Wow its hard to pick winners! Do all judges feel this way?

Our Winning Projects!

But Jess and I managed. Here are the winners and even though I didn’t do any of the work on these at all, I still feel very proud!

First prize had to go to tktl for her Manny Cardigan. She started with the sheep she raises and took it all the way to a finished sweater for her husband.

Her wool was provided mostly by Onyx with lighter bits coming from Opal, her half sister (yes the sheep have names!). The fleece was scoured, hand dyed, and then carded on a vintage and probably hand made drum carder. Next it was spun on a 1877 Ferdinand Vezina spinning wheel. Then it was knitted into a

perfect sort of Retro Old Man sweater that my husband hasn’t taken off yet

Lol. I wouldn’t take it off either. This was made largely from just that picture you see above without a pattern. But when tktl decided to make adjustments to the shoulder, she used the saddle shoulder in the V-Necked Cardigan by Elizabeth Zimmermann, a design first published as part of a newsletter in 1964.  The dyeing, carding and spinning did happen before the contest started but all the knitting happened after we kicked off and its a vintage through and through with every part made by hand by one crafter. I had to give it first place and that means tktl will be getting a a Blue Sky Alpaca project kit which includes a project bag, a pattern & three skeins of baby alpaca in color # 543 and then 2 bags of Louet Dyed Merino Top in the colorway of her choice. Since we know she knits and she spins like a master, I can feel good about all this going to a very good home!

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Second prize goes to freya12 and her Vintage Waistcoat. This was a true rescue operation; she took a pattern that was slipping away into history and brought it back. The pattern was originally purchased by freya12’s nanny at

Emily Wren, 24, The Drapery, Northampton, Northamptonshire, England where she grew up. It cost 6d (6 shillings, which I believe was 30p) and nanny remembers thinking it was expensive, but perfect for her dad.

In the 1950s, freya12’s nanny knitted this for freya12’s great-grandfather. And now she has knitted one for her husband.

In the making of this waistcoat there was a hunt for a workable yarn, arguments with the very “loose” pattern that made a few assumptions about a knitter’s understanding. There was a lot of ripping back and anxiety over fitting. Then she borrowed a set of vintage woolly boards for blocking (I’m very envious of those) and all turned out well. Very well in fact. Her hubby looks great in this! Go check out her project notes, They express every frustration, fear, and triumph we all experience when we make a big, high-stakes project like this. To use an American colloquialism, freya12 was sweating bullets over this.

So for her work and pain she’ll be getting two skeins of in the color of her choice from Mountain Meadow Wool.  Their yarn comes from Wyoming raised sheep, its processed in a small mill in Wyoming, and dyed by hand in, yep you guessed in, Wyoming. We’ll be sending this English lady some true American-made yarn to go with her American colloquialism.

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Third prize goes to ceresandraste for her Egyptian Diamonds. I think this was our “oldest” vintage. Ceresandraste recreated a belt discovered in a Pharaoh’s tomb.

I’m not a weaver but I know people who are. I have contacts everywhere I tell ya. My weaving friend tells me that this is not weaving for beginners. Every turn in the direction of those diamonds requires a turn of the card. I’m told a good weaver can expect to make about one inch (2.5 centimeters) and hour with a card weaver. That’s a lot of hours to make a belt and I do love the idea of ancient made new again. Its a lovely design and I can certainly see why it has survived through all these centuries.

Ceresandraste is going to be getting that Symfonie Dreamz Sock Double Pointed Needle Set from Knitter’s Pride. Yes, that’s the one I’d like to keep for myself. She’s only getting it because my momma raised an honest girl. I’m sure I could have figured out a way to cheat and keep it if I wanted to.

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Finally we have an honorable mention. Redcabbage made It’s a small world. Its a set of six pieces made using five different crafts and everything is tiny. Its a doll house furnishing set and its adorable. The only reason I didn’t rank her higher in the judging is because one of her pieces, the cross stitch sampler, is based on a pattern from 1988. (Why you do that redcabbage??!! Why???) But the other five pieces are fantastic and vintage. Check it out.

There is a tatted mantle piece made from size 80 thread (size 80? omg), a crocheted intarsia blanket with matching pillow that’s biased on a 1950’s potholder pattern, a rug woven on an improvised cardboard loom, the cross stitch sampler that’s been framed and matted and put on the wall, and two macrame pieces: a hammock and a plant holder. She says in her project notes that this is her first macrame work ever. That’s one adventurous crafter.

So she gets 4 oz of Targhee Top/ Bluefaced Leicester roving in Blue Bird from Mountain Colors Yarn.That’s one of these colorways I think. Lol.

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And there we have it. It was HARD to pick the top four. We have a lot of wonderful work out there. You can see everything that our crafters did by following this search link to ravelry.

Everyone who finished a project should have already received gifted copies of my three for-money patterns: Spliced, Billow, and Old Vine. If you started a project but didn’t finish you should be receiving a gifted copy of Old Vine by the end of the day (I haven’t gotten them sent as of this writing but I will!). If you don’t receive these, message me in ravelry (my username is knitsbyjenn). Ravelry makes designers send gift patterns to each individual one at a time so its very possible that I will accidentally miss somebody. Give me a poke if I miss you. I mean that.

I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who participated in our contest. I had a blast and I hope you did to. Turns out I love hosting contests. I’m already working up ideas on how to host another one.