Announcement: The Studio is OPEN !!!

The renovations are about 98.9999999% complete and although it's a little disorienting getting settled into the new space and working out where things are and how things work... I have to say, gosh it's good to be back !! :)

Klee Update: the spring batch is coming together and if you're on the Notify List, expect an email in the next couple of weeks.

FOs and projects: Well ... I've been busy working mostly on things I'm dying to but really can't talk about for a while yet. Lots of Top Secret Projects. (sorry!) But apart from all the TSPs, I did manage to finish a quick spring/summer FO. A little spring cleaning yielded a cluster of three skeins of Colinette Tagliatelli in Cinnamon that had vanished long ago through the grill of my brain, aka The Sieve. :)



I think I'd put it aside because the first and last time I knit with it I made a children's sweater, and unfortunately it wasn't quite as robust a fabric as I had hoped. After a few months (or possibly weeks) of wear and plenty of tear, the sweater ended up looking like swiss cheese. So, okay, definitely not for your child's play dates. But for a chic summer top for women, it's just about perfect.

So with only two skeins, 15mm needles, and a project time of just a couple of days from cast on to seaming up, I was able to throw on this little cropped number ...

(very little, very cropped)







For anyone interested, the pattern is called Sandpiper and appears on the cover of Colinette's Tagliatelle Merino Tape book. BUT a word to the wary: the way the sweater appears on the cover is not how it will look in real life unless you block the **** out of it and/or add more rows to the length and sleeves than in the pattern, which, having a third skein, I could have done, but didn't...



really because I think as a cropped textured sweater, it's more fashion forward !!

Recession Chic! and Molly Ringwald's Pretty In Pink Legacy

Well, Fashion Week in Paris has come and gone. And let me tell you, there is nothing like seeing a whole slew of covetable items during a recession to make you really feel the pinch. Sigh.

Being a scarf girl, one of the items I've seen-and-coveted around town was an absolutely gorgeous double-faced bi-material stole at Hermes (from A/W 08), one panel in cashmere jersey, the other in silk chiffon. Luxe + luxe = uber-luxe.



I'm all for self-gratification, but 1500 euros (approximately USD$2000) seemed a little steep for a stole that I thought would be easy enough to make.

Does anyone remember Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink? How she would make her own clothes through a process of clever 'recycling'?



Ah, the films of our youth! How they shape us in their subtle ways. Channeling her was cake. So, after a little 'shopping in my closet', humming to the Pyschedelic Furs, I found a couple of hand-dyed silk chiffon stoles that I had once bought from a Russian seamstress at an open-air market for about $10 each. One of them was in shades of my favorite violets and purples - just what I was hoping to find.



With a couple of skeins of Mont Blanc (100% light dk weight cashmere) in Blackberry I whipped up a panel roughly the same size as the stole.



Don't they look delectable together?



Gosh, it's such a simple but elegant idea, mixing these materials! Genius, really. I don't know if it was Jean-Paul Gaultier's idea, or Leila Menchari's, or some unsung craftsperson. But it's genius, and I was compelled to try it.

Anyone who has ever seen me attempt to sew straight knows that it's just not my forte. But all it took was sewing the edges of both panels together on one end, and voila! two simple pieces fused into the stole that I now think of as the epitome of Recession Chic. :D





I LOVE this stole! It instantly dresses *anything* up, even this ancient nearly threadbare t-shirt!

Cabled Fez!

One of the luxuries of being a knitter is... being able to make something you want yourself. Without the wait.

Having started the new year here



the first thing about alpine survival that I learned was: never ever underestimate the value of a warm hat!

So upon return to the big city I thought I might stop in at this shop to see if they had any appealing bonnets... but this was the queue.



And apparently this is ALWAYS the queue, just to get into this little cupboard-sized boutique. And once you're in it's a battle for the attention of a salesperson, and then another loooong wait at the register, which means you've used up your entire lunch hour and part of the afternoon for a hat you could have half-made yourself in that time.

And so I did. I started with just a few scraps of leftover Mont Blanc in Silver and ended up two leisurely evenings later with this cabled fez:





Super warm, super light, and super easy!

Makes me wish I could head to the slopes tomorrow. :)

Until next time... stay warm! And happy knitting.

The Lost Art of Luxury

What does that mean, 'luxury'? On an economic level, of course, the connotation is something that you wouldn't ordinarily treat yourself to.

But it's really much more than that, and since I've been mulling the subject over in my head for a while, it may be the subject of a few future posts.

Although I was trying to avoid them, I just 'happened' to get sucked into some after-Christmas sales. There isn't much that I need except maybe some warm socks, but I figure I can always knit those if necessary. Anything else would just be gravy (or icing, depending on your palate's preference). But I did let myself be tempted to try on a lovely Audrey Hepburn-era-Givenchy-inspired cashmere swing jacket. At -40% off it seemed like a bargain! Until I put it on and the left sleeve half fell off. It had been machine knit and there was a huge hole where the sleeve just hadn't been sewn onto the front. In retrospect I suppose if I'd really wanted it (and who wouldn't want to look like Audrey Hepburn?), I could have negotiated an even greater discount. But in the end I was so disappointed by the workmanship that I lost all compunction to purchase. It was as if whoever was at quality control just didn't care enough to LOOK at the garment. Of course I know you give up a certain amount of quality when you buy something manufactured en masse. But that doesn't change anything. The result was still a bit disappointing. And I left empty-handed.

A few weeks ago I met a craftsperson who patiently taught me how to stitch two pieces of leather together to form a secure closure, the kind found on only the most impeccable riding saddles. I practiced for an hour and even with the tips and tricks of the master, still only managed a short row of perfect stitches before the whole thing went wonky! No matter how effortless it looks, it's never as easy or as quick as an outsider might think. It's backbreaking, sometimes tedious work, but it's all done really out of love. The craftsperson - who by the way is also a knitter - said she works the normal hours at the workshop but could really just sit and do that just about all day every day and be perfectly content. And there's usually a story behind every design or project. I won't tell you what I found out about the craftsperson's life (though it's juicy enough to fill up a novel or two!), but I will share with you another artist's blog that I've recently discovered:

Robert Samsel is a young Polish textile artist living in New York. His hats remind me of the coveted trendy chunky variety that have been spotted on the runways in the past couple of years...

(which I personally love - and wished sorely that I had when I visited some outdoorsy friends here for New Year)



His style is simple, modern, and distinctly unstuffy. And what I love most about his art is that there is always a backstory from a far-off land!

You can find his blog and his creations here:

http://www.robertsamsel.blogspot.com/

KLEE SCARF KITS - SOLD OUT

The Klee Scarf Kits have sold out.

At least for this run.

For those of you who missed out and would still like to order a kit, there will be another limited run early in the new year. If you would like to be placed on the notification list for the kits, please send an email to sauveterre AT gmail DOT com, with the subject heading: 'KLEE NOTIFY LIST SS09'. Shortly before the kits are ready, you will be sent an email to give you notice of their availability in advance of the general blog announcement.

Wishing all of you a happy post-Thanksgiving weekend (where applicable)! :)

ANNOUNCEMENT: The Klee Scarf List is OPEN!

Orders are now being taken for the large Klee Scarf Kit, which makes the long skinny scarf shown below:



Each kit contains an instruction booklet and mini-skeins of the following eight colorways of Estelle (hand-painted 100% Italian sportweight cashmere):

Japanese Maple
Byzantine
Highland Heather
Jester
Boone
Rivendell
Coco
Water Lilies

There are no colorway substitutions.

The kits are being made in a very limited run, and will be allotted on a first come, first served basis. Due to high demand, there is a limit of one kit per customer.

The cost of the kit is US$110.00 plus flat rate domestic shipping of US$6.50 in the US via USPS Priority Mail, or the appropriate charge for Priority International Air Mail shipping.

To secure your pre-order, send an email to: sauveterre AT gmail DOT com with the subject heading "Klee Scarf Kit AW 08". Please include your preferred email (for your Paypal invoice) and your preferred shipping address.

You will then receive a Paypal invoice for your order. Each kit is considered reserved once payment has been received. All kits will ship in the first week of December; at that time you will receive an email confirmation that your kit is on its way.

Are you superstitious?

Thought for the day... With Halloween looming in the not so distant future, I found myself thinking today: How superstitious am I? How superstitious are you?



I don't consider myself more superstitious than the average person. I have been known to pick up a penny, tail side down. I step on cracks, and my mother's back is still good. I don't hold my breath when driving past cemeteries (if it's a cemetery that takes a long while to pass, holding your breath that long while driving stands you a good chance of occupying the next plot).

But then again, I also don't flirt cavalierly with bad karma on purpose. I don't walk underneath ladders (especially since it's safer to walk around them anyway). While I don't buy into the whole Bloody Mary legend, the summoning chant would be the last thing I'd even think of doing in a bathroom. And I wouldn't intentionally invoke the Sweater Curse.

But here's a thought... just one of the many flitting in and out of the transom of my caffeinated mind... could the Sweater Curse be avoided if you and a friend each knit a sweater for each other's significant other? How's that for a loophole? What if it worked? All you'd need is to make a deal with a knitter pal with a significant other also in need of some knitwear, and you'd be sorted!

Before I go patting myself on the back, what do you all think? Assuming that the Sweater Curse is real, of course.