New York Minknit

The traveling shawl has got to be the most uninteresting thing to photograph:

Stay tuned for a new traveling project!

 (illustrated with random stationery found in my desk drawers)

 Have you read OlgaJazzy and KnitLit‘s latest posts? I’m talking about this and this–where they both point us to knock-off patterns of designer knits.

Olga found a zillion knitting magazines that knocked-off that Pringle sweater that I was lured by a few months ago, and I have to say, despite me mocking Lion Brand a few posts ago, the Lion Brand version is definitely the best, in terms of fidelity to the original and the styling of the finished object. BUT! It’s still nowhere as nice as the original–look at the cables, they’re so simplified compared to the original which had cables of different sizes, styles, and directions. Plus, I remember learning during my last search for that Pringle sweater that the original was knit in 4-ply cashmere, which I doubt the knock-offs are.

(I think the bottom sentence, “I look at fashion magazines with my friends and try to keep myself up to date,” is the most logical, but I find the abbreviated version more amusing, as some sort of commentary on fashion and feminism: “I look at fashion magazines and try to keep myself.” I bought this stationery in 1997 when I visited Japan, and ten years and many, many moves later, still have it.)

Anyway. I am not opposed to knock-offs, and I don’t even think the quality of designer goods is always noticeably better than the knock-offs. But in some cases, like the Pringle sweater, the quality IS definitely better and the knock-offs seem significantly shoddier.

And that quality is what brings me to Knit Lit’s post about the Vogue Knitting version of Alexander McQueen’s sweater. Knit Lit Kate writes, “funny how fit, styling and color choices can make all the difference!” Absolutely–the McQueen version on the runway is cool and avant-garde and the Vogue Knitting version seems much more pedestrian.

(I fear that my decision to knit a shawl is going to make me look like this lady. Kerkdracht in de rouw! I have no idea what that means. This is from a set of Dutch regional dress postcards–or “nederlandse streekdrachten”–that Adam bought for me when he went to Amsterdam last year.)

I know that Vogue Knitting offers designer knits, but I wish the designers would license more of their knits as kits or something. James Surowiecki alludes to this idea in the financial page of The New Yorker this week when he mentions the notion of “a registered original design,” when Jackie Kennedy and other society ladies of the fifties would buy Parisian runway designs made at Bergdorf Goodman or something through a licensing deal. They were Designer, with a captial D, but made here, probably in the garment district. It seems that the knitting community is small enough that they could offer similar kits or patterns for us knitters to recreate, without harming their business. (Well, maybe not. The kits would  be a blueprint for mass-manufacturers to knock-off these same garments, but this is already happening without the kits! And I shudder to think how expensive the kits or officially licensed patterns would be.)

Unfortunately, there seems to be a divide between knitting pattern–designers and couture and high-end pret-a-porter designers, and I wish we could have more of the latter available to us as knitters.

Okay, enough rambling for today.

I don’t often get to use the category tag “crazy knitting” here, but I have found an awesome subject, courtsey of JenLa. I don’t even know how I found this post* but it introduced me to a topic I have never thought of: knit landscapes.

These range from these strangely cute:

to the incredibly weird…Knitted Historical Figures. I think if I ever knit a Madame de Pompadour, I have crossed the line into CRAZY.

*There should be some word coined for when you google something but can never remember the magical combination of words used to find that page ever again.

So I can read when I knit, but I think I need some sort of geek contraption that holds out the book in front of my eyes (like on a helmet or something), because when I try to read when I knit, I get terrible posture. But tv…I love tv, much to the shame of my people (righteous San Franciscans who believe that tv rots your brain). And I just saw the best new show…Gossip Girl. So deliciously good. If you want to watch prep school kids in all their tv-trashtastic glory, this is the show for you.

I am lacking in knitting blogging material, and thus I turn to my favorite filler: The Traveling Project!

(Top left and bottom right) Adam and I were invited to a preview night at a new bowling alley/bar in Williamsburg, The Gutter (well, I think really Adam was, but I tagged along) and the shawl came along too.

(The photo in the lower left is Williamsburg at night.) Adam takes beautiful photos all the time, even when I am being annoying, and being like “Why so many photos!?” Then I steal them for my blog. Mwhahaha.

(Top right) We also went to IFC to see Helvetica, the documentary. This is me knitting in line. The shawl is too heavy to knit while standing up, but it’s the traveling project for now.

Pattern: generic top-down sock pattern
Yarn: 1 ball of Sockotta, 5% cotton/40% wool/15% nylon, $9 from The Homespun Boutique, in Ithaca.
Needles: Inox 2, set of 5
Time to make: Started February 20, finished September 8

Not much to report–the yarn is kind of stringy, and the pattern rather ugly, but I actually really enjoyed knitting the self-striping pattern. I would definitely knit a self-patterning yarn again, though I do think the result is weird.

Ugly socks meet ugly shoes. My inner San Franciscan comes out.

Ugly socks without the shoes.

It only took me half a year to knit these socks! Here’s a flashback montage of the sock over the seasons.

I was reading my September Vogue the other day, and I came across this article. The author of the article goes to Wenlan Chia’s studio–and never having knit before!–knits herself this tunic. It’s pretty cute, actually, and it’s one of the patterns in Twinkle’s Big City’s Knits (which I own, and was planning on making some stuff from). There’s a whole flickr group devoted to Big City Knits here–pretty cute.

(And I just noticed on the flickr bulletin board that Wenlan Chia was recruiting knitters in NYC to teach at Anthropologie to make her clothes–and that Vogue would be covering the classes. That might be where this article originated…)

In the fashion spreads of the same issue, there are also tons of GINORMOUS knits. Kind of crazy, and probably not all that wearable, but cute.

(I know there’s a ton of hatred around The Internets about Twinkle and Vogue–generally separate camps of hate–because of their tendency to only show clothes for skinny ladies. I’ve got some thoughts on this, but am too tired to blog about it. Sorry.)