Sometimes, as a knitter, you discover a design that just knocks the air out of you. Nothing else matters, you just have to get it onto your needles as quickly as you can. I mean, I am often intrigued by a project if it bears promises of new techniques or constructions that I haven’t tried before, but a double win for me would be if I just can’t wait to wear it! And this is the case with the cover design from Laine Issue 15 – the Autumn Forager by Jennifer Brou! The thing is, I fell madly in love when discovering this design, it presented itself as the ultimate dream for anyone, like me, who are overly enthusiastic about texture – but also the fit is perfect, I find it very flattering for most body shapes, so not only did I know instantly that I would love making it, but that I would equally love wearing it!

Seems I’m not the only one, actually as I was putting together my yarn and colour choices I had a customer so excited about my project she left the shop with the yarns to make her own, and I’ve lost count of how many mentioning to me that the Autumn Forager currently resides on their needles. You know great minds and so on … but as I dipped across the North Sea to visit my friend Tuva of Norne Yarn it turned out that both of us had cast on the same project at the same time, both with the same progress, and both really really eager to finish so the Autumn Forager can be worn.

So why do we, and so many others, just love this design so much that everything else had to be abandoned. Did I say texture? Autumn Forager is a striped jumper where you change colour but also stitch pattern alternating between the stripes. Your main colour creates a slip stitch rib band, where as your contrast colour makes the stockinette ruching band. Needless to say texture is the main attraction of this design. The construction is quite basic, it is a circular yoke jumper worked from the top down, the fit is comfortably loose with a positive ease of 8 to 15 cm. Now, if you are familiar with substituting yarns you might already know where I am going with this. That’s right, fit and texture combined means that the Autumn Forager is a blank canvas for experimenting with fibre. As long as you keep close to the yarn weight and check your tension, this is a design which literarily screams for individual expressions and variations, it will look stunning no matter what you choose.

As you can see, Tuva and I have chosen very differently. Tuva is working her Forager in her glorious Luxury Fingering (Yak/Silk) colours Valkyrie and Darradarljod, whereas I’m using two different yarns Nua Sport (Wool/Yak/Linen) in Frog on the Wall and Cirro (Brushed Alpaca) in Celestial. Same design, but Tuva’s jumper will end up smooth and shiny, elegantly showing off those different textured bands with a superbly defined stitch definition, mine is more of a rustic and fluff adventure, a cosy jumper, creating more contrasts between the bands with a well defined rib and a fluffy ruching. 

Basically, with the Autumn Forager, the world is your oyster! Discussing the possibilities and differences between our projects, both Tuva and I agreed that we would absolutely adore to see other versions, the individual takes on the same design. How is yours coming along, what yarns did you choose, how does your foraging journey look like? We would love to know, so we’ve come up with a little knit-a-long, hoping you will join us in the making of your very own Autumn Forager. Post your progress on Instagram using the hashtag #fibreforaging and tag both of us @knitwithattitude and @norneyarn by midnight December 31^st, tell us a little bit about the yarn you’ve chosen and why, and you might get your hands on our prize. A gift card from each of our shops will be given to the winner drawn on January 1^st. Now how’s that for a New Year treat!