Tag Archives: knitting

Style Crush x 3

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Style Crush x 3

I’m taking this opportunity to revive the long-neglected Blog Crush / Maker Crush series by posting a few of them throughout Slow Fashion October. Highlighting people who inspire me is one of my favorite things to do, and during Slotober there are always way more people I’d love to call attention to than I actually can, so this is yet another way to point you at some people worth knowing about! Since our theme this week is What’s your look? (zeroing in on your personal style), I thought I’d kick it off with a trio of people who are living a slow-fashion life and whose very different personal styles I admire tremendously. I believe I’ve made smaller references to all three on the blog at various points in the past, but all deserve a bigger spotlight!

TOP: Sienna Parfitt / @notaprimarycolor
Sienna has possibly the most dialed-in personal style I’ve ever seen and an astonishing internal well of creativity. She lives in the earth tones that surround her namesake color in the spectrum, and she is the walking epitome of that “funky art teacher” vibe so many makers aspire to. She is both an art teacher and a design student, makes her own wardrobe and accessories — all perfectly in step with her aesthetic — and every time I see her sketchbook or chalkboard make list, it just makes me want to make things! She is nonstop inspiration both on Instagram and her blog.

BOTTOM LEFT: Ebony / @ebonyh
Ebony is a city girl (San Francisco) whose style I would describe as urban-casual. Polished but comfy. Chic but unassuming. She has a closet after my own heart, in other words, which looks to be a pretty steady mix of RTW and handmade — but good luck telling which is which, as she’s an awesome maker. You may have spotted her on my Fall mood board, in fact.

BOTTOM RIGHT: Libby Callaway / @libbycallaway1970
Libby is a Nashville acquaintance so she is someone I admire from a’near, through her Instagram and the very occasional bump-into around town. She is a lust-for-life maximalist and a masterful one — color and pattern and pizzazz are her signature, and the more the better. I have no idea how massive her vintage collection actually is, but she is one of the stalwarts keeping the good stuff from ever becoming landfill, while also supporting small, emerging brands. She’s a publicist who used to work in fashion in NY and now makes sure the world knows about all the creative good happening in Nashville (including most recently curating the Greetings From Nashville pop-up at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, which I’m mentioning because if you’re in Brooklyn please go see it and send me pics of the Porter Bin in the mix)! She’s the kind of wizard who makes me wish I were a better vintage shopper and had a stronger color sense, but I’m happy to admire it all on her!

Of course, it’s impossible to convey anyone’s style in a single image, so please make sure you click through and check out all three! This was one of the discussion prompts this week — who inspires you? I’d love to hear about your favorites below (or on #slowfashionoctober), whoever they may be.

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PREVIOUSLY in Blog Crush: Meeting Rosa Pomar

Idea Log: Shrunken crewneck Charles

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Idea Log: Shrunken crewneck Charles

I mentioned in my Queue Check last week that I only expect to knit one more sweater this year, and I really want to get it right, in terms of feeding what I’m yearning for while also filling a legitimate gap in my sweater collection, which means a non-wool pullover, and I’m really really really wanting navy. A feeling that was compounded yesterday by seeing (once again) that pic of Sofia Coppola in her perfectly plain navy sweater on my forever mood board. But the sweater I can’t get out of my head is Michele Wang’s Charles, which I’ve gone on about how many times since it published last year? That fixation is meaningful, and I want to heed it, and while I can make a case for adding an aran-weight wool turtleneck to my closet to replace the sad old storebought one currently playing that role, it’s by no means by most pressing need at the moment. Do you know about L’Envers? It’s a small-batch sweater company in France — a wonderful slow-fashion brand worth knowing about — and if I weren’t a knitter, they’d be getting some of my money. (They might anyway, at some point.) The other day on Instagram, they posted a sweater that brought ol’ Charles to mind again, their Jane & Serge jumper. Although I like it even better in ivory, I’ve well established that I do not need any more ivory sweaters! So I’m thinking about knitting Charles at a lighter gauge, scaling down the silhouette to more like my aran-gansey (not nearly as long as the L’Envers one), and knitting it in a blend of some kind.

This is the always challenge for me: What I enjoy knitting is more fanciful, shall we say, than what I enjoy wearing, but I think this idea would satisfy both. Still, I’m not quite ready to commit. It could be another fisherman sweater in navy, which would also be Sofia approved, if you know what I mean, or a navy version of my aran-gansey, or a navy-and-black marlisle sweater, which I’m also never not thinking about. But I need to find the perfect yarn: dk or light worsted weight, a nice deep dark navy, and not 100% wool. Which is even harder than just finding a nice deep dark navy wool, which is hard enough. (A vexation for many of us, I know, and I’ve promised a roundup!) If you have yarn suggestions that meet all of those criteria, please let me know! I’ve got a decision to make.

(And a ball of Navia Bummull headed my way for a round of speed dating …)

p.s. If you’re wondering, I promise I’ll have Marlisle KAL prize winners for you very soon! 

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PREVIOUSLY in Idea Log: Carbeth coat

Elsewhere

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Elsewhere: Book sale and yarny links for your clicking pleasure

Fun news: There’s another standalone marlisle pattern now available! It’s a hat called Pheasant Plucker, which combines marlisle with stranded colorwork in a feather motif, and there’s still time to knit it for the Marlisle Knitalong! Relatedly, I’m hoping to get to listen to Mimi’s Yarnchix podcast discussion with Anna this weekend.

And what’s with all the book pics up there? We need to free up some shelf space so we’re having a little sale — use code HITTHEBOOKS to get 20% off everything in the Books section at Fringe Supply Co., now through Sunday.

And with that, how about some Elsewhere? —

– Kate Davies is doing ready-to-wear sweaters and I’m a little obsessed with Finnich

– I love this post of Lee Vosburgh’s about how she’ll wear her summer favorites for fall (and the shape and proportions of that black turtleneck are 100% perfect in my view.)

– This year’s Refashioners challenge has me thinking about having a go at it

– The story of Chloe’s yarn cabinet is magic

– And also the story of Annie Rowden’s redwood-dyed California yarn souvenir

– Anyone know where I can get some horse chestnuts?

– This photo makes me want to knit socks

– This photo makes me want to mend some

– And I’m tempted by Tamarack all over again

Happy weekend, everyone — thank you for spending your time here this week!

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PREVIOUSLY in Elsewhere: I know what you missed last Summer

Queue Check — September 2018

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Queue Check — September 2018

Confession: I’m in jeopardy of not finishing my Hozkwoz Hat for the Marlisle Knitalong on time! (Speaking of which, review the prize instructions on that if you’re participating!) After a botched first start, I got the top of it squared away (literally!) and blocked before boarding my flight to SF, thinking I would knit the rest of it on the plane. Then it occurred to me that it would be the perfect thing to knit during the trip — you know, those times when you’re visiting with people and participating in the goings-on but your hands still want to be knitting? So I concentrated on my purple Anna Vest on the flight out there, finishing the back and starting the right front, and then I didn’t knit another stitch until my last day, when I got to spend the afternoon knitting with Mary Jane — and briefly with Anna Maltz! I knitted another good chunk of the right front that day, finished it on the flight home, and blew through the first half of the left front, which is the stage at which it’s pictured above. I’ve since finished the left front and returned to the hat, but it’s surprisingly slow going for a seemingly simple tube of knitting. So while I thought I would be done with it too quickly and likely casting on a second Marlisle project, I’m instead feeling nowhere near done! Of course, I’m not eligible for prizes and we’re nowhere near hat weather here — plus it’s fun to knit — so there’s no need to rush. And I’ve been so enjoying all of the creativity on display in the #fringemarlislekal feed this month.

There is some urgency about the vest, though. I’ve been promising you guys for too long that the pattern would soon be available for individual download, but now it really is coming! Here’s the hard evidence. The point of knitting this new sample was to recheck the pattern (which has been graded and edited since I first wrote it) and add an alternate button band option. And I’m aiming to have it published in the next few weeks!

So that’s it for me for now — just finishing up these two little gems, unsure what’s next.

Has there ever been a Queue Check that’s really so purely just a WIP Check? I’m not sure there’s been a minute since I started knitting in 2011 that I haven’t had a list of things I intend to cast on (or an assortment of things already on the needles). Don’t get me wrong: There are obviously plenty of patterns I love and think would fun to knit and all of that. But I will likely only make one more sweater this year (if that) and I want to be more deliberate than ever about making sure it really is a good mate for the rest of my clothes, suits my climate needs, and rounds out my existing sweater inventory. And I haven’t quite decided what that is yet! So next up is the plain little hat my husband has been patiently waiting for, while I decide on a sweater. Or perhaps I’ll cast on a Grete, if there’s a suitable yarn for it in my stash.

• Hozwkoz Hat in Sincere Sheep Covet and Kelbourne Woolens Scout
• Anna Vest in Kelbourne Woolens Germantown
• Drawstring bag, blocking board and Lykke needles at Fringe Supply Co.

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PREVIOUSLY in Queue Check: August 2018

I Know What You Missed Last Summer

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I Know What You Missed Last Summer

Now that we’re all settling back into our knitting chairs, putting summer behind us, I thought it might be good to take a minute to point up some of the highlights from the past three months here on the ol’ blog — in case you missed anything really good (if I say so myself) while you were out enjoying the warm weather and long days!

There was the whole of Summer of Basics, with three rounds of inspiring prize winners to check out: Round 1 (the planners); Round 2 (the WIPs) and Round 3 (the finished goods). My own SoB-3 didn’t turn out quite like I expected, but great nevertheless! (Plus my aran-gansey, which I finished on Labor Day.)

I offered a peek inside my mini bullet journal.

Sewed a sweatshirt (almost correctly!) and took it to Squam.

Then I took an epic trip to Portugal — Portuguese knitting, hand-spinning (photo above),  a wool mill and sheep blessing … Definitely don’t miss the sheep blessing.

I interviewed Brooke Sinnes about single-breed yarns and her US Cormo in particular.

Revealed the other sweater Meg gave me — you won’t believe it.

Shared a video version of my folded neckband tutorial, which you’ll find anytime saved at the top of the @fringesupplyco Instagram profile (the written version is here)

Took stock of my entire sweater inventory as it stands, with notes about what NOT to knit next!

And of course, you’ve got about a dozen New Favorites to scroll through!

What’s on the horizon for fall into winter? We talked about that, too!

Summer also saw the release of the “Bury me with yarn and needles …” tote bag and the Jen Hewett “Hank” Field Bag, the butterscotch Porter Bin and the new canvas drawstring bag. I hope you didn’t miss any of those!

And if you have FOMO about what else you might have missed, you can always use the little dropdown in the right rail over there to skip back to any particular month of the blog archive and give it a scroll at your own pace.

Happy Equinox! Thank you for spending your time here, and I hope you have an amazingly restorative weekend. I’ll be unpacking from my SF trip, happy to be home …

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Knit the Look: the mini Guernsey Literary Society henley

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Knit the Look: the mini Guernsey Literary Society henley

If you’ve seen the Netflix adaptation of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (which is not quite as twee as the title suggests), you know it’s chock full of sweaters. No ganseys, oddly, given that it’s set on Guernsey, and it’s a little confusing whose sweaters look possibly handknit and whose definitely don’t, but we’ll leave that aside. The point is: sweaters! The thrust of the story is that a pretty young London writer visits a group of book-loving strangers on the isle of Guernsey, which is still reeling from the Nazi occupation. She is a first-rate packer. Although she’s meant to be there a night or two, her mix-and-match travel wardrobe carries her through a longer stay: tweed trousers and skirt, three or four pretty silk blouses with big collars, two sweater vests, a pullover with a little Peter Pan collar, a pretty great blue-marl cardigan, a brown suede jacket and a brown garter-stitch beret are all she needs, with just a pair of borrowed workpants for when she’s helping her unanticipated love interest with his pigs. (Oh, surely you can see that coming!) For my money, though, the kids and the men get all the best sweaters. Best of all being the tattered henley pictured on the little girl, Kit, above.

There are weirdly few images from the movie on the internet, and they’re all of the woven garments, despite the fact that every single character except the military fiancé wears multiple sweaters in the film. I mean, too many cardigans to even begin to count. (There may be more Knit the Looks about these.) But that’s why all I have for you is an iPhone photo of my laptop screen, and you’ll have to trust my eye and memory on the rest.

So about this little pullover, which obviously I want in my size and minus the post-occupation tatters: It’s just a mushroom colored, boxy little henley but what makes it interesting, as always, are the details. The sleeves are ribbed but it appears to be garter rib, which would be less bunchy to wear and also features strongly on a few other of the movie’s sweaters. There are two little chest pockets also in rib. (It makes me think of Marshal, in some ways.) But what really seals it is that henley placket that runs right down to the waist ribbing. To emulate it, you could use the free ’80s-era pattern from Drops known poetically as 4-24. Knit the sleeves in garter rib and fashion a couple of chest patch pockets to match, and instead of working the placket opening a few inches shy of the neck, start it just above the waist ribbing. (And refrain from inserting shoulder pads as Drops appears to have done!) The pattern is written for bulky, so I’m recommending Harrisville’s lovely tweedy Turbine yarn in Driftwood, but it would also be easy to adapt that pattern to a lighter gauge.

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PREVIOUSLY in Knit the Look: The Crown’s cardigans

Hot Tip: Swap your needle tips

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Hot Tip: Swap your needle tips

The first Hot Tip I ever posted was about using two different-size needle tips if knitting on interchangeable needles. When you’re knitting in the round, you only use one end of the needle for making stitches, and the other end is essentially just a stitch holder, and it’s easier to work the stitches off of a smaller tip. Many of you responded at the time that you also mismatch your needle tips for working flat to make up for gauge differences between knit and purl rows, which I found completely fascinating and sensible! (Bonus tip!) And then on Instagram over the weekend, I saw a whole ’nother angle on this from my friend Veronika of YOTH Yarns.

Ve is knitting what appears to be a cardigan with the body knitted in one piece, flat, so she’s got about 48″ worth of stitches on a long circular needle, and she’s working a lot of cable crosses on top of that, which causes her wrist strain. To help with the strain, she puts a smaller needle tip on the left end (or non-working tip end) of her interchangeable and the proper gauge needle on the working end, again making it easier for her to work the stitches (and especially the cables) off the smaller tip. That does mean every time she gets to the end of a row and is ready to start back the other direction, she has to swap out her needle tips. Seems tedious, yet according to her wrists it’s well worth taking the 30 seconds to do. But on top of that, she had a really clever tip for how to simplify that process, which you can kind of see in my screengrab of her video above. She slides the needle key doohickey through the hole in both tips at the same time, unscrews one, unscrews the other, then screws them back on in opposite positions. Like most great tips in life, that seems so obvious now that I’ve seen it!

Ve is a fount of stuff like this, so make sure you’re following her on Instagram @yarnonthehouse. Thanks, Ve!

p.s. If you’re not using interchangeables, I highly recommend them, and we stock the Lykke Driftwood beauties at Fringe Supply Co. If you’re reluctant to commit to a full set without trying them, I always suggest buying a pair or two of needle tips in your most-used sizes (which means you’ll want extras of them regardless) and a couple of cords. Then if you like them, you can either build a collection of the sizes you use, or invest in a set, which really does pay off quickly. Says the person who bought an ungodly number of fixed circs in her first couple years of knitting …

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PREVIOUSLY in Hot Tips: Allow for adjustments