Growing up --- even into my high school years --- my mother made every single piece of clothing I owned. So, she and I spent a lot of time in fabric stores looking at patterns. Vogue patterns were the most expensive and the "fanciest," so we stuck to Simplicity and McCall's. If we did buy a Vogue pattern, it was a big, honking deal, and the garment was, undoubtedly, for a very special occasion.
I tell all this to explain the rather ingrained opinion I have of Vogue garments --- expensive, chic, and very often coveted.
Vogue Knitting isn't really quite the same, as you buy lots of patterns at once, and the price is bound by how much you do (or don't) spend on yarn. But there is one thing that sort of gets under my skin.
Vogue Knitting has lost me. Perhaps they're trying to stay fashion forward and artsy and all, but I have been finding it more and more difficult to find patterns in the magazines that are actually wearable, much less knittable (you know, if you actually enjoy relaxing knitting.) TOO many cables and laces and bobbles and weird drapings. And that's if you can even find the garment in the photos provided. Too many colors and accessories and patterns and props and floral wallpaper --- it's virtually "Where is Waldo?", only with knits. You know there's something in that picture that has been knit, but there's so much going on that your eyes get overwhelmed before you find the chevron-stitch skirt (knit) paired with the plaid blouse set against a backdrop of Blue Willow dishes in a cabinet decorated with flowers in front of a wall covered in ivy draped Grecian columns and vases. And none of the colors match, or even compliment each other.
Maybe this is all cutting edge. Or something. But I like to look through a knitting magazine and find the patterns easily. Study them without a compass and a magnifying glass. And then, when I do find them, I like to have discovered something I can knit without threat of becoming lost in half-a-dozen or so strands of threat, working around stitch holders and cable hooks and rows held aside "to be worked later."
Oy.
(photo from flickr.)
3 comments:
Could not agree with you MORE!!! I want knits I can wear too!
For some reason it's called Designer Knitting here - well at least on the front everything inside says Vogue. Quite often whole issues are written off as not appealing to my knitting needles but I do sometimes love something. :D
First Knitter's Magazine, then Vogue Knitting. They've lost me and it's a shame. The only magazine that I still enjoy is Interweave Knits - I hope they don't mess up.
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