The Open Neck Pullover is finished clean at the neck with no rib or change of tension.This shows the angled panel construction where lines of knitting finish and are normally closed off with a linked collar. The cuffs, neck, and hem are finished clean with no rib or change of tension.
The lambswool yarn is knitted ‘greasy’ (dyed but otherwise unfinished) and then cold felted. Each piece is knitted around double the finished size, and shrinks during felting. The practice of felting wool fibre in cold water is older than weaving, spinning, or knitting, and knitwear has long been felted to increase its density and help protect against the wind. Unlike hot water felting, which matts the fibres together fully and creates a stiff fabric, cold felted knitting remains light and stretchy while being beautifully thick and soft.
Tender pullovers are produced on hand-powered knitting machines in Scotland in a series of outbuildings surrounding the knitter’s home. All the pieces are fully fashioned, which means that each panel is knitted into its correct shape before linking it on to the next panel (rather than knitting a standard sheet of fabric then cutting and sewing it like a T shirt). To do this, the knitter has to manually hook and unhook the yarn after each line of stitching. For example, one stitch is taken off the panel at every line to produce a curved shoulder seam.
Finished panels are hand linked: the two pieces to be joined are lined up stitch by stitch onto a circular drum of knitting hooks, and then knitted together using the same yarn as the panels. Finally the seams are hand-tacked at each end to keep them safe, and trims are hand sewn into place.
Tender is a small label created in Stroud, United Kingdom, by William Kroll and greatly inspired by classic British workwear and the garments used by the railway workers during the second industrial revolution.
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