Fashion

I was recently told that I should go back to school to learn something about fashion.

I understand fashion as a status display.  I know that at it's best, it is a combination of excellence in design, materials, craftsmanship, and - marketing. I understand the delicate balance between the arty desire for something new, and the demands of functionality and wearability. I have been in the sweaty circles of designers pushed to go too far; and, the production of collections that lack wearability.

That is not the kind of stuff that I knit. (I would never admit to sacrificing wearablity for novel design effects!!)

I am more likely to knit something that you would want to wear when sailing, or hiking, or skiing, or while tending ewes that are lambing in a blizzard, or when you are checking on the neighbors during a hurricane, or restoring power after an ice storm, or shoveling the driveway after a snow-storm or gathering wood to keep the wood stove going and the house from freezing..  Oh, you do not do these things? So what!  You are not dead yet.  You may need to do something like them in the future.  In which case, you will need warm fuzzies.  Then, think of me, and knit them.  It is not fashion, it is knitting.  Not all knitting is about fashion.

I was told that the stuff I knit is far too tight to be considered good knitting.  However, I see QEII at Balmoral wearing sweaters knit just as tightly as I knit.  If the Queen can wear it, I can knit it. Scottish castles are cold drafty places. No matter how many heaters and tapestries there are, warm fuzzies are welcome.

A well knit object is one that fits its purpose.  Sometimes the purpose is to show skin, and sometimes the purpose is to keep the skin warm.  The good knitter knits objects that serve their purpose.  I always knit to serve a purpose.  Everything that I knit is designed for a particular range of temperatures and conditions. Mostly, tightly knit 5-ply makes a nice 3-season sweater for local  conditions, and spring/fall wear in the Sierra. ( We closed Buckeye Campground, and it was a little  cool.) Winter in the Sierra wants 6 or 8 ply.  Summer in the Slot wants 10 -ply.  Thus, I choose the sweater to match the conditions.

I started knitting because I wanted warmer woolies.  Anyone that finds fault with that does not understand cold.  She says, "I live in Canada, I understand cold!"  No!  Living in a tent in cold weather or  fishing for cod on a fine April day off of Fortress Louisbourg will give you a whole new understanding of  the value of warm woolies.

Textures

Today, perhaps the very best place to see contemporary fine hand knitting is at Textures on  Montana Street in Santa Monica, California.

Jane, the owner, was an integral part of the Three Bags Full sweater store in San Francisco, California.  Three Bags Full closed a couple of years ago,  In many, ways the new store is better.

Textures is a fashion boutique. They are not the blue wool sweaters you would buy in the shops of Saint-Malo.  Mostly, the fabric weights are less than what Three Bags Full  carried  in SF (because it is in Santa Monica and only 8 blocks from the beach.)  However, it is also only a few miles from LAX, and many of Jane's customers travel frequently to the southern hemisphere, so Jane carries summer and winter weight objects, all the year round.

While they are very nice, Jane manages to keep her prices much lower than what I have seen for similar objects at places like Neiman Marcus, Saks, and  other designer fashion boutiques.   And, nobody else has the selection and range of fine hand knit objects that one can find in Textures.

Many of the objects are so finely knit and shaped,  that a drawing of the object gives no clue that the fabric is knit rather than woven.   When objects are knit by skilled professionals, paintings, drawings, and sculpture cannot indicate whether the clothing was knit or woven.  Objects produced by skilled professional knitters are much better than the objects that we see produced by amateur / recreational knitters.  On the other hand, these days we do not see much fine work by skilled professionals.

All of which brings up the question of:  "Why we do not see more finely knit objects produced by  recreational knitters?"  Yes the professionals have more skill, but amateurs have more time.