Brooklyn Tweed Blog — Swatches

A year of new yarns and patterns mean lots of swatches for us to play with here in the Brooklyn Tweed office. So we thought, what better way to repurpose our Peerie colorwork swatches than to refresh our Lavender Sachets tutorial and share the inspiration? We love how cheerful, festive, and sweet-smelling this new batch of colorwork sachets turned out. They’re also delightfully quick and satisfying to make — so much so that we couldn’t help but zip up Svenson Pullover cabled swatches too. (Last-minute stocking stuffers, anyone?) Eager to repurpose your own swatches? Revisit our tutorial below! In the...

The Scandinavian-inspired Galloway cardigan is the perfect blank canvas for knitters wanting to explore “painting with yarn.” Stranded garments that use four colors, like this one, offer a staggering range of possibilities for how your finished sweater looks; the colorway shown in our photos is just one of hundreds of ways you could interpret the design. When Jared was creating this garment, he tested many color combinations and came up with a total of eight color combinations to get your gears turning. We’re also providing some resources about hue and value to help you make informed color decisions for your own project. Understanding...

Our design spotlight today is on Bradbury, Julie Hoover’s classic striped raglan with a contemporary twist. We’ll yield the floor to Julie to tell you all about the genesis and special details of this design. (She just might sell you on seaming a sweater if you’ve never tried this construction method before!) When it came time to begin concepts for our second men’s collection, I knew I wanted to design a striped pullover—an updated classic that would feel sexy and sophisticated but could still be versatile enough to dress up or down. I almost always start with the fabric for a design,...

It's been quite an extreme winter seemingly everywhere, and the city here has been no exception. Several blizzards and ice storms have walloped us, leaving large snow deposits virtually everywhere the eye can see. From an observer's perspective, I've really enjoyed witnessing the different types of snow as it falls, as well as how it behaves on the ground in the days (or weeks) following. There are currently glassy layers of ice covering oddly shaped mounds. Some are still white, thankfully. The inevitable Quieting Of Things that snow heralds has been really great for me. I've been slowly but surely...