How does a French woman manage that effortless chic look? In my theory, it all comes down to her scarf. I almost believe Parisiennes dress in dark colors in winter to provide a backdrop for the fascinating scarves they wear, arranged in marvelous drapes and knots and often providing the only spot of color in their tight black ensembles. The scarf is everything, and I always wonder, how do they do it? Do European women learn scarf tying at their mother’s knees? The array of knots and drapery that I see baffles me and fills me with envy at the same time.
The most common method of tying scarves I have seen in Paris is the arrangement above. This double loop is simple enough to achieve. Doubling your scarf, you hold it behind your neck, and then you feed the ends of the scarf through the folded loop on the other side and pull down. Many Parisian men wear voluminous scarves in this style, over black leather or denim jackets. I think it looks sexy. When in Paris, my husband wears a cashmere scarf I bought for him in this looped style over a wool blazer and tight jeans and I sigh, wondering how I could get him to dress like that most of the time.
On the subject of scarves, consider Hermes! I recently arranged a month-long rental for my father in Paris in a lovely three bedroom decorated apartment outside the Marais that belongs to a French client of mine. To thank me for helping him find the apartment, my father brought back an Hermes scarf for me. The scarf was packaged along with a “card deck” with diagrams of unbelievably complicated scarf tying configurations, some of which involved two or three Hermes scarves simultaneously. I soon realized I had underestimated the fiendish complexity of the French scarf-tying art. Of course, with a thin silk piece one can achieve much more than with a thicker, knitted woolen scarf. However, Sarah Hatton, in her wonderful book, Scarves, Shrugs and Shawls, has some wonderful patterns and ingenious ways of tying them.
There is a superb photo tutorial in the back of the book that explains three of Hatton’s more complicated techniques. Here is my favorite one:
Hatton’s Bold Stripe Scarf is designed in order to create this myriad color effect, when it is knotted in different ways. Her instructions on how to tie knitted scarves are clear and easy to follow, and she offers many creative and beautiful patterns to choose from. I also love her alternative knot for the Bold Stripe Scarf because it shows off the interplay of all the colors:
And the best part of this pattern? You can use up all your kidsilk haze remnants! The scarf calls for five colors and uses about half a ball of kidsilk haze for each one. What a perfect stash-busting project! I used the colors black currant, blood, meadow, trance, and dewberry for my scarf.
Paris has been in my thoughts quite a bit since I embarked on The Vanishing Shawls Mystery (For more details, see the post: http://yarnstylist.com/2014/02/the-vanishing-shawls-mystery-the-100-day-challenge-continues.html)
Part of my heirloom approach to knitting more ambitious projects is to incorporate some sewing into my Chanel-style garments, so I decided it was time to drag out my sewing machine and give it a test run. And after reading Kristen’s recent post on her blog, Knitionary, where she shared gorgeous photos of table linens and towels she made out of Italian fabrics I was inspired! You can find her gorgeous photos here:
http://knitionary.blogspot.com/2014/01/recycling-lunch-and-dinner-and-fabric.html
After reading her blog, I thought, what better way to practice sewing than make a few Paris-themed napkins? I chose a wonderful fabric that captures some favorite monuments and harmonizes with my white and silver kitchen.
As you can see, my friends knew me well—their gift of the Fresh Baked pies sign is a joke about the pie-a-thon my husband and I hold every spring and summer. We grow Santa Rosa plums in our garden, and every year we make eight to twelve plum strawberry pies and freeze them so we can invite our friends over to enjoy summer fruit in the middle of winter. Then there is the blueberry and peach pie season….it is apple season now, and as yet I have only baked one apple pie so I am falling far behind! But I just whipped up a batch of four spinach quiches yesterday—I bake one and freeze the other three for later use.
I had so much fun sewing these napkins, and using them when I served my French quiche that I am tempted to make another set in different fabric!
In the meantime, I have found another project that will use up the rest of my Cocoon yarn from the ill-fated Oslo jacket. If all goes well with the blocking, I will post the photos on Monday in the next installment of The Vanishing Shawls Mystery.