Make A-longs Past and Present

As most everyone who reads this blog knows, I am in the midst of a final K/CAL (knit/crochet a-long) celebrating my five year design anniversary. While I will get to a progress photo of my projects (and they really are coming along), I do want to provide an update on a CAL I hosted last Fall in the Crochet! Magazine Ravelry group.

I wrote several blog posts last year around the design that was the focus of that a-long, the Gradient Flower Cowl. I made several cowls for myself using up stash (so pleasing!), and have worn them in the intervening months. However, the (now) editor of Crochet! Magazine's special newsstand issues as well as Crochet World Magazine, Jackie Daugherty, was also participating and trying to decide on exactly what form her project should take: cowl, shawl, or (gasp!) blanket. 

A process photo of Jackie's
amazing shawl, based on
my Gradient Flower Cowl
design.

Well, I am so thrilled to report that Jackie has completed her project - a stole - and all 505 motifs are made with amazing Koigu fingering scraps given to her by a friend! Isn't that shawl a piece of art? I think it looks like a springtime flower bed. You can read more about the journey of this beautiful shawl on the Crochet World blog, as Jackie has provided some additional background tidbits (including a great photo of the heap o' Koigu) in today's post. The shawl will also be on display next month at the Fiber Festival of New England, so if you are around that area and attending the event, definitely seek it out.

And now, onto my current K/CAL projects:

Pieces of another New Wave Skirt (on bottom) are topped by the
beginnings of both a Bomber-inspired Hoodie Vest (the cream textured
 piece on the right) and a Mixlace Poncho in awesome deep green.

My New Wave skirt pieces are almost completed, but as I have told my K/CAL peeps, I am having a devil of a time finding a short zipper in an appropriate color. I have been to three different places, and I have one more on my list before I give up the ghost and go online (but there's something about buying so small an item online that really doesn't sit right with me - all that gas for travel time and such). I am thoroughly enjoying the textures of my other two projects, as well as that gorgeous fall color palette. This is definitely my color sweet spot. I want to wear all of this right now!

I hope everyone is enjoying the season and making all kinds of wonderful projects. Get thee to thy needles and hooks and yarn!

It's Time for Slow Fashion October - Take 2

I am so excited about the second year of Slow Fashion October! Fringe Supply Co., the mastermind behind organizing around this concept, has provided all of us with a month's worth of weekly prompts to get us thinking and writing about this free-wheeling (and sometimes unwieldy) concept.

So who am I, how do I come to this concept, and how does it impact my making and my closet? As a designer (knit- and crochet-wear) and maker, I have a fine appreciation for small-batch and handmade. To be honest, I have not always had such an appreciation. As someone from modest, blue collar roots who has actually worked in a mill (I made men's shoes for a summer), I wanted education so I could escape such sweaty, oppressive work. My grandmother was a textile worker and an avid sewer well into her elder years, and I wanted nothing to do with sewing (and you can read more about my anti-sewer stance as well as other fashion beginnings from last year's Slow Fashion October blog entries).

Nevertheless, I have always loved clothes (some things from my grandmother rubbed off on me), as well as crochet and hand-knit (and interior design, which I consider an extension of all this). It has been a long, strange trip to get to this place - complete with oodles of education - but designing and making, both for myself as well as my living space seems second nature to me now. The "small-batch, hand made ... well-loved [and] long-worn" part of this celebration fits me perfectly. Environmental, humanitarian, and budgetary concerns all definitely have played a role in getting me to think more deeply about all of this (helped along by a major portion of that education spoken of earlier), but there's an uneasy intersection between these first three influences (which can have a real dilettante quality to them) and that poor and struggling shoe-factory-working girl who wanted something better for herself. I will always have much respect for working-class values which, if a working-class person is being honest, s/he longs to escape. Please have others make things for me. Why should I mend my clothes - I want the resources to just buy something shiny and brand new. It is only with time, self-knowledge and reflection that one can make peace with and find balance among these clashing values. It also, in many instances, means walking a solitary path, so getting in on this month-long social discussion is a really welcomed gift.

Since Slow Fashion October coincides with a two-month Wardrobe Weather a-long I am hosting in my Ravelry group, I will definitely be making things this month. I am almost done with another New Wave Skirt for myself, I have (shown above) swatched for a Bomber-inspired Hoodie Vest and I am just tucking into a green/cream/taupe version of my Mixlace Poncho. Admittedly, budget and easily accessible materials have dictated my yarn choices for these projects (including using my own stash). I am looking forward to adding them to my wardrobe and showing them off.

A certain balance achieved.