Manic Pop

Yesterday while wandering around, running errands I stopped as a last-ditch effort to find what I was looking for (didn't find it) at the Salvation Army in Uptown. Sitting on the bookshelf, grabbing my attention was this book with "KNITTING" printed on the side. I have a number of knitting books, but still I lacked a knitting book that showed me how to do almost everything. No longer - this book has EVERYTHING in it. (There's a point to this post, trust me.) I am not nearly an expert knitter by any means - I'm really still figuring things out and it's likely a seasoned knitter will find problems in my knit design pattern I posted. (I'm pretty great at sewing now however and making my own sewing patterns.) I already see the error in my knitting  of how I used a decrease that makes my stitch pattern swing to directions I would prefer it not - however, that's the beauty of learning things. This book answers practically every knitting question I ever h...

So I was excited to get to spend this past Thanksgiving out in Michigan to visit my step-dad Jerry! We drove out on Tuesday and ended up having Thanksgiving on Wednesday because both me and Max unfortunately had to work Black Friday. This is the place I grew up in since I was 11 after moving from Connecticut - surrounded by the woods. This is also the same town we went to earlier this year for Memorial Day for the big town parade.  Here's the chicken coop again where we actually used to keep chickens! The fencing is long gone around it and it's more of a scenic thing with a garden around it.  Of course, I had to go outside with my knitting even though it was just a little too cold. Definitely wasn't a normal November/Thanksgiving day sort of weather. But it was nice enough to be fine in this heavy cardigan. I got it long ago from Urban Outfitters on wayyy sale for about $10. Only recently have I been pairing it with things.  I normally don...

Part of my winter project is to update my fashion design portfolio because as we all know, fashion fades (style is eternal?). My goal is to have 3 mini "collections", 3 boards a piece - a total of 9 boards in all! I'm currently hitting all of my self-imposed due dates, the last one being March 20th, and should have the croquis board done for this mini collection by December 3rd. Next up after this is hopefully a whole mini-line of fun knitwear designs, but we'll see if I get a different inspiration. Who knows!    I probably should wait to "unveil" all this boards at once, but I'm not one to do things like I "should".  This one also finally has a name, inspired by odd and/or retro furniture: BLUEPRINT.        It's been fun doing these and much less tedious since when I was in school. I still don't do my flats in Illustrator, but I like the way they look better this way.  Side note: I think I might...

I finally got around to taking some photos of my knit hood which is an original pattern of mine! I've been wearing it around a lot this past week and it's been getting a lot of attention. A co-worker wanted to steal it and my sister wants one (I started knitting a deep red one for her!)  This is pretty big for me - I had no idea I could make a pattern again for a knitwear garment. I also don't think I truly learned how to increase and decrease (at least didn't retain how to correctly), and truthfully, I don't know a whole lot about knitting! I was inspired by a photo in a 60s teen magazine (I didn't end up buying) which made me want to try to create a pattern and knit one myself. I was actually looking online for a version of a knit hood, but when I couldn't find one, I resorted to what I always have to do anyway - make one yourself! This is obviously the whole reason I went to school for fashion design, haha.  One day while riding the bus, I wa...

 In addition to all the other things I do, I recently stumbled upon some photos I did for a friend's men's lookbook two years ago. Admittedly, I know very little about photography - I just know what I want photos to look like. I run them through Photoshop, play with color balance, occasionally add effects, whatnot. I remember being particularly excited about this little shoot. My favorite season is fall and this was one of the first "official" shoots I had ever done. Armed only with my little SLR, no extra lenses, no light-bouncing disc things (further proving my non-photography knowledge - don't know what they're called), this is what we got with no crazy equipment at all. Although there are some things I could have done differently, I am quite pleased with how these images came out for not knowing really anything at all.  Take a peek!

I don't know why I rarely visit Chinatown - it's not super-far away for me but for some reason I forget to go there. Last week my mom was visiting from Connecticut and this was the first trip we made! She had apparently always wanted to visit Chinatown, so I decided to show her around a bit. It was one of those perfect days out to run around the city. I ended up wearing a short sleeve sweater I knitted back in my Knitwear Design class in college. This sweater in particular is about 5 years old and it's the first (and really only?) sweater I have ever knitted. I can remember knitting it while I was taking my Senior Project class (essentially sewing together your entire senior collection), as well as working 2 part time jobs. I actually designed the sewing pattern for it - just a simple short sleeve sweater with a crawling cable stitch. My teacher at the time, who was an avid knitter and published in many knitting magazines, had a pattern somewhere...

Believe it or not, this is a brand-new inspiration board for an upcoming (fashion) collection that I whipped up today in Photoshop. I've decided that it's long been overdue with updating my portfolio, so I'm getting some flats/croquis/inspiration boards together at the moment to be completed throughout winter! Knit hood update: ALMOST finished! A few more rows (I've been slacking) and some stitching together as well as snaps and buttons and it's done! I just have to figure out how I'm typing up the pattern for follow-along instructions.