Kate Oates

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Lee Wrapalong: the KAL to kick off your 2019

You made it through the holidays! January is here and the New Year is underway. You gift knitted your little fingers off and now it is time to knit something to reward yourself for all that hard work. I am so pleased to present a pre-order for the Lee Wrap which is a design that has been in progress for almost a year now. My favorite designs tend to involve a lot of trial and error and ripping out and re-doing and this one is no exception but my oh my, this cardigan is like wearing a big hug and I just want to live in it.

I’ve decided to do this release a little differently than usual because I am just so excited about this project. I’ve teamed up with YOTH Yarns and Fiber & Hue to set up a KAL deal with a variety of yarn options that work beautifully with this design. I wanted to give everyone time to place their yarn orders and maybe get a swatch or two done before we all CO together on the official KAL start date, which is next Tuesday, January 22. This will also give you a little bit of time to clear your needles, if you want to!

The wrap is constructed as a giant rectangle with set-in sleeves placed just-so. The sizing for the design is based primarily on upper arm with a very stretchy ribbed crossback, so you’ll be working your gauge swatch in stockinette as that’s how the sleeves are worked. The other textures featured in the design are totally reversible and you may recognize them from the Lee Blanket. The Twisty Rib is my favorite—it is a reversible cabled stitch worked without a cable needle. Jasmine (featured in the images above) is wearing her sweater oversized in YOTH Yarns Neighbor in Bronze (dyed by Fiber & Hue); I’m wearing mine with more fitted sleeves in YOTH Yarns Big Sister in Cracked Pepper.

I’ll be at Stitches West for the third year in a row in the YOTH Yarns booth; it’ll be the second year with Fiber & Hue and for the first time, I’m actually going to have my own little pop up shop in the booth too. So, it made so much sense for us all to work together for this KAL! Fiber & Hue Go to DK yarn will provide a very similar drape and fit as the YOTH Yarns Big Sister (shown on me, above) and Krista (the maker behind F&H) was kind enough to knit up a few swatches in pattern to show you how it works up. The colors below are called Siren, Troll, Frida & Ghost.

So without further adieu, here are the awesome yarn options we have come up with that we recommend for this KAL! Stay tuned to instagram as we chat more about how these fibers will produce slightly different fabrics. You can also see our test knitter’s projects on Ravelry. They look so good!

YOTH Yarns Neighbor (featured)
YOTH Yarns Big Sister (featured)
Fiber & Hue Go To DK
YOTH Yarns Daughter

YOTH Yarns is offering 10% off Neighbor, Big Sister and Daughter bases for our KAL with the code LEEWRAPTASTIC. Fiber & Hue is offering 15% off Go to DK purchases over $200 with the code LEEWRAP and you can get the pattern for $2 off from me with the code LEEWRAPTASTIC as well. All these deals are valid now through our KAL start date, January 22, 2019. When you purchase the pattern on Ravelry, you’ll be provided with a spec sheet that includes yardage information along with total skeins for each of our recommended yarns. You will also receive swatching instructions so you can get started on that as soon as you have your yarn in hand! And of course you are welcome to use any yarn you want in our KAL so I will look forward to seeing what other beautiful selections are represented, too.

I hope you are ready to jump on in and join me! I can’t wait for us to get started. This pattern is totally suitable for adventurous beginning knitters so do not be shy. Feel free to challenge yourself this year with this project. If you know how to knit and purl, cast on and bind off, you can knit this sweater. That’s the great thing about KALs, plenty of help is available for any questions that arise. The other great thing about KALs? Prizes. We will announce our prizes at the start of the KAL. They will be yummy and yarny!