Who hasn’t secretly wanted to win a place on one of those makeover shows like Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style, where you are suddenly given a limitless budget to revive your dull wardrobe and get a fresh look? I was so jealous watching the In Style segment when Tim Gunn sent a participant to the magazine’s fashion headquarters. This lady’s frumpy work dress was transformed by an In Style fashion expert, who laid it out with heaps of fabulous accessories, choosing just the right leather belt, trendy purse, metallic heels and color-coordinating cardigan, elevating what was just a summer sheathe to super chic!
It wasn’t until recently that I discovered that my own home knitting workshop could provide a magical formula for making over my humdrum clothes. For a regular shopper, it will take hours, perhaps days, and a hefty price tag to locate just the perfect cardigan to elevate a banal work dress to a stand out ensemble. But for us handknitters, all the tools for this transformation are right in hand!
Step One: Select a boring dress:
In my case, old zebra print here ($25, purchased in 2009 from Ross).
Step Two: match said dress with eligible balls of yarn from your stash.
Step Three: throw in a design that flatters the figure.
Voilà, two weeks later, a star is born!
I have no idea why it has taken me this long to stumble onto the practicality of knitting cardigans to elevate the existing dresses in my closet. For years, I frittered away my knitting time with quixotic lace making or color work, fascinating in itself but eminently impractical for everyday wear. At a certain point, I grew tired of toiling over pieces destined for tissue paper and a storage box. What is exciting about a piece like Edda is that it is not only pretty in itself, it makes everything else I wear with it look better! Cardigans in this style can go with a limitless number of summer pieces:
Somehow, the total sum of this outfit together is greater than the individual parts. The versatility of this cardigan is its best feature. Although the yarn is worsted weight, the design lines, use of waist shaping, and suede tie at the waist keep good figure definition. And the sleeves are summery, but long enough to avoid that dread scrourge—a focal point on the flabby upper arm.
This style flatters pretty much any arm shape.
To top it all off, it takes only 700 yards of worsted weight yarn to knit Edda. I was able to use up some Cascade Sierra that had lurked for four years in my stash, taunting me with its presence. Now it will haunt me no more! Since I have knitted these last two modern cardigans from Kim Hargreaves’ Whisper, Cameo and Edda, to match specific pieces, it is hard to deny the transformative power of a summer cardigan on an every day dress. Instead of shopping for the latest trendy pieces for this season, perhaps we should all spend more time shopping our own closets and stash!