Designer Spotlight - Rachel Illsley
Rachel Illsley of @unwind_knitwear Rachel hails from North Yorkshire in the UK, and started designing knitwear as a creative outlet when her children were young. As they grew, so did her knowledge of design and construction. By the time her daughters were old enough for school, Rachel had curated a unique style and grown her passion into a full time business.
Rachel aims to create designs that are interesting and enjoyable to knit, which produce garments that will be beautiful and flattering. Her collection includes intricate colorwork, gorgeous cabling, and beautiful texturing.
Medina Tee
Medina Tee is inspired by Moroccan fretwork paneling Rachel saw when visiting the medina of Marrakesh. It is worked top down in a mixture of flat and in the round knitting. The inlay knitting panels' design is knit with a slightly thicker yarn to emphasize the design.
The main color is a fingering-weight yarn, and the design can be worked in sport or DK-weight yarn. Lankava's Sulo and Mainio are great options, because all the weights have the same colors, and they all work well together. Another option are the LAINE x Novita Signature Collection 4PLY and DK yarns. The 12 colors of the DK-weight yarn are also available in the fingering-weight yarn, which also has six additional coordinating colors to choose from.
Orbits
Orbits is a circular yoke stranded colorwork sweater. It is part of Rachel's Einaudi collection, inspired by pieces of music written by Ludovico Einaudi. Scroll down for more details on this gorgeous design.
Low Tide
Low Tide is a textured sweater that is worked top down, mainly in the round. The design features an eyelet lace and cable motif that’s inspired by the ripples of sand, tiny rivulets of water, and scatterings of pebbles and shells left on the beach by a receding tide. There are several size customization options in the pattern for getting the perfect fit.
The pattern uses fingering weight yarn, which means Lankava's Sulo or the Signature Collection 4PLY are both great options.
Cultivate Cowl
Cultivate Cowl is an infinity cowl that combines colorwork with texture knitting techniques for something more than just a colorful cowl. In between the stranded colorwork sections are Latvian Braids, Lateral Braids, and Inlay Knitting.
This pattern is made with DK-weight yarn. Lankava Mainio is a wonderful option for colorwork. It has 23 solid colors, and has lovely stitch definition in stranded colorwork projects.
The motifs in the colorwork of Orbits capture the mysterious, repetitive, yet delicate essence of the music that inspired the garment. The colorwork extends beyond the yoke into the upper body and the sleeves.
The pattern calls for fingering-weight yarn, so there are lots of options to choose from. Lankava's Sulo is a great budget option with 23 different solid options. The solids of Sulo can also be combined with Viking Nordlys which offers a fabulous multi-colored option for the colorwork. The LAINE x Novita Signature Collection 4PLY yarn is wonderful British wool option with 18 gorgeous colors to choose from.
