the chunky, slouchy knit beret

ever since last summer, i've been thinking about bulky knit berets. not that i've actually done anything about it, mind you. i just think this whole beret look is so darn cute. of course, since miss HOhan first sported hers last fall, there have been a host of knockoffs. this one from blue sky bulky (VK holiday 2006) is my fave so far.


two more cute designs. the grey beret is from the rowan ribbon twist book (via yarnzilla). andrea tells me the pink cap is missoni, from several seasons back. (via olga), who also happens to have her own amazing version of a chunky beret available for free.

(hugs to olga for your incredible patience in getting my chunky, slouchy brain to comprehend how to post images side by side!)

fake-a-gamo by rosemary

i love this interpretation of the fakie by popular swedish blogger rosemary. (alas, her blog is in swedish, but you can look at the pretty pictures!) the cheery, cherry wool really pops against the blonde hardwood handles, which she salvaged from a vintage bag. and it's perfectly styled with the woolen mittens, knit for rosmy by her mother. check out more fun fakie pics here.

perhaps they'll rename it "vogue crochet"

i was just perusing the vogue knitting site to see if there's been any editorial response to the capecho fiasco. instead, found a sneak peek into the upcoming issue. it contains a letter from VK editor trisha malcolm, announcing her departure from the book's helm. the new editor is former VK fashion editor and editor-in-chief of knit.1 and knit simple, adina klein. out of curiosity, i googled her and turned up this quote from a june 2006 nterview with crochetinsider.com:

i have crochet envy because these days I'm much more attracted to what crochet can do than to what knitting can do: the structure, the organic quality.

it will be interesting to see what impact she'll have on the book.

embracing my inner capecho

dear nora gaughan,

first off, let me say: i still heart you. your capecho is the most innovative design i've ever had the pleasure to knit.

i thrilled to the completion of each puffy, sand-dollary pentagon, despite the alarmingly misshapen capechos-in-progress i began to notice floating around cyberspace..

"have you tried it on yet," became the question on every fellow capecho-maker's lips. "trust the process," became my mantra. meaning, no, i hadn't tried it on. meaning, yes, i was in complete and utter denial.

i finished the body and felt a sharp twinge of panic. i could tell without even trying it on: the thing was huge. but surely, the sleeves would shore everything up. just like the model on the cover of vogue knitting. i finished the sleeves and plunged blindly into the neckband. from there i went straight to blocking. i even threw it in the dryer for 10 minutes like someone i'd read about on craftster.

and then today, i finally tried it on.

and.

it's a capecho, alright.

i guess that annoying descriptor should have been my first clue. let's consider the etymology of the word "capecho." it contains the word "cape," as in that thing worn by florence nightingale or, say, the french lieutenant's woman and "poncho," as in mucho hango, or as the dictionary says, "a blanket-like cloak with a hole in the center to admit the head."

honestly, nora, i think you got a bum rap from the editors of VK. it's not your fault that they completely misrepresented your design on the cover of the magazine. here's my theory: the extremely narrow VK cover model has an extremely large metal clamp stuck to the back of HER capecho, thus creating the semblance of a tiny, fitted jacket (a "tinfijacket, if you will), with barely enough room to admit her tiny frame, let alone a head.

i will admit, i originally fell in love with that adorable little capecho as depicted by that adorable little model. but i am learning to embrace my own capecho, in all of its big, fat, capey, drapey glory.

i will, as the unflappable tim gunn tells us, make it work.

love always,
kate

addendum: thanks for all the nice comments about my capecho post. someone aske me about the size...i made mine a size smaller than my normal bust size. one of my commenters had a great solution to make it look just like the picture. personally, i don't have an issue with the size or fit. i just have an issue with misrepresenting it in the magazine. btw, i have shown my capecho to a bunch of friends who have no idea what a capecho is...and they all gushed over it. go figyah.

more amazing lace

someone has found a way to combine two of what i consider to be life's greatest pleasures: intricate stitchwork and bicycling. behold: a charming bike basket inspired by crocheted lace tablecloths. another scandinavian work of art, this one via design house stockholm.

unchain my heart

these danish designers are pushing the boundaries of our craft with projects such as this lace fence. amazing.

pretend you care

i'm killing two tags with one meme. a little warning: i suck at these things. i think i have performance anxiety or something.

it's supposed to be weird stuff, so here's what i got:

i was hit by a transit bus while crossing the street in ridgewood, new jersey. we were in town for my husband's cousin's wedding. i had just had my hair blown out. somehow, my blowout and i made it to the wedding unscathed. i think i am still getting bonus points from my mother-in-law for that one.

dizzy gillespie held a door for me once.

my lip gloss stash is almost as psychotic as my yarn one.

i'm going to ride my bike across the state of iowa this summer.

i faint every time i get the glaucoma test at the eye doctor's.

i am the only person my husband knows who hates both "caddyshack" and "my cousin vinny."

i once got a ride in the oscar mayer weinermobile.

the word "weiner" makes me laugh.

okay, now i wanna hear some weird stuff from one of the coolest bloggers down under: carson.

son of fakie: $2,450

olga just sent me the link to the new ferragamo knit bag for spring. it is truly gorgeous...but...$2,450?! are they nuts?

valentine hugs

some people buy roses for valentine's day. a bunch of us decided to knit 40 scarves.


and then get up verrrrry early on this blustery valentine morning and hang them up on streetlights and bus shelters along main street in downtown rochester.



our hope: that they'll provide some much-needed warmth in the middle of the biggest snowstorm in four years.




just as we were finishing, we saw a man quietly walk up to one, untie it, and tuck it into his pocket.

inna-crotcha-da-stitcha

any knitting instructor who can refer to a knit stitch as a "crotch" one moment, and turn it into a reference to iron butterfly the next, is a freakin' legend in my book.

that's just annie being annie.

the knitting heretic herself, brought her mad, red skillz to my hometown yarn shop last weekend for a class on colorwork, and yours truly was scrambling to keep up. here is my sad little swatch. it barely deserves to be called a swatch. it's more like a swench. despite my inability to produce anything even remotely close to a plaid, i had a blast. if you can call three hours of working intarsia stripes, checkerboards, and stranded plaid a blast. and god knows i can.

gucci reducci

remember this? i was obsessing about decoding it last summer. obviously, i was not alone.

knit.1 had their own version in the winter 2007 issue.



fashionably late to the party, the frenchies have just launched their own homage to the gooch in the new spring '07 phildar.

personally, i prefer the original design. the puff of the sleeve is what it's all about.



speaking of phildar, this coat may have to go on my list of spring to-ducci's.

UFO alert

at last, a smile from ny fashion week. specifically: benjamin cho. i really gotta hand it to the guy. brilliant.

shades of gray

the forecast for fall '07: gray, gray, gray. when i was six my mother bought me wear a gray wool jumper. she thought i'd look "darling" in it. i refused to wear it; i thought it made me look old. now that i actually am old, i couldn't love the grisly gritty hue more. olga and i were drooling over the top two from oscar de la renta. i'm such a sucker for interesting sleeves. the bottom is behnaz sarafpour. i love the color and fit, the ease of it. it's so simple, but very sophisticated, too.

literati: i heart sart

this amazing cabled cape is just one of the many reasons why the sartorialist is my favorite fashion blogger.

sart is a kamikaze papparazzi (kammakazzi?) for the rest of us, dive bombing headfirst into fashion as it happens, right there on the street. his blog is a shining example of an economy of words with an intensity of meaning. smart sart mostly shuts up and lets his uncanny eye for style do all the talking.

FO: mini-me for lora

a doll for a doll: my little niece lora, the prima ballerina of the family. a quick and fun knit out of blue sky bulky on US 35 needles.

"long viewed as the domain of grandmothers..."

why must every piece of mainstream press on knitting begin with these words? hasn't knitting been "cool" since, like, the last millennium? and furthermore, when was the last time these people took a look at today's grandmothers? we should all be so hip.

but i digress. the point of my rant isn't really a rant at all. it's mostly a rave. about this: the radical lace and subversive knitting exhibit at the museum of arts and design in nyc.

the owner of my fave LYS is planning an overnight road trip to see it in march. we'll board amtrak in rochester and knit all the way down. we're planning to hit up some yarn shops, take in the exhibit, and then return home the next day.

on another note, it's a good thing we're not flying. is it just me or have you noticed a teensy bit of a backlash against knitting on planes? my knit-challenged friends were ribbing me about my pointy sticks last week as we got ready to go through security on the flight home from aspen. i tossed it off as jealousy until i came across this tidbit. and it's not just the frequent fliers that are hassling us. check out this bit from click and clack.

maybe knitting at home isn't such a bad idea after all. just don't make me sit in a rocking chair.

are you ready for your closeup?

a little over a year ago, i became obsessed with a particular $1600 handbag. as it turned out, i was not alone. together with a determined band of knitters, we devised a pattern that paid homage to that design.

requests for the pattern have come in from all over the world...singapore, australia, france, finland, japan, turkey, cleveland. the lovely ana from brazil was nice enough to translate the pattern into portugese, so we've been able to share it with knitters there in their native tongue (beijos ana!) it has been a blast to see just how small our knitting universe can be.

from the start, the intent was to create a pattern that paid homage to the original. but even more amazing to me has been the originality it has inspired in those who have truly made the pattern your own. i guess this happens in knitting all the time. i just feel like i've kinda had a front-row seat with the fakie.

anyhoo, along the way, i've collected images from some of you. i finally uploaded some of them to a photo gallery on flickr. have a fake-a-gamo finito of your own you'd like to share? i hope you'll upload it here! and it's still not to late to email me for your own free pattern. think of it as a fresh accessory for your spring wardrobe. yeah, i'm thinking of spring...never too early, right?

addendum:
the amazing may (creator of not one, but TWO fab fakies) has created a wonderful tutorial for lining your fake-a-gamo. she is kind enough to share it here.

*ski, knit, ski, hangover, rep from *

this christmas, the hubby gave me the best present EVER: a ski trip to aspen with my girlfriends. (that's one of them above, my friend kelly "rippah," an oncology nurse and mother of three who can shred the steepest, deepest crud and make it look as easy as a stroll through the mall. she's a pretty good knitter, too.) one of my friends has a house out there and invited a big group of us to come out for a visit. for five days, it was all about the skiing. and the knitting. and the eyelashes.



these were for the one night we actually did not collapse after a full day of skiing bumps, adjusting to the altitude, and consuming massive quantities of screw-cap wine, steel cut oatmeal, flax seed, and cherry buttercream. (i do not endorse consuming all of these at once.)



instead, we headed out to dinner at local fave jimmy's. since that is also the given name of my hubby, i asked the hostess if i could borrow a sharpie to sign the wall. she glared at me as if i were a speck of lint on her dolce & gabbana blouse, sneering, "is YOUR name jimmy?" apparently, my incredibly lush lashes meant nothing to her. apparently, you need a passport and a DNA sample bearing the name jimmy, james, or jim to be deigned worthy to autograph their hallowed walls. i had none of the above. but as soon as she turned away, i discovered i did have a magic marker in my purse.



one of my favorite parts of the trip was visting the aspen yarn gallery, where they sell some incredibly luxe novelty yarns, including this pouf of genuine silver fox fur, which they sell not by the yard, dahling, but by the gram. which they weigh on this rather unusual-looking scale. which the owner, a cherubic blonde, sweetly explained to me was inherited from a coke dealer. only in aspen.



back here in upstate ny, the snow is getting deeper by the minute. outside, it falls in soft, downy flakes. inside, it slowly materializes into puffy, white pentagrams and balls of sparkly, pink fluff. there's no place like home.

wip: nora gaughan shrug

just finished casting on for my first pentagon. i even used my fancy swarovsky stitch markers, created especially for me by one of the most talented knitters i know. they're so pretty, i've even worn them on some gold hoop earrings.

arrrrrrrgh addendum:
in my haste to begin, i mistakenly cast on too few stitches. of course, i didn't detect my error until after i finished stitching up my four-legged pentagon. later on this evening, i recast and finished pentagon numero uno. as the pattern says, these little suckers are great fun to knit--and not nearly as complex as they appear. my advice thus far: take a deep breath before you cast on.

going, going, gaughan

as in i have gone completely over the edge for this mini-sweater, featured on the cover of the new VK winter issue. the star-shaped cables look like the detail from the top of a sand dollar. nora gaughan is a genius. this shrug-like object (nora calls it a "capecho," but i'll forgive her for that.) looks incredibly complex. VK claims it is actually quite easy. they even offer a great tutorial here. surprising, since VK is usually pretty stingy with free editorial.

the whole pale, wintry vibe of nora's mini-sweater reminds me of this other knit piece i fell in love with a couple of seasons ago. you can't really see it here, but this is a long dress crocheted entirely out of silk mohair snowflake medallions. it was made by a parsons design student named tse-goh. i still fantasize about making something like this.

addendum:
in case you couldn't tell, i heart n. gaughan. it seems whenever i see a sweater i like in VK it's her design. she's a two-time cover girl this season, with another great design front and center on IK. it's no wonder. her stuff really has legs. i knit one of her designs in the early 90s (a zippered v-neck tunic-y number) that looks great now pulled on over leggings or skinny jeans with boots. it's one of my fave sweaters. i just love how she integrates sculptural, textural stitchwork. her work isn't super design-y or trendy. but she always has some surprising twist to suck you in. in this case, it's those amazing modular star cables--such an innovative technique. i've never seen it before and really wonder if she might have invented it. have you ever seen it before?