SPRING CROSS-THREADED DESIGN HAS BEEN VOTIFIED by Brittany Tyler

When we launched our Spring 2011 issue early last May, we asked our beloved viewers to choose one of three amazing garment designs to go through the Cross-Threadification process.  The voting period ran through the month of June and included “Sweet Tart” by Marina Orry, “Dahlia” by Tracy St. John, and ”Blue Thistle” by Avril Lang (pictured from left to right).

Our Cross-Threaded segment is one of our most favorite Tangled features in which we adapt a knitting pattern for crochet instructions or visa versa.  The end result is a similar knit and crochet version of the same design. This process inspired our resident crochet design guru, Tracy St. John, to invent something I’ve never seen before. Her crochet adaptation of Haven Leavitt’s “Newsprint Cowl” (a straight-forward oversized knit brioche piece) led her to create a kind of crocheted brioche technique.  It’s worked in rows that use one color at a time just like vertical striping knit brioche and it’s reversible like its knit counterpart. Both “Radicowl” and “Garbo” (below) utilize this unique crochet method and are available in our Winter 2011 archive.

That’s me wearing the briolicious matching hat and scarf combo.

  

But I digress…

Last spring we asked you what design you would like to see adapted from knit to crochet or visa versa and hundreds of you voted. Unsurprisingly the vote was very close – all of the designs are fantastic – but there had to be a winner. Without further delay, the winner is…

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Sweet Tart!

The crochet version of this adorable knit mosaic vestlette will be available in the very near future. I can already hear Tracy’s brain gears turning and smell burning fiber as she begins swatching with such speed that would make lightening jealous.

FINALLY SPRING IN MONTANA by Team Tangled

Spring in Montana isn’t like spring in the rest of the country.  The snow has finally (almost) melted, the grass is beginning to turn green, flowers are braving the still-chilly nights and beginning to show their colors, and the humans who live here are beginning to wear shorts with their parkas as they begin to work in their gardens.  When to plant one’s garden is a major topic of conversation this time of year.  It’s nearly impossible to predict if and when we’ll experience one last cold snap before the transition into summer is complete and meteorological speculation dominates nearly every friendly conversation.  Did you hear so-and-so has ALREADY planted her tomatoes?!  Ahh, springtime in the Northern Rockies.

The unruly climate this time of year generated one unique challenge for Team Tangled.  Photographing spring samples in spring-like scenarios in some cases proved to be a difficult task.  Despite her cheery expression, Taylor, who is shown modeling Ellen Gormley’s Primrose shawl, was wearing the piece over a short-sleeved top in the midst of a snow storm!  Yay for a the magic of Photoshop.

Besides being excited about the change in climate, we are also very happy to be releasing our Spring Issue, which is bursting with fresh new seasonal designs.  As we were finalizing the layout and seeing the big picture of this issue, it was great to see how many crochet designs we have this time. We usually try to maintain a well balanced diet of both knit and crochet patterns in every issue, but this time we are serving up  a few more projects that require a hook rather than needles.  Crochet and spring weather just seem to go together; the open airiness of the stitches used in many of these designs make for the perfect balance between keeping the last bit of chill away before the transition into summer.  Besides, our next issue, which is dedicated to Sock Summit and all thinks sockish, will lean a bit more towards knitted designs – just like no matter when you choose to plant your garden, it all seems to work out in the end.

One of our favorite components of Tangled  are the Cross-Threaded segments.  We love the challenge of converting a knit pattern to crochet and visa versa and the overwhelming response to the cross-threaded patterns only makes us wanna do it that much more.  This issue we debated three possible Cross-Threaded combinations and ultimately we’ve decided to leave the decision up to you.  Through the month of June you can vote for the design you’d like to see Cross-Threadified and our design team will have the new pattern hot out of the oven later this summer.

We are offering three designs for your consideration: Sweet Tart, by Marina Orry, is a delicious little knit bolero, perfect for layering. Dahlia, by Tracy St. John, is a flirty, feminine corset-style crochet vest which would be a breeze to knit. Blue Thistle, by Avril Lang, is a great all-seasons knit hoodie with an interesting mosaic stitch that would be fun to crochet too. We can’t wait for you to put us to work.

Click Here To Vote  <———————–

UNTANGLED: BEHIND THE SCENES OF CROSS-THREADED by Tracy St. John

I am so pleased with the great response we have had to our Cross-Threaded segment of Tangled. The feedback you have generously taken the time to give us has been positive, constructive, and insightful. In return, I thought it might be fun to give you a little “behind-the-scenes” look at how the idea for the segment came about, why we chose the lovely Jayna skirt, and the process for creating Zan, Jayna’s “twin.”

Brittany and I work daily in our LYS, and often hear customers say they would love to make this or that crochet/knit design, if only they could knit/crochet better. We know that many crafters are not bi-craftual, and we respect and understand that. For myself, even though I am bi-crafty, there are things I would much rather do within one craft than the other. Take lace, for instance; I would rather poke out my own eyeballs than knit lace, but I would be quite content crocheting lace pajamas for an elephant. I am usually pretty good at converting designs either way for my own convenience, and after hearing this wish coming from so many others, we decided this might be an interesting idea to play around with.

After looking at all of the designs in the Fall issue of Tangled, Jayna was the one we kept coming back to for our inaugural effort for Cross-threaded. It has a rather unusual design and construction method for a knitted piece; aside from the fantastic skill-building project this is for knitters, it was the perfect candidate for me to show how well the conversion from knit to crochet can be done. The assumption many have made, when looking at both skirts in person, was that the crocheted skirt was the original and the knit version the copy, not realizing that the opposite is true until we tell them. Motifs are a bit of a crochet standard, used much more widely there than in knitting, so it has been fun to see crocheters react so positively to the use of knitting in this context, and see knitters very impressed with Paula’s skill as a knitter and designer. For me, the knitted motifs were a simple matter to convert to crochet, and the short-row insertions between each motif, while a bit of a challenge to replicate with crochet stitches, were fun to tinker with.

Looking closely at the photos for each skirt, you can clearly see the differences between the knit skirt and the crochet skirt. The crochet stitches are a little chunkier, more starkly defined, while the knitted stitches are smoother and less textural. The textural variations between knit and crochet are one of the differences between the two that I enjoy the most; they are obviously different, but each very lovely in their own way. It was not the goal of this conversion to make the pieces identical, but rather to showcase the visual differences of the crafts while illustrating how similar results can be achieved with either. To begin, I started with a true-to-scale scan Paula Levy (Jayna’s designer) provided of one of her knitted motifs. From there, it was simply a matter of trial and error, physically laying my crocheted swatches over the top of the photo to see if the size and shape of my motifs closely approximated Paula’s. Once the motif pattern was written out, I made two more, stitched them together, and got to work on figuring out how to fill the valleys between each motif to make a straight-edged panel of motifs.

Probably the most difficult part of the whole conversion was putting that procedure into words that another crocheter couldfollow. Working between the motifs is a rather intuitive process, something I could see clearly in my mind and fairly easily “just do”, but writing it down coherently was another matter. Come to think of it, that is the hardest part of any design process, at least for me. It is easy to see a good idea and just fool around with it until it works, but quite another to write it clearly. After my work on this conversion, I have a great deal of respect for Paula and her clearly and carefully written instructions for Jayna.

In the Winter issue of Tangled, watch for an expanded Cross-threaded segment. We plan to give you both a knit-to-crochet and a crochet-to knit design. I haven’t decided yet which part of this segment I enjoy the most; working with the original design authors to convert a design, puzzling through the nuts-and-bolts of the actual conversion, or seeing and comparing the finished projects. We are excited to bring these great original designs from amazing designers to you, and proud to work on their “twin” counter-parts.