Fibermania

My Mitered Square Affair

In case it isn't obvious I love lots of color close together. So when I first saw mitered square knits I went nutso.

A lot of Koigu yarn

It was at Houston Quilt Festival the last year I worked in our Artfabrik booth, maybe 2001 or 2002. The booth next to ours was a yarn shop, with sweaters that had multiple yarns in these patchwork configurations designed by Horst Schulz. I also wandered into another yarn booth with more mitered square samples on display. There must have been something in the air that year as I had been knitting a sweater to pass the time, and already had yarn and needles with me, so a foundation had been laid.

Then another strange thing happened...I won 1st and 3rd place in small art, and sold a big quilt in the Husqvarna exhibit and won a top of the line sewing machine.

Prize money to spend!

The yarn people got a lot of it that year.

And when we got home we took a sweater class and I got to pick the project, so it should come as no surprise that I chose the San Francisco Shirttail sweater

The technique allows many different weights to be used in each module and it doesn't seem to matter, size or shapewise. It all works.

I continued to buy yarns in variegated shades so I could pack as much color as possible into my work. And more books. I got both of the Horst Schulz books, and went on to buy everything connected to the concept of mitered squares. This sweater is from Dazzling Knits.

These next three are variations from Just One More Row.com

Hand dyed Cotton, rayon, poly, silk, everything, even eyelash went into this one.


Again from Dazzling Knits.

More and more books came out on the subject and I got them all. Just do a search for modular knitting on Amazon and you will see tons of books on the topic.

St. Mel the Mitered

While not a square, this is considered a module and as in knit one module at a time. I learned after I invested in the yarn in the very top picture that one picks up and knits rather than makes a module and sews it to the next one. I learned that a little too late for the coat I had started making with all that Koigu yarn. It was frustration to the max to be making teeny one inch squares of knitting and then sewing them to other squares, FOREVER.

So I put that away until yesterday when I decided to look at the project again. Most of the coat back was done, and now that I know the right way to do this, I know it wouldn't look right to pick it up and finish it correctly. There are hundreds of seams which distort the piece differently than the correct way I would be knitting it now. So I took off the sleeves and finished off the lengths of what was started, and will make the two pieces into decorative pillows for my living room. I feel better about that learning experience now.

Speaking of color...

Don't cringe, it doesn't hurt.
Thank you all for your kind comments on my injury. I so appreciate it.