Tag Archives: scarves

I feel a scarf obsession coming on

by

A.F. Vandevorst scarves

The past few years have been all about cowls. Cowl mania. A cowl is so practical — a scarf that stays put! No ends to get in your way, or blow off over your shoulder. And you know I love a giant pile of wool around my shoulders. But late last season, several striking scarf patterns caught my eye — from cables to colorwork to incredibly beautiful lace. And then over the summer the images of these A.F. Vandevorst scarves turned up on Pinterest (via The Empress of Dress) and oh my god. Swoon. Why did I never think of tying a scarf in back before? Probably because I never had one that was both massive and gossamer, like these appear to be. Not only does it look amazing, it solves the problem of the ends getting in your way or blowing off over your shoulder! In this case, they’ve styled them so they’re tied over the models’ faces, with hats pulled down over their eyes, creating the illusion that their heads are on backwards. But those of us not walking on fashion runways would simply skip that part.

This is all by way of saying you should be prepared for a lot of scarf chat this fall. I feel an obsession coming on.

.

QUICK SHOP NOTE: A new stash of the navy Stitch & Hammer pouches arrived yesterday afternoon. The backorders are all on their way to their new homes, leaving only four (as I write this) unclaimed. So if you’ve been thinking about it, now’s your chance! UPDATE: Annnd they’re gone. So all three colors are back on backorder, but there are more coming in the next few weeks, so if you want to be sure you get one, go ahead and place a backorder for it. I’m so pleased that you all like this pouch as much I had hoped!

.

Knit the Look: Josefine Nielsen’s plaid scarf

by

How to knit a version of Josefine Nielsen's plaid scarf

I’ve been saving this image of Danish model Josefine Nielsen and its time has finally come. Back-to-school season is here, so it’s safe to start dreaming again of trench coats! And plaid! But what if the plaid scarf was knitted instead? To emulate this one, all we need is Stephen West’s Kex scarf pattern and a slight shift in color palette for the Brooklyn Tweed Shelter yarn. In place of the original colors, I’d suggest A) Fossil, B) Long Johns, C) Birdbook and D) Faded Quilt.

See Vanessa’s original post for a better look at the trench!

And for this week’s ICYMI pick, since there are so many new readers since then (hi, everybody!), how about the introduction to Knit the Look.

.

Street style photo © Vanessa Jackman; used with permission

New Favorites: The whole of Pom Pom Quarterly 6

by

Best knitting patterns from Pom Pom Quarterly issue six

Remember last week when I was blown away by the ratio of things I want to knit from the Rowan Autumn Knits collection? Well, yesterday the lovely ladies at Pom Pom Quarterly released images of the 8 patterns in the upcoming issue, and it’s a new record: I want to knit at least 6 or 7 of them. They are all charming, wearable, and look like a ton of fun to knit. At the top of my list are these four—

TOP LEFT: Quadrillion by Meghan Fernandes, just omg want want want
TOP RIGHT: Morganite by Corrina Ferguson, I’m picturing in Shelter in Cast Iron
BOTTOM LEFT: Ardvasar by Lucy Hague, will require someone cuter than me to wear it, but those cables turning into i-cord? Adorable
BOTTOM RIGHT: Vermeil by Wencke Lucas, no words for how much I love this mega-scarf, want it exactly as is

And because I’m so excited about this issue, and am guessing you will be too, I’ve enabled preorders for it at Fringe Supply Co. Go to the Pom Pom Quarterly page in the shop and you’ll see “Issue 6 (preorder)” in the dropdown. Your card will be charged at the time of purchase, and the exquisitely produced magazine (containing download code for the digital version — a two-fer!) will ship out to you the moment it arrives, in early August. [UPDATE 08.12: IT’S HERE!] Note that there are still a few copies of Issue 5 available, too. If you don’t have it, trust me, you want it.

.

New Favorites: from Brooklyn Tweed Men

by

New favorites from Brooklyn Tweed BT Men collection

Kay Gardiner may have said it best in her tweet yesterday: “Brooklyn Tweed Men has it all: facial hair, glasses, sincerity, abandoned warehouse AND FAB KNITWEAR.” In his intro to the lookbook, Jared Flood remembers being a new knitter, once upon a time, wishing for more good patterns. Of course, that’s not a problem exclusive to men (or people wanting to knit for men). Women clearly have far more patterns to choose from, but perhaps that just means more chaff to thresh through in search of the wheat.

Regardless, this collection is good news for all of us, being chock full of designs I would describe as more classic/androgynous than exclusively dudewear. The hats and scarves are all perfectly unisex. The striped turtleneck, Chesterfield, includes a girlfriend version. The exquisite shawl collar cardigan, Timberline, already has a counterpart in Michele Wang’s Exeter. And I suspect many women will be modifying some of the others for themselves, which is a nice change of pace from mod’ing women’s patterns to work for men, right?

My two very favorites are Jared Flood’s Fort (top left) and Julie Hoover’s Redford (middle left). But then, they resonate with me because they look so much like sketches in my own sketchbook! (Particularly those side panels on Redford.) Which is both freakish and not at all surprising, military wear and sweatshirts being mainstays of my wardrobe. Maybe everything I’ve said about the androgyny of the collection should be taken with a grain of salt, come to think of it. As I type this, I’m wearing camo pants and a heather-grey men’s cardigan (albeit with black ballet flats and a ponytail), so my notions of gendered clothing might not be the norm.

Anyway!, my favorites:

TOP LEFT: Fort by Jared Flood, beautiful texture plus elbow patches!
TOP RIGHT: Quay by Jared Flood, my new favorite scarf I don’t own yet
MIDDLE LEFT: Redford by Julie Hoover, with classic sweatshirt detailing
MIDDLE RIGHT: Brig by Veronik Avery, love that mitered ribbing
BOTTOM LEFT: Hayes by Julie Hoover, irresistible striped ribbing
BOTTOM RIGHT: Timberline by Jared Flood, would slide right into any Billy Reid collection

.

New Favorites: Simple little stockinette wraps

by

knitting patterns for simple stockinette wraps

We all know how important it is to have a simple little stockinette project on the needles, for those times when you want something mindless to knit. Or when you’ve screwed up a row of your slightly lacy cardigan and aren’t ready to face fixing it …

LEFT: Cabinfour’s Nordic Wind is a super simple little triangle shawl with wide stripes — shown in four shades of grey, from dark to light, for a little bit of ombré effect.

RIGHT: The Purl Bee’s Beautiful Spring Scarf is nothing but a stockinette rectangle with fringe. But ooh la la, how curious am I about that cashmere-linen blend yarn it’s designed for. And the idea of nylon cord for the fringe is pretty genius.

.

Shirt/dress and a scarf, my summer wardrobe fantasy

by

shirt, dress and scarf by carrie hoge and primoeza

The thing these days is, I need some new clothes. Badly. And for various reasons, I both want and need to sew them. I’m fantasizing about smock dresses and shirt dresses and smockish shirtdresses, particularly this one. Things that are as easy to wear as they are to make. To keep from freezing in a light dress and bare legs, though, I’d need a nice little bit of wool around my shoulders and some funky ankle boots on my feet. (Ideally with wool socks in there.) So I’ve had a sort of vague image rolling around in the back of my mind, until I ran across these two photos in close proximity on Sunday afternoon. Together, they’re exactly the vibe I’m after — a softer version of my all-denim wardrobe.

On the left is Carrie Bostick Hoge’s newly sewn tank dress, from Jenny Gordy’s Wiksten Tank pattern, paired with her Imogen cowl, which has been on my to-knit list since, well, a few minutes after I learned to knit. I’m still in love with my denim Wiksten Tank and have wanted to make others, and Carrie’s deep-blue dress version gets my synapses firing.

On the right is the shop image for Elizabeth Yong of Primoeza’s Colour Edge Scarf, which has the most wonderful subtle stitch pattern, along with the contrast edge, and which looks amazing with that perfectly rumpled, blue-striped linen shirt. Ugh, want! (If you haven’t seen the latest batch of Primoeza scarves, you have to go look. Really brilliant work.)

So Carrie and Elizabeth have jointly snapped me into focus. Now all I need is a new pattern or two, some fabric, some yarn and … oh yeah, time. Sweet, precious, impossible time.

.

Of course, there’s also the notion of throwing a sweater around your neck, as demonstrated by A.L.C. in this week’s ICYMI: Next of the best of Resort 2013.

.

New Favorites: Two surprising Quince scarves

by

picks from the Quince and Co Scarves 2013 collection

The new Quince and Co. Scarves Etc. 2013 collection released on Tuesday (here’s the lookbook), and there’s lots of great, timeless stuff in there to love and knit. See especially Falmouth and Ebb. But to my great surprise, my favorites at first glance were the two with closures!, which I normally despise. I don’t know why, and this is a totally subjective personal thing, but I just do not like shawl pins — especially when they’re holding cardigans closed — and I don’t want to see buttons or toggles or anything else on a scarf. And yet somehow these two designs work for me. On the left is Greta by Elisa Cantolini, my very favorite. On the right is Grasshopper by Annie Gullion, the texture of which I love. (I confess to disliking the actual buttons used on the sample, which is part of my problem with closures: Good ones are hard to find.) Of course, it doesn’t hurt that both scarves are styled right up my alley — that jacket on the left could have come directly out of my closet, and the grey yarn diffuses the potential cutesiness of the ties. So hooray for simple styling. My compliments to everyone involved.

.