Hello Yarny Ones, I’m about to simplify the way I communicate with you. For a while now, I’ve been posting occasionally here on this WordPress blog, but I also write a newsletter (which is also called Freeform Yarny Things) on Substack.com that goes out 1-2 times a month. The newsletter usually has links back to blog posts in addition to newer content, and it’s starting to feel redundant and a little fussy to keep doing both things.
So, I’m going to try shifting things around a bit. This blog will still function as my original blog site, but now Substack will be the place for everything else: my links, class listings, info about my patterns, tutorials, etc. It’s a little easier to use, and it just seems like a good idea to have everything in one place.
If you’re subscribed to this blog, thank you so much. It’s a real treat to have readers who are interested in my yarny shenanigans! The blog will stay up to keep the old posts accessible, but I’m hoping you’ll head over to ldoherty.substack.com (please copy and paste the address into your browser) to find everything else, and to subscribe for free and keep reading. 🧶
“All art is a work in progress. It’s helpful to see the piece we’re working on as an experiment. Whatever the result, we will receive useful information that will benefit the next experiment. If you start from the position that there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, and creativity is just free play with no rules, it’s easier to just submerge yourself joyfully into the process of making things. We’re not playing to win, we’re playing to play. And ultimately, playing is fun.” —Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
Once again the universe is telling me to enjoy the process, to cultivate the process, so that’s what I’m doing. It’s not freeform by today’s generally accepted *definition, of course, but making variations on my own Vacation Favorite pattern is at least improvisatory, and it’s definitely fun summer knitting. In my current WIP, knitting will be combined with crochet and Tunisian crochet (there’s a little band of Tunisian Simple Stitch close to the live stitches on the needle). As with the last variation, I’m using the Vacation Favorite stitch patterns (so far, there’s striped garter stitch and fairy lights, worked randomly instead of strictly by the pattern) and adding others, deciding as I go what to do next. The yarn is Merino Sock from Dark Omen, an independent dyer from Italy.
What stitches do you like to add in to your projects?
*freeform crochet has no strict definition, but most artists work with organic shapes rather than regular rows or rounds, changing yarns and textures frequently.
When I made the original Vacation Favorite Shawl in 2021, the goal was not to create a design to publish as a pattern, it was to use stitch patterns in an asymmetrical triangular shawl to highlight a special yarn. It turned out to be really fun to insert stitch patterns into my favorite shawl shape.
When I decided I would indeed write up the design as a pattern this summer, I wanted to make sure that the pattern could be used as a starting point for knitters who wanted to create their own adventure. While the pattern is written so that knitters can recreate the original shawl as I made it, of course, the stitch patterns themselves can be mixed up in whatever order and quantity that makes each knitter happy. The idea of mixing it all up was so appealing to me that I was compelled to cast on a Vacation Variation almost immediately after publishing the pattern.
I took a lot of liberties in this variation. In addition to mixing up the order of the stitch patterns, I used a different yarn weight (fingering/sock weight), added a big chunk of feather and fan stitch (only slightly fussy to manage), inserted a tiny bit of crochet granny stitch, and worked with more that two colors. While there are common ties between the two shawls, this new variation of the Vacation Favorite looks very different from the original.
So, if you’ve ever wanted to personalize a pattern with your favorite yarns and stitch patterns, this one is a good place to try it. Here are three reasons why:
Shawls made in this shape are endlessly flexible for yarn choice because they start at the small point and are knitted until they are the size they want to be. So, choose any yarn that you like and start knitting. For yardage guidance, my worsted weight version used 460 yards and the fingering weight version used about 960 yards. Based on those quantities, I’d guess that sport weight wants around 700 yards, and bulky would want around 300. However, when you’re assembling your yarn palettes, it’s a good idea to include more yardage than required so that you have plenty of yarn to choose from all the way to the end of the project.
Additional stitch patterns are easy to add in, especially if they can be worked by reading your stitches. The shape of this shawl is made by constantly increasing and decreasing at regular intervals at the beginning and ending of the rows, so it takes a little thinking to make sure stitch patterns stack up correctly. Seed stitch, for instance, would be easy to add in. After you work the first row of seed stitch, you know that you’ll just knit the purls and purl the knits on each following row. Stitch patterns that are more complex will require some additional thought and experimentation to make them line up the way you want them to (like the feather and fan).
You can work in an improvisational way without worrying about the bigger picture, meaning you can design as you go, changing yarns and stitch patterns as the mood strikes. There’s really no need to worry about mapping out the overall design as a whole because this shawl shape will usually be worn wrapped around the neck a couple of times in a way that mixes everything up. It’s not a problem if it looks a bit disjointed when the shawl is laid out flat; all of that variety will look complicated and interesting when it’s being worn.
All of this is to say that the Vacation Favorite is a good pattern to use for going off road and following your curiosity. I’d love to hear about your variations at any point along the way, so feel free to add a comment to this post or send me an email (lisadohertyfreeformanddesign@gmail.com) and show off your photos.
Valentina Devine (September 9, 1933 – June 5, 2023) was a German fiber artist who lived in Los Alamos, NM. This article from the Los Alamos Daily Post has a photo of Valentina in her fiber studio. She taught many classes over the years and published a number of designs. The designs that caught my eye 20 years ago or so were the ones that featured modular knitting and the freeform log cabin Creative Knitting designs.
Her specialty was her free approach to knitting, crochet, and projects that combined both. Scroll through her Facebook page to see her original creations. I was looking forward to meeting Valentina at the On Higher Ground retreat in Taos, NM later this year. At age 89, she was not traveling to teach any longer, but she taught classes in her fiber studio, and she was going to give a talk at the retreat about her life, her designs, and her fiber practice in general. When I learned that she died a couple of months ago, I was inspired to make something that featured her freeform log cabin style, using photos of some of her original designs for color inspiration as well. This reversible mini poncho is the result.
If you look closely, you can see some of my favorite things: garter stitch, crocheted linen stitch, eyelets, crocheted spirals, knitted mitered squares, seed stitch, crocheted granny stripes, and a bunch of handdyed, textured yarns. It was a very satisfying project to make, the best way I could think of to remember such a talented soul.
What a great idea from MDK, Modern Daily Knitting: start with a designer who teaches, then assemble good yarn, an interesting dishcloth pattern, and a date for a Zoom class in the hot of summer. The kit mailed out to campers also included needles, a multipurpose kitchen gadget, and a summer camp patch for fun. Put it all together and you end up with an enjoyable event that’s accessible from your couch or a poolside lounge chair.
The dishcloth pattern, called Sinkmates Suite, has some techniques that might be new to some knitters, but it’s well written by designer Lorilee Beltman. We made these cute mini dishcloths, swatch-sized to give campers an opportunity to try as many of the ideas in the pattern during the zoom class as possible.
Baby Sinkmates swatches
And after the zoom camp, I jumped right into casting on for the full-sized model.
Variation on the intarsia Sinkmates dishcloth, inspired by Lorilee Beltman and Kay Gardiner
These dishcloths have a clever construction (they start with I-cord!), and the colors in the kit are fun. There are a number of variations in the Sinkmates pattern, plus, it’s possible for knitters to improvise new versions based on their favorite stitch patterns. The designer, Lorilee Beltman, is an experienced designer and teacher, and she’s obviously very comfortable teaching online. All in all, a great experience. If you have the opportunity to do a zoom class with MDK, do it!
And if you missed it, don’t despair. Camp has come and gone, but you can still buy the Sinkmates Suite pattern on Ravelry and the yarns from MDK or your LYS. Then, pour a lemonade and cast on while you escape the summer heat. Or, you could take it on the road and make dishcloths on summer vacation like I did last year. They’re the perfect portable projects for your getaway.
An assortment of dishcloths made on our 2022 Nashville/St. Louis trip
Recently I was talking with a friend about our works in progress and what we take into consideration as we choose our projects. Will we actually wear the thing we are about to start making? Does it fit our individual visions about what we want our wardrobes to be? Over time we’ve both had our share of clams, projects we liked making that just weren’t practical, pieces we just never seem to choose to wear. We also lamented that what we want to wear has shifted over time, naturally, so sometimes it seems like we’re aiming at a moving target.
Then, today I listened to a podcast conversation between actors Jessie Tyler Ferguson and Elizabeth Banks. They were talking about their careers over the past few decades, particularly about how some projects went well, others not so much. Both of them mentioned having been involved in less successful projects that were very enjoyable to make. Banks said she’s realized that one of the most important things she’s learned in her career was to learn to love the process. Some things will be well received, others will not, but if you focus on doing your best work on the project at hand, you are learning and growing nonetheless.
It seems like this might be a good attitude to take with knitting and crochet projects as well. Knitters often talk about being interested in either the process or the product. Maybe a reasonable balance of both is worth pursuing. For instance, I’m very attracted to making intricate and detailed knitting and crochet projects, but sometimes things turn out a little too wild for my personal taste (I’m looking at you, freeform crochet!). So, I’ve learned to look out for elements that might let things go too far (like dramatic texture and high contrast), and I’m usually able to tone some of that down. When I want to do something that might be a bit much, I put it in an accessory or an art piece.
And if I miss the mark, well, I suppose I can enjoy the fact that I’m learning and growing, and I had a good time making it. After all, I like knitting and crocheting. It helps, also, that finished projects can be unraveled, if you can stand it, and the yarn can be used to make something else. They can represent potential instead of failure. Even in freeform crochet, if you’re willing to put in the time and effort, you can reshape your misfire into a completely new creation. Maybe one day I’ll share a photo of my rich stash of potential…
So far this summer, I’ve set up my new and improved studio to include more surface area (the guest bed, lol) for managing freeform projects. These projects love to take up a lot of space when they’re ready to come together, and now I’m prepared for it. But in the summer, sometimes, my attention span is shorter and I’m in and out of town more often, so portable projects with fewer components are what’s called for.
My most recent project and the current one are both asymmetrical triangle shawls based on my new Vacation Favorite pattern. This pattern combines two things that I love: a traditional shawl shape and combinations of yarns and stitch patterns in whatever way suits my fancy as I knit. In fact, my original Vacation Favorite was improvised, I just ended up writing it down in pattern form for publication. But I’ll probably never make another one exactly that way again. Instead, I’ll gather yarns that want to go together and knit them with the stitch patterns that interest me at that moment in time, just as it happened for the first one.
This worsted/chunky weight shawl combines lots of variegated and handdyed yarns, some of them textured. I knitted them with garter stitch, eyelets, seed stitch, blocks of stockinette stitch and reverse stockinette, unorganized feather and fan, and a strip of mitered squares. All of this is loosely based on the Vacation Favorite.
My current Vacation Favorite WIP (work in progress) is knitted with a bunch of handdyed fingering weight mini skeins, and one hank of Baah La Jolla in black. The shawl shaping is consistent, but I’m flying by the seat of my pants when it comes to mixing colors and stitch patterns. I’m using feather and fan stitch again, but I’m keeping it more organized this time. Because each row of the Favorite shawl shape has a different number of stitches, it requires time and attention to make sure the feather and fan shaping lines up like it should (and I think it mostly does). It’s not hard, it’s just fiddly.
These two iterations of the Vacation Favorite result in a completely different looking shawl than the original mostly because I don’t have dedicated main colors and contrast colors. Consequently, there’s no defined background and foreground. Instead, there’s a mishmash of colors and textures, a chaotic blend that might make me a little crazy for a sweater, but I love it for an accessory. Perhaps the best thing about this kind of knitting, though, is that it has a set shape and structure while allowing for making things up as I go along. It’s comfort knitting that allows for experimentation, just right for summer.
In 2021 I made this Favorite shawl variation (see the original Favorite shawl here) with some Softyak DK and one ball of Mountain Color Twizzle in the Mardi Gras colorway, a colorway exclusive to The Quarter Stitch, the New Orleans yarn shop that’s near Jackson Square. Some knitting friends suggested that I write a pattern for it, but I procrastinated, and here we are almost two years later.
In the photo, you can see all of the stitch patterns used in the shawl. There’s plain garter, striped garter, eyelet lace, little boxes (upper left corner), and fairy lights (lower right corner). The pattern has instructions for each of these stitches and exact directions for how I used them to make the shawl, but knitters can also choose to take these stitch patterns and use them in any combination and amount at their whim to make their own versions.
It’s been long enough since I knitted the sample above that I had to do little swatches to remember exactly how some of it came together. That’s OK, it kind of made me my own test knitter. As I knitted my swatches and wrote the pattern out, I realized how much I enjoy having a go-to shawl shape. This shape, the boomerang or asymmetrical triangle, is a true favorite. I’ve made so many of them, the formula is knitted into my brain, and at this point, I can start them anywhere, anytime, and design as I knit. What could be more compelling to an improvisational knitter and crocheter?
My preference is to use only abstracts and geometric shapes in my freeform fabrics, nothing that leans towards realism. Leaves and flowers are the exceptions, though. Their natural shapes almost seem to blur the line between realism and abstraction.
Here’s a variety of leafy experiments. There are long leaves knitted with garter stitch and intarsia, leaves with an embedded spiral, spirals in the shape of leaves, crocheted leaves, and leaves that are half knitted and half crocheted. Some are simple, some are a little more complicated. With a little tweaking, the long knitted intarsia ones could look more like feathers. All of them lend themselves to improvisation, which is what you want; who wants to be glued to a pattern?
I have to laugh just a little bit about this photo, something of a glamour shot of this little scrumble languishing on giant hosta leaves. But, it’s the best photo I have of this piece, so here it is.
This year’s challenge was called the Game of Chance Challenge. It was set up in a game-like format using a list of freeform stitches and directions, yarns put in containers so that they could be chosen blindly (close your eyes and pick one!), and random number generators or dice to introduce the element of chance. Each day, crocheters used yarns and instructions chosen by chance to build on their project, always free to change things at will, as one does in freeform.
And it was really, really fun! It’s easy to use your favorite stitches and motifs over and over again, forgetting about the variety of options available in crochet and its sister fibercrafts. This challenge was a great opportunity to play, experiment, and review stitches and techniques, and I loved doing it. But, then the 100 Day Project started, and I became consumed with that. Starting out just doing a little spiral each day, my Project blew up in the 3rd week, requiring more of my time and attention. The IFFFG challenge was largely responsible for the inspiration to experiment with inserting a variety of stitches and techniques into the spirals I was already doing for the 100 Days, and I couldn’t be more pleased with this change in direction.
Unfortunately, though, it meant that I ended up neglecting the IFFFG challenge, and I only had this small scrumble to submit. Now that the 100DP is over, maybe I’ll dust off my version of the lists and my notes from this year’s challenge so that I can use them again to break out of my usual routines.
Freeform Yarny Things 