two iolas

Good morning! I have not one, but two beautiful Iolas to show you today, the work of test knitters, Sarah and Claire. Many of you will know Claire from the KDD Ravelry group, where she fields knitterly queries of all kinds, and ably organises discussion threads and my pattern listings, large numbers of which apparently begin with the letter “S”. Did you know Iola was my first pattern beginning with the letter “I”?

Claire describes the pattern as “an enjoyable knit with plenty to think about on the panels but some straightforward knitting in between.”

To keep her columns of twisted stitches crisp, Claire wrapped the yarn in the opposite direction for all right side purls, working them through the back of the loop on the wrong side to realign them. She also found that it made sense to work each left twist quite tightly, to ensure that they looked neat. Claire also found that once she had got into a rhythm of working left twists over the body panels, it was all too easy to confuse them with an SSK decrease, when working the sleeves. I encountered exactly the same issue when knitting my Iola sleeves as well: something to watch out for!

Claire made a couple of wee mistakes, which she fixed by dropping down a few rows and knitting back up again on DPNS, which she recently discovered was easier to do while knitting continental, (despite the fact that she generally prefers to throw the yarn).

Preferring her cardigans to hit at high hip, Claire added around 7cm to the length the pattern specifies (easy to do when you are knitting top down!) and is looking forward to wearing her Iola this Autumn.

Here is Sarah, taking her Iola out for a wander with Bertie – a real canine character, with his own ideas about what a walk should and should not involve – but who is always happy to sit on a bench to pause for photos and a cuddle.

Sarah enjoyed the Iola pattern and its top-down construction which she describes as “a dream to knit because it was so simple to try on and make adjustments to the length of the body and sleeves. The sleeves made for perfect tv or car knitting and I actually worked on them whilst I was still working on the body, at different times of the day.”

Sarah knitted her Iola in the Doris shade of Schiehallion and the sixth size, adding around 4cm to the length of the body. But as someone with proportionately shorter arms (like me!) she had to watch out for the sleeve length, removing the odd round between decreases when working the sleeves top-down.

For Sarah, selecting buttons is “like adding a lovely piece of jewellery to finish an outfit. The ones I chose (from Textile Garden) were reminiscent of some that are in my Granny’s button box.”

Sarah lives near by the coast in Norfolk, and enjoyed taking her Iola out on a walk that captured the seaside theme of the Davaar collection. She began at Blakeney Harbour, walked up through Wiveton Hall, along the coastal path to Cley, and back along Peddar’s path to Blakeney. I have a yen to visit Norfolk now!

Thank you, Dave, Trevor (and Bertie) for your help photographing these glorious knits, and thank you, Claire and Sarah, for your brilliant knitting and modelling!

You can see more details of Claire and Sarah’s Iolas on their Ravelry project pages and pre-order the Davaar book here (pre-orders will close this Saturday, the 19th)