Make Your Own Basics: The skirt(s)

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Make Your Own Basics: The skirt(s)

In the pantheon of clothing basics, there are a few anointed skirt shapes. Sure, hem lengths inch up and down with eras and ages, and there are always tricksier/trendier variations on any of these shapes — a million ways to tweak them, and a million patterns that have done it for you — but these four iconic silhouettes are the basis of pretty much everything:

MINI: Moss Skirt by Grainline Studio is neatly tailored with a fly front, slant pockets and back yoke detail. My mini-skirt years are behind me, but I would have sewn a ton of these at other times in my life. Check View B for a longer option.

A-LINE: Everyday Skirt by Liesl Gibson has a flat front waistband and an elasticized back, plus slant pockets. This is not a shape I personally can wear, but I wish I had a dollar for every time someone has recommended this pattern to me. Clearly a crowd favorite!

PENCIL: Selene by Colette Patterns has a lapped back zipper, darts and vent, with two pocket options. You can never go wrong with a good pencil skirt.

CIRCLE: Full Circle Skirt by Anna Maria Horner has a side lapped zipper and is otherwise as simple as can be. Unless you want to get fancy, in which case AMH, the queen of patchwork, has provided paneled and pieced variations.

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PREVIOUSLY in Make Your Own Basics: The fisherman sweater

Q for You: Are you a sweater knitter?

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Q for You: Are you a sweater knitter?

I know I’ve asked you all before what you knit the most of, but I have a very specific subset of that Q for You at the moment, which is: Are you a sweater knitter? [ETA: Pullovers and cardigans are both sweaters.]

Here’s why I ask. I haven’t made a scientific study of it or anything, but I would swear that in the course of the 5 years I’ve been paying attention, pattern collections and indie magazines and such have gone from being half or mostly accessories, with a few sweaters thrown in, to often being sweater collections with a couple of accessories thrown in, if even that. (And socks are definitely more scarce than they once were.) It has me wondering whether that’s the bias of the people putting them together, or whether there’s evidence that people are really that much more interested in sweater patterns than anything else these days. I know there are new sweater knitters joining the ranks every single day, but I would still assume there are far more accessory knitters than sweater knitters roaming the earth. So how to explain the shift in the collections? If I’m right about that. And I really believe I am! Or maybe it’s a pendulum swinging back where I wasn’t around for its previous swing the other direction?

So this is not just a Q but a PLEA to the thousands of you reading this post, will you take two seconds to leave a comment either saying Yes (I am a sweater knitter) or No (I’m not a sweater knitter)? If you have the time and the will, I’d love to hear more — if no, do you want to be; if yes, is it all you knit. Sometimes, always, never. Whatever you want to tell me! But please, I’m dying to know—

Hi, my name is Karen, and I am a sweater knitter.

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Oh, and for aspiring sweater knitters, see: Pullovers for first-timers (an introduction to sweater construction) and Cardigans for first-timers

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PREVIOUSLY in Q for You: What’s in your Field Bag?

Queue Check — January 2017

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Queue Check — January 2017

So where am I on that Channel Cardigan I want to take to Paris? Well, the sleeves are still done! And I’ve added a whopping inch or two to the body.

All my late-night nervous knitting energy has been poured into the second coming of my St. Brendan sweater. It’s been two weeks since I ripped it back to its yoke, and it already has two full sleeves (knitted flat) and about half of the body. That cake of black yarn you see in the pic is my last skein before I have to get into the kinky frog pile, so I’m considering it a good stopping point. When this skein runs out, I plan to knit the neckband from the frog pile, then block the whole thing (also soaking the rewound skeins) and seam the sleeves. I haven’t decided exactly how long I want it to be yet — I want to see how it looks with the upper half and sleeves all done and blocked, which will tell me what the rest wants to be. And I also have the cuffs on waste yarn — thinking about knitting them long enough to fold up.

You may notice there’s no colorwork on those sleeves. I’ve decided the way it is now, with just the yoke, it really is exactly the sweater I’ve been wanting. I expect to be done with it in another week or so — hopefully there will be at least a few days in February cold enough to wear it! (She says from balmy Nashville.)

Then it’s full speed ahead on Channel. The anticipation of that camel yarn and melodious stitch pattern is what’s getting me through all this stockinette …

• Channel Cardigan pattern by Jared Flood in Clever Camel | all Channel posts
• St. Brendan pattern by Courtney Kelley in Arranmore | all St. Brendan posts

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PREVIOUSLY in Queue Check: Year-end 2016

Wardrobe Planning: April in Paris (part 1)

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Wardrobe Planning: April in Paris (part 1)

I’m indulging a little fantasy — one I hope will become reality. April in Paris. Bob and I have never been to Europe (never been anywhere except Mexico and the Bahamas) and I keep saying this is the year we figure out how to make it happen … although it still seems incredibly far-fetched for something that’s ostensibly happening in three months! Regardless of whether it’s daydreaming or advance planning, I’m using the idea of packing for that trip as motivation for a couple of other things:

  1. A firm deadline to complete the knitting of my Channel cardigan-in-progress. What better garment to wander the early-Spring streets of Paris in than this sweater? So I’m making it the focus of my imagined Paris packing list.
  2. A reason to start thinking about how I want to dress this late-Winter/early-Spring in general — i.e., what few pieces I might add, and are they to-buy or to-make? It would be lovely to be ahead of the game on the latter for a change. Plus I haven’t touched my sewing machine since August, so it’s wise to think through what best to make when I do.

Since I’m forever dreaming of a wardrobe so concise-yet-versatile that it would fit into a carry-on and combine into a thousand outfits, that’s what I’m aiming for here. I have a first draft of a proposed packing list (slash shopping list slash making list) in the form of that messy sketch up there, comprising 12-14 endlessly combinable garments. And I’ve also started sketching out some of the outfit combos in my beloved Fashionary notebook. I’m trying to strike a balance between having it all decided too far ahead of time (being over it by the time April gets here) and having it more-or-less-decided far enough in advance to have time to make the makes.

An embarrassingly long while ago, the lovely people at Brooklyn Tweed asked me if I might want to do a guest board for them at Pinterest, and since Jared Flood’s Channel Cardigan pattern is the centerpiece of this whole mental exercise, I’ve made this the subject of my pinboard. So far I’m collecting inspirational images, places to go while we’re there, garments I might want to have with me. I’ll be adding to it over the course of the next couple of months, if you’d like to follow along! Hopefully it will end with me actually standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in my Channel.

Of course I’ll have more to say about it all here as I zero in on the details. And if you’ve been to Paris and have recommendations, I’d love to hear them!

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PREVIOUSLY in Wardrobe Planning: Winter wardrobe week

When knitalongs breed patterns

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When knitalongs breed patterns: Two great Cowichan-style cardigans

There was a certain irony, during the Top-Down Knitalong, in seeing people who were engaging in knitting without a pattern (in most cases for the first time) being asked repeatedly about their sweaters, “Are you going to publish the pattern?” “Please publish the pattern!” And (irony aside) I’m really excited about how many patterns will, apparently, be coming out of that knitalong. But these things take time, and what I am pleased to tell you in the meanwhile is that two patterns (that I know of) also came out of the previous year’s knitalong, the Cowichan-style Knitalong, both of which have been released in recent months:

TOP: West Coast Cardigan by Jane Richmond
Jane is an extremely popular pattern designer, and one of my first favorites when I took up the craft, so I was thrilled when she jumped into that knitalong, sharing that it was her first time doing stranded colorwork! Rather than knitting a vest, she opted to knit more of the classic zip-front jacket — albeit top-down raglan rather than drop-shouldered. Demand for the pattern ensued, followed by a year or so of pattern-writing and testing all that, and it’s now the subject of its own knitalong. The pattern also includes blank charts if (like me) you’re wanting to create your own motifs.

BOTTOM: Watkins by Whitney Hayward
Whitney (most recently noted for Stone Wool) also opted to knit a cardigan that was a huge crowd-pleaser, while being a little more loosely Cowichan-inspired. This one is bottom-up seamless, with a more traditional shawl-collar — and a steek! — and is bulky gauge rather than superbulky, so some might find it a little more wearable.

I can’t see any reason why I shouldn’t knit one of each!

To learn about Cowichan sweaters, see: the full Cowichan-style knitalong scroll

UNRELATED SHOP NEWS: We’ve got the new issue of Koel Magazine; the new KnitWit with article by yours truly; the latest volume of Brooklyn Tweed’s Capsule books, by Michele Wang; a fresh stack of Jared’s book; the newly repackaged Stowe Bag pattern; all five colors of the Field Bag in stock at the same time, along with Porter Bins; a new batch canvas wax and cleaner (sold separately) … the list goes on! Find it all at Fringe Supply Co.

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Elsewhere

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Yarny links for your clicking pleasure

Ok, y’all — I’ve got quite a load of lighthearted links for you today!

– Best illustrated anecdote of the month

– Love this cardigan-dress look

– This “herringweave” stitch

– And Dianna’s Nordic delights roundup

– as well as this travelogue about Selbu, which is definitely on my bucket list now (bottom left)

– “… hand-spun 25m long hanks of pure wool from many countries and breeds of sheep are used to create a moving and contemplative piece of work …”

– New knitters might want to bookmark this glossary

– Darling free baby sweater pattern (top left)

– How to let out a hem

– This sweater (top right)

– This Farrow Dress + Stowe Bag combo

– Yarn tales like this

– Favorite photo from all the VKLive revelry in NYC last weekend (bottom right)

– Or maybe this is my favorite

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PREVIOUSLY: Elsewhere

Gone marchin’

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Forgive me, but I made a decision yesterday: Instead of spending the usual several hours putting together Elsewhere for today, I spent those hours yesterday calling congresspeople and voicing my concerns. (Here’s a helpful public spreadsheet with congressional members broken down by committee, along with contact info, for anyone interested.) Tomorrow I will be attending my first-ever march (here in Nashville), but rest assured I’ll be back on Monday with a proper Elsewhere for you.

I do have one link, though — I’m extremely honored to have an article and 3-page photo spread in the Winter issue of KnitWit, and that’s in the shop today.

Whether you’re marching or celebrating this weekend, may we all do so in peace.