I've been wanting to start blogging for a while now, and the main reason for it is to gather as much information about my designs, making it easier for my customers to navigate information and the potentials of each style.

The all time favourite style that sums up what I want with my designs, and I guess my customers favourite style in 2022 is SONYA.

I designed SONYA in early 2022, my aim for the style was to create a feminine, comfortable and stylish sweater that could easily be used with both pants and dresses. I'm a huge fan of layback looks, and I love knitwear styles that are able to give a certain statement to the clothes I'm wearing.

The idea behind SONYA was also to highlight the beauty behind hand dyed yarns and show how to play with both colours that have much colour variety (like sprinkled yarns) and combine it with more settled colours, where the intensity of the colours might be the biggest effect.

First edition SONYASWEATER. Knitted in Chunky baby, col 1 : Yola, col 2 : Lemon love, col 3 : Metal

My first pattern release was SONYAsweater, then later that year SONYAcardigan was published. The two styles resemble one another, but are totally different at the same time. But as many of you might not know is that SONYA sweater and cardigan are designed to go together as a pattern, and I want to elaborate and show you how to mix and match the patterns together.

SONYACARDIGAN. Knitted in Chunky baby, col 1 : Royal, col 2 : Ruby, col 3 : Sonya.

To start off I have already added some key elements of information in the SONYAsweater yarn description, optioning both a striped version and a one colour version. I've also added in another yarn alternative then Chunky baby, and it's Organic Aran together with Kid silk mohair. Those alternatives do also apply to SONYAcardigan.

SONYASWEATER. Knitted in Chunky baby, col 1 : Bourbon, col 2 : Lemon love, col 3 : Yola

Since then I've knitted a few made-to-order sweaters for some loyal customers.

SONYASWEATER. Knitted in Chunky baby, col 1 : YOLA, col 2 : Orange cooler, col 3 : Silence

In fall 2022 I added in the one colour description in the pattern. For me and probably other knitters out there, I would assume that figuring out how to change a striped sweater into a one colour sweater is not going to be a huge rocket science, but it's always good to have concrete knowledge about when and where to change the colours out.

SONYASWEATER. Knitted in Organic Aran col : Yrsa and Kid silk mohair col : Girlpower

I'm also going to encourage you to adapt this to some future projects, SONYA or not SONYA. If you like a knitwear style, but could see it for you with stripes or without them, then just go for it ! Ultimately the style is going to be something that you are going to wear, so don't be afraid to make it exactly the way you want it. Experimenting and playing is never going to be a mistake, as we always learn from them anyway, right?

SONYASWEATER. Knitted in Chunky baby, col 1 : Angelic.

The other option I want to show you is how to adapt two of the patterns together, and the secret is all in the sleeves. When you have access to both of the patterns, you have clear instructions on how to knit them. You will notice that the stitch count is similar, but not the same. When you adapt the two styles together, your option is: knitting the sleeve version as the sweater or the cardigan. As I said before the stitch count is not the same, but if you are knitting SONYAsweater, you can easily follow the increased instructions for SONYAcardigan. Repeat the increase as described when knitting the sleeve, and adjust the stitch count when you knit for the cuffs, so you will end with the same count as given in the pattern for the sleeves on the cardigan… VOILA.

SONYASWEATER. Knitted in Chunky baby, col 1 : Angelic.

If you are knitting SONYAcardigan and you want to go for the SONYAsleeve version, then go ahead ! You will notice that the total stitch count isn't the same, but you should follow the sts count for SONYAsweater and do the increase for right and left sleeve or until you hit the target stitch count.

And that's how it's done, here you have two knitwear patterns that can escalate into at least 4 different layouts, with options for stripes or not and with options on different yarn alternatives, in my math book, that is 16 different styles !

I want to give you the last and final option for your SONYA adventure and that is to use it as your leftover knitting project. Leftover knitting or scrappy knitting has become very popular in the past years, and I'm a huge fan of an empty yarn basket. Talking about leftover knitting and going into some depth behind it, is going to need another blog post for itself. But the rule of thumb if wanting to turn your SONYA into a scrappy project is ;

To make sure that you have enough yarn to work with. Weight you yarn just to see if you have enough, you can easily see how many yarn grams are needed in the size you are going for, this would be my first tip.

SONYASWEATER. Knitted with leftover yarn in Chunky baby and Hipknitwool & Hipknitfluff

The other tip would be to wait with the body and start with the sleeves, when knitting with scraps you should always assume that no two things are going to be symmetrical. But if you are really digging in your yarn basket, I would rather make sure that you have some similar qualities and colours going into the sleeves. Leaving the body with what's left in the basket, it creates a certain coherence in the style. With all creative work, this is not something that has to be done, but it's just a TIP, to help you to build up your project.

SONYASWEATER. Knitted with leftover yarn, One of a kind piece available in Ready to wear.

Remember to make sure that your scraps add up to the gauge given, if you are going for two threads or more, that they still hit the gauge target.

That's the magic behind SONYA !

Hope those tips and tricks can help you on your knitting journey and even inspire you to think out of the box.

This blog post will officially be my first one in years, and I would love to hear your feedback. I've already got some ideas about what I need to write about to push my ideas across, but I would love to hear your input on what more you would like to learn and know.

All best

Thelma