR for the bust shaping darts in NaCY.  Happens that I was right at bust level with  Raddichio so I incorporated them in my sweater. 

Aren't they neat?

In NaCY the knitter is given several choices for waist shaping - yes/no, a little/a lot, with hip shaping/without hip shaping   - and I chose yes, a little, with hip shaping.  Most patterns have this shaping done at the side 'seam' marker.  Deb instead has the shape lines separated by a few inches of under-arm stitches.  Being separated makes them much easier to work which in turn makes them  look  much neater and nicer, I think.

Deb, IMO is a technical genius and we in Ontario are lucky to have her.  She earns her living through designing patterns, writing and teaching about knitting.  If you have ever heard her speak/teach the impression she leaves is that her overriding passion is to help make every knitter a better knitter.  Thanks, Deb.