Well, back to business! How to sign a sweater that is not knit in some complex colorwork technique. (It might surprise longtime readers to know that I actually have knit a number of solid-colored sweaters, by the way, so no need to apologize!)
I can think of four ways to sign such a garment:
1. Make a hem and use stranded knitting or duplicate stitch to sign the hem. For example, the hem of a sweater I knit for my mother reads: "Happy birthday Mom 2002." I learned about this from the writings of Elizabeth Zimmermann (page 25 Knitting Without Tears and many other places).
2. Use a similar but not exactly the same color or fiber yarn to knit your initials into the sweater (duplicate stitch could work). For example, I can envision a lovely off white wool sweater with initials knit in out of off white silk. This would result in a sweetly private little tattoo.
3. Use purl or seed stitches to sign your garment. This is the classic gansey method--knitters would put initials into the stocking stitch area of the garment just above the welt. Knitting Ganseys by Beth Brown-Reinsel has a page of texture alphabets (page 32). The tricky thing is that single purl stitches in vertical columns will disappear into the fabric, so you need at least 2 purl stitches to make a readable letter.
Tamar pointed out that Aran sweaters often have a (relatively) unpatterned underarm area where one could sneak in initials without disturbing the overall design. Yes! Some people like to make the initials stand out and others like to be discreet. For the extroverts in the crowd, you could put the initials inside large cables.
By the way, the gansey image link leads to the blog "Knitting Letters: A to Z" by Union Purl. This is a fabulous look at different ways to express the letters of the alphabet.
4. Embroidery. This is shown to wonderful effect in the Margaret Sweater from Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines, where Mary Neal Meador has written out three different quotations--so initials would be a cinch!
Other ideas????
Teaching
My color class at Madrona Fiber Arts has a long waiting list, but two spaces are still available for the class at Village Yarn and Tea in Seattle on February 21st!
Redbud
Thank you all for the compliments on Redbud! Your kind words were much appreciated.
Hmm...no ideas, but I love the dup stitch idea - especially your phrasing in describing it.
Posted by: Linda | January 25, 2009 at 11:14 AM