The bright side of being out of
work with a miserable cold is that I have finished up one of my summer
projects! I should have been knitting my soon-to-be-finished project Blossom in my time off, but between my brain fog and the cold
medicine I’ve been taking, I haven’t been up to the complexities of that pattern. The one time I dragged
myself out of bed to shop for groceries, I found myself standing idly outside
of Orchard Supply Hardware, wondering how I had gotten there and why. A few
minutes later, I recollected I was supposed to be looking at chicken tenders and
produce at Trader Joe’s next door. I lugged my bags of groceries home vowing
not to go back to negotiating real estate contracts until I could distinguish hamburger from a hammer. (I point the responsibility for these corny puns directly to my cold medicine).
Lemon-grass bolero
A cold-induced haze demands
brain-free knitting, and Stephanie Japel’s Lemon Grass Bolero is such an easy
pattern that I was able to finish it off. I was inspired to choose the colors
of this sweater by the fabulous designer sketches in this Spring’s
Panetone Color Report:
Dennis Basso
Once I decided to adopt one
color-scheme, I discovered this had huge advantages. First of all, every piece matches the others, which means
not only less confusion when I get dressed in the morning but less expense, as
I need fewer pieces overall. This freed me up to think more creatively and to be inspired by the fabulous blurring of
colors that is so popular in this seasons’ vibrant prints. In case you were wondering what’s
going on with all these fabulous complex prints with blurred overlapping whirls
of color, it’s the result of new technology in printing images onto fabric. I’ve
been enjoying that trend so much that I wanted to find a yarn that created the
same blurred, overlapping effect of vibrant blues and greens to match the Panetone sketch. Enter Malabrigo's Twist Yarn:
In the past, when I successfully
completed a sweater, it would be the knitting itself that made me happy.
Now it is my success in executing a garment that fills a real need in my
wardrobe. Perhaps this approach seems overly analytical,
but I find that the more I think about my knitting, the happier I
am with my results. When I go through the logical steps of planning a season’s
wardrobe, choosing first my colors, then the cuts of clothes(
2 tie-waisted blouses, a pencil skirt and
slacks in complimentary neutrals and 2 knee-length dresses cinched in at the
waist) then I know exactly what sweaters I will need to knit to complete my
ideal looks for summer.
No more of random knitting
infatuations, where I fall wildly in love with an impractical pattern, and
after a month and $100 spent, it sits idly on the shelf taunting me with its
incompatibility with everything else. This time, after I chose my summer colors, I bought two knee-length dresses in vibrant blue and green to match:
I took these dresses in person to all my local knitting stores until I found the palette of Malabrigo yarn that perfectly
matched both colors, a rare experimental batch consisting of only 10 skeins in the world, according to the shopkeeper at Imagiknit:
Then I found a design for a summer jacket that would
flatter my figure and match the lines of the dresses, and voilà,
the perfect partner for summer gaiety was born!
I am particularly pleased with how
perfectly this sweater fits in the back:
And when I compare the photos of
the dresses with and without the bolero, I have the sense that
in both cases, I knitted a piece that actually IMPROVED the look of the dress.
Perhaps I’m overly sensitive about this, but
my upper arm area is not the slenderest part of my body, and this
bare-shouldered, low-necked look makes me feel a bit exposed when I wear the
dress on its own. But I feel so comfortable when I wear the bolero over the
dress, as it de-emphasizes the upper arm area, and covers some of my bosom while
still accentuating my small waist. A perfect combination! Plus the top mirrors the 50's-inspired look of the dress.
I think the blue dress is even more
dramatic in how much it is improved by the accompanying knit. As flattering as
this intense blue is for my complexion, that is a big slab of cobalt to take in
all at once, and the variegated yarn hues of the bolero to tame it down. Second of all, the broad-shouldered look, tapering to a small waist
helps balance the full skirt of the dress, creating an hour-glass
shape instead of an oddly bottom-heavy look. The sucked-in waist looks so much
more natural with a looser garment over it than it does all by itself, in my
opinion. Overall, I’m extremely happy with both pairings and with the overall
ease and simplicity of the Lemongrass
Bolero pattern, which was a breeze to knit once I’d figured out my gage.