How to Knit: The Basics

How to Knit: The Basics:

Illustrations by Caitlin Keegan. Photo by Maxwell Tielman.
If you haven’t attempted knitting, it can seem pretty terrifying. You might have watched friends or family members do it — their pointy needles swinging at lightning speed through a tangled mass of yarn — and worried deeply for their eyes and internal organs. You might be a crafting commitment-phobe, horrified at the idea of a task taking over a day (or a week! or a month!) to complete. You might also be generally inept when it comes to most craft projects and fear that, if let anywhere near a ball of yarn, you might just end up with a knotted, disfigured mess. I need to tell you — that was me when I first decided, at the age of 15, to knit. I had no idea what I was doing or how to do it, but there was something so charming and quaint about the craft that I was absolutely determined to master it.
While I still haven’t quite mastered the art of knitting in its entirety, I can say with some sense of self-assurance that I can knit. And it’s really not that bad! In fact, it’s a wonderful way to spend a chilly January day, much like the ones we’re experiencing right now. Whenever I’m watching TV or on a long road trip, I pull out my needles and yarn and let my mind wander while my hands move. Much like yoga or meditation, knitting allows me to clear my head and calm my body. I also end up with something to wear that’s both adorable and entirely handmade!
January, with its post-holidays chill, has always seemed the perfect time to start a knitting project. Because of this, we’ve decided to kick off a month of weekly knitting features starting with the bare-bones basics of knitting (aka, ”how to knit a scarf”). While the following guide by no means encompasses everything there is to know about knitting (that could fill an entire book!), these simple steps will help you get off the ground. — Max

More on the basics of knitting after the jump . . .
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Interiors | Lake August

Interiors | Lake August:


Inspired by the landscape and craft heritage of Scotland, the debut collection of wall coverings from LA based designer and former Pattern People contributor, Alexis Hartman, captures the beauty of this locale through hand-drawn illustrations and hand-printed applications. Lake August wallpapers are printed in the States using water-based inks and you can feel good about your purchase as a portion of each sale helps support sustainable agriculture through the Land Stewardship Project.
– Jessie Whipple Vickery

wall coverings by Lake August

The Present

The Present:

Screamin' Jay Hawkins' 1956 hit I Put a Spell on You is a song that Christopher Kane could use to soundtrack every show he has ever come out with but it was particularly pertinent during the spring summer 2013 collection.  Generally I write about Kane with such shameless bias because ever since his MA collection back in the wee early days of Style Bubble, when I'd construct on-the-cheap Kane looky-likey outfits, he has put me under a spell.  It's the kind of saporific hex, where even the critically less-acclaimed collections are nothing short of brilliant for me although to be fair, he's never really had a duff downer.  I feel as though I've "grown" into my style with the help of Kane's work tapping into that inexplicable quality, which I've been consistently drawn to when dressing myself or choosing the labels that I feature on the blog.  His clothes satisfies my appetite for something new, not-boring, fun and just a little bit weird, traits which have heavily defined my style in my twenties.  Crushed velvet, gorilla prints, giant palettes, neon lace, embroidered granny flowers on black leather, pastel gingham, plastic gels, kitsch flower stickers - all these memorable motifs punctuate my own conviction, that I'm never going to be the sort of girl that can stick to something "simple".
So now we come to 2013, the year that I turn 30 and the year that Christopher Kane takes a huge leap forward, having just struck an exciting deal with PPR group, who has bought a 51% stake in the brand.  I, along with every journalist, stylist or buyer that has championed his work from day one, will probably have felt a strange sense of pride.  It's a well deserved deal that shows his steely dedication towards building his brand and now we've got the enticing prospect of Christopher Kane expansion to look forward to.  Perfumes, bags, stores - bring it all on.  I'm ready for a spell that spirals far and above beyond what Kane himself could have imagined when he was studying for his MA at Central Saint Martins.
I thought the spring summer 2012 was a watershed Christopher Kane moment when people departed the show with tears in their eye because they were so moved by how beautiful everything was.  Then spring summer 2013 came and we continued to be entranced by the magical influence of Kane, as the audience were roused to a deafening applause.  I recall ecstatic chatter as we patiently waited for the lifts to bring us back down to ground from the dizzying heights of the then-newly built Park Tower.  "That's it for me.  I can die happy having seen that."  "Don't talk to me… I can't even process how good that was right now."  "We're so lucky to have seen that."  Just a sampling of some of the praise heaped in amongst editors and buyers, some of whom may have already known that a PPR tie-up was imminent.
It was another "Who'd have thunk it?" theme.  Frankenstein.  Nothing gory, macabre or literal except for Boris Karloff's face on a printed t-shirt.  Those rusty screws attaching head to neck were turned into jewel-like plastic screws, which pinched the shoulder seams, cinched the waist and adorned dress straps.  Kane revisited his pastel shades of previous spring summer seasons but turned up the sickly levels coating everything with a strangely artificial sheen - the white embossed leather on a sculpted biker jacket, smocked plastic edged with yellow and pink thread, basket weave organza paired with moulded rubber.  It was a pick n' mix bag of shrimp and banana sweets upgraded into screw-fixed dresses that can't be beat.  Everything was wrapped up into a fantastical present from Kane's imagination, as we were generously inundated with ribbon bow prints, neat rectangular bows on shoulders of boxy jackets and the best gift of all - pieces painstakingly constructed out of hundreds of suction-moulded translucent pink and grey rubber bows.  They quivered ominously down the runway.  These are bows that are meant to be left untied and untouched (although I'll be emitting rays of envy from my eyes on to any person who is lucky enough to wear these extremely expensive jelly bow pieces from the collection).  The final trick that ensured we'd never snap out from under this spell was the Kane Klassic - a spindle of sparkle.  This time though, those Swarovski gems set onto delicate white lace foundations were deliberately marred by the bold strokes of what appeared to be black gaffer tape.  It was as though Kane had built up these layers of beautiful embellishment and decided that it just a bit too much and so scrawled all over it with a thick black marker pen.  Those bold black tape marks are brilliantly symbolic for Kane's pervasive subversion, something that I very much hope will continue to underscore Kane's clothes.  Even when he has stores in Dubai, Las Vegas and Chengdu and a department store perfume spritzer is spraying Parfum de Spell by Christopher Kane into my face.

















































All backstage photography by Joseph Piper for Style Bubble

Liz Collins: Touching the Void

Liz Collins: Touching the Void:

Courtesy of Liz Collins

Garments, Installation, and Performance
Residents of the New York Tristate area need a little reprieve from the weather and what better way to get some creative warmth but to visit artist and designer Liz Collins hybrid knitted art and fashion installation, which opens to the public on February 15th at Manhattan’s Textile Art Center (TAC).
Collins is known globally for her use of machine knitting to create unique clothing, textile, performances and installations. In 2005, Collins kicked off her installation performance art with Knitting Nation—her perspective of working in the textile and fashion industries—which consisted of numerous uniformed knitters and manually operate knitting machines. The show examined how people interact with machines, global manufacturing, trade and labor, brand iconography, and fashion.
Touching the Void is part structural and part surreal, Collins turns the TAC into a knitted cave made from post-consumer garments and other textiles. The installation consists of innovative knit constructions that have been inspired by bodily protuberances, growths and sinkages. Both deconstructed and reconstructed “blob” shirts hang from inflated spheres; the walls are built up like a padded room with piles of knit fabric and large wall pieces. Collins investigates the “void” via her sculptural textile and garments by blending graphic and figurative knitting with washes of ink gradation.
This exhibit also marks Collins return to fashion. On display will be a varied collection of limited edition unisex sweaters made in Peru, which will be sold by the artist during the month-long installation and exhibit. The show features an interactive venue in which visitors with a panache for fashion and modeling can participate in a live lookbook shoot that will run during the duration of the opening.
The TAC space isn’t a new venue for Collins. Fifteen years ago she had her first collection of sweaters shown off on mannequins in Patricia Field’s store window, downstairs from TAC. “It’s amazing to full circle and present some of my favorite, and most wearable pieces on the same site; and finally be able to stage a a show where my art and clothing are co-existing in the space,” said Collins.
Visitors to the exhibit will be able to interact with garment and the knit sculptures, and will have the opportunity to see the details of the interrelated fixed elements.
Touching the Void opens on Friday, February 15th at the Textile Arts Center, 25 West 8th St, New York, NY. A reception will be held from 6pm until 8pm. The entire show runs through March 15th.
For more information about Liz Collins, visit www.lizcollins.com.

SISTER BY SIBLING AW13

SISTER BY SIBLING AW13:

Paula Yates was the inspiration for Sister by Sibling’s exuberant autumn show, so the English rose with a sexy side made her appearance in chintzy twinsets and knitted suits, with a streak of wild leopard batwing unleashed at the very end.
English roses are at their best in the springtime, and so the colour palette was soft mauves, dirty pinks and bolts of Bermuda blue. We loved the gigantic knitted berets – a quirk owing itself to the English sense of humour – and Sibling’s trademark outsize scarves; huge loops of wool wound round and round the models necks which will keep Sibling fans happy (and warm!) next season.

‘We wanted to explore a quite strict sense of dressing, but the girl who wears it is still quite cool with it,’ said Sibling’s Cozette McCreery backstage after the show. So narrow Forties silhouettes were realised in lurex, sprinkled with sequins and spots and dashed with giant loops of wool on the hems.
The label’s designers continued to borrow from the boy’s collection, with the leopard print that always features in their menswear shown here in a scarlet red, tightly woven as a kind of wool jacquard to hug the body for an eighties bombshell on-the-town look.
Paula would have been proud.

Don’t forget to keep checking back at our Insideout blog for more show reports from our NEWGEN talent and see last year’s review of Sister by Sibling here.

Hats off.

Hats off.:
As you rock in this chair it knits you a hat. Incredible.

Nava Lubelski
from: http://www.navalubelski.com/artworks17.htm