Category Archives: Thoughts

What I Know About: Holding yarns together

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What I Know About: Holding yarns together

There are some questions I get asked over and over, some of which I have answers for and many of which I do not. So today I’m kicking off a new occasional series called “What I Know About” in which I or someone more knowledgeable than me will respond to your most pressing inquiries. It might be a Q&A, a guest post, who knows — but I’m starting with probably the MOST frequently asked question and my own answer to it: Why are you always knitting with multiple yarns held together?

There are basically three categories of reasons:

GAUGE
The most common reason I personally do it is to get the yarn I want at the gauge I want. For instance, I wanted to knit a cardigan out of the gorgeous heathery black Linen Quill, but it’s light-fingering weight. I neither want to knit at that gauge or want a sweater that thin, so by holding two strands together, I got the weight/gauge I was after. There are dozens of fabulous lace- or fingering-weight yarns I’d never get to knit with if I didn’t double them up. Conversely, there are limited options available at the bulky-superbulky end of the spectrum, so holding yarns together is a great option for knitting at a bulkier gauge without being limited to the available yarns. Such as my linen Sloper in progress, because there’s no such thing as bulky linen. (Possibly with good reason, lol!)

FABRIC/FIBER
It’s also quite common to hold yarns together in order to blend those fibers into one fabric. (The entire Shibui line is built on this concept.) For example, for my grandmother’s shawl, I held together one strand of Shibui Staccato (70% merino, 30% silk) and one Shibui Linen (100% linen), so the finished fabric is 50% linen, 35% merino, 15% silk. She lives in Texas, but I wanted the shawl to have more soft-cuddliness than 100% linen, so I blended it in this way. And again holding together two strands of fingering weight yarn created a weightier fabric than knitting with either yarn on its own. One really common trick is to hold one strand of something like cobweb-weight Silk Cloud or Kidsilk Haze together with whatever your main yarn is, to give the fabric that soft mohair halo. In addition to making the most astonishing swatch books I’ve ever laid eyes on, Shibui posts a downloadable Mix Cheat Sheet that shows what happens gauge-wise when you hold multiple strands of any one Shibui yarn or combine different ones, which is also a useful guide in general as to how yarns of differing weights might add up. You always have to swatch to know for sure, of course, but that’s a great starting point for getting a sense of gauge.

COLOR
Likely the first reason I ever held yarns together was to create a marl, and it’s still one of my favorite reasons. Again, there aren’t a ton of marled yarn options in the world, but by holding two (or more) strands together, you can create any combo you want!The yarns you’re mixing may or may not be the same weight or fiber content — you could create a 50/50 marl with two stands of the same yarn in different colors, or something much more creative with varying weights and fibers, so a combination of all of the above motivations and results. And it could be a marl or an ombré or lots of other effects. One of my all-time favorite examples of creative mixes is this Chloé sweater from a few years ago. (The swatch pictured up top is mine from awhile back, playing around with different Shibui yarns — two strands of an ivory, one black with one ivory, one ivory with one grey.)

Another example from my own past that’s a combination of the above is my Bellows cardigan. That pattern is written for two strands of Shelter (i.e. bulky gauge) and could easily be knitted with a single strand of a bulky yarn instead. I knitted mine with two strands of Balance, which served a dual purpose: 1) it got me to the bulky gauge, as the original pattern did and 2) it counteracted the need to alternate skeins when working with that yarn. Because the wool and cotton fibers in Balance take the dyes differently, Balance behaves a lot like a hand-dyed yarn. When working with hand-dyed, it’s important to alternate skeins every row if you want to avoid pooling or an obvious change in the fabric at the point where you joined a new ball. By holding two strands together, you’re literally blending them, thereby canceling out those concerns.

So there are lots of reasons you might hold multiple yarns together, but at the center of it is control and creativity — allowing you to create whatever you want.

For more on some of the things you can do with yarns held together, see: The other breed of colorwork

Summer ’17 wardrobe planning, part 3: The make list

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Summer ’17 wardrobe planning, part 3: The additions

I’ve been working from my sister’s house in Florida for the past week — hanging with her and the kids while our husbands are on a fishing trip — and have spent all kinds of time working on this whole Summer ’17 Wardrobe series. The other day, right in the middle of it all (literally Fashionary panels strewn all about her house), we went out to lunch then to her favorite consignment shop and then to this little boutique nearby that is stocked almost entirely with very plain Flax Designs linen tanks, pants and dresses in nothing but ivory, black, natural, grey and an ivory/grey stripe. (The shop’s minimalist selection looks nothing like the website! So funny.) I had been in the shop before with her and knew of this tantalizingly simple solution to my dress problem, but all I knew about the clothes was what the tag said: made in Lithuania. I know that there’s a long tradition of linen production in Lithuania (that’s where pretty much all of the Fog Linen line comes from) and had been wondering if there was any chance Flax was a company I could feel good about buying from. There is literally no company information whatsoever on their website — no About page of any kind — so we did a bit of Googling on our way there and found this video a stockist had posted about them. It’s still not much to go on, but there’s an emphasis on lead-free dyes and the sewing is done in small woman-owned factories, and I obviously feel good about linen on all the levels. So it’s a somewhat smallened leap of faith, but combined with the fact that I knew how much love and wear they would get, I decided to buy two dresses. (And follow up with the company to see how much more I can find out, for future reference.) At the second-hand store, I found a full, grey, cotton-linen skirt much like I’ve been wanting, for 12 bucks!

So in a matter of minutes, my entire summer wardrobe situation changed and I had to come back and rework all of the posts! Yesterday was going to be about how I really don’t have the dresses I’d like to be relying on, and no skirt like I wanted. Today was about those items being top priority … but that all changed. And took a lot of pressure off my to-sew list, which was problematically long for someone who hasn’t managed to sew a single thing since last August. Here’s the current situation:

ROW 1 / WIPs: Sloper and Summer cardigan are both currently in progress. I also keep imagining an oversize, crewneck, cotton Sloper for wearing alone now and layering later, but we’ll see if/when that happens.

ROW 2: My dream in life is to be wearing my favorite outfit — jeans and a perfectly fitting grey t-shirt — and have made them both. I’m making the jeans in September (more on that later) and have been planning to make the tee sooner, but this is a long list, Everlane has a tee that looks pretty perfect (made in LA), and I have a store credit. So this one is looking like a purchase in the short term.

ROW 3: What I’m really feeling the lack of most is white tops, and these are both extremely quick and simple. On the left is a mod of the OOP Cynthia Rowley pattern I mentioned yesterday, which I’ll be making in both white linen and black linen. On the right is another version of my little self-drafted shell, this time in crisp white cotton and probably with some gathers at the neck. These are now the top priority to-do’s.

ROW 4: I think Liesl Gibson’s new Soho Skirt, on the left, might be the full skirt pattern I’ve been wanting, and I’m planning to make the first one in black linen, to wear with everything. Now that I have the thrifted grey skirt of similar fullness, though, I’m going to wear it for a minute and see if it suits me as well — and plays as nicely with my other clothes — as I think it will. In the middle is the Hemlock mod I made last year (and shrank and re-homed) which I want to make again in heather grey. I have some remnant bits of a wool knit that I’d love to use — if there’s enough. If not, I’ll either make it or Linden from regular sweatshirt jersey. This is an absolute must by Fall, but would be really useful at work if I can get it done for summer. On the right is the striped version of the Adventure Tank (view B) that I’ve been plotting since making the black one, and was in my plan for last summer, but never got done. I want it very badly, and have the hemp jersey already, but it’s non-urgent. When I get around to cutting it out, I’ll likely also make a heather grey version.

So that’s 6-7 sewing projects right there, most of them extremely quick. And all of them fold seamlessly into fall.

HOWEVER: First, there’s mending and refashioning to do to get a few of the inventory items to wearable status:
– shorten the black slip dress and add pockets
– mend the light jeans
– mend the camo pants
– dye the ivory I+W tee
– lengthen the black cardigan, which hasn’t been mentioned for summer yet but I was hoping would be useful!

And then there’s the little matter of the Fen (hybrid) dress that’s currently in my Summer of Basics plan. (June 1, y’all! Are you excited?) I still very much want this dress, but it will no longer be black linen, so I’m mulling alternate fabrics and maybe even a more fall-ish fabric, and making it the last of the three projects I start for SoB rather than the first.

With yesterday’s 34 Haves and WIPs, the above would bring my summer-edit total to 40 garments, which I have no doubt I can combine into an entire summer’s worth of work and weekend outfits, which I’m eager to do! I’m sorry to leave you on the edges of your seats over the weekend ;) but being in Florida and lacking some key garment photos, I’m going to do that as soon as I’m reunited with my closet. So I’ll have that to share sometime next week.

I hope you have an amazing and fruitful weekend—

(Fashionary sketch templates via Fringe Supply Co.)

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PREVIOUSLY in Summer 2017 Wardrobe: Closet inventory

Summer ’17 wardrobe planning, part 2: Closet inventory

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Summer ’17 wardrobe planning, part 2: Closet inventory

The best part of doing my whole winter wardrobe plan was isolating the couple dozen garments from my closet that would be the main players for the season. It not only simplified the process of getting dressed, but it changed even how I hang things in my closet. I’ve always been a little obsessive about grouping things by category — pants, sleeveless tops, sleeves, etc. (I might as well confess that I hang them from light to dark within those categories! I am such a librarian. And yes, all my hangers match.) That way, I reasoned, I could see what I have and be able to think. But with that little winter-heroes grid taped to the closet door, I didn’t need to look at the hangers and shelves at all, I only needed to look at the grid (or the outfit grids). What happened as a result is that the active stuff naturally shuffled to the center, right in front of the door, and the stuff that wasn’t in play for that season got pushed progressively to the side. Which was perfect because they weren’t relevant at the moment, and rather than simplifying or clarifying things, having them hung together with the relevant stuff was actually cluttering the process of getting dressed. (I don’t own enough clothes to put things away for the season or whatever — everything fits in my little 1950s closet.) The fact that my closet became what I previously considered a disorganized mess didn’t matter at all — it was actually one less thing to worry about.

So here are the key players for this summer:

DRESSES
– black linen Earthen Slip (made in KC, 2016, no longer available)
– linen Gallery dress
– blue stripe dress
– black linen Flax dress (new)
– striped linen Flax dress (new)

I love the black slip dress I got last summer but I find the calf length hard to wear and the lack of pockets problematic, so I’m planning to shorten it and add big patch pockets. Not sure why I don’t have photos of the next two — pardon the terrible drawings, [UPDATED 05.15] but you can see them at the links — and I’ll tell you about the two newly acquired (as in, this week) dresses tomorrow.

SLEEVELESS
– Lakeside camisoles
– black Adventure tee
– striped cotton shell
– black silk gauze shell

KNIT VESTS/TOPS
– Anna vest
– Meg-made tee
– WIP: ash linen Sloper

TEES, TOPS, TUNICS
– black Imogene+Willie tee (made in LA, no longer available)
– Part Wolf tee (2013)
– linen Fen top
– blue stripe Fen top
– linen Elizabeth Suzann Harper Tunic (recent acquisition)
– black plaid top (me-made 2015, never blogged)
– black chambray top (me-made 2014, never blogged)
– ivory Madewell tunic (2014)
– tobacco linen Nade Studio tunic (2016)
– secondhand chambray shirt

I have another I+W tee in natural, which unfortunately just looks like a white tee gone dingy, so I’m hoping to dye it somehow. Good ol’ Part Wolf is in here partially as a stand-in for the fact that I want a nice fresh grey tee, more on that tomorrow. The plaid top and black chambray top are both modifications from an out-of-print Cynthia Rowley pattern that I’ve tampered with endlessly the past several years and will be doing so again. Nade Studio is a new acquaintance of mine, Maggie Pate, who I met last summer at a little makers’ market in Chattanooga and who sews every piece herself. I bought this linen tunic from her at Porter Flea in December and have been awaiting the time for wearing it. The chambray shirt will really be an outer layer for summer …

OUTER LAYERS
– denim J.Crew shirt jacket (c.2003)
– WIP: grey summer cardigan

My treasured old shirt jacket has become tissue thin all over, so I’m wearing it sparingly — it’s sort of a stand-in here for my actual jean jacket, which I don’t have a pic of.

SKIRTS
– black cotton embroidered Katayone Adeli skirt (c.1998)
– thrifted grey cotton-linen skirt

I would have sworn I recently took a photo of [UPDATED 05.15] the Adeli skirt, which I bought 20 years ago and basically wore for the first time last summer … and haven’t worn since. But I’m determined to get it into rotation this year. The thrifted skirt is another piece I just got this week ($12!) and will talk more about tomorrow.

PANTS
– black linen Elizabeth Suzann Florence pants (new/sample, pockets added by me)
– wide-leg J.Crew khakis (2016)
– natural Imogene+Willie Willies (2016, made in LA)
– camo pants Gap/mended (c.2009)
– visibly mended J.Crew jeans (c.2003)

… if I can finally get in another round of patching/mending on those poor beloved old jeans AND on the camo pants that have recently had a major blow-out around the cargo pockets. There’s also something not quite right about the fit on those khakis, which I bought around this time last year — I’m going to take them to a tailor and see if they can solve it so I’ll actually wear them more often.

SHOES
– black Jane Sews sandals (2016, no longer available)
– tan J.Crew sandals (2009)
– faux snake J.Crew flats (2017, no longer available)
– silver flats (2016, handmade in LA by Solid State for Goodwin, no longer available)
– black ankle boots (Gap 2014)

I’m putting major emphasis on ankle boots for summer, as discussed yesterday, the challenge being that my 3-year-old boots are looking problematically shabby. They were cheap to begin with, poor quality leather, which means there’s not much that can be done to make them presentable again. So I’m in the market for a replacement, but finding exactly the right combination of heel height and shaft height is SO HARD. Maybe if I finally found the exact right pair of clogs, hmm.

. . .

One notable absence here is my chambray Endless Summer tunic, one of the most hardworking garments I own. However, I like it best as an underlayer, hanging out from underneath a pullover or button-up, and it doesn’t quite light me up when paired with any of the bottoms here on its own, so ironically it’s not in the summer lineup but will be back for Fall. Also not here is my Togue Stripes tank, which is being adopted by my sister.

It may not look like there’s not a ton of commonality between these things and what I’ve described as my ideal summer mode of dress, partly because I don’t have photos of the dresses, [UPDATED 05.15] but I’m also lacking some of the most basic of basics that will help pull it all together. There’s also the fact that these items don’t go together in as many different ways as I would like, so what I need to do is make sure the garments I’m thinking of adding will extend the uses of everything here. For example, the plaid top is here but just barely. Despite the tissue-thin cotton fabric, it feels a little too Fall to me when paired with the black pants or the khaki trousers (and boots or closed shoes, if we’re talking about work). It’s cute and summery enough (by my standards) with the natural jeans and sandals, but I can’t wear sandals to my frigid workplace, so its utility is quite limited in this mix. But I’m into the idea of pairing it with a black linen skirt, and that skirt would also add one more outfit option to almost every top seen here. So more about what I’m making or otherwise adding tomorrow …

(Fashionary sketch templates via Fringe Supply Co.)

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PREVIOUSLY in Summer ’17 Wardrobe: Mood and strategy

Summer ’17 wardrobe planning, part 1: Mood and strategy

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Summer ’17 wardrobe planning, part 1: Mood and strategy

Nashville slid from a very mild winter into a very early summer — we’re talkin’ 88° and humid in mid-April — so my wardrobe planning is likewise skipping right past Spring … into Summer, ugh. I know the conventional wisdom is that summer dressing is effortless — throw on a dress and sandals and go! — but I find it infinitely more challenging, on a couple of levels.

Summer, in general, is really hard for me. In addition to finding the heat and humidity more oppressive than I can convey (it makes me literally claustrophobic and anxious by the time August rolls around), I also just don’t feel like myself in summer clothes — never have. I almost typed “… never will” but I’m challenging myself this year to try to solve this problem rather than resigning myself to another 3-4 months feeling that way. When I stop and think about it, I do know what the strategy has to be; the trick is to actually implement it this time.

The nut of the problem is real heat calls for dresses and skirts — clothes that touch you in as few places as possible — and dresses and skirts tend to feel too girly for me. The kind of somewhat androgynous, tomboyish looks I tend toward are harder for me to pull off in summer form, but if I remind myself how much I love a good masculine-feminine combo, that gives me something to work with. A skimpy camisole top feels more me when paired with mannish trousers; a skirt can feel more me with a muscle tee; same goes for a dress with a pair of funky/chunky sandals or just the right pair of ankle boots. Nashville, for all its population influx and diversity of sub-cultures, is still a place where nobody thinks twice about anyone wearing boots on any day of the year. (This may be the one thing Nashville and the Bay Area have in common: year-round boots.) And let’s face it: In a place this hot, most of the day is necessarily spent indoors anyway, where we run into the other half of what makes summer so difficult: overzealous air conditioning. Dressing for simultaneous bipolar climates is maddening to me.

So the other trick is to think in a more deliberate way about layers for indoors that easily peel off on the way outside. Outdoor outfit + cardigan/jacket = indoor outfit. It’s not complicated, Karen. Which has me focused on that summer cardigan on my needles, the old jean jacket I don’t wear much but should, and the notion of a linen or lightweight cotton “coat” or “jacket” of some kind than can be worn like a cardigan.

Having really learned something from my Fall ’16 Mood board and thorough winter wardrobe planning — the amount of time and thought that saved me in the end — I’m officially committed to the concept. So I recently put together Summer ’17 Mood, which, quelle suprise!, features a lot of the sort of masculine-femine combos I’m talking about.

As I noted last time, my color palette never really changes: I live in black, white, natural, khaki, camel, army, denim, all the shades of blue and grey, with a spot of green or lilac here and there. One difference is I love black even more in summer than in the cold months. Head-to-toe black when we’re talking long sleeves and pants can feel somber, whereas all black with bare arms and legs is my idea of “sexy.” You can see from my summer mood board I’m in the mood for light and breezy things, in some cases paired with a more structured pant for contrast. And I’m feeling like this summer may have extra emphasis on black-and-natural in various combinations.

Next step is to look at what I have to work with as compared to how I’m wanting to dress …

(Fashionary sketchbook via Fringe Supply Co.)

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PREVIOUSLY in Wardrobe Planning: Winter 2017 wardrobe

Our Tools, Ourselves: Brandi Harper (purlBknit)

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In Our Tools, Ourselves, we get to know fiber artisans of all walks, ages, styles and skill levels, by way of their tools. For more on the series, read the introduction.

Our Tools, Ourselves: Brandi Harper (purlBknit)

It dawned on me recently that two of our three panelists from last Fall’s big knitalong had previously appeared in Our Tools, Ourselves — you can get a peek at Jess Schreibstein’s world here and Jen Beeman’s here — and it made me want to subject Brandi Harper, panelist number three, to the treatment! Brandi is apparently never not delightful and I know you’ll enjoy what you’re about to see. (I about died when I saw that she’s velcro’d her Lykke needle set to the wall! Why didn’t I think of that?) For more of Brandi, follow her at @purlbknit and check out her beautiful website and shop.

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Do you knit, crochet, weave, spin, dye, sew …?

I taught myself to crochet as a freshman in high school inspired by my grandmother’s afghans — yes, another seriously life changing story about mama. Sophomore year, knitting took over my whole heart. I started teaching knitting classes and designing for a yarn shop the year I graduated.

Tell us about your tool preferences and peccadilloes.

I own 2, maybe 3, pairs of straight needles, which I never use. Circular and double-pointed needles, mostly in wood, are my preference. A lot of my special tools and fiber finds I’ve snagged while traveling. Everything I make carries a story of when I got lost to find something unplanned and beautiful or when I ate just waaaaay too much gelato. A pair of old rusty scissors from a flea market in Brussels, mohair hand-spun by a women’s cooperative in Lesotho, a repair hook in bone from Rhinebeck, NY. I enjoy collecting tools from local shops, independent designers and maker friends.

How do you store or organize your tools? Or do you?

I have all the things, and things to hold the things, and storage to hold the things when they’re not in the thing they are suppose to be in. Some are shiny gold, jute, marble, Ikea, glass, terracotta clay, steel … they range from free, $5-$40, handmade and/or absolutely priceless. I store yarn in banana-leaf and vintage iron baskets and a standing shelf that evolves into a display piece for finished inventory. I spent close to a year designing my needle case, making at least 80 pockets then sanding and staining rosewood rods to weave them on. It is probably the best thing that happened in my knitting life, so I’m experimenting with ideas on how best to sell it to other makers.

Our Tools, Ourselves: Brandi Harper (purlBknit)

How do you store or organize your works-in-progress?

I hide them away and tend to forget all about them until I think about them again. I got this sweet little vintage tool chest that now lives on the floor and it has a hidden storage unit. Unfinished work lives there as long as they can all fit.

Are there any particularly prized possessions amongst your tools?

My plants. They are definitely my most alive tools, a constant reminder that growth, like creativity, can exist in every moment but requires tender care and attention. I splurge something serious when I see a good green and our first date is always the best. Most of my creative time is spent alone cooped up in my little studio, so they are really good company. I got my first cactus ever a month ago. He (it’s a boy!) is this amazing bluish green and already growing a new arm. He makes me proud.

Do you lend your tools?

Give, yes. Lend, no.

Our Tools, Ourselves: Brandi Harper (purlBknit)

What is your favorite place to knit/sew/spin/dye/whatever?

Knitting in a loud, crowded Brooklyn café with my headphones blasting either music or binge watching some show I’ve seen a dozen times is so fun. This is a town of freelancers, so cafés act like co-working spaces around here and I get hours of work done. I’ve gotten into knitting in silence alone or with my partner while she reads or listens to a podcast in bed during my days off. Those times have become a kind of meditation. I’ve tried for years to work behind an actual desk, but I wind up in my knitting chair with a side table, in bed or on the floor.

What effect do the seasons have on you?

I grew up in New York where we have all 4 seasons. Fall is a selling, buying and marketing season. I give a lot of energy during this time. Maybe it’s the short days or that my sign is in the house of cancer or that I can be very introverted, but I hibernate in winter. It generally happens after the holidays, which is also my shop’s busy season. You generally won’t see me posting on social media or going to hang out in large groups. It’s as if I curl unto my self head first and roll full speed ahead with no goodbyes, no see ya latas to a place where I can jam to new tunes, cook intimate dinners for 2, and do a lot of designing of new ideas and home renovations. Spring is when I peak my eye out, dip my toes in the water and buss out dancing. I tend to travel during the summer, seeking out/manifesting creative collaborations and finally getting back into my WIPs.

Our Tools, Ourselves: Brandi Harper (purlBknit)

Do you have a dark secret, guilty pleasure or odd quirk, where your fiber pursuits are concerned?

I had maybe 10-12 works-in-progress: backs of sweaters, mitten size color swatches, improvisational cable squares, and others. I recently did a huge purge and did the unimaginable: put most of them, many 5 to 6 years old, into a large black bag and simply got rid of them. It was a cathartic release, almost painful and absolutely liberating at the same time.

What are you working on right now?

I am swatching up a storm for the purlBknit fall/winter collection. Getting ready for a whole lotta sitting by reupholstering the chair I knit in with a staple gun and a suede curtain. And finally, spring is here! I’m dancing and ready to party freaking hardy.

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PREVIOUSLY in Our Tools, Ourselves: Alexia Abegg

Photos © Brandi Harper

Q for You: Are you a repeater?

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Q for You: Are you a repeater?

A few days ago, I posted the above photo on Instagram with this caption: “I stopped an inch short of finishing the body last night because I’m not ready for my time with this stitch pattern to come to an end.” One of the comments was “Time to cast on another one!!’ and the immediate response in my head was Too many other fish in the sea! As if I would never knit the same sweater twice. And yet I say to myself all the time that I’m going to knit another Bellows one of these days, and maybe even another Amanda, which got me wondering why and when I’m willing to repeat. In both of those speculative cases, it’s because I want another of the same sweater but in a snugglier, woolier yarn. (A Spring/Fall version and a Winter version, basically.) But even so, I’ve made no moves to actually cast on again.

I have repeated smaller things in the past — I knitted Fetching mitts for two different friends (no different other than the yarn/color), and have knitted three versions of Orlane’s Textured Shawl (here, here and here; all pretty distinctly different in scale, gauge and fabric). Of course I’ve knitted multiple Stadium Hats and Super Simple Mitts. And oh yeah, Improv sweaters, obviously! And clearly I have no problem repeating sewing patterns — in fact, I prefer it, given all the prep work involved. Apparently the only things I’m willing to knit repeatedly are fairly simple, useful, adaptable basics, whereas the more unique or challenging things get knitted once and then it’s on the next one. But is that really it? I don’t know! I’m still pondering.

So that’s my Q for You today: Are you a repeat knitter of things, and if so what and when? Is it different for sewing than knitting?

I look forward to your responses, and also wish you a wonderful weekend. I, for one, am super excited about the arrival of Daylight Savings!

UNRELATED SHOP NEWS: I’m also super excited about the arrival this week of more Lykke fixed circular needles, the new issue of Taproot, Bookhou double-zip pouches (the beloved Pepita print is available again) and a massive restock of Bento Bags!

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PREVIOUSLY in Q for You: How do you use Pinterest?

Winter wardrobe results: Or, what to remember next year

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Winter wardrobe results: Or, what to do next year

The time I spent on my Winter wardrobe planning in November was so well spent, it turns out, and I’m eager to do it again for Spring. But first I want to make some notes about how the Winter plans worked out — as guidance for next year. For one thing, I find there’s always a genuine difference between what I think I’ll want to wear during a certain season (say, when fantasizing about Fall during the heat of Summer) and what I actually want to wear when I’m in that season. But also because I don’t want to lose track of the little bits of things I learned by paying attention this time around.

Mostly, my outfit plans worked out great. I did literally print them out and tape them up next to my closet, like a huge dork, but it saved me time on a number of mornings — being able to just glance at that, pick out what spoke to me at that moment, and throw it on. And it definitely kept me from unfortunate impulse purchases or cast-ons. But there were still too many mornings where I stood in front of the closet staring, because there were some flaws in the plan and/or my implementation of it.

WHAT WORKED
– My best trick this winter was wearing my big black-and-blue wool plaid shirt or my denim shirt-jacket like a cardigan, basically — as a top layer. This was in part because I simply really like the look, and also because I’m coming up a little short on actual cardigans. The outfit I repeated the most often and felt the most comfortable in was the big plaid shirt over the dotted chambray Endless Summer tunic with blue jeans and boots.
– Related: I love my black-and-white flannel shirt more than I can say, and would wear it every single day if I could. I would really like to feel that strongly about everything in my closet.
– My Bellows cardigan continues to be my most-worn garment, and I’m in real jeopardy of growing sick of it at this point, so it’s great that I’ll soon have my Channel cardigan to alternate with.
– I wore the short-sleeved black lopi sweater at least 1-2 times per week, far more than expected. It was the perfect thing for this mild winter.
– Shrinking my Amanda cardigan a bit did result in my wearing it a few times, and I think with solving some of the other problems (below) I’ll get even more wear out of it next year.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK
– Nearly all of the outfits incorporating the sleeveless black silk gauze top, which looked great on paper and I was and still am eager to wear, didn’t work in reality because the length of the front of that top (and the blue striped version) is awkward for layering. Between that and my linen tunic having gotten too shabby looking to wear in most circumstances, I have a shortage of underlayer tops to rely on. That dotted chambray tunic is pulling all the weight.
– All of the outfits incorporating the grey vest, which again I loved in theory and really want to wear, were not possible because I never got around to fixing the buttons.
– Likewise, the outfits with the sleeveless black turtleneck over a long-sleeved shirt depended on my blocking that out a bit larger, which I still haven’t done.
– My black cropped cardigan is too cropped. It works great with the limited things it works with, but would be far more useful if a couple inches longer.

ONCE MORE, IN TO-DO FORM
– Make/acquire a few longer underlayer tops
– Fix the buttons on the grey vest
– Block the sleeveless black turtleneck out bigger
– Lengthen the black cardigan

RANDOM GLEANINGS
– I really like for my neck to be warm. The reason the black-and-blue wool shirt (and the b/w flannel shirt) got so much wear is I would turn up the collar and button the top couple of buttons (with a contrasting underlayer top peeking out down below) and I felt super cute and cozy. I also wore the big old grey H&M turtleneck several times, but it’s feeling really ratty at this stage in its long life. My instinct to knit myself a big cozy turtleneck sweater is spot on.
– As much as I love the grey wool men’s shirt and layering with it, it’s the standout example of a thing that happens to me every Winter. Which is, what I want after New Year’s is completely different from what I want during the Fall and holidays. I always have an urge to lighten up — the things that felt cozy a week or three earlier suddenly feel dour and depressing — once we’re headed downhill toward Spring. So I was heavily dependent on that shirt in the outfit lineup and in the last few weeks of the year, but then I was basically without it as an option as of mid-Jan or so. I need to anticipate and plan for that shift.
– The natural denim jeans have been a real difference maker in my overly blue-jean-dependent closet, but I would like to be generally less dependent on jeans next year.

The upside of the “didn’t work” list is that there are a lot of outfits in the lineup that I still want to wear and am not tired of, having not gotten to wear them! Plus I finished two excellent pullovers late in the season (the striped raglan and the colorwork yoke, up top) so I have all of that to look forward to next year.

For details on the garments above, see my winter closet inventory.

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