Knit n' Style April 2013: A Review

It's January and Knit n' Style, which published their February 2013 issue in November 2012, has just come out with their April 2013 issue. Don't ask me. Maybe the whole issue post-dating thing is supposed to convince us that Knit n' Style is remarkably fashion forward.

But let's look at the patterns from the Knit n' Style April 2013 issue.

This is... okay. It's wearable but also leans a bit towards the shapeless, frumpy side. Putting more effort into shaping it would have upgraded it by making it more flattering and giving it some style.

Here we have the same sweater as above, only done in crochet. The same comments apply.

I actually quite like this scarf. It's one of those beginner projects that look designed and polished, probably because it used high quality yarn and a sophisticated colour combination.

This shawl is beautifully intricate.

This is shapeless, bulky and unflattering; the fastenings don't do anything for it; the open neckline won't work worn over any other top except those with a lower neckline and you wouldn't want to wear this jacket without a layer underneath, and the collar just looks chintzy. I'd love to see a fur-collared knitted jacket done right, but this one went wrong in just about every way it could. It's Murphy's jacket.

This looks like something you'd buy for $10 from that little shop at the subway because you convinced yourself it was fun and cute and it only cost $10. Then you got it home and tried it on and realized you had absolutely nothing to wear it with and that it looked like the tacky Christmas tree skirt that your mother had, and even she got rid of it a few years back. The shop doesn't take returns so you couldn't take it back, and there was nothing to do with it but give it to the Knit n' Style editors. Then they inexplicably put it on the cover of their next issue.

I like this one. It's simple yet sharp and a woman who had it would get a lot of wear out of it.

Another pretty lace shawl.

I actually don't mind this shrug, though I would have styled it in a completely different way, by putting it over a strapless or strappy little summer dress. Putting it over a woman's already fully clothed arms and shoulders looks a bit silly.

This one is another styling mishap. Strappy tanks don't look right over long-sleeve t-shirts and I don't care at all for the yarn. Horizontal stripes don't tend to look good on anyone and these mottled horizontal stripes are even more unattractive than usual.

I can't help liking this. It's not at all a style or colour I would ever wear, but it works in its own way. The prism effect is kept subtle and balanced by the gray, and the shape is graceful and dramatic but not overly so. A woman with a very modern style could carry this off.

This shawl isn't nearly as successful as the previous two — the design and the shape are not nearly so well done — but I suppose it's adequate if nothing special.

Rule number one of shawl-making: the end result should not look like you took an ugly old afghan off your couch and wrapped it around your shoulders. And no, adding buttons to the ugly old afghan will not turn it into a shawl, much less a nice shawl.

Nice little cotton pullover. I'd have gone with either full-length or short sleeves, though. This length lines up with the bottom hem, which just makes it look kind of awkward.

Another afghan masquerading as a shawl.

This time we have an afghan masquerading as a cardigan. I don't know why some designers keep trying to incorporate the granny square into clothing design. It never, ever, works.

I actually like this one. It looks like the perfect thing to wear on a day when you've got a touch of the flu and the furnace is acting up and you need comfort clothes to snuggle into. The yarn, Kollage Yarns' Whimsy, which is a mohair/wool blend with a little nylon thrown in, looks to be a very decent quality, the colour is subtle and appealing and the detail on the cowl and hem add just the right amount of interest and polish to a simple design. However, I would fix the dropped shoulders, make the sleeves full-length, and make the sweater just one size too large with some waist-shaping, as it is a little on the sloppy side as worn here.

This one will have everyone wondering why you stapled your scarf to the edges of your cardigan. It couldn't be in order to make the cardigan the right size, they will think, because it still isn't meeting in the front, and they'll end up concluding that it would be kindest not to ask.

Here we have another cardigan with a scarf sewed bizarrely to the front of it. I know how much you love working with novelty yarns, Knit n' Style, but novelty yarns are not an easy way to jazz things up. They are actually a challenge to work with because they tend to cheapen whatever items they're used in.

This item is described as a stole and worn rather awkwardly around the shoulders. I'd have described it as a scarf and worn it around the neck.

A classic Aran cardigan from Gayle Bunn, whom as you may remember did one of the better designs in the last issue of Knit n' Style. I suppose that for a good designer one of the advantages of slumming it in Knit n' Style is that your work looks even better than it is because of the contrast with some of the other offerings.

This one's inoffensive. The sleeve length looks a little awkward, but it would be easy to lengthen or shorten as you wish. One minor nitpick... the description calls it a shawl-collared sweater, and although I may be wrong about this because the model's hair hides the collar, that doesn't look like a shawl collar to me, but just a V-neck with a wide, flat neckband. Shawl collars fold back over themselves.

This is one of those "good with caveats" designs. The caveats being that I would not recommend that you make this top in a pastel as it makes it look a little too underwear-like, that you only make it if you are small or flat-breasted as it will make a large-breasted woman look dumpy, and that you only make it if you don't mind people being able to see your stomach through the top — notice how the model's white jeans show through very plainly?

Classic gansey.

Not a bad cowl. It lies gracefully, it looks nice in an understated way, and it'll keep your neck warm. Make this in a beautiful yarn and it will serve you well.

This "shawlette" looks rather pointless from a practical perspective but it's not unappealing aesthetically. It might not be a bad project if you just want to add a little colour to an outfit and need to quickly whip up something for the purpose.

Not a bad bag, but I don't know why it's been styled this way. It looks like a beach bag and the model has sleek hair and is wearing a suit. Perhaps she got invited to a business picnic at the waterfront and felt at a loss as to what one would wear for such an occasion. This isn't a bag you can wear with a suit, even if it were in a more classic colour.

These Boots Were Knitted for Walking

If you're a frustrated cobbler who knows how to knit, there is a way to knit your own shoes: you can just cut the uppers off an existing pair of shoes, leaving a 1/2" or 3/4" strip around the sole, punch a series of holes in the strip, then knit new uppers using the holes as a base for your first row.

Alternatively, and this will not only be the easier route but probably make a sturdier shoe (I've read the knitted uppers can be a little floppy), you can simply knit pieces to match the existing uppers as closely as possible, and then super glue and lace them in place. You can find Ravelry member Kamillasvanlund's tutorial for the glued-on technique on here. Etsy seller Pretty Sneaky has a variety of great examples of "reupholstered" Converses in her Etsy shop (the two pictures above are her handiwork) and will also custom make them on order in any theme you'd like. She'll even do a custom wedding package for the groom and groomsmen in your wedding if you wish.

Some people knit new uppers for leather shoes as well, using the "cut the upper off and knit up from the remaining strip around the sole" technique. You can look at some instructional pictures here if my explanation didn't make any sense to you.

I am not sure how this espadrille-like pair was made as of course, since it used a flip-flop, there's nothing to stitch the new upper to. My best guess is that the new upper was glued on and that the braid hides the edges.

The adapted Converses look best — but the latter two executions leave... something to be desired aesthetically. I'd love to see what would happen if a really skilled designer took this idea and ran with it.

If Mini-Me Took Up Knitting...

If you take your knitting everywhere and you're getting tired of stuffing the back of an adult-sized sweater and a 100g skein of worsted into your already bulging shoulder bag or backpack, you might try scaling down your knitting projects, as Althea Crome has done. Crome is a miniature knitter, and her projects are so tiny they'd fit into your pocket and still leave room for your cellphone.

Apparently it wasn't enough of a challenge for Crome to merely make simple items on a two-inch scale, as her work is not only small but amazingly complex and detailed. Sometimes she makes replicas of historical costumes as with the Queen Elizabeth I sweater above, or recreates famous paintings or other works of art, or depicts entire scenes, such as an underwater seascape or Santa and all his eight tiny reindeer flying over a house.

You can visit Crome's website, Bug Knits, to see galleries of her work. Crome also knitted some items for the 2009 3D stop-motion movie Coraline, including a sweater for the title character.






Crome talks about her work and demonstrates her "extreme knitting" in this promotional video for Coraline.

If you want to give miniature knitting a shot yourself, you can buy some of Crome's patterns to help you get started, and I wish you the best. All I can think of when I see Crome in action is the time I decided to make ten Barbie outfits as part of a Christmas present for one of my nieces. I got four items done before I cracked and COULDN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE. Crome's patience and self-control are astounding.

I bet Althea Crome's children have the most exquisitely dressed Barbies ever.

Boardwalk Knitting

All I can tell you about this image is that it's a screencap from some video game, a teaser released back in August 2010. The blogger reporting on it didn't know what it was from, and has never updated his post. It may have been from a game released only to the Japanese market.

I don't play video games (not because I don't like them in a way but because whenever I have played them I was always mad at myself for the sheer waste of time they constitute), so I don't know what game this is from. But if I knew, I might play this one. I mean, come on, this looks like "the mobsters of Boardwalk Empire learn to knit and meet Evil Sockboy". How can that do otherwise than rock?

So You Think You Can Knit....

I'm afraid to google this, but given how derivative American TV is, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some cable show out with a similar premise.

Meek's Knit-Off

A week or so ago I watched the 2010 movie Meek's Cutoff, which is the story of three couples and a small boy trying to survive a westward trek on the Oregon Trail with their uncertain guide. The movie featured a scene in which the three female characters in the movie were all sitting around knitting. I had to give actresses Michelle Williams, Zoe Kazan, and Shirley Henderson an A for effort, because I bet they all learned to knit for their roles in the movie and they didn't do badly at looking competent and relaxed. However, to an experienced knitter who knows a little about women's needlework in Victorian times, it was a less than historically accurate scene. All three women were knitting quite slowly and had bad form, and all three were knitting what looked suspiciously like a garter stitch scarf, or some other shapeless beginner project.

Most nineteenth century American women knew how to knit well. Among any three given pioneer women, at least one or two would have been highly skilled, fast knitters, and they would all have been working on more technically demanding, recognizable, practical projects: socks or stockings being most likely, or mittens, or perhaps a shawl. The pregnant character would almost certainly have been knitting something for her baby. And why are all three women working on what looks like the same project with the same yarn? It wouldn't have been hard to make up three different, more period-accurate projects and give them to the actresses to work on for the scene, or to just give them mending or other sewing to do, and I don't understand why it wasn't done, especially when this was such a realistic movie in every other way. But then Hollywood doesn't tend to depict knitting in the most convincing way, probably because relatively few actors and directors have any real knitting skills or knowledge. I wonder if there's a need for movie knitting consultants, and if so, how one could become one?

Knitting on the Run(way)

One Christmas morning I finished a sweater for one of my nieces, wrapped it, and finally put it under the tree just half an hour before my niece was due to arrive at my parents' place for our family do. My father joked about my mastery of just-in-time production. I think we'll have to dub this look a "not-quite-in-time production".