Wow, the day job has kept me busy and away from the blog for a while, but I have been working on a new designs and knitting up lots of sample, more of which soon.
Just now I thought I’d share some selections of knitwear from Designer Collections for Autumn/Winter – some lovely ideas, some things to make you think ‘I could make one of those’ and others that might just remind you of the 1980s…
Nicolas Ghesquiere at Balenciaga always seems to combine interesting techniques and materials which he’s done here to knit bulky leather gillets, this one with the brown contrast really shows up the stitch pattern:
This combination of technique and materials has also been used for accessories as in the clutch bag in the picture below. Also here is a nice and very wearable black and white sideways knit chevron stitch pattern sweater. Again this is picking up and emphasising the natural structure of stocking stitch when knit sideways rather than vertically.
This too I thought was a nice and very wearable combination of layered pieces and this teal colour would get me every time.
Here however, we get to the 80s vibe – remember those picture knits? Well it seems intarsia is now high fashion although I do wonder if you did it the first time round it has less appeal when the fashion wheel turns in that direction again. This reminds me of a lady I knew growing up who always had a pack of dogs around her and had a very Barbara Woodhouse bearing and no-nonsense attitude and was just a little bit intimidating…
This final piece from Balenciaga also has an 80s vibe – I think it’s the combination of motif, a slight mohair feel and tucking your jumper in your skirt that does it:
Moving on to Jill Sander, again a vintage feel, but this invokes the 70s for me and reminds me a bit of the of the balaclavas my grandmother knitted for my brothers – however those were black and worn under motorbike helmets in the winter – somehow I can’t see my brothers embracing this design though…
This tank top got me thinking though. Vogue’s fashion editor referred to this as ‘intarsia’ but it looks to me more like reverse fair isle. It uses just two colours, and the ‘right’ side of this top is the side that would traditionally be the ‘wrong’ side of fair isle with the floats of the passive yarn travelling along the back of the work whilst knitting with the other colour. I’d love to see this and be able to turn it inside out to see the design on the other side.
And finally for the ‘I could make one of those’ musings – the Chloe patchwork cape.
The pictures below give quite a good sense of the construction with different sized plain and textured panels simply stitched together and finished with a knitted border.
What’s more it would be a wonderful stash-busting project and a fun way to try out different textures stitch patterns….
Anyone fancy giving it a go?