At Least It's Not Another Infinity Scarf

That is not actually a piece of bacon, but a scarf knitted or crocheted to look disturbingly and alarmingly like bacon. Perfect for the unapologetic carnivore in your life! The chart is available from Monster Crochet for $5.

A Smokin' Hot Knitting Pattern

There are only two aspects of this vintage pattern photo that have dated badly from an aesthetic perspective. This handsome, well-dressed model is wearing white or light gray gloves that don't really work with his outfit, and he's in danger of setting the gloves on fire.

The Cosby Sweater

It would seem the Cosby sweater is back, the distinctive crazily colourful sweater that was made so iconic on the eighties-era Cosby Show that I couldn't write about knitting sweaters for even a month without referencing it. Hipsters are wearing them ironically and designers are reinventing them. There are websites the celebrate the Cosby sweater, such as The Cosby Sweater Project, the author of which creates original artwork inspired by the different sweaters in the show; and Huxtable Hotness, which examines the sartorial choices of the show one episode at a time (more than one episode at a time would be simply too overwhelming for us all).

This article from Collector's Weekly tells us the back story of Cliff Huxtable's sweaters. The sweaters came from a variety of sources, and were sometimes ordinary department store sweaters, sometimes loaned by designers, and sometimes custom made, one-of-a-kind pieces. The Cosby Show's costume designer Sarah Lemire says the sweaters were not (contrary to popular belief and image Google results) designed by the Australian company Coogi. “My sweaters were busy to a certain point, but it wasn’t to that extreme,” says Lemire. “I still can’t stand those.”

Lemire sometimes designed the sweaters herself and had them handknit by a Boston architecture student, and explains that the sweaters were chosen because they were appropriate for wearing around home and because they wouldn't shift about as noticeably and make it difficult for the director to match the frequent close-up shots of Cosby to longer shots. Lemire sewed Cliff Huxtable's shirts to the sweaters to make certain they didn't shift between takes.

Some of the sweaters Cosby wore on his show were designed by Koos Van Den Akker, a Dutch-born and Paris-trained New York designer whose work Bill Cosby and his wife discovered for themselves. Van Den Akker created collage sweaters that were wearable art for Bill Cosby, and he's still designing today, as this current design from Vogue Patterns attests.

I don't think I'll be donning any Cosby sweaters myself, either ironically or in all seriousness. One thing I'm realizing more and more as I write this blog is how classic and conservative my tastes are, and I'll be sticking to my beloved Fair Isle, cable, lace, and vintage patterns, with maybe the odd hand-dyed yarn if I feel like walking on the wild side. But one insight I'm taking away from all The Cosby Show costume analysis is that Denise Huxtable's costumes, weird as they looked at the time, have aged far better than the attire sported by the rest of the cast. If you want pictures of you to appear attractive several decades down the road, you have two options: updated classics, or outfits so off-beat that they'll never go out of style because they were never in style to begin with.

500 Sweaters, One Knitter

Loes Veenstra of the Netherlands knits so very quickly that she has made more sweaters than she could ever give away. Many, many more. She had a surplus of 500 never-worn sweaters, dating back as far as 1955, stored away in her home on the 2nd Carnissestraat in Rotterdam.

Christien Meindertsma, a Dutch designer and artist whose work explores the life of products and raw materials, with the aim of regaining understanding of processes made unfamiliar or obsolete by industrialization, heard about Veenstra's collection when it was displayed at the Museum of Rotterdam as part of the exhibition "Over leven in Carnisse" (Life in Carnisse), and decided something more had to be done. So she included the sweaters in her project, "DNA Charlois", which involves materials and crafts by people from 160 different countries, and prepared a forthcoming book about the sweaters. When even that didn't seem enough, Meindertsma organized a flash mob event featuring the sweaters, a marching band, dancers, baton twirlers, and a throne for Veenstra to sit upon while she enjoyed the event. This video of the show also features bonus observant cat and dancing dog.

I hope you enjoy the video and getting to see all the sweaters in it. I especially liked that one can probably hazard a pretty good guess as to the vintage of these sweaters from the design, as some are quintessential examples of knitwear design from a specific era. The Cosby Show could have hired this woman for their wardrobe department, is what I'm saying.

Knitscene Spring 2013: A Review

Knitscene is yet another knitting magazine I had never heard of before I began work on this blog. It's published by the hyper-prolific Interweave, which produces sixteen different subscription magazine titles each year for art and craft enthusiasts in the various disciplines (not only knitting and crochet but jewelry-making, mixed media, painting, drawing, quilting, sewing, spinning, and weaving) and approximately 30 additional special issues. Their knitting publishing vehicles alone include Interweave Knits, Interweave Knits Gifts, Jane Austen Knits, knit.wear, and PieceWork, additional special issues and eMags, and books. They also have blogs, produce Knitting Daily TV, host the Knitting Daily forum, and God knows what else. I shall endeavour to review a good selection of their knitting-related output in a timely fashion, but don't know if I'm up to the task, given that it exhausted me just to type and tag this paragraph.

But let's have a look at the Knitscene's Spring 2013 issue.





...and the first pattern in this spring issue is for a tam and pair of fingerless gloves. They don't exactly say "spring wear" to me but they are undeniably pretty.





And another tam. I like it a lot though — it's so evocative of 1930's fashions, which might just be my favourite decade of the twentieth century for design aesthetics.





Yet another wool hat. This is called the Chinook hat, and it's worn with some sort of spaghetti strap low-cut top, which I guess is supposed to convince us that it's totally spring wear. I'd pick colours that pulled together a little better than these two. Designers are fond of putting pale and medium dark blue together like this and it just never looks all that pleasing or effective to me.





Love this lace jabot top. It's got a thirties sportswear feel, and the hand-dyed yarn gives it a contemporary vibe.





I'm not as enthusiastic about this tunic, but it's not unappealing and it's wearable enough. If the length is going to be an awkward one on your figure (odds are this model is taller than you), it wouldn't be that hard to make it shorter or longer.





Another hat, but this time it's a cloche knitted in cotton, which means you'll wear it for its style rather than its warmth and that it's consequently a genuinely spring fashion. And it's a very decent piece of work, though I do find this particular colour scheme a little dreary for spring. The knitted-in "ribbon" is clever and you'll be able to adjust the brim to suit your face.





This model's expression is rather amusingly apropos given her outfit. She looks as though she's saying, "I know I forgot something when I picked out my outfit this morning. Was it my purse? No, I put my purse down over there. What's that? Oh, you're right, it was my pants! But never mind. It happened to me last week, but at least this time I remembered my hat." This tunic is really too short to be passed off as a dress, but I can see why the model was styled this way. Put a skirt or tunic under this thing and it's going to be even more unflattering to your butt than it is to this model's. You really do not want extra fullness above a ribbed hem bubbling around your hips and rear end this way. You could omit the ribbing and shorten the sweater to regular length, but then there's nothing special about this pattern at all so it hardly seems worth the effort. I'd give this one a pass.





Nice little top. Designers really seem to be getting into exploring different ways to use I-cord lately.





Really not liking this little top. The idea of an inset lacy yoke is a interesting concept but it's been very badly handled here. The collar sits so poorly and the whole execution just looks crude and amateurish.





Another I-cord appearance on this hat. It's been used to good purpose. Imagine this hat without the I-cord. It would look pretty shapeless and nondescript, wouldn't it? But with the use of I-cord and the added touch of a few rows of contrast colour at the edge of the band, it's cute.





I'm not enthusiastic about this shawl. Perhaps because it bears no relation whatsoever to this model's outfit. Shawls are more difficult to wear than people seem to realize, because their proportions, not to mention their colour schemes, need to work with the outfit they're worn with. This one just looks skimpy and random here. And it's a shame that the stylist presented it this way, because it looks beautifully constructed. If you want to make this pattern, I'd wear it in a more scarf-like way, such as over a coat.





Another pair of wool fingerless gloves. And they're a perfectly good pattern — the stripes are sharp — but I'm beginning to wonder if what we're actually seeing is patterns that were originally designed for the winter issue of Knitscene, but were submitted too late to meet the deadline, and so got shoehorned into the spring issue.





Now here we have a definitely spring-like cardigan. Unfortunately it's a less than successful design. As you may know, I am not a fan of cardigans that don't meet in the front, as they're not usually flattering and don't tend to sit well. Even this professional model is sadly trying to pull the edges of this piece together. And note the difference in the two pictures, and how the upper front pieces have been adjusted. When I saw the first picture, I thought, "Those upper front pieces are SO not going to just lie neatly in place like that — they'll be flopping over or sagging downwards at the first move the wearer makes." I've since then seen a closer shot of this sweater, and there is a hook and eye holding the top edges together. It shows, and it's just not attractive. You do have the option of folding the edges under as they are styled in the second photo.





Basic and functional shrug. This isn't a criticism — sometimes all you need or want is a piece that serves a purpose. Make this shrug in a beautiful quality yarn in a neutral colour, or your favourite colour, and it will serve you well.





Now this pullover is a really innovative piece of design. I was wondering how on earth the designer got this yarn to play out in diagonal stripes, because I haven't seen that before except in intarsia, and it was immediately clear that this is a self-striping yarn, a Noro sock yarn to be specific. Turns out it's knitted on the bias. I've never seen a better use of Noro. The styling has been kept simple because the play of colour is all this sweater needs, and it's a flattering shape for most women. It's a head-turner of a piece, and yet it's totally wearable. Now this, people, is first-rate design, and Knitscene quite rightly put it on the cover of this issue. I'm taking special note of this designer's name — it's Maria Leigh.





At first glance I thought the lace yoke on this pullover was sitting funny on the model, but of course it turned out that it's supposed to be asymmetrical. I know asymmetry as a design element is big right now and it's all edgy and contemporary and all that, but though I admire the look on other people I wouldn't make this sweater's lace yoke asymmetrical if I were making it for myself. I'd make it in a plain old symmetrical fashion because otherwise it would drive me insane and I'd keep tugging on it and trying to fix it. This is just personal preference. You'll have to excuse me while I go sit in the corner and rock back and forth. Before I do though, I'll just add that this is a lovely design, both wearable and striking. I wouldn't make this sweater quite so form-fitting as this though. You can see it's so snug it's showing the line of the model's brassiere in the back.





This cardigan is another design by Maria Leigh, she of the self-striping bias-knit pullover above. I'm much less enthusiastic about this one. Nice basic cardigan (and look! it even meets in the front!) but I'm not sold on the use of the buttons as decoration. Sticking them in the middle of those flower-like lace stitches has something of the effect of twining twist-ties into a rose. I think using prettier or at least more interesting and less utilitarian buttons, such as a satin-covered shank-style, would make the concept work.





Pretty, basic pullover.





Lovely, classic short-sleeved fair isle yoke cardigan. Of course, it's so very classic that if you don't have something nearly identical in your pattern library, your mother or grandmother will.





Another fall-esque pattern, this time a scarf. Perhaps the editors of Knitscene all suffer from anemia, hypothyroidism, or poor circulation, and think we do too. This isn't a bad scarf, though I find the colour pretty unappealing.





Very beautifully constructed shawl.





Nice, useful, wearable short-sleeved pullover.

Knitting In a Winter Wonderland

This past Christmas Lion Brand Yarn wanted to create a special display for the window of their building on West 15th Street in New York, and they came up with the one above. You can see a slideshow of the creation process on the Lion Brand Yarn site.

I wish I could have seen the display in person, because it really is stunning. I love how real those swans look, and how sumptuous the queen's dress is. And my guess is that the display is meant to be a reference to Hans Christian Andersen's The Wild Swans, a story that features a queen, swans, and knitting.

Eleanor Roosevelt and Her No-Nonsense Knitting

Eleanor Roosevelt was such a constant knitter and sewer that she seldom went anywhere without toting along one of her projects. She couldn't bear to be idle and often brought her handiwork to the many political and social action meetings she attended. Many photographs of her show her with her knitting or carrying a knitting bag. Such pictures cropped up repeatedly during my research for the Hollywood knitters post of February 11th, but I didn't include her photos in that post because she wasn't an actress and at any rate, Eleanor Roosevelt deserves a post of her own.

According to this fascinating 2009 Knitty interview with Mary Ann Colopy, a seasonal park ranger at the Roosevelt/Vanderbilt National Historic Site, Roosevelt's knitting was very utilitarian. She wasn't a designer. She knitted useful items for her family and friends and very few examples of her work have survived because they were generally the sort of thing one wears out and then discards. The pattern for very basic mittens that accompanies the article is one that was found among her papers.

For all the time that Roosevelt spent knitting, as a topic of interest it seems barely to have registered even on her own radar. In her nearly 8,000 “My Day” newspaper columns, she mentions her own knitting less than ten times. But then this wasn't surprising given the sheer amount of other, much more important work that she did in her life: the speeches she gave and campaigning she did on behalf of her disabled husband; the six-day-a-week syndicated national newspaper column she wrote for 27 years; her constant public speaking; her relief work during the Depression and war work during World War II; her political activism regarding civil, women's, labour and universal human rights; and the work she did with the United Nations. I have read that the United Nations Commission for Human Rights that Roosevelt chaired was by far the hardest working of any at the U.N., to the point that one of its members complained that his own human rights were violated by the length of the committee meetings. Knitting was simply a useful, homely task that Roosevelt did and probably enjoyed, but that didn't merit mention or discussion; it was probably something she did in much the same spirit that she washed her face. And such an attitude is completely in character, really. Roosevelt wouldn't have accomplished all she did without being the sort of person who knew how to keep from getting side-tracked by trivial or secondary concerns.

I like this picture because I imagine Roosevelt pausing in her knitting to contemplate how to get even more mileage out of the members of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights.