Knit Simple Fall 2013: A Review

Knit Simple has published their Fall 2013 issue. Why don't we have a look at it?

Not bad at all. A classic cabled wrap in a fun colour.

I like this one too, a basic but well-cut cabled sweater with an attractive ballet neckline. I do like a long cuff — it sets off the hands.

Cute tam.

I very much like this one. The flattering yoke (a woman can set off her favourite pendant necklace in this sweater), the lattice detail at the cuffs and hem echoing the yoke — all of that adds up to a warm practical sweater that most women can wear, and that also has interesting details and some style. This is good design.

So far so good, but then we have... this one. Colour blocking really shouldn't look as though the knitter ran out of one kind of yarn and patched in another. This sweater does have some good points but should have been taken several steps further. There needs to be a line of detail at the join where the two colours meet, because it looks rough as it is, and a corresponding line of detail at the cuffs and perhaps also at the hem would pull the whole thing together.

This one isn't bad. The yoke panel would have looked random if it were the only colour block, but the designer has pulled it together by adding cuffs in the same colour and stitch. I'd go just a little further with that and make one of the two yarns a variegated yarn that contained the colour of the second yarn.

Again, this colour blocking looks a bit random, though the actual design of the sweater isn't bad. I'd pick two colours that worked better together than these two rather than simply contrasting, or just knit the whole thing in the same colour.

This is one of the patterns I stare at for five minutes while trying to form a definite opinion, and then am still not sure about. The way this cloak is flaring out isn't at all flattering, but it looks to me that if the model weren't posing with her arms akimbo the sides wouldn't be standing away from her body like they are — she's just trying to show us the lines of the design. And so I think if you want to knit yourself a cloak, this isn't a bad one to make. I do wonder about what's going under the scarf, if there's any kind of fastening at the throat, and if (as I suspect) there isn't, whether this cloak will stay on during a sudden gust of wind.

Classic cabled pom-pom hat. You have the option of leaving the pom-pom off if this is too juvenile a look for you, of course.

This one would probably look better done in one colour.

I kind of like this one. I'm not sure whether those are beads or French knots — my guess is the latter. Either way it's a nice finishing touch on such a standard design.

Again, this hat would look better done in one colour. Or if you want it striped, in stockinette stitch rather than a check stitch pattern. Both themes are too much for a small hat and they just make it look rough and amateurish.

If you're making this one for an adult, I'd leave the pom-pom off. Pom-poms always look more than a little childish, and given that the afghan-style ripple pattern makes this look grandma-produced, it needs to look as adult as is otherwise possible.

This isn't bad, I guess. I might go with a more sophisticated colour scheme, though.

Love the colours in this, but not the shape. It's a little too Keebler Elf, falling over in a comical way rather than draping in a graceful way.

Here we have a "Lawrence of Arabia meets a snowstorm" look. Those unshaped garter stitch side flaps are just a big no-no, and the brim isn't good either, though the rest of the hat is kind of cute. This design needs a properly shaped brim, and if it must have ear flaps, they should look like an integrated part of the design rather than like a pair of random mud guards.

This isn't bad. A simple striped tam with a decent shape.

This is run-of-the-mill but serviceable enough.

I wish I could get a better look at the stitches used in this afghan. However, I think I like the texture, though I'd be inclined to make it just in one colour. Multi-colour afghans almost never look really elegant. But if you want this for a kid's room or some other room which you've done in a fun, colourful way, this could fit right in.

No. Just no. Unless you really think granny chic is actually a thing.

I like this one. I do love a sampler-style afghan.

Man, this is giving me retina burn. I can't even make a real effort to look at the stitchwork. I'd say the same of this as I'd say of the first of these four afghans: make it in one colour unless it's for a room with bright colours and a casual tone.

When I was a child and my mother had one of her (rare) cooking or baking mishaps such as making a cake that fell, she'd dump a sauce all over it and make up a different name for it. This looks like the result of a similar maneuvre, as though someone knitted part of a sweater, found out that she or he hadn't followed directions, and decided to call it a scarf rather than have all that work go to waste. The problem being that while no one much cares what food looks like as long as it looks appetizing and tastes good and in any case will soon disappear, a scarf is supposed to look good and be wearable for a long time.

Oh, and now we see what the maker of the scarf was trying to make: a hoodie. And she or he still didn't get there on the second try, and so this time called it a scarf with an attached hood. And I'm still not buying it.

These knitted bags are cute. I'd use a more interesting and/or better quality yarn for this project, but otherwise they're good, with a simple shape and bit of texture.

I wish I could see what's going on with this pattern. Are there side seams or is this a wrap? I'm inclined to say the latter, in which case this isn't a bad wrap. It lies reasonably well either well. The colours and the fringe make it look a little afghan-y, but that can be changed easily.

Not a bad scarf and fingerless mitt set, though I do have a few concerns about the shaping of the mitts — they look a little crude.

I rather like these sneaker- and sweater-style hat and mittens sets. They're cute and whimsical.

I like the idea of mittens as pockets on a kid's sweater, but these look kind of random. I'd add a few touches of pink to this sweater to pull it together and make the sweater look more deliberate. Do you know what would be really cute? A clothesline pattern running right around the chest, back and front, with tiny mittens hanging from it.

I like this little mandarin jacket, and I even like the matching headband. I'd do it in another colourway, but that's just personal preference, as this one works well enough. Children prefer bright colours, even though the adults who make their clothes would rather look at something more sophisticated.

This is definitely a little jacket I would make in another colour combination because this one isn't quite pulling together — the hot pink is too overpowering for the pale blue and they're just fighting one another. Otherwise this is a cute design that would look quite sharp in a better colourway. Though it is pulling open over this child's stomach. Make sure you make the sweater big enough.

Very cute design in a good colourway. My one quibble is that those bows could have been better designed. They look a little limp.

Love this. Darling daisy pattern on this vest.

Really cute little lace cardigan for a baby.


Coming up: Look for a special Fourth of July post tomorrow morning!

Fair Isle and Sportswear: a Selection of Knitting Patterns from 1920 to 1929

This is the third post in my Twentieth Century knitting patterns series (you can see the other posts here), and it covers the years from 1920 to 1929.

The 1920s saw the first really modern dressing. Many women cut their hair, went sleeveless in the daytime, raised their hemlines to just below the knee, and discarded their corsets (though they donned girdles and breast flatteners instead). Many of the knitting patterns from the 1920s are perfectly wearable by today's standards. I was still not able to find any menswear patterns that I cared to include in this post; all those that I saw were just too basic and indistinguishable from any boring run-of-the-mill pattern from today. But I was able to include just one menswear pattern by bending my rules for this series of posts.

This, of course, is not a knitting pattern photo or illustration, but a portrait of Edward, the then Prince of Wales, painted in 1921 by Sir Henry Lander. It was Prince Edward who popularized the Fair Isle sweater by beginning to wear it as golf wear, for some official public appearances, and to pose for this painting. The Fair Isle sweater is such a mainstream classic today that it's easy for us to underestimate the impact Prince Edward had on it, but I looked at a lot of patterns from 1900-1919 while researching the first two posts in this series, and I did not see a single Fair Isle pattern. Then suddenly in the patterns from the twenties they were common, for women at least — I didn't see any Fair Isle patterns for men. I've read that Fair Isle pullovers soon became a must-have for every college boy in the twenties. I'm sure Prince Edward's great-grandmother would have been pleased, given that she popularized knitting.

I have tried to find readily accessible and authentic period patterns for this series, but I'll make an exception for this one iconic sweater and instead point you to some replica patterns. The closest patterns I could find were in Michael Pearson's Traditional Knitting: Aran, Fair Isle, and Fisher Ganseys
, and in Sweaters from Camp: 38 Color-Patterned Designs from Meg Swansen's Knitting Campers, by Amy Detjen, Meg Swansen, and Joyce Williams. It wasn't as easy as it should have been to replicate this pattern because the artist didn't bother rendering it in detail. I wonder if Prince Edward's sweater pulled askew in the front as it does in this painting or if that was the artist's mistake.

This Knit Coat Sweater looks very modern to me. I think the only change I'd make, aside from any necessary size-related alterations, is to replace the sash with a coordinating skinny belt. This design was published in Columbia Yarns, Vol. 21, in 1920, and is available for free on Costumes.org. Columbia Yarns, Vol. 21 is available as a reproduction from Iva Rose Vintage Reproductions for $21.95.

This open front cardigan looks like it's straight out of knit.wear, and it already has a skinny belt. It would have been considered sportswear back in its day, something a woman would wear on the golf course or to play tennis, but now it's suitable as work wear and for nearly anywhere else. This design was published in the Bear Brand Blue Book, vol. 42 in 1922, and a reproduction of that book may be purchased from Iva Rose Vintage Reproductions for $15.95.

This is the Warrington Sweater. Checks must have been very much in style in the twenties, because I saw a lot of checked patterns in my research for this post, and I liked the unusual twist on checks in this pattern. This design was originally published in Fleisher's Knitting & Crocheting Manual, 19th Edition, in 1922, and is available for free at A Good Yarn. A reproduction of Fleisher's Knitting & Crocheting Manual, 19th Edition is available from Iva Rose Vintage Reproductions for $21.95.

This is the Somerville Sweater. This design was also originally published in Fleisher's Knitting & Crocheting Manual, 19th Edition, in 1922, and is available for free at A Good Yarn. A reproduction of Fleisher's Knitting & Crocheting Manual, 19th Edition is available from Iva Rose Vintage Reproductions for $21.95. Incidentally, if you like this model's hat, scroll down to the next pattern.

These are the Claremont (top), Devereaux (left) and Duncan (right and in the previous pattern photo) hat and scarf sets. I really wanted to include at least one hat pattern in this post, and by rights it should have been the iconic cloché, but as cute as the cloché looks when considered on its own, it is terribly unflattering on anyone. It hides too much of the face and the downward lines of the hat are universally aging and unkind to even the youngest and most attractive of its wearers. Canadian author L.M. Montgomery, who was in her late forties and early fifties during the twenties and was always a well-dressed woman who cared a lot about her appearance and clothes, found most of twenties fashions "very beautiful" but hated the cloché, writing in her journals that it looked exactly like "an old bonnet without strings". I was glad to come across these alternative and much more flattering twenties hat patterns to include instead.

These hat patterns are available for free at A Good Yarn, and were originally published in Fleisher's Knitting & Crocheting Manual, 19th Edition, in 1922, A Good Yarn. Fleisher's Knitting & Crocheting Manual, 19th Edition is available as a reproduction from Iva Rose Vintage Reproductions for $21.95.

This little short-sleeved sweater is another sportswear design that would now go almost anywhere. I would be inclined to make those sleeves more fitted to the arm, but otherwise this sweater is totally cute and wearable just as it is. This pattern was originally published in the Minerva Knitting Book, Vol. 10, in 1922, and a reproduction of the book is available from Iva Rose Reproductions for $9.95.

I love this little top. The rose-decorated yoke and waistband looks like it might be crocheted. This pattern was originally published in the Bear Brand Blue Book, Vol. 43, in 1923, which is available as a reproduction from Iva Rose Vintage Reproductions for $15.95.

I'd work with this little girl's pleated dress a little, making the sleeves shorter and the neckline a little lower, and finding the right weight of yarn for it — this looks a little heavy. But the concept is great. This pattern was originally published in Fleisher's Knitting and Crocheting Manual, 20th edition, in 1923, and is available as a reproduction from Iva Rose Vintage Reproductions for $21.95.

Of course I can't do a post on twenties knitting patterns without including one of the most iconic knitwear designs in history, Elsa Schiaparelli’s famous trompe l’oile Bowknot Sweater from 1927. Prior to the 1920s, and even after that time, collars and cuffs were generally detachable. One owned several of them and pinned them to one's shirt, blouse, sweater, or dress as desired. The rationale seems to have been that collars and cuffs got soiled more quickly and if they could be laundered by themselves by hand in a sink it would decrease the number of times it was necessary to launder the whole garment on a washboard. When Schiaparelli designed a sweater (which came in black and shocking pink) with an collar and cuffs knitted into the design, it was something completely innovative and witty. Schiaparelli also got other women to wear a shoe on their heads and think of it as a "smart hat" (mind you, as ridiculous as the shoe hat looked, it still wasn't as unflattering as the cloché). That shoe-as-hat trend didn't last, but this sweater still looks good.

This pattern is available for free from Schoolhouse Press. I've made this sweater myself. I look terrible in black, am very far from having the boyish figure that was the ideal in the twenties, and didn't care for the idea of knitting a stranded sweater, so I used a tweedy orange wool instead of black for the main colour, reshaped the sweater to make it shorter and looser and the neckline slighter lower and more open, and worked the collar, bowknot, and cuffs in intarsia in a cream silk yarn.

I've been including ten patterns in each post in the twentieth century series, but for this post I have a bonus pattern for you, the Irvington Sweater, originally published in A Good Yarn. A Fleisher's Knitting & Crocheting Manual, 19th Edition, in 1922, which describes the Irvington Sweater as, "A splendid example of the so-called Indian sweaters — a gay and charming mode that has found favor with the younger set. A strictly sports model." This gay and charming mode would also have found favour with the young Nazi set. Of course I'm aware that the swastika has a positive meaning ("good luck" or "all is well" if Google serves me correctly) in Indian culture and in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism... but you wouldn't see a pattern like this in any mainstream English-language knitting publication today for reasons I am sure I don't have to explain, and you won't probably won't care to make this sweater unless you are Indian, and perhaps not even then. Some years ago a former co-worker of mine, who is of Indian parentage but has lived in Toronto all her life, asked her Indian-born parents to buy her a shawl while they were visiting family back home. They brought her back a gorgeous one that, alas, had swastikas all around the border. She gulped, then told them as tactfully as possible that it was a beautiful shawl but that she could never wear it.

Coming up: Look for the review of Knit Simple's Fall 2013 issue tomorrow morning!

Knit in Canada

Today is Canada's 146th birthday, and as I'm a Canadian I have decided to do a special post of Canada Day knitting patterns. I know from the analytic data I have on this blog's readership that most of you aren't Canadian (the internet being, as you know, like that), so I've tried to pick items that would be as universally appealing as possible. Not that it was so hard to steer myself away from the patterns that looked like something you'd buy in the CN Tower gift shop. I've got a 30" x 42" Canadian flag that I happily put out on my porch for signal occasions such as Victoria Day, Canada Day, Remembrance Day and other signal occasions like the Olympics or the upcoming crushing defeat of the Harper Conservatives in the next federal election (ohpleaseohpleaseohplease), but I don't care to actually wear the flag or other tacky souvenir stuff myself. I like flags best when they're of a size to be noticed, on a flagpole, and flapping gaily in the wind.

The pattern for the little toy Mountie above is from Kath Dalmeny's World of Knitted Toys. My father actually wanted to join the RCMP as a boy, and did casual labour jobs for several years while he waited to turn 19, the youngest age at which he would be eligible to apply. Then he did everything he needed to do to qualify, including getting his small plane pilot's license. He left getting his doctor's certificate until last, because as a young, fit, 6', 190-pound man in excellent health he had no worries on the score. But as it turned out he wasn't able to get his doctor's certificate, because he had too many allergies. He became a farmer instead, as that was so much better for his allergies.

This Maple bag is a Knitty pattern, and therefore free. I love the colours of this little messenger bag — so soft and warm and well-blended.

These O Canada Mittens are a free pattern, and were, obviously, designed for the 2010 Olympics. I'd rejig the pattern the get rid of the date and the Olympic circles. That's always the way of it with Olympic wear — it's very of the moment and has a definite shelf life. Does anyone remember those Roots poor boy caps from the 1998 Olympics in Nagano? They were such a hot item Roots couldn't keep up with the demand, and then six months after closing ceremonies I saw one in a thrift shop priced at $1.99.

These Canada socks are from Knitting on the Road, by Nancy Bush. They're a subtle way to pay tribute to Canada. Or to maple syrup.

The I'm Canadian, Eh beaver pattern is a $6(USD) download. I don't think I'd make the hockey stick accessory for this pattern. This cute little guy is a nice toy on his own, and adding the hockey stick makes him look like the kind of kitsch we Canadians foist off on tourists.

This Maple Blanket is available as a $1.99(USD) download on Ravelry. It's knitted in one piece and in one colour, and I should think it'd be the perfect autumnal throw for a country house or cottage.

These Curling Socks are available as a $6(USD) download on Ravelry. Canada can't actually claim to "own" curling as curling is actually a medieval Scottish game that was brought to Canada by emigrés from Scotland, but curling now has more of a following in Canada than in any other country. My own theory is that this is because curling, like bowling, darts, and pool, is something to do in between beers. I'm joking, or at least partly joking. Canadian curling clubs are licensed to serve alcohol, but drink too much while you're playing and you'll fall on your butt.

The Betsy's Goose pattern is available as a free download. And how cute are these Canadian geese? The answer is, "much cuter than the real thing", because when I think of Canadian geese I think of the gang of them that hangs out in the park near my parents' house during the warmer months and that gets larger and more aggressive and domineering every year. What used to be a "peaceful, scenic walk by the river" is now a "walk through reams of poo and hurry off the path because you're getting pursued by dozens of geese doing that hissy, flappy thing".

This Maple Leaves Hat is a $5(USD) download. I really like that the designer used a handpainted yarn for the leaf pattern. Red and white can look more than a little obvious, but a different colourway turns a souvenir-like maple leaf pattern anything into something that's simply autumnal themed.

The Foehn Mitts pattern is available as a $6(CAD) download. Yay! A pattern that's priced in Canadian currency! And yes I was aware of the irony thus far in the post.

Happy Canada Day all!

Coming up: The third post in my twentieth century knitting patterns series, "Fair Isle and Sportswear: 1920-1929"!