Light Waves

Good morning, it’s Friday, and it’s time for another pattern: Light Waves

Those of you who were part of Mysterious Knits will immediately recognise the shape of this design from a pattern in that collection – It’s Got a Bend in It

Like the cardigan familiarly known to all of us at KDD as Bend, Light Waves also features an upside-down and side-to-side construction which begins by knitting a triangular shawl-shape. With Bend, I used the natural angles of the shape to create a stripey Art Deco chevron but with Light Waves, I was aiming for something a little lighter, and more wave-y . . . and so an aran weight wrap cardigan has morphed into a DK-weight one, whose shawl-shape has become an actual shawl.

This simple openwork motif is one of my favourites. It is very structural, and incredibly easy to manage (from a designer’s point of view) because each repeat contains the same number of rows and stitches. And its angles also naturally lend themselves, when worked in more than one shade, to becoming waves. You can achieve many different kinds of colourful and textural effect with this versatile motif, and you can tell that it’s one of my favourites, because I’ve featured it in more than one design, including Myrtle from our West Highland Way book.

This collection is all about the contrast between light and dark, and this motif really lends itself to the graphic two-tone vibe . . .

While waves of light dance across the back of the cardigan, its fronts wrap around the body, on the bias. . . .

. . . creating a silhouette that is both striking and appealing, whichever way you look at it.

I find Choffer to be a very cosy and comforting deep shade of brown, and, combined with Riach, it works so well in this cardigan.

Light Waves is definitely a cardigan in which it feels natural to wrap up on a chilly winter’s day, like the one on which we shot these photographs!

Styling my designs is just as much fun for me as creating them, and I particularly enjoy working with Kate C, who is an excellent model. And before you ask about the hat, no, is not hand-knitted: I snapped up this machine-knit beanie in a January sale, especially for this photoshoot, in the strong expectation that it would look great with the Light Waves cardigan. I don’t think that I was wrong, and Kate C and I were both glad that I had this hat to hand, as the day was very windy.

If you’d like to knit a Light Waves just like this one, we have kits in Ooskit shades Choffer and Riach in the KDD shop. That said, Light Waves might be made with any heavy sportweight or DK yarn that knits to gauge, and I think this cardigan would look amazing with multi-coloured stripes, or in a combination of two subtly variegated and solid yarns.

Like everything we do around here, Light Waves has been very much a group effort: I designed the cardigan and styled it, Maylin knit the sample, Kate C modelled, Tom took the photographs, Mark assisted on the windy photoshoot, Frauke tech-edited the pattern, and Claire checked the proofs. Thank you, brilliant KDD team!

I hope you enjoy Light Waves, a design which hints towards our club theme for next week, as well as at the two-tone accessory pattern I’m going to release tomorrow. I wonder if you can guess what they will be?

Enjoy your Friday, and happy wavy knitting!