I’m really on a cardigan kick! The ones that I’ve made in the past have become too small for me, with the exception of my Felix Cardigan, which is an excellent staple piece that pretty much goes with anything. But lately I’ve been wanting showstoppers and statement-makers, especially when they can eat up as much of my stash as possible. A two-color brioche design like the Oliveros is ideal for this.
Brioche is an intimidating technique to learn, and fairly time-intensive (you basically work every row/round twice), but it creates one of the most relaxed fabrics in knitting. Cleo Malone, the designer, embraces that with a construction mostly unfettered by anything that constricts the stitches too much. No picking-up of stitches, no seaming. While well-designed, there’s very little structure. The whole sweater grows like organic matter from a central point at the back of the neck and over the shoulders, stretching with the body to let those flashes of contrast color shine through.
Of course, the relaxed nature of this pattern means it will grow significantly during blocking, which is what happened to me. The sleeves are actually quite a few inches past my wrist (and my fingertips). That’s okay with me, though, I’ll just cuff the sleeves. But if you want something more to your measurements, block with caution.
There’s a distinct cloak-iness to this pattern, so I decided to go full fantasy with the color choices. Blue and gold has always reminded me of magic and wizards, so from my stash I chose a deep navy/teal mystery yarn that I had left over from a sweater I made for my dad, “Willow” from Yarn Nouveau (an antique gold shade), and “Tectonic” from Feederbrook Farm, a prismatic marl with gold, blue, orange, and periwinkle. I have a whole Pinterest board of wizardy visuals, and I’m a sucker for the celestial aesthetic.
What I’m listening to
The wizardly inspiration isn’t surprising when I’ve been hosing down episodes of “The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One” from Worlds Beyond Number, a D&D actual play podcast with some giants of the TTRPG world: Aabria Iyengar, Lou Wilson, Erika Ishii, and Brennan Lee Mulligan. Iyengar plays the Wizard Sky (Suvi to her friends – the naming conventions of wizards is a whole thing in this universe), a magical prodigy balancing her duty to the institution that raised her with the outsider perspectives of her close companions: Ame, a rural-dwelling witch whose power comes from communion with nature and spirits (Ishii); and Eursulon, a spirit who has become stranded in the mortal plane where he is at risk of persecution (Wilson).
Iyengar and Mulligan, the dungeon master who runs this campaign, have created a very different vision of wizards than I’m used to. In table-top games, wizards can cast powerful spells and learn many different kinds of magic, but are known for being “squishy”, or easy to physically harm. The image of an old bearded sage in a tall brimmed hat persists.
Not here. Suvi is a young Black woman with a hot boyfriend and a caffeine addiction. Her adoptive mother figure is a sword-wielding valkyrie of a mage. The Citadel where they live is both an academic and military headquarters. There are spells that become people – a personified mage hand cantrip works as a baker and makes Suvi’s favorite sandwich. Wizards can donate their unused spell slots to other wizards who might need them more. They can imbue physical objects, including weapons, with spells. In “WWWO”, what is possible when magic can reshape reality is truly and thoroughly explored. Why couldn’t a wizard be anything, really?
It’s actually a little terrifying. I’m not very far into the campaign, but I’m waiting for the shoe – the shoe being that the Imperium and the Citadel are unsustainably powerful and, for all their wonder, must be dismantled before it embroils the world in unending war – drops. Highly recommend.
It’s WIP Wednesday and this week’s theme for #showmeyourknits is cardigans! Fortunately my wip this week is the Pivoine Cardigan by Audrey Borrego, a drop-shoulder cardi with lovely lace detailing at the bottom of the torso.
Borrego recently stepped away from the knitwear design game a few months ago, and very generously made all her patterns free on Ravelry. When I checked Ravelry that day and saw that she was all over the first three pages of the Hot Right Now feed, I had the same thought as some other folks: “Holy shit, did something happen to her?” Nope! Just a voluntary change in life direction. Hero portfolio of 100+ patterns is an amazing gift from a very prolific designer, and I hope she’s having a wonderful time in the next chapter of her life.
I’m using Knit Picks Stroll Tweed, which I picked up a few years ago during a Halloween sale (they discounted all their black, orange, green, and purple yarn). The pattern calls for sport-weight, but considering the suggested needle size for the body is US 3, a fingering like this is working nicely as a substitute. I’m knitting size 7, and the depth of the armholes is perfect – I really like wearing big t-shirts, and there’s plenty of room for my tee sleeves to fit without weird bunching at the shoulders.
I also plan to add significant length to the body so it covers my butt, and now that I’ve passed my natural waist I’m adding increases to accommodate my hips circumference. I’m adding increases at the same rate as the pattern calls for decreases in the sleeve, and I’ll just have to make sure I stop when my stitch count reaches the correct multiple for the lace pattern.
There’s a possibility I’ll run out of the yarn before I get to the sleeves, but honestly, I’m hoping that will be the case. I have plenty of other fingering-weight skeins in my stash that need to be used, and I think contrast sleeves would be very striking for this project. The stash bust continues!
And now, a lightly cuss-seasoned rant about generative AI
While on Ravelry this week I came across a “design” whose picture was clearly generative AI and reported it. As far as I can tell, it’s been taken down. I figured Ravelry wouldn’t be AI-friendly (I was not the only person to report the page) but it would be great if the mods could make a policy statement about AI use, if only to encourage its users to take a broader critical stance against generative AI.
Obviously AI in knitting patterns is a problem. If the “designer” can’t even produce a finished object from their own written pattern, they’re clearly a scammer and unable to write a pattern to begin with. There’s no reason to trust that the pattern will be any more real than the generated image they’re using to advertise. But generative AI is a much larger problem that has infiltrated pretty much everything we interact with on a daily basis. I believe it poses extremely bleak outcomes for creativity and critical thinking.
Before I go off I want to point out that I’m not immune to the draw of AI and how it can be used. When I was studying creative writing, I wrote an experimental poem using the predictive text AI on my phone. I presented it to my workshop, completely transparent that I had used predictive text, because I was intrigued that the data my phone had stored about my typing history created a digital mirror of my personality. I called it “Runecasting with Predictive Text”. This was back in 2017, when generative AI was still producing eye-burning fractal nonsense images that could never be confused with a photograph or human-made artwork. Now I look back at that little experiment and shudder. I want to share my shame with you.
Generative AI is way more refined now. It’s replacing human labor, especially creative jobs like writing, art, and design. It’s widely used in political campaigns to smear opponents and create propaganda. It’s even being used to write public policy that we’re all supposed to live under. NYC Mayoral Candidate and sexual predator Andrew Cuomo faced criticism for using ChatGPt to write parts of his campaign’s housing policy. And yet our social media networks, job hunting sites, even this blogging platform I use proudly advertise how they’re “harnessing the exciting potential of AI” or some such bullshit to appear cutting edge to its users. The little sparkly AI icon is menacingly ubiquitous.
Left: WordPress invites me to generate an image with AI instead of using this screenshot. Right: The aforementioned sparkle icon.
AI provides no new information to us. It plagiarizes artists and writers. It only reflects, and all it reflects is existing human thought, including our worst prejudices and bigotries; it just delivers them back to us faster. And if it’s used by elected officials that are too fucking smooth-brained and lazy to come up with new ideas or to think critically, then I don’t want to live here anymore. And we probably won’t live here for long anyway, because generative AI is pumping massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and sucking up our water supply.
Last, I want to address the argument that generative AI helps people be creative. Nothing could be less true. Artists love the process. They love practice. That’s why great masters’ sketches are valued by art collectors and museums, not just their finished works. That’s why there are so many musical compositions called “etudes” (studies). It’s why dancers and athletes and musicians and anyone who uses their body to do anything has to spend so much time conditioning their muscles and joints for performance. If you have an idea for an image and want it to exist, and you use AI to make it exist immediately, then that isn’t artistry – it’s spectatorship.
There’s nothing wrong with being a spectator. But the ethical thing to do is hire an artist. Support artists and writers who are using their brains and bodies, who are making truly creative and critical decisions about art. Or do it yourself! Actually do it yourself. Accept that your first try at a creative endeavor might be messy, poorly executed, or embarrassing. No one needs to be perfect. We just need each other to try.
If you’re newer to the concept of generative AI or just want some help spotting it, here are things I look out for.
In images
Look at any letters, fingers, or (in the case of knitting and crochet patterns) stitches. AI has a harder time generating fine details like these; words will often be illegible, hands will have too many/too few fingers, and stitches will not make any physical sense.
The depth of focus is really shallow. Gen AI will often blur backgrounds and even the edges of a subject to reduce the amount of detail it has to create.
Everything is oddly smooth. If the image looks like it’s lacking texture and human figures look like they have silicone for skin, it might be AI.
In videos – many of the above red flags apply
Multiple people seem to have the same face or look extremely similar.
People moving toward the “camera” do not appear to be getting any closer.
A person’s face is moving but their body is not, or the head and body are moving out of sync with each other.
A celebrity starts talking like they’re an SEO-optimized ad – they start talking using words like “viral”, “Hollywood”, “diet” in relation to a specific product. It’s likely a deepfake using actual footage of the celebrity with a generated voiceover. Obviously anybody could actually be saying these words, but if it’s in relation to a weight loss plan or beauty product, exercise caution.
In writing
The author’s portrait appears AI-generated. Unfortunately publications are faking writers along with plagiarized writing.
The same ideas are repeated in re-worded phrases or sentences.
The sentence structure is repetitive.
There are a lot of words over-used by AI; this Reddit thread has a good compilation of examples.
The website or publisher has recently laid off large portions of its staff; it’s likely they’ll rely more on AI now that they’ve cut their human workforce.
I think that’s all for this week. Until the next WIP Wednesday, my dudes, and watch out for that AI slop!
I love granny squares. Despite their fixed shape, I think they’re pretty versatile. You can stop at any point and make them whatever size you want, and they have a delicious kind of pixelated appeal. And of course they don’t have to be squares, which just opens their potential even more. They can be arranged and built upon, like legos or tessellation blocks, into endless configurations.
It probably won’t surpise you to learn that these were my fuckin jam as a kid
And the granny stitch is really having a moment, particularly among the young folks. The younger-than-me folks, they in their teens and 20s. There’s an interesting phenomenon about the way Gen Z finds and consumes knitting and crochet patterns versus those of us in older generations, who have been using Ravelry, books, and magazines. They create and consume on video – Youtube tutorials and shorter-form Tiktok clips. These designs are more custom, fitted to a single body, often experimental and artistic. They’re tied to one of many microtrends and “vibes”. A lot of them are sexy! And when they do go viral, it’s often because the technique is so simple it hardly requires the effort of a written pattern – it’s better to show than tell, get views instead of individual pattern sales, or just make the item to sell.
Jack Black and Jason Momoa wear granny-stitch hexagon cardigans while promoting the Minecraft movie. The sweaters were made by Tosha Marie @treatyoselfcrochet, and there are many tutorials on Youtube on how to make your own. I’m thinking of making a couple for my niece and nephew for Christmas this year.
Granny stitch – so hot right now. Last year I couldn’t resist jumping aboard, so I pulled together some odd partials of sock yarn from Neighborhood Fiber Co. to create my own granny square cardigan.
My granny square cardigan unmodeled showing all the ends I never wove in
This project was improvised and only made with my own body in mind, but I did take much inspiration from Amy Christoffer’s Ariana Cardigan. I just kept making squares and attaching them as I went until I felt I had enough to reasonably cover my back and shoulders. It was a great travel project – I remember I was working on this quite a bit during the 2023 holidays and driving to see family, and it’s nice not to need a pattern pulled up on my phone or printed out.
Once all the squares were assembled, I draped the two front panels over my shoulders and marked enough room for arm holes, then seamed up the sides. Then I just did simple granny stitch sleeves in the round, decreasing every ten rounds or so until they got to 3/4 length. While I had just enough of my contrast colors, I did not luck out with the main color, and had to get two more skeins to complete the project. No regrets, I love this color (Petworth).
I wore my granny square cardigan out this week when I went to see Faetooth during their first east coast tour. Faetooth is a three-piece from LA who describes their ethereal, shoegazey metal as “fairy doom”, and when I saw they were coming to my city I jumped on a ticket (good thing too, the show was sold out). They were touring with Sunrot, who I hadn’t heard of before, but were an absolute pleasure. Sunrot especially has incredible stage presence and messaging; they had free fentanyl testing strips, narcan, and condoms available for the crowd, and brought an expert on harm reduction on stage to talk about community care. When it looked like a fight might break out in the crowd, Sunrot’s singer stopped the set to make sure everything was cool and that no one was about to get hurt. And both they and Faetooth delivered messages of love for trans and non-binary people and solidarity for Palestine. There’s been many metal musicians who’ve gained notoriety for acts of violence and depravity to shock the “normies”; but there are as many metal musicians who point out that violence and depravity are in fact very mainstream, especially when perpetrated by our governments. The message of this show was that taking care of one another is the radical act.
I knew I wanted to wear something handmade to this show because DIY is a big part of metal and punk music, and well, this is how I DIY. In addition to enjoying the music, I enjoyed the crowd and the hand-stitched patches on their battle jackets, their hand-painted and dyed clothes, their repurposed and mended fabrics. There is an interesting event horizon here, where sustainability for aesthetics and sustainability for economic necessity meet and it’s unclear which came first. Either way, it’s craft, and craft/art/music says “If it does not exist, make it.”
My granny square cardigan, modeled and still showing some of the ends I never wove in
Yarn
Neighborhood Fiber Co. Studio Sock, colors (Center of the granny squares outward) Oliver, Federal Hill, Cedarcroft, Upton, Petworth)
Stripes are probably the most efficient way to use up as many odd skeins in my stash as possible. And I had been itching for a cardigan because so many of my sweater projects recently have been pullovers. Enter Taylor Owen’s Bookkeeper.
Raglan, top-down, and stockinette, the Bookkeeper Cardigan makes use of thin stripes and a corrugated hem/button-band to funkify a chill layering piece. It has a pretty low armpit, creating a wider fit that is gently snatched with some subtle waist shaping. This cardigan is very relaxed, and the waist decreases could always be skipped if you prefer a more rectangular torso.
However, because this was a stashbusting project, I skipped the corrugated ribbing because I was afraid I would only have enough of one of my contrast colors for the body. I ended up not even having even that much, and needing to order an additional skein anyway, so joke’s on me. Shoulda just gone for it (sigh).
I will say I don’t mind having most of an extra skein of Junction Fiber Mill’s Making Tracks around though. I love this yarn, and Peg and Amanda are gems. I’ve been enjoying their drops of pop-inspired colors. I first used Making Tracks in my Junco sweater; I’ll probably share that in another FO Friday post soon since I’ve been meaning to take modeled photos of it.
Mods
No corrugated ribbing, just straight 1×1 on the button bands and hems
Different frequency of decreases on the sleeves for desperate yarn conservation (🧶🐓)
Sleeves are shorter because i have t-rex arms.
Yarn
Kelbourne Woolens Scout, “Navy Heather” (MC)
Junction Fiber Mill Making Tracks, “Constellation” (CC1)
Mystery sport weight, terra cotta orange (CC2)
What I’m listening to
The other day my good friend asked if I had an “anarchy playlist”, because they’re building one of their own and were looking for inspiration. I just happened to have something for them, which I’ll link below. I’m excited to hear theirs when they’re finished with it.
I also took a deep dive looking for new metal to listen to, but metal is a genre unfortunately plagued by fascist and nazi sympathizers. Luckily, the Anti-fascist Black Metal Network is here to help boost bands and labels that have progressive politics.
I’m not telling anyone to listen to metal with me, I’m aware that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s not just these fringe subcultures that have a nazi problem. Obviously it’s the entire American government, which is disappearing people, both documented and undocumented, and sending them to concentration camps. This is not hyperbole. That prison in El Salvador is a concentration camp, and the government wants to send whoever they want there.
With that, I’ll leave you with my playlist, and this: trans women are women, immigrants are your neighbors, release Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Merwil Gutiérrez and anyone imprisoned in CECOT, and no one is illegal on stolen land.
Smitty is Knitting 