Friday, January 4, 2019

Old and New

The online knitting magazine, Twist Collective, is winding up, and as part of the process the designs I published in it have been returned to me to do with as I will. I have decided to make them free. They are:

1. Brookline
This was not a name of my own choosing, and I was never in love with the magazine photos or yarn, so although the name sticks, I'm showing the sweater here in two of my own photos, the first modeled by my daughter, Isabel, in fingering weight alpaca,


and the second in Sandnesgarn's Babyull. The latter is an inexpensive, soft wool with amazing stitch definition. So overlooked!


2. Sandridge
In this case, I adore what Kate Gilbert, the magazine's editor did with my sweater. She concocted a story line for this segment of the magazine, and set it in Montreal. That's a gorgeous Carol Sunday design in pale blue on the woman chatting (presumably in French) with the gentleman in grey. There are instructions for making an A-line woman's version of the sweater with buttons, and I also wrote a blog post on zipper insertion (where the zipper teeth are not visible).


3. Vinland
This hat and mitt set ended up being photographed in blue and green in a nautical setting, and although the pics by Carrie Bostick Hoge are, as usual, lovely, the truth is that I had envisioned the pieces in black with burgundy "berries and vines" and dull gold trim. Here is the photo of the sample I did for submission as modeled by Isabel on a wintry day.





So, you can see I have mixed feelings about magazine publication. It can be a wonderful way to get recognition of one's work, and that was especially the case a decade ago when Ravelry was still in its infancy and Instagram non-existent. But that recognition comes with some loss of control over yarn choice, photography, and how instructions are written and edited (see here for more on that topic in relation to Brookline). I owe a lot to Twist Collective and its staff, and yet now I am happy to take back ownership of these three designs. I hope to continue to see yet more projects on their Ravelry pages.