LOFT

This morning, Brooklyn Tweed announced LOFT, the fingering-weight cousin to SHELTER.  I am simply beaming with pride.  Aside from a memorable afternoon of hem’ing and haw’ing over colors, I had very little to do with the actual yarn.  But I have had the pleasure of continuing my design work with BT for this collection and couldn’t be more pleased with the results.

I remember waiting not-so-patiently for LOFT to arrive at my door so that I could begin swatching.  When it finally arrived, I remember thinking how it really did resemble SHELTER.  Seriously.  It’s just thinner.  And just like SHELTER, it had a tremendous range.  

When I first swatched with SHELTER, I went straight for the US 7’s.  Then realized, that I could probably go up to 9’s, so I swatched in both 8’s and 9’s.  The resulting fabric in all of the swatches wasn’t identical even though they looked similar.  They felt quite different from one another.  The 9 swatch had more drape in the hand, but visibly you couldn’t really tell.  It was like a dream!

As hand knitters, we become obsessed achieving GAUGE.  But we only focus on the number.  How many stitches and rows am I getting to the inch?  Rarely, do we think about the feeling of the fabric we’re creating.  Sometimes I get gauge, but the fabric feels stiff, dense and almost bulletproof.  Not something I’m usually going for in a sweater or hat.  The fabric’s feel, its hand, is just as important as those numbers.  And that’s one of the main reasons I absolutely love working with SHELTER and now LOFT.

With LOFT, I swatched on US 1’s and went all the way up to 6’s.  All of the swatches yielded fabrics that were stable and usable.  The range really blew my mind.  The Edie sweater was knit on 5’s, and made such a beautiful fabric.  It hugs the body, but doesn’t cling. 

© Brooklyn Tweed/Jared Flood

And after blocking?  Total dream.  The yarn feels like fleece - soft, fluffy goodness.

For the Jaffrey hats, the size that worked for me was a size US 3.  It gave the twisted stitches just the right spring and elasticity without making it feel stiff or too loose. 

© Brooklyn Tweed/Jared Flood

The fabric had body with just a little drape, and that was exactly what I was trying to achieve.

And when I initially cast-on for the Pei cowl, I used size US 4.  I didn’t want the lace pattern too “lacey”.  Since it was going to be a cowl, I didn’t want it to be flimsy.  (Maybe that’s a better word.)  But, I overshot using size 4’s.  The lace edging was a little stiff.  And I did want it airy, not lifeless.  By going up to size 5’s, I was able to achieve a slight gauziness to the stockinette part, but also retain a bit of body to the lace edge. 

© Brooklyn Tweed/Jared Flood

Pei was the last design to be knit, and at this point I was thoroughly convinced LOFT was the only yarn that could achieve the desired effect for all of my designs.

I hope you’ve had a chance to check out LOFT's Look Book.  It has 72 pages full of beautiful photos, a signature of Brooklyn Tweed.  The gorgeous Color Stories will sure to mesmerize and inspire you.  Enjoy and happy November!