Category: acrylic

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Monomoy Sweater

I am so excited to finally release this pattern. This one was a labor of love for me, the first sweater I designed for both my boys.

Little boys in intricately cabled sweaters are just adorable in my eyes. With two little boys at home I couldn’t resist designing a cabled sweater for them to wear. The cable patterns in both the front and back split and the cables wind around the collar. A braid winds down the outside of the sleeves. Named for Monomoy Island off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts where the twisting shoals twine like the cables on this sweater.

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Worked in Berocco Remix yarn – 30% Nylon, 27% Cotton, 24% Acrylic, 10% Silk, 9% Linen, 216 yards (198 meters) per skein, machine washable, pictured in Strawberry and Blue Denim

Skills Required
Pattern is worked bottom-up in the round and splits at the armholes to be worked back-and-forth. Sleeves are knit in the round with a short-row sleeve cap. Cables are used throughout the pattern.

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Tech Editor: Dana Gervais
Sizes 12m (18m, 2T, 3T, 4, 5, 6) – 21 (22, 23, 23.5, 24, 25, 25.5) inches [53 (56, 58.5, 60, 61, 63.5, 66)cm] around chest under arm holes

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Back from Break

Three new Patterns
Three new Patterns
Three new Patterns waiting to be finished

After taking a much-needed break over the holidays (and recovering from my annual Christmas bought of bronchitis), I’m back at it! I’ve got 3 new patterns in various stages of completion, plus and oldy-but-goody that never got released, all waiting for me to finish them up and release them.

I’m using three fun new yarns – the blue cabled sweater is in Cascade’s Ultra Pima Fine, 100% Cotton. The gray tweed sweater is Remix, a unique blend from Berocco of 30% Nylon, 27% Cotton, 24% Acrylic, 10% Silk, & 9% Linen. And lastly the socks are Plymouth Yarn’s Diversity, which is an acrylic/polyester blend.

And the best part – all three are machine washable!

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Blocking Acrylic

Testing The WavesPeople have told me for years that you can’t block acrylic yarn.  As my British friends would say, that’s bollocks.  Of course you can block acrylic – you don’t see acrylic sweaters at the mall with an unsightly roll at the hems.

The problem is that you have to block them differently because acrylic is essentially plastic so methods you use to block plant and animal fibers just won’t work.

I stumbled upon this wonderful blog post on BeadKnitter Gallery’s  blog a while back outlining a simple and effective way to block acrylic: steam.

I encourage you to read the whole article for it has lots of pointers and visual examples, but it boils down to these simple steps:

  1. pin/blocking wire the piece into the desired shape
  2. set your iron to full steam ahead

There are two VERY IMPORTANT things to remember – 1) NEVER touch the piece with your iron or the yarn will melt, and 2) the blocking is permanent.  So be sure to test it first on something you don’t care too much about, until you get the hang of it.

I spent this morning blocking about 7 toddler shirts and dresses that I had lying around.  It’s quick and easy and the results are magnificent!