Vogue Knitting Fall 2013: A Review

Vogue Knitting's Fall 2013 issue is out. Let's have a look at the patterns in it, shall we?

I like this hooded vest pretty well in general, though I am not sure how I feel about the short sleeves. This item is meant to be worn as a top layer, and while sleeveless vests are routinely worn layered, long sleeves layered under short ones aren't a great look.

Here we have a houndstooth poncho. It reminds me of those houndstooth caped greatcoats Sherlock Holmes has so often been depicted as wearing. As a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories, I'm much more disposed to give this poncho a good review even though I'm not a poncho fan because they tend to look sloppy and unflattering. This one, however, is well and cleverly constructed enough to be worn to the office. I don't care for the colourway used here, but think this piece could look quite smart in a sharp colour combination.

An open-front cardigan with garter edgings. I actually rather like this one. It's a very useful piece that a woman could wear a great deal and would be a good project for a beginner knitter's first sweater.

This piece is trying to be edgy and contemporary with its open sides, and just looks like a beautiful turtleneck with unfinished side seams. Write the words "Design choices should always look deliberate" one hundred times on the blackboard and then get back to your drawing board, Vogue Knitting.

I actually quite like this plaid jacket, but I do find myself staring at those dolman sleeves and trying to figure out if they really look as awkward and unflattering as I think they do, or if I'm just hopelessly bigoted when it comes to cropped, overly wide sleeves. Frankly, I'm inclined to the former view. At any rate if I were making this sweater, I'd fix the dropped shoulders and make the sleeves full-length and standard fitting. The plaid pattern of this jacket is quite eye-catching enough without any more flourishes.

I actually quite like this jacket, which is fun and playful in an adult and sophisticated way and has good lines. If the colourway is too much for you, try picturing in other colour schemes. I'm imagining it in red, browns, and creams — the poppy motif suggested the red to me.

If you're a regular reader of my knitting magazine reviews, you know how I feel about the mini or spencer sweater and that I'm probably about to make a "shrunk in the wash joke". And I hate to be so predictable... but yes that's totally what I'm about to do. I like the enlarged houndstooth pattern and cowl neck of this sweater, but the mini-length makes me want to tell the model that laundry accidents happen and she needs to hand this sweater over to the nearest child.

This reversible wrap is really a beautiful piece of work.





This asymmetrical sweater has a very modern shape and a beautifully constructed traditional texture. It's a combination that makes it very wearable.

I thought this was going to be a modern minidress, something with a bit of edge but that was wearable enough, but then I saw the back. A cut-out back and.. a peplum? Butt ruffle? Fishtail? Whatever that thing is, it turns the dress into Ariel the Little Mermaid's idea of business attire. Filling in the back with that interesting mesh texture would have made this dress different enough, and much more wearable.





This dress is one of those pieces that seem as though they should be considered more in the light of a technical accomplishment rather than as a piece of actual apparel. The dress is so openwork that a woman would have to wear some sort of underlayer with it, and yet it's so fitted it would be difficult to do so without any fabric ripples or folds ruining the lines of the dress. I'm thinking... a custom-made, low-backed spandex slip in a coordinating colour rather than skin tone so you won't have everyone covertly staring at her and trying to figure out if she really is naked underneath the dress? When you also consider that this isn't going to be a flattering item for many women and many won't have a suitable place to wear it, it's clear this is one nearly unwearable dress. That isn't even especially attractive.

This sweater is nearly exactly like the cardigans women wore circa 1915, and that haven't really been out of date since. It is therefore a safe bet for a sweater you want to wear for years.

Not crazy about this. It just looks too cobbled together and unfinished.

I rather like this vest, which is striking and contemporary and yet wearable, but you'd almost not know it because the styling swamps it in unnecessary visual noise.

This is one of those designs that didn't quite get there. I'd seam in side pieces to achieve that hourglass effect rather than doing intarsia, which just looks too choppy. And I'd use two colours: one for the side pieces and sleeves, and another for the neck and the centre section of the body. As it is this design looks too conflicted, with the intarsia effect fighting the sleeves seams and the colours all at war with each other.

I've never seen this concept before, and I don't know what to call it. A rectangular peplum? Waist bunting? Mud flaps? Despite the fact that the only terms that come to mind sound like insults, I actually find myself rather liking those hanging panels. As long as the waist isn't too narrow, it could even be a pretty wearable piece for a lot of women, a sort of contemporary spin on the tunic. Though I don't know why Vogue Knitting chose to pair such a modern-looking piece with a Little House on the Prairie-style skirt. I see this sweater working over a simple, well-tailored skirt or pair of trousers.

I don't know what this piece is. It might be a wrap, and it might be a vest. So I'll give it two qualified verdicts: I like it if it's a wrap, but don't like it if it's a vest, because it's just too shapeless.

I like this vest. Though again at first glance I thought I didn't, because for some reason this model has been made to wear this vest with an outfit that bears absolutely no relation to it and does nothing to set it off.

Very much like this one, though I might choose to go higher contrast with the second colour, or use a beautiful variegated yarn for that panel. Not that it isn't fine as it is, but there are different effects that could be achieved here depending on the colours chosen.

This one isn't quite working. The texture's good, the shape is good, and the piece looks ever so warm and cosy. The colours could use some work, though. Those two narrow stripes across the chest just aren't working though — the cables are too textured for an effect like that, and the stripes look rumpled instead of crisp as they do on the sleeves. The colours are also rather muddy. I'd nix the stripes entirely and go with different colours, ones that are either higher contrast or that have a better gradient effect, such as four shades of gray, arranged in progression from dark charcoal at the bottom to pearl gray at the top.

Not a fan of this one. It's not terrible, but again the colours aren't terribly effective. It looks more like something that someone whipped up to use up some of her yarn rather than a professional design. Replacing that medium blue with a variegated blue that incorporated navy, white, and other shades of blue would really pull this design together.





I like this one. The neckline and the lacing effect give an otherwise basic cabled pullover a contemporary twist. Though I do find myself wishing the shape were a little neater. It would be more flattering and practical. But then maybe you're the type who can wear a flared sleeve without it winding up in your soup.





I wish I could see the shape of this sweater better. It might be a perfectly good design (I do very much like the texture), but it looks as though it might be rather dowdy from what I can see here, with those loose elbow-length sleeves and the bagginess at the chest.





I do like this, but I'd like it a lot more if the fit were neater. But then that's one of the great things about being a knitter; you can make these changes. Making this item narrower and shorter will make it more flattering for most women.





Oh man. This is one seriously bulky and unattractive sweater. Unless you're stationed at the South Pole and you've lost all concern for your appearance because all you care about is saving some of your favourite body parts from frostbite... I'd pass on this one.

I like this turtleneck, with its standard fit and simple yet effective texture.

And we end well. This sweater is really wearable and flattering and yet sharp because of its detailing.

Charlotte's Funeral Dress and Other Knitting Fables

Jock wore his Divine sweater on the days that he needed to remind himself of his life's motto, "Don't be a drag; just be a queen."

Candra put on her new knitting ensemble and gazed at herself in the mirror, wondering if her outfit needed a cowl and earmuffs to be really complete or if it was perfect just as it was.

Petra hadn't quite been able to put together enough designs for the show, so she'd had to include some cobbled together pieces, such as this project from her ninth grade home ec class. Fortunately, she thought, the right pair of strappy heels can make anything work.

Tansy's traumatic childhood experience of reading "Charlotte's Web" often manifested itself in unexpected ways, such as when Tansy had found herself designing what she called "Charlotte's Funeral Dress".

Lena was very proud of her new collection, Witch Couture, and was sending out promotional packages to every coven her marketing team could find. She thought it was really time practitioners of the dark arts moved beyond tatty black shapeless robes.

When it was her turn to host the Stitch n' Bitch meeting, Tina thought she'd liven things up a little with a simple of game of ring toss using rings she'd knitted herself, only to find that the Stitch n' Bitchers got totally carried away. Next time she wanted to put ring toss on the agenda, Tina thought, she'd make sure they played it *before* they drank all those gin and tonics.

Carrie found the classic tam very boring and decided she wanted something different, something that would make a statement and also serve as a good way to take her cat to the vet without having to worry about those dumb "no pets on public hours during rush hour" rules.

As Angie walked down the runway in her latest creation, a piece that she felt made an incisive social comment on the path of a woman's life by melding a young woman's bikini to a granny's afghan, and heard the dead silence of the audience, she had a stricken feeling that perhaps her mother was right, that women really did want wearable clothes from designers rather than wearable art.

Sometimes Geraldine liked to take her stash to the middle of the woods, get naked, and just commune with her yarn.

After model Sadie threatened to walk off of the job on the morning of the show if forced to wear the crocheted afghan sampler dress, Colette the designer came up with a compromise: she'd design and whip up a mask that made a statement about the death of true design that Sadie could wear to disguise her identity. Sadie agreed reluctantly, but though she honoured the agreement she kept muttering something about "quitting this shit to go back to school to become a CPA."

Coming up: Look for my review of Vogue Knitting's Fall 2013 issue tomorrow morning.

"Manky wool is no good to us because we've got really high standards."

Check out Pringle of Scotland's cheeky 2010 animated short on the process of making their jumpers from collecting wool ("We like to take the wool from the belly of the goats because the rest of it gets really manky. Manky wool is no good to us because we've got really high standards"), to producing the yarn and designing and producing the sweaters ("Things that aren't designed look all ramshackle"), and the process of promoting their products ("We always get good write-ups in the magazines because they all know how good we are and how rubbish everyone else is").

Knitting down the Gauntlet: Gloves and Purses for a Bride

This post is the third in my series of posts on knitting for weddings, and features a selection of patterns for purses and gloves for the bride. (You can see the other posts on knitting for weddings here.)
Let's look at the purses first. It may take some planning to manage both a bouquet and a purse on your wedding day, but you may want to do it anyway, because you will likely want to freshen your makeup and to have some tissues handy. (Or, if you have second thoughts, bus fare.) The purses here may be used as an evening bag after the wedding, or perhaps as a handy sachet for the bride's dresser drawer. The purse above is the Heirloom Bridal Bag, and the pattern is available for £3.00(GBP).

The pattern for this simple little beaded bag is available for free. There will be a lot of ways in which a bride's purse can be made to go with her dress and/or the wedding decorations: by using similar beading or other notions or a similar lace pattern, or lining the bag with fabric that is in the wedding colours or is left over from some other item or garment that has been made for the wedding.

Here's another beaded bag, the pattern for which appeared in Knitting the Easy Way by Terry Kimbrough.

This Valentine's Day Wedding Bag uses beading and also an elegant silver frame. The pattern is available as a $6 download.

I would want to use a more polished-looking yarn than the one employed in this Bridal Clutch, but it has a cute shape and I love the frame. You can also add beading if you like. The pattern is from the November 2011 Crafty Ever After.

Here's a felted Bridal Rose Bag that may make you decide you don't need to carry a bouquet. The pattern is available for $7.50(USD).

There are so many beautiful glove patterns on Ravelry that you'd be much better off looking for yourself than just looking at the few I can feature here. But, since we are here, I've picked out a half dozen or so I think are lovely. The Terzetto Lace Mitts are quite something. I'd put these with a fairly simple dress that didn't have much lace on it. The pattern is a $7(USD) download.

The Lillyana Fingerless Gloves are simpler and, if knitted in cashmere as shown here, perhaps more suitable for a winter wedding. I did try to find fingered gloves for this post but didn't like any of those I saw and had to settle for a selection of fingerless ones, which after all are better for the ring ceremony. This pattern is available as a £3.00(GBP).

The Armstulpe wrist warmer pattern, with its falling ruffle, might appeal to the bride who doesn't want a full glove. This pattern is available as a $2.90 download.

These beaded wristlets are a little more dramatic and arty. This pattern is available as a €3.90(EUR) download.

The Water Lilies Gloves are a simple pattern that would probably suit the most brides of any of those in this post. This pattern is available as a $4.75 download.

Another pair of beaded lace wristlets. This pattern is available as a download for $2.90.

I don't think a bride will want to wear these Wedding Mittens for her wedding unless there are skis, snowboarding, snowshoes, ice skates, rubber tubing, or snowmobiles involved in the ceremony, but they were too cute not to include. They'd be nice for a honeymoon at a ski chalet. The pattern for these mittens is available for $6(USD).

Tank Tops and Toggles: a Selection of Knitting Patterns from 1970 to 1979

This is the eighth post in my series on 20th century knitting patterns (you can see all the other posts in the series here), and it offers a selection of knitting patterns from the years from 1970 to 1979. And I must say researching this post gave me some fleeting yet intense moments of wanting to throw myself under a Donna Summers tour bus. I won't even blame the general seventies aesthetic. Yes, there are plenty of examples of horrible seventies attire and bad hair out there, but you can say that of any decade. All the patterns for this series were cherry-picked. Every set of ten patterns I have selected for this series because they were wearable and attractive by modern standards was the result of several hours spent sifting through a hundred or more patterns that weren't. On the whole, I find more to admire about seventies fashion than those of the sixties. The clothes available for every day (as opposed to disco wear) had neither the prim constraint of the early sixties nor the psychedelic extremes of the sixties but instead achieved a happy medium of relaxed, flattering, wearable style.

I think there are two factors that made my seventies pattern research slightly scarring. The first one is that the materials available in the seventies were generally ghastly — horrible stiff, scratchy, synthetic fibres in awful colours — and garments can only be as good as the materials from which they are made. The shapes of seventies clothing were generally good, and if I re-imagine seventies designs in modern fibres and colours they suddenly look very desirable indeed. It was the fabric used that made the leisure suit such a byword in tackiness, not the basic style of it. The second contributing factor is that the seventies were a bad time for crafting. Needlework is of course traditionally the province of women, and given there were many more women in the workforce in the seventies than there had been for decades, women simply had less time for such things. The crafting industry inexplicably responded by dumbing down crafting kits to make them more desirable, and again, the fibres and colours available in the seventies were wretched, so the result was not pretty. So while the clothing design of the seventies wasn't too bad (save and except for a few bad styles such as the hot pants above), the home décor and accessory patterns were often really freaking terrible. I saw patterns for matching toilet seat and toilet roll covers, for lampshades described as "Tiffany-style" that probably had Louis Comfort Tiffany rolling in his grave, for pointless and retina-burning mobiles, for driving gloves and steering wheel cover sets (why?!?), and for some truly frightening dolls and toys.

All that said, I did find a pretty good set of clothing patterns, and I hope you like them. Unfortunately although I do my best to include at least one menswear, one child's, and one home décor pattern in each post of this series, these seventies-era patterns are almost all women's patterns because I just couldn't find anything I liked for any of those categories. But look on the bright side... I have not included a link to the hot pants set pattern above. You're welcome.

When I began to work on this post, I thought I should try to find a poncho pattern for it, because they were so archetypically seventies. It didn't happen because I dislike ponchos and didn't find any that gave me any reason to change my mind on that point. However, seventies designers also seemed to favour knitted coats. This duffle jacket pattern originally appeared in The Australian Women's Weekly in June of 1972 and is available as a free pattern. If I were making this jacket, I'd probably replace the toggle fastenings with something else, though smaller toggles would probably look current enough.





This halter top pattern originally appeared in Mon Tricot Fashion Edition's Spring/Summer 1973 issue. There actually isn't a pattern available for this piece, but who needs one when this pattern is simply two tube scarves knitted long enough to fit around the wearer and then sewn together? I adore the colours of the contemporary version of this design.

This open front jacket design originally appeared in The Australian Women's Weekly in March of 1974, and is a free pattern.

I love all the clever detail in this turtleneck pullover, and think it would look pretty amazing done in a solid colour with a handpainted yarn as the contrast colour. This pattern appeared in The Australian Women's Weekly, in February 1977 and is a free pattern.

This hooded jacket appeared in The Australian Women's Weekly in February 1977, and is a free pattern. To update it for modern wear, I'd raise the dropped shoulders, consider another kind of fastenings than the toggles, and ditch the blanket stitch, especially at the top of the sleeve, because it makes the coat look like something from the Bride of Frankenstein's trousseau. Instead I'd finish the garment with a picot edging, which could always be done in a contrast colour if desired.

One of the things that has really struck me as I have worked through this series of posts was that baby knits have consistently remained very traditional. Every decade produced remarkably similar-looking lacy baby blankets, and lacy, ribbon-trimmed bonnet, bootee and sweater sets, and they are still commonly available patterns today. I expected something different from the progressive seventies, yet they had embroidered bunting bags and ribbon-trimmed surplice baby sweaters as well. This baby jacket, which originally appeared in Needlework and Craft in Spring 1979, looks as though it could have been created at any time in the previous five or following three decades. This pattern is available for free.

This is the Rorschach Sweater, designed by Elizabeth Zimmerman. It appeared in Needlecraft for Today in November/December 1979 and is available as a $1 download. The pattern includes directions for knitting the sleeves cuffed or belled, and it's possible to go with one tab or none at all, and to omit the belt.

The sporty-looking stripe is so common in seventies fashions, probably because there was such a upswing of interest in physical fitness. This top rather looks as though it were made to go with striped-top sweat socks pulled nearly to the knees, but I think it would look much less so if the colours were updated. The pattern is available from the Vintage Knitting Lady for £2.00, or you can get a PDF for £1.50.

Quite like these little tie-top tanks. The pattern is available from the Vintage Knitting Lady for £2.00, or you can get a PDF for £1.50.

This style of hat is so very seventies and yet would still look right today. The pattern is available from the Vintage Knitting Lady for £2.00, or you can get a photocopy for £1.99 or a PDF for £1.50.

Patricia Waller's Beautiful, Sick Crafts

Anatomically correct aliens. A suicide bomber Sponge Bob Squarepants. Superman splattered against a wall. A teddy bear speared on the horn of a unicorn. A raped Minnie Mouse. Chilean-born, Germany-based artist Patricia Waller's crocheted art pieces are nothing if not a challenge to the viewer's mindset and expectation that at least some of the narratives in this complex and troubled world of ours can be relied on to be simply and comfortingly cute and cuddly.

Waller's work is immaculately crafted from a technical perspective, which almost makes it more chilling, as though it were a meticulously planned massacre.

You can view more of Patricia Waller's work on her website.