Herzog - Knit wear love : foolproof instructions for knitting your best-fitting sweaters ever in the styles you love to wear

Sweater knitting doesnt have to be daunting! With a comfortable understanding of your own style and a few basic tricks, youll be making wardrobe staples in no time. CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE
UNIQUELY YOU: YOUR SWEATER STYLE, DEFINED CHAPTER TWO
SWEATERS, DECONSTRUCTED INTRODUCTION Whether its an occasional hobby or a deep passion, knitting can offer us many things: a chance to relax and be creative, a challenge to overcome, the pleasure of looping our experiences and memories into something tangible. Fundamentally, though, our knitting experience and process is a productive one. Were makers. Our sticks and our string and our brains all get together and create something that has utility, for us or for our loved ones. Handknitting an item is not the fastest way to get it (and often not the least expensive, either!), but it is the most satisfying.

Hand knitting allows us to imbue our garments and our gifts with love and good thoughts and to make them exactly as we wish them to be. In this book, I urge you to use your talents and your passion to give yourself one of the greatest gifts of all: garments that are uniquely, beautifully you. I hope my first book, Knit to Flatter, started you on this journey by helping you understand the kinds of silhouettes you like to wear and how to modify a sweater pattern so that the result will fit you perfectly. But theres more to a sweater than just the silhouette and the numbers. Many of us tend to think of our sweaters as projects, but fundamentally, our hand-knit sweaters are clothing. In fact, our handknits are essentially couturewait, dont put the book down! Couture, these days, is shorthand for haute couture: the by-hand creation of a clothing masterpiece that is priceless, elegant, and intended for something other than daily wear.

But there was a time, not so very long ago, when all clothing was created to match the individuals measurements and specifications (whether by a fashion house, seamstress, relative, or oneself). And the original meaning of the word couture is simply the making of clothes for an individual. I think its time for us to reclaim this word, because when clothing is made for you, and only you, wearing it feels like nothing youve ever experienced before. All of us spend our days in clothing that was made for someone else (I affectionately called her Ms. Average in Knit to Flatter). Wherever we arent the same as Ms.

Average, our clothing tells us Youre wrong. Hundreds of times a day, our clothes tell us things like Your arms are too long. Your legs are too short. Your shoulders are too broad. But custom-made clothing moves with you; it makes you feel right. Clothing thats made for you sends the message Youre awesome, just the way you are.

This may sound like a luxury, but as sweater knitters its one that we can create with our own two hands. For most of us, fashion isnt really about feathers and beading or impossibly high heels and dramatic makeup on a runway. Fashion, in our real lives, is about clothing that drops seamlessly into our daily experiences, thats creative, fits us perfectly, and is intimately personal. Our clothes express who we are, in the here and nowand thats the kind of couture I hope youll achieve in your sweater knitting. I wrote Knit to Flatter to help you learn to love your natural assets and build a wardrobe full of sweaters you love to wear because they fit properly and look great. Knit Wear Love is the next step in the love thy self, in thy sweater journey. Knit Wear Love is the next step in the love thy self, in thy sweater journey.

Here I help you create garments that not only suit your shape but also your sense of style. Sweaters are inherently flexible, changeable things. In the pages that follow I teach you how to look beyond a patterns main photo and explore how you can turn any sweater into a garment you cant wait to wear. In , I explain how to identify your personal style (as it applies to sweaters, anyway) through a series of fun mood boards and exercises. In , I deconstruct sweaters into their fundamental parts and give you lots of practical information about changing this or that to create the sweater of your dreams. Once youve identified your style and have your sweater personality in mind, this chapter gives you the technical tools you need to knit sweaters successfully.

Next I present what I call meta-patterns: instructions for making the eight most popular sweater silhouettespullover, cardigan, vest, tunic, cowl, wrap, tank, and boleroeach one in three gauges and twelve sizes, with multiple options for style customization. To show off the flexibility of the metapatterns, I am happy to present a cast of six amazing models (some of whom youll recognize from Knit to Flatter), each one a different shape and size. For an example of how different the same sweater can be, check out Courtney and Morgan in their pullovers on ! The meta-patterns are set up so that you can easily adapt them to suit your choices of size, gauge, and style. Ill be honest thoughthere are a lot of numbers included in these patterns. So, to make your knitting easy, for each one Ive provided a worksheet that you can fill out with the numbers that pertain to the size and gauge of your specific garment. Download fresh copies from my website: http://www.amyherzogdesigns.com/books/knit-wear-love/kwl-pattern-worksheets/.

Youll be amazed at how quickly your sweater knitting goes when there is just one set of numbers to follow! I wrap things up with a crisp checklist for moving forward in the creation of your own sweater wardrobe. Sweater knitting can sometimes be intimidating, so I leave you with a short reminder of the most important steps to getting a sweater you adore. Im honored to be part of your sweater-making journey. My goal is to help you create sweaters that immediately become favorites in your wardrobe: the ones that make you look and feel your best.

While pattern photos invite us to step into a very specific daydream about the life of the model wearing the sweater, all sweaters are much more alike (and flexible!) than those photos might suggest. Though sometimes it can be difficult to imagine, the look of a sweater can be changed completely simply by using a different yarn or color. In this chapter, I step through the specifics of finding your own fashion style and translating that style into yarn, color, and fabric choices that will make any sweater you knit one that you love to wear. Ive selected eight major fashion styles to showcase here and throughout the book. If more than one of these appeals to you, of course thats fine! We all have different facets of our own style, and its great to be able to express those through clothing. Its likely, though, that you have a main style and a couple of backup singers (so to speak) that youll turn to time and time again.

If after reviewing these style overviews, youre still not sure how they apply to you, check out the fun exercises that begin on .