5/20/2007

In contemplating my wardrobe and thinking about design, here's what's going on with me:

brown. I've had brown phases before. I had a brown phase in college I think, which a friend dubbed the "Atalanta Earth" look, but more recently I got rid of all things neutral. Anyway, brown is back. My mother-in-law must have had a brown phase too because I have loads of brown table linens thanks to her.

ruching. Heck, it's so fun to say, how can you not find ways to slip it into day to day conversation? I've been fascinated lately by ruching. I think it's an extension of the ruffle phase that knitting went through a couple years ago. When you think about it, ruching is just a ruffle that's attached on both sides. I've seen a couple of knitted items that use it -- I think there's an intriguing bit in the Tracey Ullman book. And one of my students is knitting something that uses increases and the contrast between a thin yarn and a thicker yarn to create ruched stripes. In order to get the drape you need (and not something outrageously bulky and heavy), you'd want to use something light. Maybe a ribbon yarn? I think it'd need to be used judiciously, but could really do some interesting things.

pockets. It dawned on me yesterday as I was admiring the pouch-like pockets on a cargo skirt that knitting has really not seen a lot of pockets recently. I seem to remember more pockets a couple of decades ago. My aunt knit my sister a tunic length sweater with cables and two pockets that was pretty fetching back in the '80's. Patch pockets can be worked in a number of pretty cool ways, with or without flaps, and inset pockets also offer the potential for interesting embellishments. The issue I think is that they add bulk. So you'd have to deal with that. And also, any time you actually put anything IN to a pocket, you wreck the lines of the garment. Still pockets are darned useful. Ask any kangaroo.

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