Showing posts with label Magazines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Magazines. Show all posts

10 September 2009

VK 360ยบ

I thought for sure I'd mentioned this before. Vogue Knitting has this great feature on their website where you can view every project in the past five issues on a real person from all angles. There are close-ups of details that you might not be able to see in the styled photographs in an issue. Pretty neat. Anyway, if you've been on the fence about a project, check it out.

09 February 2009

Interweave Knits, Spring 2009

The IK preview is up. Lots of lovely lace. I'm looking at the Fountain Pen Shawl and that first cardigan. What's intriguing you?

10 September 2007

Fashion

Just a quickie today, peeps. I have more knitting to do! Jeepers, garter stitch just eats yarn, doesn't it? I'm about to start the second set of short-rows, which means we're near the top of the yoke. Thank goodness! The deadline approacheth.

There will be bloggable knitting soon, I promise, as well as pics including a crazy skein of feather yarn.

Anyway, I've been thinking more about fashion lately. Perhaps it's the crisp fall air, perhaps it's starting the job search, which means I'll need some grown-up clothes, perhaps it's Tim Gunn upon whom I have quite a crush. So, I bought the September issue of Vogue. And I have to ask myself "WHY!?!" Out of 840 pages, on first flip-through, I dog-eared five pages, four of which were ads, and the fifth was a brief profile of a woman wearing Twinkle's Shopping Tunic. The cover is awful, as is the spread that goes with it. Ugh. I may have to give you a page-by-page review here in the future.

American fashion magazines are rubbish, aren't they? As far as the serious business of fashion goes, anyway. I read Lucky occasionally. It's my airport go-to, since there aren't really articles, just lots of fun things to look at. But I don't fly much these days and when I do I usually have a very mobile tot in tow.

Ever since Liz Tilberis passed away and Harper's Bazaar was Marie Claire-ed by Glenda Bailey, Anna Wintour has no goad to make Vogue all it could/should be. I still remember the first cover of Bazaar after Ms. T. took over: white studio background and Linda Evangelista looking gorgeous. Check it here (#9). What I'd forgotten about the Tilberis era was the fantastic typography. Check out that last "A"! Clean, gorgeous, one headline, not the junked up covers we see today.

I read the September issue of Harper's Bazaar over Labor Day weekend, and it was crap, too. At least Vogue has Jeffrey Steingarten's food writing, which I quite enjoy. But I don't think I'll be able to bring myself to read Ms. Wintour's editor's letter. For more opinions on the issue, be sure to check out Cathy Horyn's blog entry and don't miss the comments.

09 March 2007

Shawl Decision (?)

Seeing The Daily Purl's Icarus is pushing me towards selecting this pattern for my first lace shawl. Now the debate becomes buy the back issue of Interweave Knits or the pattern from Miriam Felton directly. There's not a whole lot else in that issue of the magazine that's calling to me. The Fairy Net Blouse is pretty, but I may be Blue Sky Alpaca Silk'ed out by the time I finish the Mermaid Sweater. If I buy it directly from Miriam, I would be supporting her directly (she was already paid by the magazine directly, so she wouldn't get anything else out of my mag purchase), and it looks like she offers full pattern support in return. Guess I'm leaning towards direct purchase. But that will happen later.

Yes, btw, I do have a job and should get back to it!

27 February 2007

IMOnday: Interweave Knits

[Back to our regular topic: Knitting! And I know it's Tuesday. Big whoop.]

Wink asked what I thought about the new Interweave Knits layout. As an art director, of course I have an opinion! I understand that they're trying to freshen things up, lots of fresh patterns with some blogger action and all. And the idea of little editorial themes for the patterns is interesting. But separating the photos from the patterns seems wrong-headed. IK should be a leader, not a follower. They're following the tired Vogue Knitting setup. BTW, have you noticed the VK models? Yikes. I'm sure they're pretty girls. But if you slather them in eye makeup and ask them to pose like bad '50s mannequins, it's just bad. Only highlighted the '80s agony of the Bed of Roses set for me.

Back to IK. What I want to see is a page or three with all the featured items. Sort of like the yarn requirements page on the website. But in print form. Why do I have to leaf through every page of the magazine to see if the pattern I'm thinking of is in this issue? And I only have a few issues, since I'm rarely overwhelmed by the wonderfulness of one. And for gawd's sake, people, they call it an editorial well for a reason. Don't put ads opposite every editorial page. If the advertisers' pages are compelling enough, we'll read them. Put the onus on the advertisers to make appealing ads and leave the editorial content in its own space. I've heard people say they can't tell the difference between the ads and the "front of book" pictures of the patterns. Bah.

20 February 2007

I have to get organized

With all the yarn and book stash enhancement lately, I need to get organized. Not so much the actual items, since I have bookcases and a closet to hold the yarn. But sometimes I can't lay my mind on something, so I need some sort of list. For instance, that Sheep #3 sample skein is burning a hole in my project bag; I need to find a DK-weight project that only calls for 300-some yards. I was thinking of Glampyre's Minisweater, but that calls for 400 yards of heavy worsted. Perhaps a One Skein Wonder, to stay on the Glampyre bandwagon. Or just a little shawl something, like the Clementine Shawlette from the new Interweave Knits.

Speaking of IK, yes, I bought a copy on Saturday at YITF. And that afternoon I bought a copy of Vogue Knitting - the one with the Norah Gaughan bolero on the cover. That's probably the only thing I'll make out of the magazine, but it is stunning, and people who've made it seem to like the process.

So, I need to keep track of projects I want to do in the future, which is one of the reasons I started this blog (to collect all those delicious links). And it would be good to know yarn requirements. I think I see a database in my future, which would make things easier to view in different ways (by item, by yarn weight, by gauge, etc.). I could do it as a spreadsheet, I guess, but databases are more elegant, don't you think?

OK, back to IK for a minute. What's with some of those projects? The bandeau? That halter from Wenlan Chia? And the Bauhaus Fairisle, though nice, seems a little out of place. And six skeins of Debbie Bliss Pure Cashmere for the little bobble capelet? It looks pretty, at first glance. OK, it is pretty (especially the color). But then you start to think about it (and realize you'll wear it once), and then you start to do the math: $90!

I do like Kate Gilbert's Keyhole Top. Lurve Stephanie Japel's Cable-Down Raglan. And the socks from Grumperina and Eunny Jang are nice (first time I've seen the appeal of Entrelac). The Swan Lake Cardigan is pretty, especially the tulle detail, which is why I'll never actually make it. But I will make that lace shrug in the Staff Projects section. I've downloaded it twice already. And they have the yarn in some very me colors at YITF. And I have two gift certificates burning a hole in my tool bag!

The Mermaid Hourglass Sweater is progressing, slowly. I am on my third start to the body, I think. I sort of stopped counting. Had some issues with ... counting, I guess. As in I can't always. I've been distracted. But we're back on track and on the second round of the lace. I ended up increasing the stitch count to 90 for front and back so that I could do the pattern evenly, then, since I want it to be longer than my last one anyway, I'll do an extra decrease round. And then I'll have to decrease two stitches. My overall stitch count is up six from the pattern, and the decrease round takes away four. Or I could work those decreases into princess seams in the front. Things to ponder as we work our way through this next round of lace. And I have to figure out where to include extra lace repeats going up. On the sleeves I switched to every other repeat after the first two rounds, but I'm not sure I want to do that on the body. It may just be the two rounds around the bottom and that's it, since we have to consider what's underneath the sweater (my tum) as we progress up the torso.