Carnaby | Knitigating Circumstances

This morning I woke up to the following email from my daughter Emma:

Some woman just stopped me on campus saying how much she loved my skirt. She said it looked familiar and did I make it myself? So when I said you had made it and it was the Carnaby Skirt she got very excited and we had a five minute or so conversation about the yarn, pattern, and its wearability 🙂 your stuff is loved even when its a few years old and pilling like crazy! She even complimented the buttons and how clever the inside ribbon and hook and eye were 🙂

Emma is so totally knit-worthy! How wonderful to knit for someone who not only wears the knits (everywhere, all the time) but also has such pride and enthusiasm for them. (I’ve blogged about the Carnaby skirt here; go have a look to see photos and details.)

With a big smile on my face, I opened up Ravelry to see that someone had commented on my Carnaby skirt. Here is what she said:

I had the great pleasure of seeing the original today on campus! It’s a flattering pattern and so beautifully knit that I couldn’t resist hollering “great skirt!” at your daughter. She was kind enough to stop and tell me the pattern name and she even showed me the pretty waist band you put in. It looks as new today as it does in the photos you’ve uploaded – it’s clearly been much loved and cared for!

Wow! I love knitters! How cool to get such a lovely note from someone I don’t know, half a world away. (And I love Ravelry, which allows us knitters to ~~enable each other~~ share in this manner.) This has been a double dose of knitting happiness before I’ve even had my first sip of coffee.

This is the third entry in my occasional series, Wearability Wednesday, in which I look back at a knitted item and see whether and how it gets worn. This time last year I knit a very cute skirt for Emma, using the Carnaby pattern, designed by Nikol Lohr, and published here by Knitty. Carnaby is such a great pattern – easy, stylish, fresh and wearable. Over 500 knitters on Ravelry have knit Carnaby, and unlike many other skirt patterns I have seen, it looks really good on most people. People have knit it in brights and in neutrals, in tweeds, and in variegated yarns; they have knit it in many lengths from super short to knee length.

The pattern is easily adaptable; it is knit side-to-side, so you establish the length right away and then knit until the waist fits properly. I made this one without any modifications, but I used a slightly tighter gauge so that the finished skirt would be 15″ long instead of 17″. This slightly shorter length looks great. Emma really rocks this skirt (as someone commented on my ravelry project page). She wears it often and dresses it both up and down. I particularly like the way she wears it at the office; teamed with a sweater and a classy tailored jacket, it looks young and fashionable, but still appropriate for work.

I took this shot at the university a few months ago, while Emma was hard at work preparing for an event. Emma complains that the lighting was bad and the photos were not to her usual standard, but I wanted to show you the skirt on an actual working day. It is functional and pretty, and can be individualized quite a bit.

This was the first project I knit using Cascade 220 wool. This is an incredibly popular wool. I would call it a “workhouse wool”; it is not a luxury product, but a good, basic wool yarn that comes in many colours and is super reliable. It is washable, wears well, doesn’t pill, has a tight spin and consistent colour, shows off textured patterns like cables, and is priced very affordably. For a skirt, which gets perhaps more wear and tear than a pullover, it is an exceptional choice. I am, perhaps, a bit of a yarn snob, but found this wool to be exceptionally good quality. I used it to make my Leavenwick cardigan and will certainly knit with it again in future.

Emma has been wearing this skirt for a year and shows no sign of stopping. I am thinking of making one for myself, a bit longer of course, perhaps in black. As an example of the versatility of this pattern, and the creativity of my daughter, last week Emma came bounding down the stairs dressed like this: