A bit of fun today. The Guardian has a piece today called “An escape from the banality of our realities: eight autumn/winter menswear trends – a photo essay”. It showcases eight trends – Green, Archetypes redux, Optimistic outerwear, Statement knitwear, Monochrome, Robe coats, Winter shorts, and Techcore. Guess which trend I am going to gently poke fun at here!
That’s right: it’s Statement Knitwear! They write: “It’s no surprise that the statement knit has had a resurgence, it’s the one item that’s on show from the waist up in a virtual meeting now, and for the foreseeable future.” So true. But I’m not sure I could get Doug to wear this:
Colour vision: JW Anderson captured by Juergen Teller
And if he wore it to a virtual meeting, you would miss the full impact: after all, the belt makes this outfit!
To be fair, there are some examples of knitwear from Hermes and Jil Sander that are interesting, and I love the section on Green, which showcases the African-inspired Luis Vuitton by Virgil Abloh. But I can’t help but giggle at the knitwear. Escape from banality, indeed!
On Wednesday, along with millions of others around the world, I watched the Inauguration ceremony at the US Capitol. It was lovely, peaceful, soul-stirring, moving. I was blown away by Amanda Gorman’s poem and by her incredible poise. I was reassured down to my bones to hear from a president who spoke with intelligence and compassion. I loved the spectacle, the fantastic purples and blues and magentas worn by Kamala Harris, Jill Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Michelle Obama. But for me, the moment that crystallised it all, that shot straight through me right to the heart, was Kamala Harris taking the oath of office. I burst into tears. Even knowing how important this moment was, I hadn’t realised how important it was to ME until it happened.
I have slept like a baby every night since then. I have stopped doomscrolling. I feel incredibly relaxed, like a huge ordeal has been overcome.
Maybe too relaxed. Here is the latest shot of the vest I am knitting for Doug:
The top band and a half of colour have been knitted since the inauguration. I am not sure that you can see it here, but those bands are not the same size as the preceding ones. I know this because I have measured them over and over since last night. Here is an example of the pink band knitted after the inauguration (on the top), and one knitted before the inauguration (on the bottom):
I have placed the 10cm mark at the same place in the pattern in both photos. As you can see, two pattern repeats measures 7cm in the bottom photo (before Inauguration) and 7.6cm (after inauguration) in the top photo.
This variation may seem as nothing to someone who tends towards unevenness in stitches, but if there is one thing I possess as a knitter, it is even stitch work. I can put down a piece of knitting and pick it up 5 years later and you would never know where the break was, because the stitches are so even.
I can report that, post Inauguration, the width of a pattern repeat has expanded by just over 10%. I haven’t shown it here, but the height of a pattern repeat has also expanded by 10%. In other words, the Inauguration Effect has led to a 10% relaxation of my knitting. (Or perhaps, one might say, that the T**** Effect led to a 10% tightening of my knitting.)
This makes me think that the 2021 Inauguration should come with a warning, like a prescription medicine.
2021 Inauguration. Ingredients: compassion, intelligence, elected officials speaking in full sentences. Watch in order to relieve anxiety, depression, severe existential angst. Can also be used to counter racism and stupidity. Side effects may include: joy, breathing in deep, sleeping through the night, purchasing poetry books. Do not operate knitting needles while under the influence.
Happy New Year! This year has sure gotten off to a rocky start. (This post, I imagine you will be happy to hear, is all about knitting, and not about the rocky start.)
I had a big work project due this past week, and with the stress of it hanging over my head, not to mention the very long hours of work involved, I had precious little time for knitting over the break. It’s so sad, too, because I usually get a lot of knitting done during the Christmas/New Year break, and often start some new projects at that time. However, I have managed to make some progress on Doug’s vest.
What you might not get from the above photo is the sheer amount of angst, and winging it, that went into the last 6 inches or so of this project. It is my first time knitting a steeked garment, so I really have no set concept in my head about how it all works once you reach the armhole stage, much less any muscle memory to call on. I am really knitting on instinct here.
I am using Kate Davies Ursula Cardigan as the basis for this project. However, the pattern is for a woman’s cardigan, and I am knitting a man’s waistcoat, so I am creating all of the shaping as I go. It is really rather nerve-wracking. Here you can see how I cast off at the armholes, and created a steek for the armscythes:
The questions I have been battling with are: how many stitches to cast off at the underarm? How many to bind off as I shape the armscythe? How much of a slope do I need? When do I start the decreases at the neck? How deep should the v-neck be? How many sets of decreases to make? At what interval? How wide do the shoulders need to be? Do I need more steeks at the shoulders/back? How do I put in some shoulder shaping? And all of this is in addition to the fact that I will have to CUT THE STEEKS eventually and not have a heart attack.
I am a scribbler: I write down everything. I have been scribbling little drawings of vests and calculations everywhere – no piece of paper is safe.
I find this example especially funny because this piece of paper also contains scribbles from a class I was teaching. I teach executive MBA students. In the bottom right hand corner of the lower page are some questions I scribbled down during a class. A student was speaking, and these are questions I wrote down to ask her. It says: “What is it that you still need to learn? What does skill look like?” Hmm…I was trying to get my students to reflect, but at the moment it also sounds like a good reflection for me, and very relevant to the subject of this post. I’m going to let these questions percolate around for a bit. Maybe I’ll come up with some interesting answers.
While I am still not sure how my calculations will work for the finished garment, I think it is starting to look okay. Below is a photo where I have folded up the partially knitted garment along the steek lines, so that you can see the right front with the armscythe on the left of the photo and the neckline decreases on the right.
I am reassured by the fact that it looks reasonably similar to the right front of a v-neck garment, rather than, for example, like a sleeve. And while I have fretted tons about how deep to make the armholes, they look reasonably like armholes:
Keep knitting everyone. (Or whatever else it is that keeps you sane and happy.) Coming soon: the steek!
