Uncategorized – Unapologetically Ersatz

The Evolution of my Ultralight Camp Sweaters

Stack of sweaters — Evolution of all the sweaters I’ve taken backpacking.

It became a thing when I started backpacking. Wool is the best insulator and I am always cold. I prefer to make for myself what other people would spend money on, especially when you start shopping for technical garments. A Google search for “ultralight wool sweater” will return a lot of expensive sweaters that don’t necessarily weigh any more or less than ones I have made by hand. If you’re primarily concerned about weight, then you can spend a lot of money on a thin wool sweater that is effective, but not exactly cozy.

Yellow stockinette sweater high neck — The first generation of sweaters I took backpacking, was never meant for such heavy use at all.

The first generation of my camp sweater was not intended to be worn at camp at all. It was a bright yellow alpaca pullover. An oversized thing that weighed over a pound and couldn’t be machine washed. It was never intended to be worn outdoors, it was supposed to be super cute and cropped but I didn’t swatch, so that’s what you get.

Yellow cabled sweater — The back, it was supposed to be cropped with the cable resembling a spine, but I didn’t swatch so it’s too big.

It’s a very warm sweater, but it took up about the space of a soccer ball in my backpack. Not a good ultralight option at all, but it was a great starting point. For one, I was not cold on that trip at all. I wore it all over Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, especially around camp. It rained for much of the time we were there, but I wasn’t cold or wet.

Green sweater with long arms — This cabled friend was supposed to hug my body, but instead it grew and grew. It has the longest arms in the world. I wear it a lot.

The second generation of camp sweater was supposed to improve on the shortfalls of the first one. I made it using superwash merino wool, with thumbholes in the sleeves and ribbing I’d hoped would cause it to hug my body. Alas, it didn’t work. The ribbing spread, taking the neckline with it. The sleeves grew in length, while the body grew out instead of down. So it’s just a bit too short, a bit too wide, and – somehow – a bit too long. I wear it a lot around the house because it’s still very cozy, but I do not consider it acceptable for Zoom meetings.

A long grey sweater with funnel neck — This was on the money for length and size, but the stockinette was a bit loose, and the pocket fell in a too-low place that ultimately doesn’t exactly work.

The third generation of camp sweater built again on the shortfalls of the previous generations. This time, I knit it in fingering weight instead of worsted and lengthened it intentionally below my butt. I added shaping to the body and my sleeves (including thumb holes) were correctly sized. I got ambitious and thought I’d add a kangaroo pocket to the front. That wound up a bit comically low. Effective, but not aesthetically pleasing. It’s a pretty good utility sweater, to be honest, but I am probably going to tear it apart and reclaim the yarn.

Brown cabled sweater — This sweater relied on negative ease, and an all-over cabling pattern to keep the sweater close to the body. This completely worked, but it could be a little more aesthetically pleasing. Plus, I’d still like pockets. A huge success, with room to grow.

The fourth generation of camp sweater didn’t have a pocket. It transitioned pretty well between camp and day hikes. Its fingering-weight superwash merino, which I’ve found is the heaviest weight you should use on a camp sweater (to preserve that weight) and really sculpt it to the frame you want (your body). This time, I took the ribbed idea that didn’t work from generation two and added cabling, so it would have an incentive to hug my body.

Up close detail of cabling — Please mind the blue fuzz, this sweater has been knocked around, machine washed, AND dried. My camp sweater is supposed to take abuse, and this one has performed admirably.

I added the oak leaves because I’d been writing a book about using the transit system to visit nature, and was inspired by the oaks I had seen. I thought they would be a nice homage to the natural landscape where I live, which has given so much to me and is so undoubtedly beautiful. I wore this successfully on two trips to Isle Royale National Park, though I did have to add flannel to the mix if I camped too close to the lake.

Pile of blue and yellow yarn — There were a lot of successes in this, but I’d still like a pocket, and maybe a higher neck. And what if it had a detachable hood that could double as a hat? Really keep the draft out that way.

The fifth-generation will build on the successes of the fourth. I picked up a few hanks of Knitpicks Static in Beekeeper, a 75/25 Merino/Nylon blend – the best I have found for the camp sweater, to balance warmth and washability. I haven’t quite decided on the design, but I will probably do another all-over cabling. That really helps it to keep snug against the body, and I like to go camping where it’s cold, so that matters. I really want to figure out hidden pockets.

What is tatting?

A few years ago, I was gifted a set of teeny tiny crochet hooks that all seemed between 60 and 100 years old. I was told they were tatting hooks, but the person who told me that had never tatted a single tat in her life, nor had I, so I didn’t think much of them. Also, I don’t really crochet. No one was quite sure where they came from, but they were stored in a thin, tall, glass jar that was too short and top heavy, so it falls over a lot. I stored that jar inside a mason jar, and they quit falling over. I then put the mason jar on top of a shelf and forgot about them for a few years.

The fine folks over at FaveCrafts.com asked me to put together a short article explaining tatting to the lay audience, and since I’d had some questions about those crochet hooks, and I rarely leave my house anymore, I was happy to oblige. I’m still not finished with my first tatting project, but if you see me on the morning work video calls, I’m probably making little half hitch knots the whole time.

Read “What is Tatting?” on Favecrafts today.

Free pattern: Sunshine Yellow Baby Sweater

I was so excited to knit this little sweater for All Free Knitting. This little cardigan is cute as a button, a challenge for a novice knitter, but interesting enough to keep a more experienced one engaged. It’s one of those baby sweaters that any parent would be delighted to have for their little one. Knit with a raglan sleeve, there’s no seaming on this gorgeous baby cardigan, and therefore no fuss.

The body is worked back and forth to the armholes. Increases are worked on the knit rows, and the purl rows are flat. The armholes are then held on waste yarn while you finish working the body. Each armhole is worked one at a time. The garment is knit in a simple stockinette stitch with 1×1 ribbing at the neckline, armholes, button band and hem, and the bottom is worked with a simple bind-off. Knitting the first stitch on both the right and wrong sides of this cardigan will help keep it from curling. The button band is added at the end and the buttonholes are worked in a double yarnover, inside a purl stitch, so it should be minimally visible and keep the button snug on baby’s chest.

Check it out at All Free Knitting, or look at my project on Ravelry.

Free Pattern: The last Halloween witch hat you’ll ever need.

Like many Millennials, I think witches fucking rule. At this point I’ve probably been a witch for Halloween well over a dozen times in my life, and mostly wear a lot of black every day of the year.

Here’s the thing though, as an adult dressing as a witch at Halloween is kind of low effort. That’s fine, we’ve all got stuff going on. Besides, fear of witches is rooted in fear of powerful women, and exploiting that for personal gain is always going to be in style. In past years, I’ve always realized too late that I really ought to wear the hat if I’m going to dress as a witch again, so I end up buying a cheap witch’s hat at a party store or Walgreens. This year, I decided to make the last witch hat I’ll ever need.

I wish I could tell you this is a super easy project, and in some ways it is. Knitting the hat is easy enough, but then there is a fair amount of fabric manipulation required to get it to act like a witch hat, and not just a pointy knit hat. (We’re trying to go for Fear Of Powerful Women, here not Floppy Elf Hat But In Black.)

Construction was fairly easy, I cast on, joined in the round and decreased four stitches every three rows until I was out of stitches. Then I picked up the same number of stitches that I had cast on and increased nine stitches every other row until I ran out of yarn. I used an Aran weight yarn made of wool, mohair and silk (I had exactly one ball of it, so this was an ideal stash buster). I knit it on size 9 needles. When it was done, I had the right shape that I was looking for, but it was entirely too large and floppy. (I expected this.)

The plan was to felt the hat, which would involve shrinking it to the right size to fit on my head and hopefully create a stronger, denser fabric with less flop. I started trying to felt it on the stove, but after two hours of standing in the kitchen making hat soup, it wasn’t nearly as close to shrunk as it needed to be. So I threw it in the washing machine on hot with a couple of towels and agitated the hell out of it until it was the correct size and density. I think this took about three cycles.

Hat soup. Not effective enough to felt it the way I needed it to.

Once it was felted, I blocked it by stuffing the hat with newspaper to maintain the shape I wanted. I pinned down the brim and base, which allowed me to shape it a little bit better for the size of my head.

Now that I was pleased with the size and density of the hat, I had to contend with the absolute floppiness. It had the big brim I was looking for, but I couldn’t see in front of my face with it on. The cone was pointy, sure, but it fell flat against my head like an old timey nightcap in a Dickens novel.

I considered my fabric stiffener options and decided to give cornstarch a try, mostly because it’s what I had. I used literally all of the remaining cornstarch in my house to do this. I sent it through two heavy starch cycles in the washing machine, which was pretty good for getting the level of stiffness I was looking for out of the hat, but the brim remained floppy.

This project taught me how starching your clothes works.

Finally, I decided to bring out the big guns and apply heat and cornstarch directly to the brim and interior of the hat, which should (I hoped) get the results I was looking for. It did okay! The hat now stood at attention like I was hoping for, but the brim was still clearly fighting gravity.

Before felting and wires and cornstarch there was just a skeleton, with a pumpkin on its head, looking cute in a floppy hat.

Rather than considering other chemical options, I decided to do what I knew would work, and use 18 gauge aluminum wire, black anodized, tied around the outside edge of the brim with even more yarn, to get the Woman of the Dark Arts halo I was looking for .

And that was the missing piece of the puzzle.

Materials:

250 yards Aran weight, feltable yarn in your preferred hat color

Size 9 needles

Tapestry needle

Sewing needle with eye sufficiently large enough for yarn to pass through

Blocking mat, pins and old newspaper (you’ll block this hat several times, so it makes sense to re-use the newspaper to ensure consistent shaping).

Washing machine, set on hot, heavy agitation

Pillowcase

Iron, ironing board

½ cup of cornstarch, 2 cups of water (or other fabric stiffeners)

18 gauge aluminum wire

Wire cutters

50 yards DK weight yarn in coordinating or matching color

To make the hat:
Cast on 100 stitches

Join in the round, being careful not to twist

Knit two rounds

(SSK, K 23 sts, pm, k2tog, k 23 sts, pm) twice

Knit two rounds

(SM, SSK, knit to M, SM, k2tog, knit to M) twice

Knit two rounds

Repeat these last three rounds three more times

(SM, SSK, Knit to M, SM, K2tog, knit to M) twice

Knit three rounds

Repeat these last four rounds until 24 stitches remain

(SM, SSK, k 12, PM, k2tog, k to M) twice

Knit two rounds

Repeat these last three rounds until 12 stitches remain

SSK, K2tog across row

Knit one row for extra pointiness

Pull tail through remaining stitches.

Brim: Along the cast on edge pick up 100 stitches

K 12 sts, PM, (K11 sts, PM) eight times

On the next row M1 sts at each marker

Knit one row

Increase one stitch at each marker

Continue these last two rows, increasing 9 stitches per row, until your brim has reached sufficient size or you run out of yarn.

Cast off.

Felt the hat:
Place the hat inside the pillowcase, tie the pillowcase in one simple knot. Throw it in the washing machine with two or three towels and set it to agitate. Check the progress of your felting between each round. It may take multiple rounds.

Block the hat by stuffing it with old newspaper to maintain the pointy shape. Pin the brim as flat and as large as you can. Let dry.

Stiffen the hat:

Mix ¼ cup cornstarch with equal amounts water, until it forms a liquid (NOT paste). Throw in the washing machine on rinse and spin, with the felted hat again tied in the pillowcase. Repeat this process twice if desired results not seen.

Block it again until the same method as before.

Stiffen the brim:

Using a similar mix of cornstarch and water as before, but this time put it in a spray bottle. Using your iron, set on medium high, spray the cornstarch mixture onto the parts of the hat that still need to straighten up and fly right. Try and apply it primarily to the inside and underside, be careful of stains.

Block it again using the same method as before.

Wire application:

Cut a length of 18 gauge aluminum wire that is sufficiently long enough for the circumference of the brim, with a few inches of overlap. Use tack stitches to attach it to four corners of your hat, which will make it easier to finish without a long wire flapping everywhere. With your sewing needle and DK weight yarn, wrap the wire around the edge of the hat, using the yarn to conceal the wire. Wrap the ends of the wire at least 10 times so they don’t poke out.

Never buy a cheap witch hat from the party store ever again.

Got questions? Want to show me your witch hat? Want to form a coven? Reach out on Instagram @unapologeticallyersatz.

How to knit duplicate stitches

The headline is something of a misleading one because you don’t actually knit duplicate stitches. Duplicate stitch (sometimes called Swiss Darning) is a decorative stitch worked directly on top of your stockinette stitches.

I learned the duplicate stitch when I saw Nicky Epstein’s Highland Fling Plaid Jacket and realized that I very badly needed to learn how to knit plaids. The answer (at least in this scenario) is that you don’t knit plaid. You knit horizontal stripes and add the vertical stripes when you are done, creating the plaid. Nicky Eptstein’s jacket is written for an Aran weight yarn and I had a sufficient quantity and variety of DK weight yarn to do this project in. What I failed to consider when I cast on was that my lighter weight yarn would mean an eternity sewing on vertical stripes.

I really like this stitch, and I’m very likely to use it again in future projects. It’s a great stitch for when you want to add a small detail (cute little flower at your sweater hem?) or in this case, tp completely transform a garment.

Materials needed:

Tapestry needle
Coordinating color yarn
Worked stockinette stitch

Pro tip: Keep the length of yarn you are working with long enough that you won’t need to keep cutting and weaving in new lengths, but not so long that it will become a tangled mess. That’s how you get knots in your work, guys.

Step 1: With a length of yarn threaded through the needle but not knotted, anchor your yarn at the back of the work by weaving it through existing stitches. I used a safety pin to mark where I want my duplicate stitches to begin, and that make it easy to find where I wanted to put them.

Step 2: Pull your yarn through to the front. All remaining work will be done from the front of the work.

For vertical stitches:
Step 3: Work the tapestry needle under the legs of the stitch above it and gently pull it through.

You can start see how the new decorative stitch mimics the stockinette below it.

Step 4: Work the tapestry needle back into the same hole where you pulled the yarn from at the beginning of this stitch. Work the needle under the bar between the stockinette stitch and the one below it, this will help anchor it in place.

Step 5: Pull the yarn through, but not too tight. The goal is for the stitch to sit directly on top of the one beneath it, and a too-tight stitch will cause it to bunch in an unsightly way.

For horizontal stitches:
Step 3: Work the tapestry needle under the legs of the stitch next to it and gently pull it through.

Step 4: Work the tapestry needle under the legs of the stitch above the hole where your needle just came out.

Step 5: Work the needle under the legs of the stitch next to the one you just finished.

Step 6: Pull the yarn through, but not too tight. The goal is for the stitch to sit directly on top of the one beneath it, and a too-tight stitch will cause it to bunch in an unsightly way.

How to mend a sweater through darning

On Monday it was a balmy 80 degrees where I live, and this morning I woke up to find it hovering around 50. We have officially entered sweater season, you guys.

For what it’s worth, my husband is not a big fan of sweaters. A few years ago, realizing that I had never knit a sweater intended for a man-shaped person, I kind of just declared I was making him one. (He objected at first, saying that no sweater looks good on his body. I guess he had extra limbs I haven’t noticed or something IDK.)

Anyway, when I finished his sweater, he put it on, declared it very warm, and wore it around the house for the next few winters. I don’t remember the name of the pattern, but I know it was knitted with Fisherman’s Wool by Lion Brand. (Which I have to say, has aged beautifully and has become quite soft.)

Towards the end of last winter he handed me his sweater and pointed out two holes that had been growing near the back hem. I can’t explain how they got there. It’s possible he snagged it on something, that I had split a yarn during construction or maybe there was just a weak join and it didn’t hold up to wear. I can’t say. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t moths, since I haven’t ever had trouble with those elsewhere.

Since the temperatures were warming up, and not wanting to darn a sweater that wouldn’t get used for the next six months, I packed it in with my unfinished WIPs, put it on a shelf, forgot about it and then moved across town. Yesterday, he asked me when I was going to mend it so he could wear it around the house. Conveniently, I had the time.

If it were just one hole, I’d likely have opened up the stitches and re-knit the portion of the sweater using intarsa and fair isle techniques. Unfortunately, there were two. I think some stitches were dropped somewhere along the line. It seemed like it would be more work to fix the two holes by reknitting them, and hoping that it didn’t happen again. For something that rarely gets worn outside the house, it seemed like more effort than it was worth. So I decided to darn the space, reinforcing the area around the holes and creating a stronger fabric around them.
Materials needed:

Garment to mend
Matching or coordinating yarn
Tapestry needle
Darning egg (a plastic Easter egg would work in a pinch, but I’d advise against using real eggs for this purpose.)

Turn your garment inside out. Position the darning egg behind the holes to emphasize them. Begin weaving the yarn in and out of the fabric, against the direction of the stitches, until the entire area is reinforced with at least one inch of mending from the outer edges of the holes. Leave yarn floating across the missing fabric, but don’t let it be too loose or too taught.

2. Do the same thing in the opposite direction. Continue until entire hole is covered.

3. Weave in the ends. Turn it right side-in, and take pride in knowing that you’ve extended the life of your garment.

Free pattern: 1930 Art Deco evening gown

Date cast on: 12/25/2017
Date cast off: 5/19/2018
Yarn: Knit Picks Curio, black, 6 balls, $23.94
Needles: Addi Click, received as a gift in 2010, $0
Other materials: Beads, $2.50
Pattern: Alora No. 3300 Evening Gown, published Minerva Style Book No. 33, 1930, free Previous post located here
Ravelry link here
Total cost of materials: $26.44

In 1930 Minerva released a knitting pattern for an evening gown. It was very much the style of the time: floor length with a brush train, backless, gorgeous, extremely Art Deco and deeply reminiscent of the sort of pre-Depression opulence that led to the global economy heading straight into the tank.

Eighty eight years later and I get it into my head that I’d like to knit an evening gown. I have nowhere to wear an evening gown. I don’t have any formal events coming up and even if I did, the people I know are more tuxedo t-shirt and Pabst Blue Ribbon than pre-War couture and Dom Pérignon.

I wouldn’t buy a 1930’s-style vintage evening gown because undoubtedly it would cost one more boatload of money than I care to pay for something I have no occasion to wear. I can knit a gown pretty easily with enough time and Netflix, and because this gown is for me, and no occasion at all, I felt free to choose materials that are more durable and less expensive. If I were knitting my own wedding dress, cotton crochet thread wouldn’t be my first choice. Because I was knitting a gown to swan around the house for no one to see except for me, I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on laceweight silk and cashmere.

Spending hundreds of hours knitting a lace cotton 1930-style evening gown instead of spending thousands of dollars on a handmade 1930-style evening gown? That’s unapologetically ersatz.

The original pattern was knit flat and seamed together. The bodice was knit in two pieces (front and back) and the skirt was knit in three pieces (one front gore, two back gores with train.) The original gauge called for is a somewhat insane 8 sts per inch and 7 rows per inch. KnitPicks Curio mimics this gauge pretty well on size 4 needles.

Initially I knit the bodice in two pieces and ultimately used that as the gauge. I also began by knitting the front gore of the skirt. My plan had been to follow the original pattern as closely as was reasonable. About one-third of the way through the front gore I threw this idea out the window and rewrote the pattern completely. The gore I knit was obviously going to be too short (and I realized I had about 30 stitches more than I needed to) so I frogged it and rejiggered my plan.

Because the original pattern is available for free online and my design does not deviate significantly from the original (though it does in several key ways) I’m offering it for free. Feel free to create your own evening gown from this pattern, but don’t make those finished products available for commercial purposes.

This pattern is listed for a 37″ waist. The drawstring is the narrowest part of this gown and it has a generous 4″ allowance. The intention is to make an adjustable gown that would work through personal size variations for years to come. I also added back-facing shoulder straps to hold the top closed while wearing it. I added some gold beads because I think they’re nice. I also erred in my initial calculations on length so it pools at my feet. My dress is more Morticia Addams than Ginger Rogers and I couldn’t be happier with that. If you’re going for something more Ginger Rogers and less Morticia Addams, try on your skirt periodically as you near the end. My pattern is knit completely in the round.

There is only one size listed. I invite you to reach out to me if you find any miscalculations in my math so that I can correct it.

Download Free Pattern Alora 3300 House Gown

Original 1930 Alora pattern.

House Gown: Alora No. 3300 Evening Gown

Date cast on: 12/25/2017
Yarn: Knit Picks Curio, black, 5 balls, $11.95
Needles: Addi Click, received as a gift in 2010, $0
Other materials: Beads, $2.50
Pattern: Alora No. 3300 Evening Gown, published Minerva Style Book No. 33, 1930, free
Ravelry link here
Follow my progress on Instagram
Total cost of materials: $14.45

What’s a house gown? A house gown is a gown you wear in your house for no particular reason. Come on, don’t ask silly questions. The house gown is beautiful, it’s made of a lovely fabric. Maybe it’s a slinky velvet number that you just can’t pull off without a complicated bra. Don’t worry though, you don’t have to wear a bra with your house gown. Who is gonna see you? Only the people who routinely see you braless anyway. Maybe it’s a lace weight vintagey thing with a bajillion holes to catch on things and a train that will get ruined on the sidewalk. If it’s a house gown, that doesn’t matter because you’re probably not going to leave your house in it anyway. Where do you have to go all dressed up fancy like that? You’re tired and just want to sit on the couch watching Law & Order and knitting impractical garments. That’s what the house gown is for. I believe in house gowns and you can too.

This particular pattern is listed for only one size and I am a 21st Century lady who does not fit that size. It’s cool, everyone is beautiful in their house gowns. So I made some rough estimates on sizing and the top wound up, I would say, significantly larger than I had planned. No worries, though. If I’m going to spend several months knitting an impractical gown for no particular occasion or reason, I will want this to be a gown I can swan around my house in for years to come. The challenge there is that my body is forever and ever changing shape. Sometimes I put on weight, sometimes I lose it. Sometimes I go ham at the gym and wind up with the ass of a warrior goddess and thighs that could crush a watermelon. Sometimes, I just kind of stick to yoga and overeating. All bodies are beautiful and I am apparently going to cycle through a lot of shapes before I leave this mortal coil. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

So the answer is to knit a gown that is larger than what I need currently but not so large that it no longer functions. No matter what, this number is backless. Which makes fit tricky in the first place. This pattern was written with the original intent that the wearer will use a belt to disguise the seam between the bodice and the skirt, but that’s not how I envision it because I rarely accessorize my house gown. My plan, rather than to disguise the seam, is to integrate it using a belt made of I-cord and a drawstring made of a smaller I-cord. The way I see it, if I knit a gown that is entirely too big, I’ll just feel disappointed in myself for not knowing how to gauge anything properly (which is a common problem for me.) If I knit something much too large and try it on in a few years and learn it does fit, that means I have grown into my gown and probably should get back to the gym so my dress won’t fit again. The drawstring solves all of this. If I can cinch it around my natural waist the original intent of the pattern should be maintained and I can wear my house gown at a variety of body shapes and sizes. Depending on how everything shakes out, a smattering of gold beads should take this from effectively a giant negligee to something slightly more thoughtful than that.

Rough approximation of the process as follows:

Knit the front section to use as a gauge and practice the pattern. Finished it. Disliked my work. Blocked it.
Knit back, much larger than anticipated. I can work with it.
Cast on front panel, knit about 6 increases. Counted my stitches and somehow had 30 more than I needed. Frogged and blocked the yarn for reuse.
Decided maybe I should start with measurements of myself and really work out the math on this one.
Decided to do the skirt in the round rather than panels. Think this will yield a slightly less structured product, but ultimately who cares, this is a house gown. This will eliminate all purls so keeping track of rows will become more important. It will be guaranteed that the front and two back panels match, however.
I found if you add the increases on either side of the S1K2TOG PSSO you can add the stitches more invisibly.
After about a solid month of knitting the skirt, I think I’m about 40% complete with it. Before I cast on in the round, I basically rewrote the pattern completely, which was for the best. I’m confident that it will fit me adjustably in the future, and it’s even a little less risque than I had expected (we’ll see about that when it’s all finished though.) Eliminating all the purl rows significantly sped up knitting this skirt. I’m effectively knitting three panels at once, without seams, instead of knitting three separate panels and seaming them together later. I worry this may change the weight or shape of the fabric, but I’m willing to risk it if it means I actually complete this garment.
I may wind up knitting the bodice a third time, but talk to me after I’m done with the train. Yes, there’s a train.
I really like knitting with this yarn. I’ve always been impressed by the quality of the products I buy from Knit Picks. I’ve found Wool of the Andes to be a little too itchy for day-to-day sweater wear, but anything with alpaca they want to sell me I am likely to buy. Curio is what they call a crochet thread, and I can see how they got there. It doesn’t catch, it doesn’t split. I could see this being very useful for a crochet project if that were a thing I knew how to do.
I think if I estimated the amount of time I will ultimately wind up spending on this project and multiplied that by the amount of money I would charge as an hourly rate, this is easily going to be a multi-thousand dollar gown made out of almost $15 in materials.

What is Unapologetically Ersatz?

Unapologetic
adjective un·apol·o·get·ic \ ˌən-ə-ˌpä-lə-ˈje-tik \
Definition of unapologetic : not apologetic : offered, put forward, or being such without apology or qualification an unapologetic liberal
— unapologetically \ˌən-ə-ˌpä-lə-ˈje-ti-k(ə-)lē\ adverb

Ersatz
adjective er·satz \ ˈer-ˌsäts , -ˌzäts ; er-ˈzäts , -ˈsäts ; ˈər-ˌsats \
Definition of ersatz: being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation ersatz turf ersatz intellectuals
— ersatz noun

I’ve got finer taste than I can afford. I’ve got champagne taste and a High Life budget. I own a Dior bathrobe, but I found it at the thrift store. I like cashmere sweaters and merino socks but I have a lot of trouble justifying paying retail for them.

I’m unapologetically ersatz.

I’ve been knitting since I was 16 years old and over the years I’ve also become something of a fiber snob. I never knit with Red Heart because I can find less squeaky yarn for the same price online. I know that I can create a garment better than I can afford, if I put in the work and source the materials myself. If I’m going to go to all the trouble of knitting myself a sweater, I want to make it in a natural fiber that I know will keep me extra-warm in the winter time. I’m a fan of vintage outfits, so when I decided I wanted a 1930’s style evening gown, I spent $20 on 5,000 yards of cotton crochet thread and cast it on size four needles.

Is it as fancy or high end as a well-cared for, mint condition, genuine silk vintage gown cut on the bias in 1930? No, of course not. But I bet I’ll feel really glamorous swanning around my house in a huge lace skirt and train. Do I have anywhere to wear it? No, I do not. Does that matter? It also does not. I’m a free American and I can wear whatever I want no matter how impractical inside my own house.

That’s unapologetically ersatz.

Check out my Highland Fling Plaid Jacket

Shortly after I moved into my new house I took a bookshelf that used to be stacked two-rows deep with books and filled it with yarn instead. This was among the best craft ideas that I have ever had.

Wait, let’s step back a minute. Well over five years ago, I got a very ambitious idea in my head that I would hand-knit a Christmas stocking for every member of my family and all the boyfriends or husbands we weren’t going away. Had I achieved this goal, I would have knit nine fair isle, oversized stockings, each individually named, with a reinforced toe (so it can support the weight of wine bottles) and a contrasting heel for good measure.

I bought all the yarn I needed to make all nine stockings, and identified different colors for every person so they would all coordinate without matching. Then, I spent a full month knitting my own, which I considered a test-run, and decided I did not want to make nine of these. I put all the yarn in a box, shoved it into the corner of my living room, and forgot about it.

When I moved, I finally had my own office in which to store everything. So instead of trying to hide the amount of stuff that was in our apartment, we could now thoughtfully display the things we have artfully placed around the house. So I took my entire yarn stash out of the boxes and bags I’d been storing it in for the better part of 20 years and put it on a shelf. Now it is nice and extremely cozy and colorful in my office, which is deeply comforting.

Long story short, I put all the different colors I had purchased for my overly ambitious and long since abandoned Christmas stocking project, and suddenly I saw that they all looked pretty good together. I also saw that I had a shit ton of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Sport in a bunch of colors that aren’t really in my wardrobe generally. Then, a few weeks later, I was flipping through Nicky Epstein’s Knitting on Top of the World and saw the Highland Fling Plaid Jacket.

In that moment, I needed to learn how to knit plaid. I realized that I had no idea how this could be done, and it seemed like sorcery. I also saw that I had more than enough yarn in more than enough colors to make this project. The major challenge is that while all my yarn was sport weight, this pattern is written for Aran weight. No problem, I said to myself, I’ll just tack on another pattern repeat and it’ll all come out in blocking. I kind of expected that this jacket would be oversized, and to me it was more important that the plaids all match than that it actually fit. I failed to do any gauging, fudged a bunch of numbers and knit size large as the pattern called for it.

You’ll be pleased to know that all of my plaids match and that this jacket is tremendously large and I love it.

Pattern: Highland Fling Plaid Jacket, Nicky Epstein’s Knitting on Top of the World
Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Sport
Total yarn weight: 782 grams (about 1.7 pounds), which is about 16 balls.
Modifications: Added one extra repeat of the striping across all pieces, knit in size large.
Needles: Addi Click size 7
Yarn Review: This is an affordable and easy-to-work-with yarn that comes in a huge variety of sizes and colors. It’s 100% wool and softens beautifully over time.
Pattern Review: This pattern is crazy simple. Somehow it’s still taken me two months to finish it. Partially, that’s my fault for not realizing that sport weight yarn takes more stitches than Aran weight yarn to do the same thing. (I mean, I realized it, I just chose to ignore it.)

The jacket is knit flat and in pieces, with no shaping. It’s actually been a really long time since I knit a garment flat and seamed it together. I know I tried it a few times when I was just learning to knit and I found it to be stuffy and too much work, and I could cut corners by knitting in the round. This time around, it was kind of a refreshing change of pace. I blocked as I pulled each piece off the needles, blocking the fronts, collars and sleeves together so they’d all be the same size. Then I seamed them all together, knit an i-cord accent for the collar, put it on, marveled at the size of it. (An absolute unit of a cardigan.)

So how do you knit plaid?

You don’t. You knit a lot of horizontal stripes and add the vertical stripes using duplicate stitch after seaming your garment together. This process took my jacket from something it looked like I knit it while chilling out in Baja California, to something found in the Scottish Highlands.

To make so many color changes as I was creating the horizontal stripes, I learned how to do the Russian Join. That involves taking the ends of two lengths of yarn and weaving them back on themselves to create a strong transition between two colors, without an end to weave in later.

I learned how to do the duplicate stitch so I could finish this jacket, and now I feel like I have a shiny new tool in my stash. I’ll definitely use it again down the line to make future projects pop in really interesting ways.

I lost yarn chicken exactly one stripe short of completing this jacket. I finished weaving in all the ends while watching The Addams Family movie (the one from the 90s, it’s excellent) while deciding how much I cared. Ultimately, I decided that I cared enough to handle it now if someone on Ravelry had a single skein to get rid of. If I had to go back to Knitpicks, I would have cared a lot less. Thankfully a very nice lady in Michigan had one lonely skein of Wool of the Andes in Forest Heather and it arrived the day I pulled the finished project off the blocking mats.