Category: magazines

I collect Vogue Knitting.  I think I have every issue except one, and I suppose if I were truly a collector I would be out searching for that one issue, but so far I just keep putting it off.

So, what will I knit?

There are also two pairs of gloves.  But as I have already mentioned I also want to knit some mittens, and the mittens really are going to be first off my needles, first off before gloves that is, not necessarily next in line.  I still have yarn issues.

My other peeve is that they have started putting many charts on the website instead of in the magazine.  Yes I can see that this does make printing cheaper.  But I buy the magazine and save it so that I can have the patterns for the future as well as the present.  It is a pain to have to go download the charts.  I would be willing to pay more for a beautiful magazine with complete instructions including charts.  But I am probably in the minority here.

The new Vogue Knitting arrived last weekend and I have been looking through it daily, reading it a little here and there, looking at the pictures and patterns, perusing the ads (I always love studying the ads) and just generally entertaining myself.  

The second sweater that really leapt out at me, and the one that I think is my hands-down favorite sweater in this issue is Laura Bryant's opera coat. There is a part of me that just wants to stop everything and get that yarn. But I know it would take  a while and I can't imagine knitting the sweater in some  other yarn.  That is not surprising considering how much I love Prism yarns and just ooh and ahh over Laura Bryant's colors.  But it will have to wait.  There is no Laura Bryant opera coat in my immediate future, except in the land of dreams.  But have not doubts that the opportunity will arise and I will make it someday.

This stunning fair isle with the bell sleeves and the peplum is something that will look good on me now and will probably look good in the future too.   I think I keep saying that I need sweaters in variations on this shape and this one is certainly worthy of adding to the queue.  

I love the photo of the different colorways as well and find them very inspiring.  At the moment I am drawn to the magenta version but it would have to be worn with just the right thing, and the turquoise is also thrilling.    I wish I was able to find that information about the colorways and additional commentary by Mably that Vogue says can be found on the website, but I just can't find it.  I don't really need to find the exact colors anyway, I just love the picture because it inspires me to think of colors I might not have chosen previously.

This little scooped neck, ribbed top is just fabulous.  It is the kind of think that I would, and do, wear all the time, but also the kind of thing I just rarely think of knitting.  I am always drawn to the fun patterns, not necessarily to the practical patterns.  I should knit it.  I think I will knit it.  I increasingly love my own knits more than anything I can buy, so it seems obvious that I should knit the kind of things that I love to wear.  

And it still isn't fast enough.

Actually, I am torn between Jaali (the orange sweater) and Bonnie (the green one).  You get better pictures of the detail of Jaali in the magazine, Bonnie also intrigues and would just be perfect for tramping around the woods and farms.  At the moment I am leaning more toward the former than the latter, but no commitments have been made.

Although the cabled hoodie in chunky yarn remains near the top of my list, I am also reconsidering the beautiful cabled square wrap cardigan by Angela Hahn.   Angela's blog is one of my favorites but I was a little behind on blog reading.  When I looked at the photos of this sweater on her blog I knew I had to knit it, the photo in the magazine really does not begin to show the beauty of this sweater.  Angela also answered some of my questions about fit/alterations by giving more information and some corrections to  the pattern as written in Vogue.

Perhaps it is that I love clothes too much.  Or perhaps it is that I suffer from a lack of discrimination (better that than a lack of taste).  Either way, I know that I am finding tons of inspiration and interesting patterns in the new batch of pattern books and magazines.  I believe I see more than I want to knit than I have in any one year for quite some time.  I see so much that I am feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer abundance.

Take the fall Rowan, book #44.  

The first two, with the cables along the front bands, feature more prominently in my thoughts at the moment, but this could change.  Any decision will probably depend on the choices of yarn and yarn color as well as whether the fall and winter wardrobe presents itself with specific gaps that need to be filled.

Last but by no means least on my list is this long cabled pullover.  Admittedly I am mostly fascinated by the cables.  But the length is good for me and the style is one that I would wear frequently throughout the winter. 

This sweater is the highest on the list of "must makes" from this issue.  I am already thinking of yarns and colors, although nothing is quite decided as fall yarns are just starting to show up in the LYS.  The only rush is to be sure that I get just what I want.  There is no rush to begin knitting this.  It is, after all, still mostly hot and humid here, and the thought of sitting with mounds of heavily cabled bulky wool is not enticing.

And it looks like something to savor slowly:

Ooh la la! Fall fashion magazines.  The dresses on the cover of both the Vogue and the Town and Country are fabulous.  I haven’t really looked at the fall fashion shows yet, not even the couture.  And if these dresses are any indication of what I will find I should start looking.

A new Patrones also arrived and I was very disappointed to see that it is soaking wet and the pages are sticking together.  It was, as usual, wrapped in a plastic bag.  The bag was dry on the outside and wet on the inside.  I wonder what happened.  The pattern looks OK but the line drawing pages are a mess.  I need to look more closely and trace off anything I might want before it becomes completely illegible. Luckily, at first glance, there is really not that much in this issue I am interested in — all summer things, and I have many far more interesting summer things filling my dreams.

When Marji  told me that the May Knipmode had the pattern for a particular Bottega Veneta dress I knew I had to get a copy.

It arrived today and I am thrilled.  I can’t wait to make the dress.  And there are couple of other things I like as well — a Valentino suit perhaps? A blouse with a fabulous ruffled neckline? 

So now I am officially overwhelmed with ideas of things I want to sew.  Just think a year ago I thought I had lost my style and I found just getting dressed to be stressful, now I want the world to go away and let me sew, sew, sew.  Well, I also want time to go out and wear all these new creations once I have made them.

I know I also promised to post pictures of the fabrics purchased at Fishman’s.  Those have arrived too, I just need to get them photographed.

The new Vogue Knitting arrived in my mailbox today.  I was rather sad to see that it was, overall, fairly disappointing.  I have been buying Vogue Knitting since they reintroduced it in 1982 even though I did not know how to knit at that time. I had faith that I would learn.  Since I did not knit I did miss a few issues, but not many, only 2 or 3 issues are missing from my collection. 

I can honestly say however, that never, in all that time, have I been as completely uninspired by any issue as I am by this one. The cover looks promising,  the colors are thrilling, but the patterns themselves do not encourage me to whip out the needles and rifle through the stash, much less fire up the mouse and start seeking out new yarn.

Perhaps it is just me. 

Even the story line entitled "Oh Cables" did not brighten my spirits although I seem to have been tempted by cabled sweaters elsewhere:

Look at this wonderful cabled sweater currently on sale at Net-A-Porter. . Here is something I am inspired to knock-off, although I would change the length a bit to fit me and perhaps change the shape a little bit as well. 

Here is a detail photo of the cables:

The combination of the jacket shape and the hood and the cable pattern makes me itch to find some yarn and needles, although if it continues warm I probably won't need it this year and I already have a generous supply of sweaters that are too warm to wear.

I can't even say that I am attracted only to high-end designer knitwear.  I am also thinking about this cabled sweater from Moda Dea, a branch of Coats and Clarks.  The tie front isn't really for me but that is easily adapted to a simple narrow belt. and I just love the combination of pattern and the lines of this jacket. 

Both of these are styles that I would find fun to knit and would love to wear for a long time. 

The designs in the Vogue just don't pass that test for me.  Some of them are moderately interesting.  And I am not one to shy away from fashionable or trendy designs, but the Vogue patterns don't seem to have either enough spark or enough versatility to capture my attention.

Or perhaps it is just that I have too many one-outfit sweaters and am looking for something a little more basic.

¿ ¿Sewing time, what’s that.??  Just finding time to write seems to be a struggle this week.

Thursday night I met a friend at the local Barnes and Noble for what was billed as an evening of knitting but actually ended up being an evening of browsing through knitting and sewing books, drinking coffee, and talking up a storm.  Not a bad way to spend an evening at all.

When I walked in to the store, I saw the new Sew Stylish magazine and quickly grabbed it before heading up the escalator.  After that, I kind of flipped through it here and there between fits of talking and giggling, put it down on a shelf while I looked at crochet books and proceeded to forget all about it until I was leaving the store.  Then I had to go back in and buy a copy.  Of course I am glad I did because I have been hauling it around with me ever since, flipping through the pages, looking at the articles and the ideas and just generally getting a major sewing inspiration hit.

Generally I have been very interested in this magazine even though I did not subscribe to it, although I would have eventually.  I cannot be convinced that my failure to subscribe has lead to its demise, barely before it got started, because I have been down this road too many times with magazines from Taunton Press.  I have been charter subscribers to most of their new magazines, loved them, and have been sorely disappointed when they cease publication and my subscription is applied to one of my other Taunton subscriptions (like Threads, my subscription to which I believe is due to expire in something like 2011). 

But enough grousing…back to the magazine.  There are a lot of good tips and ideas in this magazine and more than just a compendium of ideas and tips, I like the way they have tied all this information together by building a collection of garments based on one pattern; Simplicity 3631:

I am actually rather impressed with the things they have turned out of this with this pattern, and if you haven’t looked at this magazine, I think you should.  I would have loved something like this when I was learning to sew because it ties ideas for actual garments that I could sew now in with all kinds of useful information that I would otherwise have to search for in a bunch of different books without much confidence if I was doing the right thing when applying it to the garment I was trying to make.

This pattern is on my "to buy" list, even though I was not particularly thrilled with it when I first saw it on the website.  There was a pretty interesting discussion about it over at Stitcher’s Guild but I wasn’t really convinced about it until I started looking at some fall inspiration garments and thinking about a few things I wanted to make, including my plans for making something inspired by that Anthropologie embroidered baby-doll top that will be neither baby-doll nor a top by the time I am done with it.  Unfortunately this pattern was not yet in stock last time I was in my local JoAnn Fabrics before I left for Knoxville.  I continue to hope that the pattern drawers will be restocked soon.

Suffice it to say that Passel did not progress as far as hoped during our trip to Knoxville.  Not that all that driving time was wasted:  800 miles each way allows for much knitting time, even if I did somewhat over 1/3 and less than half of the driving.  Instead much of my time was spent on a different project, about which you will hear more later, upon its completion, which is imminent.   

I did finish the back of Passel and am about 6 or 8 rows from the armhole shaping on the right front.  Very little has been accomplished since my return on Monday night despite the fact that I met fellow knitter Gina last night for what was supposed to be knitting time but ended up being chatting time.  My own output came to two rows.

One thing we did discuss was the new fall Rowan magazine, which arrived while I was away, one of many knitting related treats, but the only one I have examined in any detail as of yet.  (You know I MUST be busy).

I love this issue.  There are a lot of cute things in here, a lot of inspiring ideas and a lot of details and designs that make me think differently about knitting or how I make and shape things.  I rate this issue highly for its dream and inspiration factor and in fact there are also several garments that I may knit more or less as shown.  that makes this issue a success on all counts from my perspective.

In fact, there are enough things I like that I keep changing my mind about what I might or might not knit.  These are the patterns of which I am currently enamored (click on image to enlarge):

There is yet another sweater that I am considering more and more, can’t get it out of my head in fact. It is this sweater by Kaffe Fassett:

I love the color striping but at first I thought the shape was unwearable.  Now I am not so sure.  The shape is remarkably like my current "I can’t wait until Fall so I can wear it" new treat, this dress from Rachel Pally:


Granted the dress is a much thinner, stretchier knit so the look on the body would be totally different, but the way I wear it is not that different from the look of that Rowan sweater on the model.

I am tempted.

But there is an awful lot of kidsilk haze in that sweater and it could be a really expensive mistake, both in cash and knitting time, so I need to play with the idea  a little longer, perhaps work out some kind of mock-up.  But if it works it could be very cool.

If it works it would be way nicer than the remake of that bubble dress in the new Vogue Knititng, the one I made way back when…

It was over a week ago that a friend mentioned getting the new Vogue Knitting.  I started to check my mailbox with an eager hand.  I bet you’ve heard this story before.  As the week progressed, my forays into the Hyde Park Post Office became an increasingly intense experience, filled with anticipation, and always ending in frustration.

Need I say that the fabled Vogue Knitting has not yet arrived, much to my chagrin. 

Thursday night at group there were copies on the table.  I had managed to avoid looking at copies at every drugstore and newsstand in town, but I could not resist the pull of that magazine lying right in front of me, taunting me.  I am still awaiting my own copy, one that I can pore over and slowly savor the contents.  Also at knitting was a copy of the new Interweave Knits, but on that front at least my prayers have been answered.  The Interweave Knits was at home waiting for me as I walked into the kitchen in the wee wee hours of Friday morning.

I haven’t really read it yet, I am saving it for my trip to Tennessee next week, but I have looked at the patterns and there are several that have caught my eye.  I suppose you are not surprised.  I probably have a lifetime’s worth of projects to knit and I am still seduced by the promise of the new.

I love these:

There is some Rowan Felted Tweed hiding somewhere in this house that I *know* will be perfect for that wonderful cardigan by Eunny Jang (middle photo) and the others are high on my list also.  But we know how I am with lists, what is high on my list is only as high as the next magazine or knitting book, when my thoughts and dreams become completely reorganized.

There are several other sweaters of which I like particular details, but they are not jumping to the top of the list, and there are that I love but about which I have serious reservations about how they will look ON ME, so they may in fact just remain dream sweaters and never be seen on my needles:

Both of these really intrigue me.  The Teva Durham (on the right) is something I could have worn when I was younger and I am not sure if it will flatter my now bustier figure. 

The little jacket by Wenlan Chia just intrigues and there is a part of me that thinks it may be more flattering than one might think.  But then again, I have been wrong before…..

There is one more sweater that I just *must* knit.  I saw it on the back cover, and it is not a pattern from this magazine, but I have always said that I find the magazines just as valuable for the advertising as I sometimes do for their featured designs.

This sweater by Classic Elite has simply taken my breath away with its simple classic elegance.  The book is already on order.