Noodling on a Thistle
Swatching the Pink Thistle and making notes with my new favorite mechanical pencil. Get one of these beauties for yourself HERE.
As promised, the start-itis is real over here, and I’ve been dilligently swatching while thinking about how best to address the new design I’ve promised you. The news is great - I love the pink colorway as much as the original purple, which I never thought possible. I also love this yarn more than is probably reasonable. I’ll tell you all about it in detail going forward, but first thing’s first: Many sincere thanks, Gentle Readers, for your votes on the sillhouette of the Thistle sweater to come!
Wouldn’t you know it: The comments are evenly split between Yokes and Drop-Shoulders. Therefore, I’ve made a considered decision as your tiebreaker in chief. Here’s a look inside my thought process:
How to give a thistle a wedgie
The OG Thistle chart was created for a rectangular shawl, free of any garment shaping. For that I designed the thistle “picture” on a flat canvas. To alter the chart for circular yoke shaping, I would have to remove wedges of knitting via decreases from that picture. The illustration above shows roughly how that might go.
You knew there would be scissors, right?
Here’s an old-school way of playing with shaping in the chart - actual cut and paste. This mockup shows a version of what happens when I remove wedges of knitting from my rectangle to create a circular yoke: In a word: Crowding. They still look like thistles, kinda, but only to those of us who have seen the original. The leaves, while still leafy, are no longer Thistly. And the blossoms don’t retain their fluffy topknots. While not altogether awful, I don’t think this is good enough for MY knitters.
Could I design a completely different thistle that fits properly into a circular yoke? Probably. But I’d be losing the charm of the original chart, which 10k knitters around the world have voted for with their purchases. My instinct is that the original Thistle chart isn’t broken, so I shouldn’t tinker with it.
Lazlo sent the Scotties to Time Out so he could properly supervise the Thistle Cardigan cast-on. (The bright green you see here is the hem facing that is only visible on the inside).
One of the other considerations that you have helpfully mentioned is the direction of knitting. For those who asked for a top-down construction, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. There are two reasons for this:
1. I have strong opinions (surprise) about the orientation of each stitch in the motif chart. I cannot abide an upside-down stitch (“^” vs “v” shaped) unless the chart is intentionally drawn for it. The thistle motifs are drawn in upright orientation. Reversing the direction of construction will call for the reversal of every stitch’s orientation. While many would not be bothered by that at all, it would cause MY teeth to hurt.
2. While undeniably fun to knit, top-down construction for a circular yoke requires shaping via stitch increases, while bottom-up shaping is achieved with stitch decreases. My prejudice is that in most cases, decreased yokes look prettier in the knitting and fit better on the body. The fitting can be engineered in reverse to accommodate this issue, sort of. But not inside the limited acreage of a motif chart that is already suffering from dreadful crowding. So yeah: This sweater needs to be worked from the bottom up.
The lower edge of my new pink thistle is happening! I forgot how muuch I love this Celtic Knot border.
To sum up, with your help and input, I’ve decided that Thistle 2.0 will be a cardigan, it will be worked in the round with steeks, from the bottom up, and it will have a drop-shoulder sillhouette.
One final word on the overall design: I’ve envisioned a really unusual and flattering finish for it that I think will knock all of our (handknit) socks off. Stay tuned!
