Wardrobes are Better For It

So, it is the beginning of November - my favorite month! First, however, I really do need to say thank you to all the participants in my Wardrobe Weather-a-long, which ended on Monday. 

To the left is a visual recap of only some of the amazing and wonderful projects completed. Scarves, cowls, ponchos, sweaters and a few awesome hats were prominently represented in the mix. I managed to complete a poncho, cowl, and skirt for my own wardrobe enhancement (and I'm working to complete a hoodie which didn't make it before the deadline). I am totally blown away by just how well each of these projects turned out - excellent yarn and color choices, and the pieces really suit the makers. I have already worn my new projects, and I hope the above projects are worn well and often. For a designer, it doesn't get much better than that!

So now we turn to November - the month of U.S. Thanksgiving and the start of the Indie Designer Gift-a-long - that mass (and massive) gift-making and indie-designer-celebrating-palooza. We are working behind the scenes setting things up right now on Ravelry for the November 22nd start. I will be a participating designer again this year, as well as a member of the Pinterest pinning team and a co-moderator in one of the making groups. I hope everyone will join us in supporting independent designers by purchasing designs, and celebrating the season by making something - for yourself, for family and friends, and/or for charity. I received an early yarny holiday gift from my favorite indie dyer, Neighborhood Fiber Co. Get a load of all that graffiti goodness! I am not certain what I will make with all of this, but some of it might find its way into a project during the Indie GAL. However, I know I have at least one shawl on deck that I'll gift to a family member. I purchased the pattern a few GALs ago and I have the yarn set aside all ready to go. 

It's bountiful right now around chez Voie de Vie. 

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.

A New Design!

Hello everyone - can you believe it is the end of September? Where has it gone? I want it back - I have more things I need to get done!

There is a confluence of events that will be taking place in October, and I hope you will stick around to read about some of them here. The Slow Fashion October conversation will once again take place the entire month. I encourage everyone to read about this year's prompts and join in the wonderfully big and sometimes unwieldy conversation, occurring both online and via Instagram. I know I have a fair amount to say this year, and I plan on doing just that. 

Additionally, I and my merry band of makers will continue with the second month of my Ravelry group's Wardrobe Weather a-long. I am in the process of making a few things, some of which should be completed like, very soon. I am planning on some Wardrobe Wednesday posts in October that tie in with both the above events.

And, not a moment too soon, I will be rolling out my second home collection - with a design a day (well, almost), through the beginning weeks in October. To the right you'll see a sneak peek of a few of the designs.

I know that one doesn't immediately think of home accessories in Fall, but for me, my home design efforts are just as important as my garment and accessories designing. It is, somehow, fitting that home and wardrobe should come together in a fall collection, and so I have done just that. I will flat out tell you, this is my largest seasonal collection to date, and I'm pretty darn excited about it. 

So, I am going to kick off things just a wee bit early with one of the personal accessory designs from the collection:

Say hello to the Below the Fold Shawl. This shawl design started from original materials received in a swap back in April. We all swapped materials we had on hand, whether whole skeins of yarn or bits of fabric, and from the materials I received came the prototype for Below the Fold. I then tested it in August during the Rio Olympics - and a huge shout out to my testers for their wonderful help: Kris, Liza, Debi, Michelle, Aimee and Joann - and then made this final sample using awesome Neighborhood Fiber Co. Rustic Fingering. The written pattern, including charts, is finally ready for release into the crafty wild, and I will do just that by adding it to my Ravelry store.

I am so thrilled with everything about this design: the initial inspiration, which is exactly in line with Slow Fashion October's theme and community building, the testing phase (which I really enjoyed - thanks, again, ladies!), the finished, polished pattern and sample, as well as how I arrived at the design's name. From start to finish, a true joy.

Isn't that a great way to gear up for October?

What a Rockin' Start to Autumn ...

And it isn't even officially autumn yet! Nonetheless, it's been crafty busy here at chez Voie de Vie,  and I couldn't be happier. 

I am so thrilled with the response my Mixlace Poncho, published in Interweave Crochet's Fall 2016 edition, is receiving. All kinds of crafters are completing finished projects from this design - and many (including yours truly) still need to make one as part of my current Ravelry Wardrobe Weather a-long. Everyone seems to find the making easy and the finished poncho wonderful to wear. I thought I would show you a quick round-up of a few of the completed projects:

Clockwise from left: Micha of Stitches & Woes showing off, via 
Instagram @stitchesandwoes, her awesome teal version (all Scarfie),
Raveler Naptural1's version in the original sample Scarfie colors,
and Raveler Extremehaekllerin's all blue version worked up with 
Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball.

I have the yarn for my own Mixlace, which I will be tucking into just as soon as one of the a-long participants in Australia receives her magazine (but the wait? Ugh!):

My Mixlace will be green and cream/taupe (on the right), and the left stash yarn, which I am committed to using, will become another New Wave Skirt. I am also going to work up a Bomber-Inspired Hoodie Vest, and I had identified yarn in my stash that I wanted to use, but I am coming to a different yarn decision. There is still bucket loads of time to join us on Ravelry and work up a new something for your own fall wardrobe.

I do love Autumn!

It's Wardrobe Weather Time, Folks!

In the United States we celebrate Labor Day the first weekend in September. It is always a time of renewal and beginning for many, myself included. Growing up, if I was going to get any new clothing, Labor Day weekend would be the time, right before the start of the new school year. 

Old habits die hard, but in this instance why should they die at all? Who doesn't like a new outfit or a quick accessory to spruce up a perhaps slightly tired closet? Look no further as I enthusiastically raise my hand! So I hope you will join me in the final group make of my 5-year design celebratory year as I, along with other fellow maker peeps, get together in my Ravelry group and create some fall wardrobe magic.

I'll be making (I think, time permitting), another New Wave Skirt, a Bomber-inspired Hoodie Vest (I have been hankering for one of these for my very self for a long while now), and of course a new Mixlace Poncho in greens and creams. (An aside: I cannot believe there's already two Ravelry projects started for this design, and one maker is already done! Ahhhhmazing in the best possible way.)

I'll also be sharing how I am revamping my wardrobe one outfit at a time with some additional Wardrobe Wednesday posts between now and the end of October. I do love this time of year, and I hope you'll join me in getting your maker wardrobe on.