Today, let's talk about how to keep your stranded knitting nice and even looking! I'll cover a few things that tie together to make that happen, and give you my best advice for lovely looking stranded knitting. Tension You may or may not find that your tension changes from knitting with one color to knitting with two colors. Many people say your tension tightens up when you knit stranded (producing more stitches per ... Read more »
My lovely stranded cardigan!
Hi everyone, I'm back home! I have massive catching up to do on my feed reader. My, how everyone's been posting like a maniac! We had a lovely, albeit somewhat brief, trip to my mom's outside of Washington, D.C. I'm sorry I didn't get to meet up with any D.C. bloggers, however with Thanksgiving and a family party, and my best friend from college visiting too for part of the trip, time was very limited. Just before ... Read more »
Saturday evening outfit & haircut
We're off to my mom's tomorrow. So before we jet, I thought I'd post a quick outfit, mostly to show you all that I got a haircut last weekend! I'd been debating about chopping another few inches off for awhile, and went for it.Now you'll never see me wearing my hair down like this, but you can see the length. We went out with friends Saturday night and I didn't feel like doing anything to my hair after the cut that ... Read more »
Jitterbuggin 30% off sale through Sunday
Hi everyone! I have continued the trend of being head-spinningly busy lately! I was hoping to get not one but two Vintage Knitting College posts written up this week, and have come up with a big, fat zero! We're off to visit my mom and step-dad outside Washington, D.C. next week for Thanksgiving, so I'm hoping to have a bit of free time to work on at least one then.In the meantime, I thought I'd alert you to a sale I ... Read more »
Autumn day outfit #2
Goodness, where has this week gone? That's what happens when you have a cold. Suddenly it's Friday and you feel like you haven't accomplished anything.Since I haven't had the time to write up a blog post, you'll have to make do with another outfit post. Last weekend we went to the International Expo of Sculptural and Functional Art and Intuit Show of Folk and Outsider Art. My tastes definitely lean to the latter.This was ... Read more »
My guest post at Elegant Musings
Hi everyone! Ever wanted to sew a ribbon button band onto a cardigan? I'm excited to point you to my guest post today over at Casey's Elegant Musings, where you can read my tutorial! See, I told you that you'd hear more about the Campus Compliments cardigan pattern I posted. ;) ... Read more »
An autumn day outfit
I haven't done a real outfit post in awhile!Yes, that's my Halloween beret. While I had my jacket on for most of the pictures in that post, these photos were taken the same day, just sans jacket and scarf. Cheeky, no?This is what I was wearing for the outer portion of the outfit. I'm mainly showing you because I love this doorway. Isn't it amazing? I feel it looks like it's out Europe! It's down the block from our ... Read more »
VKC: Getting started with stranded (fair isle) knitting
This post is the first official lesson in the Vintage Knitting College! I'm starting off with a series of posts for Colorwork: 101. Bestway #82 pattern As you know, you'll be following along with a pullover I'll be knitting from a 1940s pattern, Bestway #82. It's available as a .pdf from the Vintage Knitting Lady here, and available for your Ravelry queue here. But since my goal for the VKC is to ... Read more »
Kickoff tomorrow! Vintage Knitting College Colorwork: 101
I'm pleased to finally announce that tomorrow will kickoff my Vintage Knitting College series, with the first post in Colorwork: 101! I'll be talking about the very basics of stranded knitting over a few posts. Tomorrow we'll start off with how to carry your yarn and how to keep your balls of yarn tidy and your yarn tangle-free. Then in the next few posts after that I'll talk about keeping even tension while stranding and ... Read more »
A very spoooooky Halloween
Happy Halloween, everyone!Guess what spooooky project I've been keeping under my hat? Well okay, not under my hat. It is my hat! And surely a spooky bit of knitting will help strike the fear of Halloween into you!There are creepy black bats, flying across an orange background... Skeletons with ghoulish red eyeballs...Gross green worms inching along on a purple background...And, well, I think those are supposed to be ... Read more »
Best laid knitting plans…
I'm sorry to those of you waiting for my kickoff post for the Vintage Knitting College! Sometimes the best laid plans go awry, which has been the case for me. I wanted to use my new video camera that I bought, however once I finally had time to sit down and play with it, I realized it won't do close up without being blurry. Of course, I realized this after the return policy expired. I'm trying to figure out if I can ... Read more »
ghosts of Halloween past
Hello everyone! I'm back from San Diego and trying to catch up!Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, and Mel's as well. We usually dress up, though honestly haven't had any reason to for a couple of years unfortunately. Of course around Halloween you're reminded of all your past costumes. Yesterday, I saw that Andrea of PaperSparrow (an amazing DIY blog that's new to me that I'm already in love with!) did ... Read more »
Vintage Knitting Pattern: Campus Compliments Cardigan
Hi everyone! Today I have a free vintage knitting pattern to share with you before I jet off to San Diego for my cousin's wedding over the weekend. It's a great basic cardigan that should easily fit into any Fall/Winter wardrobe! Don't you just love that photo? It's from a 1944 knitting booklet called Campus Classics for Knitters (one of my favorites!). It's rather unusual for that decade, as it's written in four ... Read more »
My perfect satchel
Hi everyone! Well I've been super excited reading everyone's comments and stories on my post about bras and the 1940s bustline. Even if it's frustrating, isn't there some solidarity in knowing every one of us, no matter our shape or size, has some of the same concerns and issues? Anyway, a few days ago I got the best package ever in the mail. Since the beginning of the summer when I got my DSLR camera, I've been ... Read more »
Adventures in recreating the 1940s bust silhouette
This post is a long time in the making! Grab a cup of tea and sit down for a spell.Let's talk about something that most people, vintage aficionados or not, probably don't even think much about: the bust line silhouette. A delicate combination of the bra you're wearing and, well, whatever you've got in that bra.I don't like typical modern round cup bras. You know the kind, it's the shape of probably 95% of the bras on the ... Read more »
Indian Summer in St. Louis
This weekend we took a road trip to St. Louis to visit Mel's sister, brother-in-law and our niece and nephew. It was fantastic. We always have such a nice time together. There was grilling, relaxing on the porch, seeing butterflies at a butterfly house, looking for fossils and geodes by a river, skipping rocks, playing with the kids and reading bedtime stories. All in gloriously warm weather more reminiscent of July than ... Read more »