Behind Interweave Crochet Spring

If you have checked the IC website lately, you will have notice they have posted the new Spring Issue.

In this issue, I did a light spring cardigan called the Blossom Kimono.

The backstory to the kimono starts at the call for designs. For this issue, Kim was looking for garments that would flatter women from small to plus-size. I got really inspired by this and turned in a bunch of designs. Granted, I am a big believer that garments should not be designed from XS to XXXL, since it really does a disservice to all the sizes. Every woman's body is different and should be treated as such. It would be really cool if we could design for the busty or hippy woman instead of grouping them into "standard" sizes. Still, I knew I really wanted to turn in so designs that would look nice on everyone.

I researched really hard, and must have come up with a dozen sketches. I weeded them down to 4 designs that I was confident would look great on any woman. The Blossom Kimono was one of them. The design is a straight hip length cardigan, that can be left open or belted closed. Being that if you are busty, you can belt it and get some waist definition. If you don't want to show your waist, you can hide it without a belt and let it just hang open.


The fabric of the kimono came from swatching last summer with my then favorite stitch the X and P stitch. The motif looked like an exploded blossom, hence the name. Since the cardigan was for spring, I knew that either cotton or wool would be fine. With this lacy motif, I knew either blends would work and not be too hot or cold. So I proposed it both ways. We ended up going with Blue Sky Alpaca's Skinny Dyed Cotton. It comes in an awesome array of colors, muted and sophisticated. Since we went with cotton I made sure that my wide 3" border was going to be just as lightweight as the rest of the fabric (no rows and rows of SC here). It is a simple repeat of extended sc and ch-1 spaces. The stitch pattern looks really nice with little "V" everywhere and not like a grid. The contrasting colors are added last with SL ST embroidery on top.

Even though it does have P stitches, extended stitches, and embroidery. The shaping is straight-forward. But really, isn't it fun learning new stitches anyway?

The wonderful part is that Interweave posted all the diagrams online to the pattern. So once you buy the magazine and get all the info on the layouts and yarn, you can switch to the diagrams and fly.

Hope you enjoy this Issue. Be sure to check out those bonus photos. A number of the projects have more then meets the eye to them, which is really cool. Like Marly's Tote with hidden pocket, or Jodi's blanket with incredible cables, or Kristin's Pullover with Lacy Linked stitches, and more.