For those of you who do not know, I am originally from the Bay Area, California (now live in Jersey City, NJ). My mom still lives here and since there is a christian holiday on the near horizon I have taken a trip to visit.
Because my flight was non-stop I figured the best thing to bring with me was backyard leaves from Scarf Style. All of the things I've read about it on the knitalong indicated it was really hard and really easy to mess up. I thought that since I couldn't really be distracted while sitting still for 5.5 hours it would be the ideal starting place.
I frogged four times and, in sum, did 10 rows. The leaves aren't even showing up yet.
I spent much of my plane trip, though, devouring the new issue of VK*, which arrived in my mailbox yesterday. I subscribed after loving the flower basket of magical miracles and all of the great yarn store advertisements and product information. Most of it seems to be about sweaters and stuff. Which is nice but I'd like to see anyone who knits more than 2 projects out of each issue of VK, because those sweaters are pretty complicated. So this year is a trial year and if I don't consistently use it for some sort of resource I'll cancel.
Anyway, what sort of irked me a lot about this issue was the following juxtaposition: There was a whole article about knitters who take sweater patterns made for the skinny minnies and redesign them to fit their bodies. With emphasis on knitters who are plus-sized. They explicitly mentioned how wrong it is that so many patterns are written with complete disregard for the average body size and what have you. (That most top out at BELOW the average bust size for a woman, etc...) They also mentioned how revolutionary and empowering doing such a thing was because you could go into a pattern with YOUR body as the norm without regard to the standards of beauty. It didn't get into the specifics of how one might alter a pattern for a bigger size, but it was inferred.
However, once you plunge into the sweater patterns in the back of VK, you see that all of them top out at large or XL. Hello? Didn't we just read your article? But we have to do all the work instead of your designers? They didn't even bother putting a timely plus-sized section. It was an annoying aspect of this issue, the fact of them not following their own advice.
I, for one, have had the intention of doing just such a thing at some point using the tips laid out in stitch n' bitch nation or simply bribing Lucia to do it for me, since she hearts math and knitting so much. ;)
I also have earmarked my first sweater pattern, this lacy mohair cowl necked sleeveless number from Weekend Knits. Brian and I were at the B&N looking for copies of the New Yorker with our article in it (I saw one at the dentist's office today!) and since they didn't have our issue out yet we headed to the knitting book section and he specifically pointed the sweater out as "perfect" for me. I can't wait to do the math and make it happen. And make it longer and all of that. If I can make it proportional it will be my favorite work garment for summer.
I left Brian a message this morning at 6:30 AM the second I saw the ad in VK for the new magazine "Rebecca Home". We heart knits for home.
On my week long stint here in the Bay Area (and at grandmother's in Palm Springs) I plan to visit many yarn stores and finish my Flower Basket of Marvelous Mysterious Mischief so that I can felt it FOR FREE.
*Vogue Knitting
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I'll have to look at the VK to advise you whether that's a simple pattern to modify. Some are easy; some are difficult.
I agree the magazines should just alter their guidelines to require larger sizes. Writing an article complaining it's not done, and then not doing it makes zero sense.
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