Inspiration Saturday: LC's cables and lace sweater

It's funny the way things turn out, isn't it?  'Laguna Beach' was a high school guilty pleasure of mine, following privileged teenagers socially scamper in ways which were totally foreign to me.  I couldn't really relate to most of their drama, but part of what drew me in was the fact that these kids were going to prom and graduating and going through all of these basic steps at the same time I was.  I distinctly remember watching a marathon one weekend my senior year, and thinking, 'Wow, that's going to be me in just a few months.'  And then they made teary goodbyes to their family and friends at the end of the summer as they went away to college a few episodes later and my heart raced again.

Who could have guessed that many years later, I would be buying clothes designed by one of those 'kids'?  Lauren Conrad (or 'LC' as she's been known since the Laguna days) went on to have her own spin-off reality show, but now she's pretty successfully transitioned into fashion design.  She has also written some novels, which aren't really on my short-list of books to read, but I find myself consistently being drawn to her pieces for Kohl's.  The tend to be on the delicate feminine side with some nice details.

So this week, my inspiration is based on one piece in particular from her latest October collection:

The giant teddy bear might be a bit distracting, but what I'm looking at here is the sweater.  A simpler shot in another color:

Image from Polyvore

The interesting part about this sweater to me is the use of lace around the neck to back the cables.  You can get really up close and personal on this detail on the Kohl's product page.  I saw it in the store this afternoon and instantly wondered if I could do something like this myself.  Not necessarily the entire sweater, but the concept of using lace as a background to open knit work.  Or for that matter, a printed fabric.  It shouldn't be too difficult, my mom assures me.  I think it would be really interesting to try, and bring some interesting texture and depth to whatever you made.  And I like the idea of mixing and matching various crafts like this.

I'm not sure where I'll be taking this inspiration exactly, but I wanted to share this random find with you all.  For more inspiration, visit Alicia at Woolen Diversions.

A weekend of Tuesdays, followed by another Manic Monday

Over the course of the first weekend of Tour de Fleece, a added more than 3,000 yards of yarn to my stash.  Obviously, these were not hard-earned yards of handspun.  No, no, these were cheaply-won yards of commercial yarn.

Emphasis on the cheap part, because I found these additions to my stash at Tuesday Morning.  This has happened to me before.  Every once in a while we pop into the store to see what they have in stock, and this time they had balls of Ella Rae Classic Superwash and other basic yarns in sweater quantities.  Apparently I needed some blue yarn:

I know I haven't quite finished my first cardigan yet, but I've got another one or two planned now.  My mom also added to her stash, but she stuck to mostly purples.

Speaking of purples, I did make progress on my own yarn.  I've almost finished a third cop, and the pile of fluff that is unspun fiber is starting to dwindle down.

I have semi-decided to go ahead and make the leap to try chain plying (also known at n-plying or Navajo plying).  But there's still another single cop to go until then.

Maybe I can start plying in time for the Wimbledon gentlemen's final.  Who knows who will be playing for, much less win, the Championships this year.  So far the tournament has been a little insane.  Slipping and sliding everywhere, and upsets galore.  It's always exciting to see players make it farther than anyone expected, and as long as none of the upsets include Murray, I'm okay with them.  Can you imagine the uproarious and totally unrestrained celebrations that would be sparked by that?  Pimm's for everyone! On this side of the Atlantic, though, I'm just going to enjoy some strawberries and cream.  It's going to be a little early in the morning for Pimm's after all.  And I always spin sober.

(Just a little humor to get through Monday...)

Inspiration Saturday: If the shoe fits, knit socks

Socks are one of the last bastions of projects I haven't tried to knit.  And I wasn't really planning on adding them to my personal portfolio of skills until the other week.  It was the Friday before going to Yellow Rose, and my regular trip to the grocery store was supplemented by a stop at DSW.  I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but I had a coupon.  Which is pretty much how every shoe shopping expedition begins.  I've even already had an Inspiration Saturday post about shoe shopping.  But this isn't just a story about finding another new pair of shoes.  This is a story about finding a pair of shoes that have convinced me that knitting socks is something I have to do.

I found these shoes in the same section I find all of my shoes: the clearance section.  I think at first I grabbed them as a joke, but once I had them in my hands I had to try them on, and once I had them on my feet I had to have them.  Because these shoes...are see-through.

Penny Loves Kenny Larisa - Green Patent 

They are oxford flats with transparent synthetic uppers, accented with pastel pink on the toes, gold on the heel and tongue, and a sort of minty sea foam green at the laces.  I love the style, I love the colors, and I love the fact that they show off handknit socks.  In the past, that's been my dilemma with socks.  They are awesome and they keep my feet warm, but unless I'm wearing them around the house, they are stuffed into shoes, unseen.  In these shoes, though, they can be admired for all of their beauty.

And so I bought the shoes, and immediately raided my small inventory of socks which have been knit for me in swaps to find a pair in a color which would coordinate.  I went with some gorgeously fuchsia sparkle ones I got in the last winter sanity swap.

Of course, this became the focal point for deciding the rest of my outfit for going to the fiber festival.

I know I still need to show off my purchases from Yellow Rose, and I'll get to that, but I had just as much fun showing off my crazy shoes as I did looking at the wonderful yarn and fiber.  When people realized that the hot pink was in fact my socks, they were amazed.  This event was obviously a mecca of exactly the kind of people who would love these shoes, so my initial love was heavily reinforced with at least a dozen people asking me where I got them and immediately plotting a trip to DSW when I told them.

So now that I have the shoes, I need to knit the socks.  Because the desire to knit socks debuted at a fiber festival, I of course already have a skein assigned to the task, from one of my favorite local fiber artists, Heavenly Fiber:

This is Stardust Sock in Titania.  See how perfectly the yarn matches the shoes?  It was meant to be.

The actual pattern I'll use?  I have no idea.  Taking suggestions now from anyone who cares to share.  Keep in mind, these will be my first non-yoga socks ever.  I've done lots of fingerless mitts and things, but never turned a heel or worked a toe.  I did knit a Kindle cosy last Christmas using magic loop, so I was considering using that technique again, but again, I'm open to advice.

Because I wouldn't be me if I was only thinking of knitting one pair of socks, I also ended up buying these shoes in black from Amazon:

Penny Loves Kenny Larisa - Black Patent

These will go with pretty much any color of yarn which strikes my fancy, right?

For more inspiration, visit Alicia at Woolen Diversions.

Inspiration Saturday: These shoes were made for walking

Ah, shoes.  Just like make-up, jewelry, and knitwear, I think of shoes as an accessory that can be used to jazz up an outfit.  At the same time, they are also very practical.  After all, a pair of shoes, unlike a pair of earrings, is actually required for walking out the door in the morning.

Friends and family may give you presents on your birthday, but companies give you coupons.  Which is more like a gift to themselves because it gets you in the door.  And once you're in, they're going to get you.  Particularly if the 'they' in this case means DSW.  On Friday, I bought not one, but two pairs of shoes.  This is kind of extravagant for me, I tend to always come from a place of choosing one or the other.  So after maybe ten minutes of hemming and hawing about which pair to choose, I decided to go crazy and get both.  After all, they were both in clearance, and I had my birthday certificate.  So I choose to be inspired by it rather than feel guilty.

First, the practical but pretty.  These brown wedges will be perfect for my brown-toned outfits, and the heel is still low enough that I can drive in it.

But what's also important to me is how I imagine wearing them.  And I imagine wearing these with a cute fall outfit, a satchel draped across my chest as I wander in and out of book and yarn stores, alternately.  The fantasy life of a pair of shoes is just as important as the one it will actually live.

Second, the slightly less practical, and a little more pink.  Zebra-print flats with pointy toes and pink details?  It's like someone out there knows me.

Okay, so the real life of these shoes will be in making black trousers and a black top feel fun.  These shoes that will make me smile when I look down at them during a meeting or as I trade them for my sneakers before working out.  But I also plan on wearing them with the pink corduroy shorts I bought a while ago, to quite possibly make a fun outfit entirely laughable.  But I won't care.  Sometimes you just have to dress like you're six years old again.

And just for the sake of keeping things knit, I also found something I hope to wear with some shoes, these Spiffy Spats by Breeanna Sveum:

Photo credit: stitchbrinnstitch on Ravelry

So cute!  More inspiration at Woolen Diversions...

Old Navy makes me feel old

I have a tendency to lament 'I'm so old!' a lot.  Mostly I'm being facetious, I know that I'm not actually old.  But I'm still shocked when I see evidence of how quickly time flies and how soon I transitioned from teenybopper awash in the trends as they took over, to the point where the 90s is considered...nostalgia.  Wow.

Particularly jarring are the latest slew of Old Navy ads.  First, it was a series themed around back to school that starred the 'kids' of Beverly Hills, 90210.  That show missed me by just a few years, the purview of say, my best friend's older sister.  And she's married with a kid now, so it makes sense that the store is looking to push her pop culture buttons to get her to make her clothing purchases there.

But now, now I see the Backstreet Boys providing the soundtrack to a parade of skinny jeans in a rainbow of colors:

Boy bands, now that was something I was right in the middle of.  BSB, 'N Sync (my personal favorite), LFO, 98 Degrees, and even Brits BBMAK, I was singing right along with them at every opportunity.  I even went to an 'N Sync concert, the Pop tour.  Back then, of course, no one would have been caught dead in these pants.

But now, here are a much older gang of Backstreet Men, as it were, putting their catchy chorus back into my head while reminding me that I have entered the second phase of my sellability as far as companies are concerned.  Now I am not the teenager with allowance to spend on CDs and magazines.  Now I am the young adult, possibly with a family and buying trends for them as much as for myself.

I know it's a little weird to be demarcating the stages of my life based on what I'm being sold and how, but it's a big part of the cultural context.  Plus, I can't help but get a little meta about myself.  It's the liberal arts student in me.

Easy like Sunday morning, random like Tuesday Morning

For years I avoided Tuesday Morning, thinking it was just going to be full of potpourri and figurines.  Neither of which I have much use for.  But, in fact, this store is like one of Forrest's box of chocolates: you never know what you're going to get.

Along with some figurines and a little potpourri, there is also a fairly random assortment of items ranging from books to beauty supplies, crafts to cooking.  I once ended up walking out with about a dozen skeins of Louisa Harding yarn.  Mom's come back with armfuls of circular knitting needles.  This past weekend, I nearly bought nine bottles of China Glaze crackle nail polish for $9.  I stopped myself, but only because the bottles came in boxes of three, with the same color in each box.

Thankfully, we have a Tuesday Morning conveniently located next door to our grocery store, so we can just pop in every once in a while to go treasure hunting.  If you've passed this place a few times and never taken a look, I recommend it.  You might not find anything the first time around, but you might also end up like me and barely make it to the register with all of your skeins still in your arms because you just couldn't decide on which shawl to make with which colors, so you covered all your bases and bought almost all of them.  The one time that happens is worth all the times it doesn't.