Pattern Scout
Introducing: The Eddy Wrap
Following impulses—for color or pattern, or for building our fantasy wardrobe—is a huge part of the fun of knitting. When knitwear designer Julia Farwell-Clay wrote an article for MDK about her fascination with a crazy-quilt sweater that was modeled by a movie star in Prada’s fall/winter 2016 collection, we were smitten.
When Julia then pitched us a pattern that would make this design accessible to (and wearable by) the average curious knitter, we didn’t hesitate. Do that, Julia! Make it happen!
It’s been a delight to see this design come to life in real time, and we’re excited to share it with you. We’re also grateful to Berroco for its commitment to Ultra Alpaca, a yarn that we’ve turned to again and again for its beauty, affordability and incredible range of colors.
We hope many of you will join us on this lark, and soon find yourselves swathed in a Prada-inspired masterpiece that flew off your own needles.
—Kay and Ann
The Eddies of the Eddy Wrap
When I wrote about my Prada sweater swatching experiments, many knitters were piqued by the process and wanted to know above all else if I could be talked into releasing a pattern for a Prada-inspired sweater.
I wrote a long explanation about my feelings on the subject in the comments to that post. You can read it if you’re curious, but the blunt answer was a simple “no.”
Somebody at Prada had a ton of fun playing with this stitch motif.
Then, after a number of conversations with smart people with good arguments, I wavered. Just a little. While I thought about it, I kept knitting and posted my progress to Instagram, hoping intrepid knitters would pick up their needles and follow suit. There were indeed a few fellow travelers, and in my next post I’ll share with you some of the conversations I’ve had with them.
In the meantime, a lightbulb moment, in the form of advice from fellow designer Thea Colman, changed my direction in thinking. “You’re designing a lot of shawls lately,” she said. “Why don’t you make a shawl?”
Shazam.
Bingo.
Or whatever sound a light bulb makes when it turns on overhead.
I had an instant visual of what that would look like, and a few emails later I had yarn to make it. Kay and Ann agreed to host it here on MDK, where the journey began, and so I worked it out.
Instead of fitting shells into a tube for a sweater, I let the shells be their happy triangular selves. I had to work out the difference between a shell worked at an edge and a shell worked in the middle, but once the basics of geometry were conquered, the whole design fell into colorful place.
The shells were so fun to knit, I could hardly wait while I was working through the garter stitch foundation. Once I got to the shells, I was excited to see each new addition grow and complement its neighbor with color. The whole wrap flew off my needles.
As to details, I chose Berroco’s Ultra Alpaca for the available palette, how quickly the worsted weight gauge would work up, and for how cozy the final product would be in that yarn. I thought seven colors would cover the bases for a shawl—though the sweater features nine, it does get a bit unwieldy in the knitting bag—and I even put together alternate colorways for Kay and Ann to consider, each evoking a different mood.
How handy that we happen to have a photo of the three colorways. From left to right, we have Kay’s Colorway, EddY (THE colorway used for the photography sample), and PATINA. —YOUR FAITHFUL Editors
You start with a top-down triangle, plump up the final row with some short row units for a foundation, then add the colored shells using more short rows. The shawl works up quickly, and you might even get carried away once you start in on the shells. I used six rows, but you can keep going.
The pattern has tips for adjusting the size or if you want to go a little crazy and add a few rows of shells; meanwhile you can follow the color map or go your own way, it’s all fine in my book.
I’ve started a thread in The Lounge, “The Eddy Wrap,” to serve as a centralized forum for questions and progress photos, and I’ll be available there for as long as people remain interested. I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed that you’ll find this inspiring, and hope you’ll knit one. Or two.
And for more about that sweater? Stay tuned.
The Eddy Wrap pattern is now available in the MDK Shop and on Ravelry.
All photos of the Eddy Wrap by Gale Zucker.
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Fabulous! I like the wrap better than the original sweater, personally
This is an incredibly clever technique, and beautiful wrap, Julia!
I love the shape and the potential for color interpretations and interplay….
You mean … IT’S NOT ENTRELAC?
Now the hard part, which colorway to buy. I wear lots of black.
My first thought was that this would be a good project to use various 100g and 50g bumps of handspun yarn. It could also be a ‘memory’ wrap using up the various leftover handspun yarns that I don’t want to throw away.
I did this with a baby blanket (http://www.ravelry.com/projects/MayasMom/sock-yarn-blanket) that features scraps from every pair of socks I’ve ever knit, plus a lot of yarn scraps from friends. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to diminish my hoard of scraps.
Your last sentence made me laugh 🙂 I once knit a pair of socks using leftover tiny balls from several earlier pairs of socks. I just made it up as I went along, no plan at all, and they turned out to be one of my favorite pairs of socks, ever. They even won a ribbon at a fair! But when they were done, I found I had…even tinier balls of leftover yarn.
Love this idea!
Love st first sight!
Super pretty, great colors….looks like a lot of fun to make.
Patina, please.
Love this? I’m wondering about using a variegated yarn for the shells? Instead of so many different skeins colors? Would that work?
I am completely smitten. Thank you. And I can’t stop thinking about a colorway based on the photos of the two women, above. Sable brown with red, gray, tan, and brown shells or dark gray with acid green, tan, burgundy, and rust? Just fab.
Tessellations! Beautiful!
Am I the only one seeing hundreds of ends to be woven in?
My thought as well!
This is gorgeous, and I love Kay’s colorway. However, I have no time to knit something for myself. And I sure as heck don’t need more yarn. Nope. Don’t need more yarn. (Repeating…. repeating…. repeating….)
A great way to use up all those bits and bobs of yarn too beautiful to throw away but not enough to make a garment. The sweaters are reminiscent of those modular knits we used to create in the late 1990s made popular by designers such as Horst Schultz and Vivian Hǿxbro. We knit the shells one motif at a time with a “join as you go” method thus weaving in ends.
I hear Eddy himself’s taken.
Will you be getting anymore of the Eddy colorway?
yes, they will be restocked soon! Berroco is super quick in shipping, so never fear!
Thanks! Just ordered it today. Love the pattern. I hope I don’t mess up!
Would love to see this motif done as a poncho!
After agonizing about colors, I ended up finding a bin of discontinued Ultra Alpaca at my LYS in the autumn/earthtones I had been considering for the shells around a oatmeal brown base. And I had been given a gift card, so why debate any further?
I ended up ripping out to use a 96 stitch per side base shawl – I didn’t think I would have enough of the base color to do the shells in that color if I started with the 110 st base that the pattern shows.
Also, although the pattern doesn’t make it clear, I decided that using the German Short Row method of pulling the stitch up tight to the needle while pulling the yarn to the back between the slip wyif to the next knit stitch on the Set up for Shells rows would reduced any gaps in that area.
Last but not least, I bought 2 skeins in one of the shell colors, and I am hoping that will give me enough yarn to make a second wrap as a gift, with that color as the base, and all the other shell colors the same as mine.
The Ultra Alpaca yarn is amazing to work with!