On Parting With Hand-Knits (Farewell, Liesl and Coraline)

I have just given away two of my hand-knits to charity.

Coraline, originally blogged here (check out the first comment on that post... pretty loopy, right?!).

Liesl, originally blogged here.

These had lain dormant in drawers for some time, and I decided to clear them out to make room, hopefully, for new and better makes in the future. I bid them goodbye partly for stylistic reasons, but maybe more because of the niggling technical issues that both suffered from. Coraline's thread button loops frayed and splayed...

Furthermore, the neckline was just a little too high, so that when buttoned it felt a bit like an alpaca garrotte (when unbuttoned, it looked like it should be buttoned). The whole confection - the sweet pinky-purply yarn, the heart-shaped pink buttons, the picot edging - was rather sugary for my tastes. It was sort of the cardigan equivalent of a fruity sweet bedecked with rainbows and ponies, and aggressively marketed at the under-five market.

As for Liesl, the hooks and eyes I sewed on in place of buttons always annoyed me in their wonkiness; what is more the yarn I made it out of pilled IN HEINOUS CLUMPS. This was entirely predictable, and my fault rather than the lovely yarn's - I would never make a jumper out of a loosely spun, single-ply wool/silk blend nowadays. But still. HEINOUS CLUMPS.

CLUMPIER THAN THE PHOTO MAKES OUT.

I absolutely don't mean to do down my own handiwork; I don't have a problem with the things I make looking handmade, or indeed homemade, I just think my skills and my taste have moved on from these particular two knits. Both of these were made at the heady height of the button-at-the-yoke-only cardigan craze - I even bought myself some Manos Wool/Silk to make a Moch Cardi, so utterly in love with that style was I*. Like bell-bottom jeans, or shoulder pads, though, that kind of cardigan such a distinctive look that once it goes out of style it seems extra dated. I mean, feel free to disagree in the comments section, but I think the button-at-the-top cardigan is over; most recent patterns I can think of button firmly at the bottom (unless they are drapily open à la Nanook).

I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that there are passing fashions in knitwear just like in other garments... I must confess, though, that sometimes, when I'm knitting, the word 'heirloom' flits across my mind, and I imagine my descendants (probably wearing space-suits, probably driving hover-cars or at the very least jet-packs) reverentially unwrapping my creations from yellowed tissue paper to run their fingers over the stitches... and coming away with a handful of HEINOUS CLUMPS - no, it was definitely time for these cardigans to go.

Despite the clumps, it really was a peculiarly emotional experience giving them away. Moving them out stirred up a whole dust-storm of memories, about the dank basement room I was living in when I made them (around the corner from my friend Patrick with his nifty camera), about the guy I was with at the time, the party I worked on Coraline at, the audiobook I listened to as I finished Liesl, the fraught decision over Coraline's hem, and how long it took to whip-stitch down every one of those live stitches...

Anthropologists talk about objects having a social life, and I think that is especially true for the clothes we make ourselves, which integrate themselves deeply into the fabric of our existence. That in itself, though, shouldn't be enough to stop us getting rid of them if they get old or shabby, or no longer fit in with the rest of our wardrobe. It's time for these two cardigans to start a new social life, and I really do hope it will be full of pleasant adventures.

What do you think? Have you ever given away, or thrown away, a garment that you've made? Do you violently disagree with my controversial statements on the button-at-the-top cardigan? Let me know!

*incidentally, any suggestions on to do with 900 yards of Manos Wool/Silk would be very much appreciated!

Coraline down a lane: daily outfit #3

Blouse: Uniqlo

Cardigan: Coraline, my own work

Belt: Topshop

Skirt: Radio Days vintage shop, Lower Marsh, London SE1

Shoes: Office vintage

Looking at myself squinting into the afternoon sunlight, I'm still not entirely sure about this outfit - is it a little too busy? It was an attempt to pick on some of the many delectable colours in this skirt (close-up below). I made Coraline a little on the cropped side, which makes it the ideal partner to anything high-waisted. This cardigan is a bit of an autumnal winner, warm yet lightweight.

I am so in love with the print of this skirt, in particular those little outlined, uncoloured flowers, hinting perhaps at a forgetful botanist wandering off for a cup of tea from a thermos and leaving this sketch unfinished.

Two Things

1. I have just seen Coraline.

2. I will not be collecting any more buttons any time soon.

She's finished!

Remember my dilemma with the bottom edge of Coraline? I eventually steeled myself, and decided I wasn't going to let the hell hem get the better of me. This thing wasn't giving up without a fight, however, and obstinately snarled up, refusing to rip out. I finally lost patience with it, and hacked it off with a pair of scissors. 

Yes, you read that right. I savaged my own knitting. As I laid down my weapon to survey the extent of my brutality, I felt sure that any minute now the heavens would rain down punishments befitting to a kniticide, such as having my liver nibbled at by an angora rabbit, or having to push an enormous ball of yarn up a never-ending mountain for all eternity. I had intended to unravel the hem and re-use the yarn, but I was overcome by a desire to hide the evidence of my craft crime, so, feeling like Ewan McGregor in Shallow Grave, I stuffed the dismembered border into a little bag and surreptitiously threw it away.

It took me a long time to make it up to the poor little garment, and tidy up its yarn-y entrails. But I did...

I think I got away with it! 
Check out that i-cord edging...
I was in two minds about these smoky-lilac buttons. By themselves they do have a little bit of a 'Daddy! I don't want a pony, anymore, Daddy, I want a unicorn!' look to them. United with the cardigan, however, I hope they take on a more subtle, grown-up aspect.

As for the hem, when at long last I got a set of live stitches back on my needles, I worked a YO, k2tog row to form a picot edge, decreased by about 90%, knit a few more rows and then whip-stitched down the live stitches. I like how the picot points echo the smocking diamonds, and how neat it looks from the right side.
 It's a little less perfect on the wrong side, but still about a million gadzillion times better than before its surgical intervention.
Yay! And thanks to Patrick for taking the photos with his snazzy camera, and sparing you the pain of me contorting myself in front of my webcam. Now maybe I'll wear it along to the film...

There's a time and a place

Yesterday, I met up with several lovely people I hadn't seen for a while, first over a sunny lunch in Cambridge, and then at a belated birthday party in London. Throughout both events, and on the train in between them, I worked on this:

Actually, I took this photo a while ago, and unfortunately it's likely to be the last one for a little while, as I foolishly left my camera at home last time I was there. Anyway, this unpromising-looking purple lump is a whole lot further along towards becoming this - I'm doing the smocking at the yoke now. And yes, it's another Ysolda pattern. I just can't seem to get enough of her designs at the moment.

I was thinking about how much my knitting time has increased of late, perhaps since those couple of months  I spent researching in Italy when it was my sole companion. Gradually it appears to have infiltrated more and more parts of my life. This time last year, I don't think it would have even occurred to me to take my knitting on a plane, to a party, to lunch. Occasionally, I'd hear tell of people knitting at the table but I had no idea that I myself was on a slippery slope to becoming that obsessed. In fact, I chose this pattern in part because the body and the sleeves are fairly mindless stocking stitch, and so easy to do while talking to people, or travelling. I plan always to have a simple project like this on my needles, so I can do all of these things without having to hunch over my work, worrying about committing heinous errors - 'I can't talk! I'm counting!'. I find I can get an awful lot done in these little pockets of time over a cup of tea, waiting for someone to turn up, on public transport... Now I hate being caught out without my knitting during these periods; my fingers itch to be busy. I've been listening to No Idle Hands: A Social History of American Knitting by Anne Macdonald, a book filled with interesting snippets about knitters from the past, and there's a description of one lady who only stopped knitting once a week, to go to church, and who said it was all she could do to sit and not do anything for that long. It makes me a bit sad to think of all the time I wasted before I learned - just think of all the things I could have made by now...

My occupation drew a mixture of responses. It elicited the remark that forms the title of this post. I think some people were bemused, while some seemed rather impressed. One party-goer kept trying to ply me with drink, and I kept telling him that I was sorry, but I was doing smocking, a delicate operation not compatible with alcohol. Lots of people asked me to knit something for them;  I stuck to my current selfish principles. I was asked quite a lot how long it had taken me to knit this much, which I found a little tricky to answer. I know when I started it (about a month ago), but I've been working with it very infrequently, and have nearly completed something else in the meantime. Whereas normally I am eager to finish things, with this I was worried about running out of travel knitting. Now that the end is so close, however, I am quite keen for it to be done. I love seamless constructions, and the fact that when I cast off the final stitch I will be holding a recognisable cardigan as opposed to a cluster of dismembered pieces waiting to be sewn together.