In honor of the “official” beginning of the spring season (although you’d never guess it by looking at my snow-filled backyard…), last week I released my latest pattern, Jessie’s Girl:
I’m excited about this design because I think you will find it an enjoyable, easy-going knit and I think the style is one that is flattering on a lot of different body types. As someone who loves to layer, I wanted to find a way to do a warm-weather garment that would allow me to still layer a bit but be super airy and drapey. And since my husband felt it was a bit of a 80’s throwback, when it came time to name the design he thought “Jessie’s Girl” was the perfect name, and I agree..although now that song has been stuck in my head all week (for those of you much younger than myself who unfortunately missed out on 80’s pop music, you may need just need to watch this).
A little info about yarn choice and gauge:
It is knit up using the sport-weight linen blend yarn Batiste by Knit One Crochet Too (if you live in the Portland, ME area, KnitWit carries a bunch of great colors. If not, check with your LYS or you can see it here online.) It’s knit up on a much larger needle than you typically would for the yarn to create the airy, open stitch. I did a lot of swatching with other similar yarns and found that linen blends and cotton blends really were the best options. Another yarn I would recommend using is Firefly by Classic Elite Yarns, although in my swatching I had to go down one needle size than that used in the pattern (instead of a US 8 I used a US 7). The most important thing is to swatch beforehand and I highly recommend measuring your “before blocking” row gauge and your “after blocking” row gauge so that you will know how much your garment is going to grow after blocking (linen blends will most definitely grow lengthwise! Before blocking Jessie’s Girl, it was a good 2-3″ shorter than the final measurements).