i am super not the person who goes outside sun bathing in an attempt to brown my skin. (sidenote: i just typed skein instead of skin. i like what this says about my priorities) but i am the person who gets mildly grumpy when the sun bouncing off of my palest of flesh completely blinds viewers and creates blown out areas on pictures. what is happening to my feet?
that having been said, i have been trying to apply sun screen a lot more frequently this year. i can see where my first wrinkles will be, and i’m okay with that. but there’s no reason to speed that process along, am i right?
carlyn striped sweater, j. crew pants – target shoes
most of this outfit came from my very favorite clothing source: carlyn’s closet!
second hand scarf, cardigan, belt, vintage coach purse, bean boots – j. crew striped shirt – gap navy skinnies
a good transition outfit. layers that are light but warm, easy to take off and put on in the fluctuating temperatures. this scarf was my absolute go-to this winter. it’s neutral, huge without being heavy, and warm.
handmade cowl – thrifted – ralph lauren sweater, mustard skirt – j crew striped shirt, belt, wool blend tights (under the leggings) – target leggings – l.l. bean bean boots
i was having a stupid face day when we took these pictures. so i opted out of all pictures that focused on my face. some days i photograph great, and some days when i review the pictures i just wonder what my face was up to and why it couldn’t manage to look normal. silly face.
a little over two years ago, i finished a big striped sweater for jake (and here’s the link to the ravelry project page). even then i knew that there was too much space between the buttons (which led to gapping), and my button bands were a bit too long, which warped the front of the sweater a bit.
so i grabbed a zipper (a dark brown parka zipper, 28″ long, to be precise) from a fabric store, and as we were settling in for a two day marathon of watching harry potter over new years eve & new years day, i thought it might be a good time to pull off this alteration. it was a good plan, as it turned out. it took me the majority of both days to finish up, which i wasn’t really expecting.
the sequence went as follows:
-i picked out the sewn bind off (a bit of a time suck right there)
-pulled out the original button bands (122 stitches)
-did some maths to cast on a different number (114 stitches. only an 8 stitch difference, which was rather less than i was expecting, but that’s how the maths worked out)
-knit up both button bands
-grafted/kitchenered them on to the body (both a tidy aesthetic, and it allowed me to disperse the stitches quite evenly)
-hand sewed the zipper onto the new button bands
-did a little dance
this is SO MUCH BETTER. it has to be really really cold for jake to wear sweaters, but hey, guess what? it’s been really really cold around here recently. i’m so glad it’s not gapping anymore. it made it look like the sweater was too small, but it actually fits him quite well. and i think he’ll wear it more frequently with the zipper in.
but because this was one of my very earliest sweaters, there are still things i kind of wish i could change… is the neck too big? i’m not sure i’m crazy about the way it looks fully zipped… should i try to pull that out and tighten it up too? and why did i choose to use that bright green for the crocheted steek edge? it’s too flashy when you can see the inside of the collar! i’m thinking about picking up some narrow chocolate brown ribbon to sew over it. or am i getting too detail oriented here? what do you think? and now i’ve got those beautiful buttons, attached to nothing! i’m thinking of knitting down some of my naturals/oatmeals/browns in a colowork cardigan. maybe it would look lovely with those?
i hope you all had a treat filled halloween, with only a few (fun) tricks. i got more than my usual amount of scares this halloween, but they were spaced far enough apart that i have not turned into the ‘creeping-in-fear’ version of eliza.
as i was walking back from the bookstore the other day, (ugh, they did not have what i wanted to buy, though i did finally find a moleskine 2014 calendar planner: mineallmine!) i passed a loft store advertising 40% off of everything! i rarely shop at loft… it’s less of a choice and more that there isn’t one in the mall where i do the majority of my first hand shopping (which is still pretty rare, y’allll). but here i was, and there was the bright sign, doing it’s job, luring me in! spoiler alert: i didn’t actually buy anything. but, i got a lot of ideas and added a few things to my wish list.
what i was going to show you was the soft drapey cardigan i fell in love with at the store. alack, it doesn’t seem to be online! but while i was searching for it, i kinda fell for this beauty:
striped pointelle yoke sweater
i’m a total sucker for sweaters with multiple techniques. it can be easy, as a knitter, to think: this will be a striped knit. and then not look beyond stripes for possibilities. so combining variations of stitches really gets me excited.
stripes on cables is definitely something i wouldn’t think of! but with the soft overall pattern of cabling on this sweater, i love the extra graphic punch of the stripes!
i can’t find what appears to be an original source for this image… this tumblr post is the furthest back i can trace it.
when i first saw this, i fell madly in love. dense lace with a neckline edging of delicate cable? ohmygosh! so pretty! someday i will try this!
similar story here, unfortunately, but different tumblr
i think this sweater is practically perfect in every way, and i want to recreate it, maybe with a slightly less pink oriented color scheme.
this beauty is rililie‘s 2012 cardigan
this whole cardigan strikes me as kind of a play on expectations! rililie really excels at thinking outside the box when it comes to knitting. this is my very favorite detail on this cardigan, but really, the whole thing is lovely! this one doesn’t follow a pattern, but she has several other patterns that definitely would fall into this category!
g-knits beautiful morrison cardigan
everytime i look at this FO, i have to run to my stash page to see if i have any appropriate yarn. i feel like i say that a lot, but i do only share my very favorites with you guys ^__^.
so! which of the above is your favorite? or are there any beautiful inspiration sweaters that you want to share with me? what’s your favorite combo? are you a stripes and lace? colorwork and cables (ooh, i didn’t find any of those!)? what’s your huckleberry?
crewcuts chambray – j. crew striped shirt, skirt
various necklace – target – belt, ballet flats
inspired by sidewalk ready. i love layered looks (proof: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and i could keep going…). but a fairly often, when i try more layered looks, they end up feeling bulky, and i feel like i lose a lot of shape. a shorter skirt (for me) and a belt at the natural waist help a lot!
the necklace is cobbled together from several different sources. elizabeth of delightfully tacky keeps wearing a lovely quartz necklace, and i remembered i had a quartz charm of my own, only in need of a chain. on the quest to put these two together, my little ampersand charm somehow lept on board. truth be told, i have crushes on several of her statement necklaces. i might try to cobble together some more facsimiles of my favorites…
does this look familiar?
a bit like this, perhaps:
they aren’t the same hat. but this version was commissioned to be as close to the first one as possible. i think i did pretty well, eh?
FO: striped gradations, a clone, or perhaps a simulacrum
pattern: my own devising
yarn: you know how i love to use up leftover bits and bobs. some lions brand wool-ease, some recycled fingering weight from a thrifted sweater held double, some leftover berroco ultra alpaca fine in turquoise mix held double, some mystery yarn, some brown sheep lambs pride in tahiti teal, some berroco ultra alpaca (worsted) in oceanic mix, some queensland kathmandu aran tweed in charcoal
needles: US size 4 (3.5mm) for the ribbing, US size 6 (4mm) for the body
notes: well, since i pretty much exactly copied my first version, the notes are pretty similar. blah blah, scrap-busting, blah blah, stripes are fun, blah blah, pretty gradation! you know. that stuff!
and if you’re noticing any dark vignetting on these pictures, or any light spots… that isn’t photo editing… no, that’s something i knocked loose in my lens when i dropped it while hiking up a mountain. turns out lens’s aren’t that into bouncing down sand and rock paths. who’d a thunk? i’ll bring it in to a camera store soon enough to see if they can fix it. just some inadvertent style choices in the mean time!
FO: bitsy & bobbsy II <–ravelry project page
pattern: my own. pretty basic. i followed the same structure as the last one. cast on 90 in smaller needle, 3×1 ribbing for a bit, switch to larger needle for stockinette, creating random stripes all the while. decrease 9 stitches every other row when you feel like it’s long enough.
needles: US size 6 (4.0mm) for the brim, US size 8 (5.0mm) for the body
yarn: various scraps, leftovers, and partial skeins. the burgundy and cream are rowan kid classic (originally used for rain on bricks and the subsequent toast at the seaside), some malabrigo pearl 36 (originally from sleigh rides and snowball fights, totally love this color), the pale grey is probably lions brand, and who knows what the charcoal and black are?
the thing about random stripes is you can’t just wing it as easily as you would think. i mean, they are random stripes, right? you should just be able to be random! perhaps i’m too fussy. but i referenced the first bits & bobs to see which portions of the stripe sequencing i thought was really successful, and i think the the stripes sequence on this one is better. if i make it again, i think the brim will be one solid color, though. (future eliza, are you paying attention?)
whoo! another scrap-busting project. why are they so dang fun for me? maybe because they are low pressure projects? the original intended project for which i shelled out cash monies is over, the scrap busting porject can succeed or fail without any worries from me. plus there’s something addicting about changing yarn so frequently. like a noro project at it’s best, you’re always excited to get to the next color.
anybody been scrap busing recently?
thrifted old navy button down, ann taylor blazer, j crew skirt, ray ban wannabe sunglasses
not so thrifted j crew belt, target shoes, handmade necklace
i haven’t been great about grabbing documentation of my outfits recently. but it’s been so beautiful out, and i ended up being inadvertently fancy, i thought i’d better get some pics. i got excited when i realized that my major outfit elements were all thrifted, too! it’s harder to get thrifted shoes in, for some reason. there’s so much kitty hair on my black blazer…
i’m starting to feel an itch to do a remix…. anyone interested?
(and then i realized i’d somehow gotten my necklace tucked into my pocket?)
hand-me-overs target cardigan & jeans – thrifted old navy button down – handmade necklace – forever21 yellow sneaks
i mentioned that i’ve been making jewelry? i’ve been wearing it pretty much non-stop since i made it.
ifandany 