Have I mentioned how happy I am that it’s September? I know you’re all with me on this (in this hemisphere, at least). I’ve been getting a lot of questions about Slow Fashion October, in particular, and seeing lots of speculation here and there about the various upcoming knitalongs. I get that everyone’s curious and excited and also increasingly busy as we head toward the holidays, so I thought it’d be good to take a minute to discuss the fall highlights!
—Fringe and Friends Knitalong—
As noted last week, there’s another big Fringe and Friends Knitalong coming your way in two weeks. (If you missed last year’s Amanda/fisherman knitalong, it’s all here.) I’ll announce the pattern pick on Friday Sept 18th and introduce you to this year’s illustrious panel of knitters on Monday the 21st, and we’ll be off and running. Er, knitting. I’m super excited to show you these swatches! This year’s sweater is a super quick knit — the opposite of last year’s — and is in some ways insanely simple and in other ways interestingly challenging. It’s going to be a ton of fun to see what each of the panelists does with it — and what you all do.
—Slow Fashion October—
Yes, Slow Fashion October is happening! As you know, it’s inspired in large part by Me Made May, in the sense that it’s meant to be super participatory and a total community event. The focus and structure will be different, and I hope to involve not even just knitters and sewers, but also anyone who wants to be more thoughtful about their wardrobe and where their clothes are coming from.
There won’t be any kind of pledge or commitment — how you participate will be entirely up to you. There will be a hashtag of course (#slowfashionoctober), and I’m planning to structure it around weekly themes, with which you can do as you please. That may mean just thinking about these subjects and ways to apply them to your own life and closet, but it will hopefully mean sharing your thoughts and efforts and conclusions on your own blogs and social media, as well as in your offline social circles or around the community table at your local yarn/fabric shop or whatever the case may be. So I’ll declare a theme for each week and give you some ideas of subjects to think and talk about within that theme, and you take it from there!
I’ll post the outline for that here in the next week or two and again on the first of October. Cool?
I’ll be doing lots of posts here on the blog and on my @karentempler Instagram feed relating to those themes and prompts. But I’m also declaring one specific, ambitious project for myself to tackle during that month, and I hope you’ll think about doing the same. Mine is that I’m going to sew a garment from fabric that my friend Allison Volek Shelton will be weaving for me. So I’ll have lots more to say about that, too! Your project might be to knit your first sweater, or to try your hand at sewing, or to push your own boundaries in whatever way, with the idea of creating a really special something that will have meaning to you for years to come.
—Fringe Hatalong Series—
The Fringe Hatalong Series (aka #fringehatalong) will continue throughout all of this, as well. You guys all know my one true love (for knitting and wearing) is cables, so of course the fall hat is a cable hat. It’s an original pattern designed for the hatalong by one of my favorite people, and it is just perfection. I cannot wait to show it to you and to cast on, so keep that in mind for mid-October. Totally doable even if you haven’t done cables before.
And then the last hat in the series will be revealed in either late November or early December. They’ve all been excellent hats for gift-giving, and I know a lot of you have been stockpiling them for that purpose, but this one is especially great for holiday knitting. It’s a men’s/unisex hat with really interesting construction, and again, I’m dying to get to it because I can’t wait to see for myself how it works.
I’ll have more on all of the above as their respective dates draw near! Which part are you most excited about?
Center photo by @shuttersandshuttles, used with permission
