Thanks everyone for all the comments! I love Madeline Tosh yarns too-- in fact I'm working on a self-published sweater pattern right now, using Tosh DK.

Maybe the Interweave Knits editors chose the name "Inversion Gansey" because the lace patterns used on the body are inverted on the sleeves, since they are worked from the top down?

Now that the Fall 2009 Interweave Knits preview is

Now that the Interweave Knits Summer 2008 preview is up, I think it's finally safe to show a detail of my Wakame Lace Tunic.  I found the lace pattern in a Japanese book of stitch patterns and fell in love with it; the undulating curves of the cables and the foamy effect created by the eyelets immediately reminded me of breaking waves.  And since the yarn (Tilli Tomas Fil de la Mer) contains seaweed fiber, I thought "wakame" would be a good name; I'm glad IK saw fit to keep it!  (By the way, the fabric in the photo is doubled; I draped the tunic over a chair to get the picture.) As for the Roped Shell, the design was originally for a sort of tube top with cable straps, and the yarn originally chosen was Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, but when they were reluctant to ship their yarn to Italy,the IK editors chose Filatura di Crosa Luxury instead.  This silk yarn has a lovely drape but very little stretch, which seemed to me to be an unforgiving (and very difficult to fit) combination for a knit tube top!  In addition, the slipped stitch pattern loses its nice curvy effect if it is stretched much, so I suggested that we change the design to a sleeveless shell instead; the Cotton Fleece would have suited the more casual style of a tube top, but I thought that this finer silk yarn would work better in a somewhat dressier top.  I also wanted to find a way to hide the jog in the stripes at the beginning of each round, so I took advantage of the slipped stitch pattern to create a vertical stripe at each side "seam."  Not the best photo, but at least you can see how light and drapey the fabric turned out to be.

I hadn't heard from many knitters about errors in my patterns, and so I have to admit I was feeling rather smug about my proofreading and tech editing abilities.  As it turns out, what probably was happening was that many knitters purchased one of my patterns, and then after some period of time-- finding the right yarn, finishing up other projects, etc.-- actually started knitting from it!

I notified Interweave Knits back in late January that there was an error in one of the charts for the Dragon-Skin Wrap for babies and toddlers, but the correction has not yet appeared on their corrections page.  So, if  you are making the smallest size (22" chest circumference) of the wrap, from the IK Holiday 2007 issue, in the "Left-Front Side Edge" chart, all "ML"s should be "MR"s.

To be quite honest, the Hearts of Oak pattern is not the speediest knit around, especially when worked on US #3 needles.  The unblocked fabric is fun to look at in different lights, and its almost crunchy texture invites you to grasp a handful and squeeze-- but even so, it seemed to me that I knitted endlessly on Selva before finally reaching the point where it was time to start the waist decreases. I had swatched the "ribbon" stitch pattern I used for the top of the skirt, and measured the swatch stretched to determine whether a zipper was necessary:  I decided no.  As I progressed toward the waistband, decreasing steadily in the plain purl sections at the sides, I instead started to worry that the waistband would stretch out of shape:  the "ribbons" weren't quite as firm as I had hoped, and of course the reverse stockinette wasn't firm at all.  That's why I decided to add the elastic to the waistband. In the case of this pattern, the sizing was dictated by the stitch pattern:  the difference between sizes is two repeats or 20 stitches (or 2 1/2 inches) at the hips.  Having said that, it is easy to change the frequency and number of waist decreases to customize the fit for a larger or smaller waist in relation to hips. Filatura di Crosa "Zara" is a great choice of yarn for this skirt; it has tight twist, lots of resilience, and seems to be fairly durable (standing up well to frogging).  It also comes in an extensive palette of colors.  If another yarn is substituted, I would encourage using something with similar characteristics.  A quick glance at yarndex suggested these as possibilities (note that I have no personal experience with any of them):  Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK or Extrafine Merino DK; Dale of Norway Falk; Classic Elite Classic 150; Debbie Bliss Rialto DK; Louet Gems Opal; or Knit Picks Merino Style.  Note that for most of these (as for Zara), the suggested needle size is larger than US #3, and the gauge thus looser than the 6 sts to the inch I got in stockinette stitch with #3s.  SWATCH!

I always planned to work Selva in the round, especially since I had not originally included a slit.  Since the skirt was quite fitted, I realized this would require that it be above knee length; but after calling to tell me that Interweave wanted to use the design, Eunny Jang, the editor, told me she thought it might require both a slit and a zipper closure.  This got me wondering whether I should work the skirt flat and then seam it up the back, thus easily allowing for a slit and a zipper-- but I decided against this, mainly because I thought it would be significantly slower knitting. A bit of good news:  Eunny wanted me to use Filatura di Crosa Zara, the exact same yarn I had used for the swatch (very unusual, in my experience!).  Unfortunately, not expecting this, I hadn't bothered to take any notes on the gauge of the Hearts of Oak swatch I had sent to Interweave, so as soon as the yarn arrived in the mail, I swatched again.  After blocking, the swatch seemed a little too loose to me, so I did another one on smaller needles, and decided to use the smaller needles for the skirt to get a slightly denser fabric (trying not to calculate how many extra stitches I would have to knit to finish the thing!). My 2 cents on swatches:  I've decided that patterns which include stitch patterns other than stockinette stitch should give gauges both in stockinette stitch, to make it easier to find substitute yarns, AND in one or more of the pattern stitches used in the design, since working cables or lace or garter stitch, or whatever, might cause changes in yarn tension among different knitters.  In future all my patterns will include at least two gauges (I can't imagine myself creating a design using only stockinette!). Back to Selva:  First, I decided I didn't want to have a facing around the slit; this meant that I would have to find a way to make the edge of the knit fabric itself look finished.  With no facings (meaning that working in the round and then steeking was not an option), the skirt would have to be worked back and forth for the length of the slit, and then joined to work the rest in the round.  After some experimenting I came up with a modification of the Hearts of Oak pattern which looked adequately finished at the edges; I also found that having a 2-stitch stockinette edge was important, to keep the edge fairly straight.   I started knitting, only to realize after several inches that I had no idea whether the Hearts of Oak pattern worked on circular needles would show a jog at the beginning of each round!  At this point, I just kept my fingers crossed until the skirt was about 7 inches long, joined for working in the round, and...no jog whatsoever!  In fact, I found that the increases and decreases in the stitch pattern caused the beginning of the round to move in and out along the edges of the "overlapping scales" (as described by Interweave), which is why I set up the chart for rounds (at left) the way I did. Next and final post on Selva:  waistband issues and sizing.

In one of the comments on my last post, Janet asked if I could direct her to some posts about the Selva Skirt.  There is a category for it (look on the lower right hand part of the page), but there aren't many posts to be found, simply because the Selva Skirt pattern was created for publication in a magazine, and hence was unbloggable before publication. Well, it's after publication now, and since at least one person is interested in how Selva came about, I thought I would provide a few details.  I often look through stitch dictionaries for inspiration, and in this case, the skirt was absolutely inspired by the stitch pattern, Hearts of Oak from Barbara Walker's Fourth Treasury of Knitting Patterns.  I thought the texture of this stitch pattern was fascinating, and after swatching, I thought its density would be perfect for a fitted knit skirt that would hide a few posterior, shall we say, imperfections.  (Plus I hate wearing G-strings-- not required for Selva, ladies!)  Also, as I recall (the themes that Interweave provided to designers for the Winter 2007 issue are no longer online), one of the suggested themes for that issue was tailored, fitted garments, which seemed perfect for Selva.  Above is the wrong side of the swatch I sent off to Interweave Knits with my pattern submission, back in February '07; the photo is crap because it was an afterthought, taken with my cellphone camera in my car just before I put the submission materials in the mail. While swatching, I also found that the Hearts of Oak chart has a number of errors.  The most important part of the chart, the pattern repeat, is correct, but the outer edges of the chart are not.  Always be aware that errors may be (and probably are) present in published charts and patterns! In the case of this stitch pattern, I debated which side to use for the right side; both sides are really cool.  One reason I decided to go with the "right" side was the waistband.  As I was swatching, I had started to think about how I would do the waistband decreases, and had concluded two things:  first, that working the decreases into the stitch pattern would require a better mind than mine, and second, switching to a less dense stitch pattern, like stockinette or ribbing or, well, just about anything, would mean losing that nice tight fabric just when it would be great to have a bit of a girdle effect, across the tummy and hips.  So after examining both sides of the swatch, I decided that the V-shaped knit sections on the right side were just begging to be extended into long ribbons to form the waistband, and with some experimenting, I came up with what you see at the top of the above swatch:  the ribbons include decreases and increases, and thus retain at least some of the density of the Hearts of Oak pattern. Next:  The evolution of Selva's design after she was accepted by Interweave Knits for their Winter 2008 issue.