Do you remember the Chanel Cruise Collection in Soeul? Two pieces
in that collection made me itch to grab my knitting needles and start
designing my own version immediately! There was a pale blue/red/
jacket that to me shone above all the other suiting:
And then the lavender tweed dress appeared and blew the blue suit
out of the water with its textile gorgeousness!!!!!
Ever since, I've been obsessed with the idea of somehow creating a
lavender tweed jacket, shaped like the first one, but with the lilac
brilliance of the second! But how to create a knitted fabric that
looked woven enough, and also how to knit a shape sturdy enough
for a riding jacket? Voilà, Kim Hargreaves came to the rescue again!
Honoured by Kim Hargreaves
http://www.kimhargreaves.co.uk/view-books/still/#5346-still/1080
I am always astounded by Kim Hargreaves' ingenuity. To create a knitted
fabric that is simultaneously slip stitch and moss stitch would have
seemed impossible to me, but she pulled it off! The slip stitch
allows you to weave 3 colors together into a Chanel-like tweed pattern.
Because I wanted to create a designer-inspired fabric, I used only one
color of felted tweed, Horizon, 179, and combined it with a hand-dyed
lilac yarn and a combination of silver thread and Japanese silk thread
for my third "yarn" to create a depth of color and texture.
Unfortunately, pictures of the fabric tend to go dark or too light,
obscuring the true colors of the threads, so here is a closeup of
the yarns themselves:
Clockwise, from top to bottom, you see Rowan Felted Tweed,
Ito Kinu in pale grey silk, Rowan kidsilk haze eclipse in pale
silver (these two grey strands are combined as one) and Swan's
Island hand-dyed Swansport in Lavender. If you have ever
inspected Chanel fabrics close up, their beauty derives from artistic
irregularities of texture and fiber, and their daring and
unexpected color combinations. Many of the fabrics have little
flashes of metallic threads that do not overpower the overall
color scheme, which is why I combined my silver thread (KSH
eclipse) with a dull grey silk tweed (Ito Kinu) in order to
moderate the metallic shine to glimpses here and there. Have
you noticed that fabrics with a lot of silver and gold in them
often look cheap whereas the really expensive ones feature
metallic threads much more sparingly?
To give the riding jacket its stiff tailored shape, Kim Hargreaves uses moss
stitch in combination with the slip stitch fabric. I have knitted several
designs of Kim's in moss stitch and tweed yarn, and the fabric really
endures! Additionally, Kim adds a deep row of pleats along the
bottom of the riding jacket to give it that quintessentially British look.
The pleats are one of the most beautiful features of this jacket. Although I
have just completed one piece over a period of months (this project is not
for the impatient, let me tell you!) I can't wait to wear it already. And it
seems I am not alone:
See, my cat Manju is trying it on!
By the way, in case you were wondering about my complete radio silence
the past few months, I finished a kitchen and bath in a remodel project
that almost finished ME off! Three months later, I have succeeded in
transforming a space that looked like this:
into this:
And that was only one room out of four, plus a relandscape design.
Apparently, this remodel sucked up every ounce of my creative energy, as
my last blog post seems to almost coincide with the start of this remodel.
Thank heavens that project is over now! And the weather will be getting
colder soon, bringing fabulous new knitting patterns for the fall and
winter season. Can't wait!!!