Bohemian rhapsody

Excuse the ill-done flower. I ran out of yarn, or I would've made a better one.

- Zen

Adventures in fibre arts

CK told us Lemms off for never updating our blog. I'm sadly uninspired these days -- it is too cold to play dress-up! And the sales are quietly leaving the shops, alas. I did shake a couple of pairs of tights out of them today -- 2 for £4, thank you Topshop.

The lipstick theory of recession: lipstick sales go up in an economic downturn, because they're a small, relatively inexpensive luxury that brightens one's day in a time when the days need brightening. Tights perform this function for me. They're warm, practical, there's no harm in having lots, and if you get the right kind they can make an outfit.

But they are not very interesting to photograph when you have just got basic black and dark blue ones. So really this is not a post about tights, but a post on what I've made recently with the magic of CROCHET. (And some knitting.)



How I have longed for a cowl. And now I have one! With buttons! The yarn is a wool/alpaca blend; the buttons are from my mother's button box.

My cousin 'Lina scoffs at a cowl because she says you might as well make a scarf, and it is just laziness not to, but you see buttons would not look as well on a scarf. And they are quite versatile!

Cowl - made by meeee; cardigan - H&M; dress - Cicada; tights - Urban Outfitters; shoes - Vincci Accessories

You can wear them on your neck all crumpled, or not.

Cowl sweet cowl; white top - New Look; skirt worn as dress - my mother's; tights - Uniqlo; stockings worn over tights for warmth - Japan; shoes - Vincci Accessories

You can fold 'em and wear them. (Granted, this is not a very clear picture of it being worn folded. Also please to ignore the fact that I am wearing exactly the same colour scheme as in the previous picture. My obsession with black&white&dark blue is embarrassing.)


You can wear them as a hat and put a soft toy in the top! Er, probably you'd only do that if you were Sam. But you see, I told you they were versatile!

And then I knitted a scarf out of gorgeous hand-dyed Manos del Uruguay wool. I call this my indulgence scarf, because the yarn was such an indulgence.

I'm absurdly proud of the finished product. A couple of not-very-good photos of me wearing it:



It's a proper scarf -- no cowl this -- but I like to wind it round my neck and tuck the ends in so it looks like a cowl. The advantage of this is that it's super warm.


And the effect is not uncute!

Finally, I crocheted a hat for a friend who has yet to receive it, but fortunately she does not read this blog, so I can post the pictures without spoilering her. I made it according to a pattern for a slouchy beanie that I found on the magical Internet machine, modifying the pattern to make the hat more slouchy and adding a scalloped edge basically 'cos I could.



You can wear it slouchy. (Forgive terrible morning hair; I'd just got up.)


Or you can turn up the bottom and wear it so your head looks like a grape!

That's all for now, folks. The next hill I gotta climb: fingerless gloves!

- Zen

Chronicles of the easily inspired

Now isn't that pretty? I saw it in a shop window on Lower Marsh (my favourite road in the world -- it has two vintage shops, three bookshops, a knitting shop and cafes galore! You must understand: in my head Heaven's high street is like this). The shop sells various vintagey/kitschy/girly gift things, and lots of Noa Noa clothes and accessories.

I loved the delicacy and whimsical details of this outfit in the window display, so I thought I'd try to recreate it. Noa Noa is of course far beyond my budget, but you know what is within my budget?

H&M!

Dress - H&M; cardigan - H&M, rosette made by me; necklace - weekend market at the Curve; scarf - random London shop; tights - Uniqlo

You will note that really the only thing this has in common with the window display is the vaguely flower-shaped brooch. But I'm especially proud of that brooch because I made it myself! It is the first crochet flower I have ever made. And I think it looks pretty neato!

Since I didn't have any appropriate white yarns to use, I deliberately flipped the colours of the scarf and flower. I don't have any thin white necklaces -- I like my necklaces chunky or quirky, but rarely so delicate -- so I went for my phoenix necklace, 'cos I hardly ever wear it.

I added the cuff also 'cos I never wear it, and because the colours sort of match:

Overall I'm not that pleased with the look I came up with as an imitation, though I am happy with it as an outfit -- it's casual and cosy and warm! I love casual and cosy and warm. And it means the rosette is perpetually in the corner of my eye, reminding me to bask in the lovely warm glow of having made something myself.

I would like to get up an outfit a bit more similar to the window display, though. For that I'd need
- a more interestingly knit long cardigan
- a more interesting scarf
- a floatier dress -- you can't really see it in the picture I took, but the dress is sort of layered and gauzy. I do have a similar black dress I tried on this morning, but since my cardigan is black as well, it ended up looking a bit too eveningwear.

We shall see. I am technically still under a shopping ban ... though I breached it briefly yesterday. But that is a story for another post!

Cowls and other creatures

My BFF Max has requested that we post clearer pictures of our clothes. My sucky photography skills and the appalling lighting in my room don't really allow for that, but Max's reproof did remind me that I've got something of a backlog of clothes photos that I was meaning to post here.

Not-terribly-exciting outfit photos posted at Wardrobe Remix:

Scarf - from my mom; T-shirt - Seed; necklace - somewhere in Malaysia; sleeveless top - H&M; skirt - Nicole; tights - Boots; stockings - random shop in Tokyo; boots - DUO; elephants - Bali

I really like this outfit just because it's a new way of putting old clothes together. The black top actually has a white bib on the front; it is very charming, but is too big for me and gapes at the chest shockingly, so I always have to layer it on top of something else. Usually I put it on top of a tank, but the T-shirt look is quite cute as well, I think.

Dress - Zara; long cardigan - H&M; tights - Dorothy Perkins

Reading Fruchtzwerg's Island made me realise that the one thing missing from my life is a long cardigan, so I rushed out and got one from H&M. Again, a really simple outfit, but it delights me because it's a new way of wearing the dress. The dress is very cute, but when I wear it by itself, there's something about its fit that I don't like. Really I shouldn't have bought it, but I was too charmed by the gorgeous print (my friend called it a "juicy blue", and it really is!). It's spent most of this term mouldering in the back of my closet.

But then I put the new cardigan on top of it and suddenly I love the look -- it's comfortable enough to wear while slouching around at home; it's casual enough to wear to school without feeling awkwardly overdressed; it adds a pop of colour to my day but isn't too loud because the cardigan quiets it down. It still needs more -- an oversized scarf, maybe, or a belt, or a necklace -- but it will do for now. I foresee myself wearing this dress a LOT.

Anyway, I have decided that the cardigan is going to be my absolute last clothes purchase for myself this term. I've been spending far too much money! My resolution is a bit cheating really, since there's only two weeks left to the term, and I will be shopping when I go home, if only because my brother's getting married and I haven't yet acquired an appropriate dress. But it's a very necessary resolution in these sale-ridden times.

What I'd like to do more of is combine what I've got in new ways -- I initially typed 'interesting new ways', but they don't have even have to be particularly interesting, really, just novel. I've been thinking especially about this:

It's an Alexander McQueen dress I saw in the Bath Fashion Museum. (Not awfully worth going, btw; one might as well visit the V&A -- at least that's free.) Ever since I saw it I've been pondering how I might recreate it with my lace dress -- for I have a lace dress! It is not the same colour or shape, but it is lacey. The general idea is there.

But I do not know how I am to obtain the top bit.


I don't know if you can tell, but it is some sort of leather yoke/collar thing. I was thinking I could recreate something similar by crochet, perhaps -- perhaps by trying to imitate one of Yokoo's marvellous creations --

-- though of course it would be a poor imitation at best -- but it is called the Pembroke cowl! It is as if it was meant to be!

But the thing about the McQueen dress is that it is a play on the textures and the associations of leather vs. lace, so it wouldn't work if it was crochet.

Unless I tried to crochet a cowl in leather ...

Crochet and feathers

I've always had an obsessive personality, and I have just acquired a new thing to be obsessed about: crochet.

Crochet! It's done wonders for my Internet addiction, except when I go on crazy crochet website surfing sprees and turn up millions of things I wish to make when I have honed my skills sufficiently.

Like this sushi roll scarf:

Found here.

And a crazy vintage hat:

Only one of many crazy hats from the year 1944, here.

And handwarmers!

Pattern here.

With the little crochet flower on the side, oh how adorable.

Apart from these mad orgies of wish fulfillment, however, my addiction to the Internet has sat down and shut up. Upon coming home, no longer do I rush to Gmail with a hopeful expression. Instead, I curl up in my armchair with a 4.5 mm hook and wrestle with loops of cotton yarn, looking hazily through the stitches at the future.

The future is glorious, and it looks like a scarf.

I started crocheting all of a week ago, when I went into a shop to buy yarns for a knitter friend and got distracted by all the pretty colours. The textures! The variety! The glorious things you were able to make with them, they said, ranging from sheep-shaped tea pot cozies to fancy-ass dresses! I bought a hook and a ball of yarn and a book --


It is a crappy book, by the way; don't buy it --

And came home and started to crochet. Since the explanations and diagrams in my book were not terribly helpful, I had to consult the Internet at a couple of points, but once I had cleared up the nature of the slip stitch everything was smooth sailing from there.

Well, not quite. With heedless enthusiasm I started on a double crochet (single crochet in American) scarf in strawberry and mint colours, but rapidly came a cropper for various reasons: I was using the wrong sort of yarn; I failed to do extra stitches to make up for it; not only was I using the wrong sort of yarn, I was using different wrong sorts of yarn ...

The long and short of it is, that scarf was not a success.


I look quite happy here (well actually I look like a blank-eyed alien, but never mind about that), but that is only because I was bravely biting down on my anguish. The reasons why the scarf did not work out are many and varied, but I won't bore you with the technical details. I moaned about them in detail to my sister, who said, "It doesn't have to be a scarf! Why don't you use it as an accessory? Like, you know, instead of wearing a necklace and earrings, you could wear your ... thing."

Zen: Right, that'll go down well. 'Hey, Zen, what's that you're wearing?' 'Oh, it's my, you know, it's my ... accessory.'
Sister: Yeah! It could be your trinklet.

So we have taken to calling it my trinklet. I have hung it up on my bedroom door: pretty, resembling coral in its charming curliness, but ultimately useless.

The projects I next wanted to go on to doing were a) a beret and b) handwarmers and c) something cute in the way of amigurumi ... but since I have only yet managed to produce a trinklet and not a scarf, I decided to start over again and do a Proper Scarf, a scarf one could actually wear and not look that odd in.

It is going reasonably well so far! Again I will restrain myself from expounding upon it in technical detail, but there will be pictures if it does eventually turn into a scarf. Wish me luck!

Just in case crochet chat is not your bag of Jelly Babies, I include an obligatory non-crochet related link.

Link.

This is a wealthy heiress circa 1911 (probably). Isn't she marvellous? She's just exactly what you'd expect an heiress to look like somehow.

We don't have heiresses anymore, do we? Not simply as a descriptor but as a job description, a definition of a particular identity. I guess if you dream of the Marxist utopia, as surely we must all do, you can't regret the loss, but what a shame people don't wear hats like that anymore.

Anyway, what I was meaning to say was: the Shorpy Photo Archive is a repository of supremely cool old photos, worth a look if you're interested in people and the past. I haven't found that much in the way of glamour so far except in the photo above, but check out the beauty pageant photos; they are absolutely hilarious.

- Zen