As soon as Andrea Mowry released her sweater pattern for Rhinebeck 2024, I was in love. The Framed sweater has a colourwork design that is so quilty! The block strongly reminds me of the Ohio Star quilt block that I learned about when quilting my grandmother’s sampler quilt in 2023. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s definitely similar. I love a crafty crossover! The sample is knit in Spin Cycle yarns (Dream State and Spinster’s Daughter), and it’s so beautiful. It’s designed for worsted weight yarn, and the two Spin Cycle yarns are both superwash. Dream State is a colour gradient collection of yarn, which is the main thing that delayed me actually starting to knit this pattern – I couldn’t find a substitute yarn that I was super happy with! But eventually I did, which I’ll talk about below, and I’m so happy with how it all turned out!
It is so hard to find a good colour gradient yarn in worsted weight. Everything I could find was either colours I didn’t enjoy, or the gradient wasn’t long enough to look very good on a sweater-sized garment, or the transition between colours was not my favourite, or it wasn’t the right weight. The yarns from Spin Cycle are SO beautiful, and it was really inspirational to see all of the different kits they put together for the Framed pattern. You can see them in this Instagram post. My favourite combos are the ones in slides 5 and 7 of that post. I THINK (the bundles aren’t available anymore because they were sold for Rhineback last year) the combo in slide 5 is Dream State in Always Yours, with Spinster’s Daughter in Old Man Coyote and Bittersweet Nightshade. The combo in slide 7 (again, I think) is Dream State in Fluorite, with Spinster’s Daughter in Bison Princess and Sunny’s. But the price is Spin Cycle is so beyond me, especially as a Canadian who’d have to deal with shipping and the exchange rate. For the yarn I’d need for this sweater, if I used the sample yarn, I’m pretty sure when I checked (with infinite optimism and no real sense of hope) at the time it would’ve cost me around $500CAD from Spin Cycle directly. If I could have found everything I wanted from a Canadian seller, I think it still would’ve been over $400CAD. Which is not an amount I am willing to or can afford to spend on a single sweater, even though the Spin Cycle yarn is incredibly dreamy and I LOVE their colours so much.
I asked on my Instagram stories if anyone had any suggestions for worsted weight yarns with a good colour change, and the ones that I ended up liking the looks of the best were from Noro. If you know Noro yarns, you may be thinking, those are also expensive. And you are correct. But they aren’t as expensive as Spin Cycle and they are more accessible to me in Canada. And their balls are HUGE (…not a sentence I expected to type today but also I can’t figure out a better way to say it!) – 150g to 200g balls in the yarns I ended up using. One of my local yarn shops carries Noro Kureyon (worsted 100% wool, 50g balls); Silk Garden (worsted 45% silk, 45% mohair, 10% wool, 50g balls); Rittou (worsted 70% wool, 15% silk, 15% mohair, 150g balls); and Tasogare (DK/worsted 60% wool, 20% silk, 20% mohair, 150g balls). I eventually bought two balls of the Tasogare and intended to find coordinating solids later on, since I didn’t want to rush the colour choosing process and I wasn’t ready to cast it on yet anyway. I honestly was probably only 80% in love with the colourway I chose, but it had been the thing I could find that I liked the best and the hunt had been going on for too long.
Then, my friend C and I went to Gaspereau Valley Fibres, which is a magical place and they carry yarns that trend toward more rustic, farm yarns, 100% wools, etc. They have a sister business called Wool & Tart (yes, it also sells baked goods) that tends to carry more of the commercial yarns with mixed fibres. At Gaspereau Valley Fibres, they carry Noro Malvinas which comes in 150g balls, and as Noro describes it: “Malvinas is a pure blend of 100% merino wool from Malvinas, Spanish for the Falkland islands, off the coast of Argentina. Workhorse yarn with special emphasis on colourwork projects, (slip stitch mosaic, fair isle, striping) due to vibrant semi-solid colours designed to be the same gauge as other popular worsted weight Noro yarns such as Kureyon, Ito, Viola, & Silk Garden. Many of the colours were selected from popular Noro multi colors so that they will coordinate perfectly! Combine your favourite color of one of these popular yarns with Malvinas, to make very interesting pieces — the possibilities are literally endless!” They also carry Noro Ito, which comes in 200g balls: “Noro’s Ito yarn is a kaleidoscope of color and texture that ignites the imagination. Ito is not just any yarn—it’s a slubby, worsted weight wonder, crafted from 100% wool and packaged in generous 200-gram skeins boasting 437 yards of creative potential. Prepare to be mesmerized as you knit with Ito, as its ever-changing color spectrum unfolds before your eyes. One of Noro’s most vibrant creations, Ito weaves together a symphony of hues, daring you to count the myriad colors dancing within each ball. A single skein of Ito is more than enough to knit a captivating scarf, but it also shines brilliantly when used for head-turning sweaters and statement accessories. Embrace the challenge and let your creativity soar with Noro’s Ito yarn—where every stitch tells a story of color, texture, and endless inspiration.” Even though I already had the two balls of Tasogare at home, I just loved the colours of Ito so much more, and they had the Malvinas there in a few colours that I thought would go with the colourway of Ito that I loved. It was a splurge for sure, but I knew I would be much happier with the colours and end product – and still nowhere NEAR as expensive as the Spin Cycle. I would totally tell you the amount it cost but Gaspereau doesn’t have online shopping and I don’t remember the exact prices and I don’t want to just make stuff up!
These are the colours I picked:
I’d never knit with a slubby yarn before, and it had also been a long time since I’d used a worsted weight. In fact, the last time I used a worsted weight for a sweater (my first colourwork sweater), I didn’t actually like the finished product and a few weeks ago I completely unraveled that project so I could use the yarn for something else. I had completely forgotten how fast it would knit up! And the slubs were very fun to knit with – sometimes the yarn was almost fingering-thin and sometimes it was a fluffy chunky yarn! And I love how the colours look together. All of the research and questing ended up paying off, which is very satisfying.
In terms of the actual knitting, the Framed sweater is knit bottom up and after you split for the armholes, you have to do colourwork knit flat for a bit. I’d never knit a bottom up sweater, and I’d never done colourwork not in the round, so I got to learn new things. Bottom up sweater make me wary because I have a short torso and prefer my sweaters a bit short in the first place. I usually try sweaters on quite a few times as I’m knitting them in order to make sure I get the perfect length. Not being able to (easily) change the length after the sweater was mostly finished is not my favourite. With this sweater, since it has the colourwork block motif, you’re also limited in how much you can shorten or lengthen it without cutting a block in half horizontally. I ended up just knitting the amount of repeats suggested by the pattern, and it worked out fine! My gauge was a bit off, so I knit size 2 and then it came out as size 3, which is the one I actually wanted in terms of measurements. This is very typical for me, and at this point I’m used to knitting a combo of one size in circumference and another size in length. The three needle bind-off on the shoulders was a new technique to me, and the pattern has you do it with the seam on the outside. I really enjoyed the technique and I like how it looks as an added design detail!
This sweater came out exactly as I’d hoped it would when I first started my Framed scheming! I’m excited to wear it lots once it gets cooler – when I took these photos it was the middle of a heatwave and I got SO SWEATY. Trying to look cool and calm while being super warm and trying to get the photos done as quickly as possible was a challenge for this not-model. I’m a bit late to the Framed train because it was for Rhinebeck last fall, but since I have never been to Rhinebeck, I say better late than never!
