Y’all remember my recently finished Seaglass Tee by Wool & Pine Designs. I won’t regale you again with how much fun it was, or all the attending philosophizing. But I bring it up because that tee brought me an extra-special opportunity…
Wool & Pine is a design team of two talented women, Selena and Abbye. They’ve been working together since 2019 and have produced some of the most successful knitting patterns of the last few years; one of their early patterns, Sorrel, was the talk of the town when it came out and has more than a thousand projects on Ravelry. They also recently branched into crochet designs with their Crochet Seaglass Tee.
Anyway, I’d been sharing my Seaglass progress photos on Instagram as well as on this blog, and shortly before I posted the finished object, Selena reached out to me and asked if I’d like to do some preview knitting for them. They’re coming out with a special capsule collection of some of their bestselling designs, downsized and adapted for babies and children. That’s right—there’s going to be a Seaglass Tee for little people! They wanted lots of versions of these little sweaters out there on the internet for potential customers to browse, admire, and get inspired by, so that’s where the preview knitters, among whom is my good self, come in. When Selena messaged me to ask if I was in, I literally almost yelled “Are you kidding me?!?!? Where do I sign?!?!?” I did in fact settle down and send back a more professional reply.
Preview knitting officially started this week, but I am most likely going to need to wait until this weekend to cast on (sample knitting and all, wot, wot), but that totally has not stopped me from pulling together all kinds of color combinations. I did buy some yarn for this, and used my usual defense—it’s for gifts, and it’s on sale. The new acquisitions helped to jazz up the yarns I already had available in stash and give me some more options. All the designs in the collection are fingering weight, which doesn’t tend to stay in my stash for long since it’s such versatile weight.
The first combo is this set of ballet pink and forest green. When she saw the picture, Selena immediately said “Peperomia!” The children’s version has several differences from the original grown-up design; there’s no colorwork on the sleeves, and the neckline has been switched to a crew neck instead of the v. A smart move, in my humble opinion, since I’ve never seen a little person who looked comfortable in a v-neck (which tends to give off more of a grown-up vibe anyway).
This combo is destined for a mini Broadleaf. Mini Broadleaf is basically the same as the adult version, but the squishy-soft brioche motif is scaled down. I think this blue and grey/white combo has a definite elven/frost fairy air about it, don’t you agree? Especially with those brioche leaves…
Then there’s this combo, entirely from stash, that I think could be quite fun. I have the yardage to either make a second Mini Peperomia or a Mini Criterion, with the black as the main color and the speckle as the contrasting color. Another Broadleaf might work too. The black may be a bit heavy/sombre for a little person (though I’m seriously hoping that this multicolored speckled will pop and liven it up). What do you think? Should I use it? If so, what should I make with it?
Then there are these groupings, which I love, but I only have very vague notions of what to do with them as yet. Faded Mini Sorrels? The mini version is looser fitting and has a crew neckline instead of the mock neck of the original; I’ve thought a gradient tunic/dress version with short sleeves could be quite cute. Alternatively, I could just mix them all up and whip up some Mini Seaglass Tees. Opinions are welcome.
The Wool & Pine Minis Collection comes out later this fall; if you want to grab it when it comes out, be sure to sign up for their email newsletter. There’ll be a pdf ebook and a softcover print book; to get an idea of what their books are like, check out their Wool & Pine Book One that came out last year (some of the patterns in the Mini Collection are different than the pieces in Book One). They’re also sharing sneak peeks on their Instagram page (go take a look at that adorable Mini Seaglass, right now!!)
This is all very exciting, and hopefully lots of little girls of my acquaintance will be getting new sweaters by the time all of this is over…
