This 14th century painting depicts Mary finishing up the neck on a garment that’s been knitted seamlessly. This is my favourite way to knit! Over the last thirteen years, I’ve designed tools and jewellery for knitters. Feral Knitting is all about fluid ease—from adorable stitch marker sets specifically for top down knitting to brooches for cardigans without buttons, I’ve made things for knitters that I use myself and swear by.
I’m a feral knitter. I’ve gone rogue and hardly ever use a pattern—but I got to this point by learning certain concepts ‘by heart’. There are great resources on the internet that teach you seamless knitting, which is my favourite way to go, (and clearly Mary’s, too! It’s literally divine.)
Here are some pattern ideas to get you in the mood to customise and wing it, seamlessly, using a Feral Stitch Marker Set and Brooch with the finished design.
Stacy Perry’s Easy Cardigan is designed to close with one of my brooches. You can find the pattern here: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/three-rectangles-two-triangles
Here’s Stacy’s Video showing you how to wear one of my brooches and how to knit her beautiful pattern. (If you’re wondering how these pins work, Staci shows you at around 3 minutes in.)
Knitting a top down raglan is one of my favourite methods to knit on the fly, and there’s websites by amazing knitters out there to help you:
Super Cardigan pattern from Tin Can Knits takes you step by step through the process from planning to blocking. It even has a cute pocket how-to. Instead of a button band, you can always close your cardigan with one of our penannular brooches.
KT’s slow closet takes you through the process with lots of pictures:
Here are some classic books to inspire your seamless knitting: Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the Top and Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Around and Knitting Without Tears–with her conversational style–approach knitting in a fluid narrative way.
For the past couple of decades, I’ve only knit seamlessly. I make it up as I go along, and I call this method the Sweater Story. I’m working on a PDF download that I hope to offer in the future which will be all about Sweater Stories!
What’s on your needles?
Here’s a few photos of Feral Knitting from long ago–though it feels like only yesterday:
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