Surly is enjoying a nice little road trip with family, so I thought I would launch into the story of the Tapestry Wrap.
The Tapestry Wrap is a Marie Wallin design. It is part of her fair isle club collection, so its official name is Fair Isle Club Six (or #6). This was our first foray into the “club scene.” We saw the design and were intrigued, but thought it might be a bit “out there!” Plus, the colors seemed kind of bright and a bit “out there!” (The colors are far more muted IRL.) We decided to go for it. So on the allotted day at 10am, we logged in and bought our kits. All 500 kits were sold within 2 hours!! Uh, we were shocked and very glad we got there first!! The kits were expensive, but to me well worth the price.
The kit included Marie’s British Breeds yarn (all 20 colors!), a high-quality hard copy of your chosen pattern size, a cute fabric project bag, and a sterling silver shawl pin. The yarn is gorgeous. She uses a unique mix of wools that give it a luster and almost alpaca quality. It is softer than Shetland wool, and maybe a little thicker? You also received a pdf of ALL sizes, and video support/zoom meetings with Marie.
I knew right away that I would need to lengthen mine. The unusual construction gave me a pause, but I figured out what to do and forged ahead. We started our sweaters in mid-December. Many days I knit on this for 8-10 hours!! Sally and I were on a roll, and I had a lot more knitting to do than she did!
This video shows the day I finally cut the steeks:
The visual interest to this sweater is in the back.
This shows what the back looked like after cutting:
The big “U” in the picture above is the back after cutting. There were full steeks on either side and a partial steek in the center. You needed to pick up and knit the center back panel and side panels, using flat fair isle, and then graft those sts to the other side.
Bad photo before grafting:
After grafting:
The sleeves each had a flat panel and the sides were knit flat (and had short rows).
What I am trying to say is, the construction truly was unusual and kind of pieced together!! The sleeves run a little short and I have super long arms, so I added 40 (gulp!) rows to the sleeves. I used a number of splicing and weaving techniques to avoid ends and had very few considering that Marie changes both colors quite often!! I love the sleeves because they almost look like they belong to a different sweater!
The good news is that once you join the club, you can buy any previous kit, which Sally actually did. Fair Isle Club 7 is called the Kilim Jacket and will launch December 1. To sign up for emails about the club, register here. I will not be doing the next one — it is kind of similar to the Tapestry Wrap. One was enough for me!! A true labor of love!
PS — I just got a $10 check from the state fair for my sweepstakes!! They didn’t give out prize money with ribbons this year because last year was such a loss. This was so unexpected!! 🙂
PS to Chloe: Shawl Pins
