Announcing the Exquisite Mystery Knit Along!

What happens when three knitwear designers come together to create a mystery knit along design? Lots of fun, it turns out. Fellow designer Sarah Abram (aka sarahbearcrafts) approached Christopher Salas (aka alternaknit) and I several months ago with a proposal: help design a pattern where each of us is given three balls of yarn and two weeks to design a third of a finished pattern. Inspired by the exquisite corpse storytelling model, each designer would build on the previous designers’ section, not knowing at ALL what to expect from the other sections until the finished designs were in their inboxes. Kind of crazy, right?

Yes, yes it was totally crazy, but it was also the most satisfying creative collaboration I’ve ever been lucky enough to be a part of! At the end of the design process, we all got together in Chicago (Sarah’s and my home turf) to shoot some photos of each of our finished pieces, to shoot videos with tips for success and behind the scenes tidbits about our clues, and of course, to edit the pattern as a whole. Here’s the first little video that may be familiar to Facebook followers.

That’s right! Preorders of the Exquisite Mystery Knit Along pattern are open now through January 1 for just $5 before jumping to $7 when the first clue drops. Here’s the schedule we put together for this knit along:

January 1 – Clue 1 by Heidi Gustad/me drops
January 8 – Clue 2 by Christopher Salas goes live
January 15 – Clue 3 by Sarah Abram is published, completing the pattern

All three of us designers will be active on the Ravelry thread for the duration of the KAL, ready to help answer all of your questions. I’ll also be releasing video tutorials for the particularly tricky stitches on my YouTube channel throughout the process, and all will be available on this playlist if you’d like to bookmark it to get ahead on things. :)

How to get ready for the #exquisiteMKAL

Speaking of getting ahead on things, there are a few things you can do besides bookmarking the Ravelry thread & playlist. Before we cast on January 1, pick out your yarn and swatch! We recommend 3 skeins of Dream in Color Jilly with Cashmere or Jilly, in a light color, a dark color, and a bright color. Swatch with the dark color to make sure you choose the right needle for your project! (Spoiler but important: we built enough yardage into the design to accommodate swatching with the dark color. Gauge is important only with regard to yardage. Knit a swatch of stockinette in DC and gently wet block it to measure your gauge.) For now, this is all I can tell you, but soon, all will be revealed!

Yarn support for this design was provided by Dream in Color yarn. To learn more about the Exquisite Mystery Knit Along and get tips for choosing color combinations before the first clue goes live, check out the Exquisite Mystery KAL Ravelry Thread and preorder the pattern here.