Showing posts with label Creative Knitting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Creative Knitting. Show all posts

Friday 7 October 2016

Creative Knitting Winter 2016: A Review


Creative Knitting has released its Winter 2016 issue. Let's have a look at it.





Cannon Hill Cardi. Wearable and fairly attractive.





Kaihora Cowl. A beautifully polished piece. Love the sophisticated stitchwork.





Anatolia Mittens. I like the Turkish-inspired design on the back, but the simple stripes don't quite measure up to it.





Have It Your Way Fingerless Mitts. Fun and wearable.





Ravenna Tam. A handsome classic.





Slouchy Cable Cloche. This looks disproportionately large and chunky.





Bobbles & Cables Pullover. This sweater will be mighty heavy to wear, but sometimes one does want a sweater that's as warm as an oven, and there's no denying the texture is impressive.





Simply Stripes & Cables Poncho. I'm not sure those stripes and cables are playing well together. The shape is good.





Swingy Cable Sampler Pullover. This is another heavy but beautifully textured piece. I wish I could see the whole thing as the description says it's A-line, and though the description also claims that A-line is flattering on all body types, I can tell you from painful personal experience that this is not true.





Uncommon Cables. Not thrilled with the concept of openwork stitches between the cables of this warm sweater, which seems tantamount to designing a parka with deliberate gaps in the seams.





Curvy Cabled Throw. An attractive piece with a southwestern-style colour palette, though I do wish the burnt orange border had been continued up the sides of the piece.





Funky Chunky Throw. This one would feel quite luxuriously snuggly and be a nice statement piece in a rustic-style or clean-lined contemporary decor.





Gold & Silver Medallions Afghan. This is well designed, but I'd be going with practically any other colourway than this one, and very possibly just doing it in a single colour.





The Magic of Reversible Cables. Very nice. It's reversible, which is a good choice for a cabled scarf, and I love the mulberry colour.





Around Town Cardigan. A practical, wearable, and attractive jacket.





Cabled Panel Sweater. A well-shaped, polished piece that can be dressed up or down.





Just Like Daddy Cabled Cardi. This looks maybe a bit cumbersomely bulky for an active small child (and aren't almost all small healthy children active), but it is cute and classic.





Marant Coat. There's a relaxed fit, and then there's fits like a house, and I'm afraid this falls into the latter category. Even for a coat, this is just too heavy and unflattering.

Monday 20 June 2016

Creative Knitting Autumn 2016: A Review


The Autumn 2016 issue of Creative Knitting is out! Let's have a look at it.





Ingot pullover. Simple but very effective, and it would be fun to play with the colourway.





Inverted V top. This is an innovative, contemporary look (and this piece also can be worn with the simple buttoned back at the front), but also one that is hard to wear. Cropped-length pieces always add several extra visual lines to a woman's body, and it's not flattering. If you love this piece, I'd suggest wearing it over a dress with no front seamlines, or at most an empire waistline that will be hidden under the knitted piece.





Morecambe Bay Cardi. A "garter stitch hooded jacket with random blocks of colour" sounds like one of those half-assed design concepts that Bergère de France is constantly serving up half-baked, but this designer took that simple idea and turned it into a polished and wearable piece of contemporary design.





Ready for the Weekend pullover. This colour blocking doesn't quite work. It has a certain unfortunate "half a pinafore" look, and I keep wondering where the skirt went.





Ulverston Color-Block Scarf, Hat & Mitts. I rather like the hat and the mitts, but the garter stitch scarf has an undesirable "beginner project" effect.





Undulating Waves wrap. A more interesting colour choice would do a lot for this piece.





Cables & Cords pullover. The shaping is good, and the laced effect is rather eye-catching. I'd be inclined to replace the I-cord in this one with a length of ribbon, which would lighten up the look.





Intertwined Elegance cardigan. This one has potential, but it needed a little more work. The gaps between the buttons aren't a happy effect, and the bottom hem look unfinished.





Origami Wrap. This isn't bad. It has a certain flair and could have a nice effect when worn over a simple outfit.





Woodland Slouch. This has a cute shape and nice texture.





Coronado Cardi. This reasonably well-shaped classic jacket deserved a more attractive yarn.





Gaines Poncho. Love the painterly colours used here, but the shape and finishing details aren't quite there.





Hint of the Highlands. This is attractive enough, but I find myself thinking how much better it would look in a more interesting palette.





Kaleidoscope Pullover. This is the sort of innovative art piece that would work better as an afghan. On an actual human being, it's both unflattering and gives one the look of a poorly adjusted TV set.





Stranded & Striped Cardigan. The design is really quite lovely... and I'm imagining it in pretty much every other colourway than this one.





Terranova pullover. This looks like mésalliance of components that were originally created for at least three different sweaters.





Twisted-Float Cowl. I could see this working as a cute little accessory, though again it needs a different colourway.

Wednesday 23 March 2016

Creative Knitting Spring & Summer 2016: A Review


Creative Knitting has released its Spring & Summer 2016 issue. Let's have a look at it.




Daphne. The construction of these flowers isn't bad at all, but I'd be attaching them to other items, such as a little girl's purse, rather than to shoes where they are going to become filthy in no time.





Modern Garden Tank. A very pretty and summery look. I wouldn't have thought embroidery could look so well on garter stitch.





Petals & Stripes. I like the stripes but am not sold on the petals. It's hard to make this kind of appliqué work on a grown woman as it tends to look kitschy.





Wildflower Purse. This looks like the kind of thing a little girl makes at craft camp and gives proudly to her mother, who receives it with an Academy Award-winning simulation of appreciation, never uses, and smuggles out of the house and off to a thrift store once her daughter has forgotten about it.





Electric Flower Socks. These would be the perfect thing to wear the next time you're cast for a 1980s Jane Fonda workout video. Don't forget to make yourself a matching headband.





Eyeglasses Case. This looks roughly made, and soft eyeglasses cases like this one don't actually do much to protect eyeglasses.





Regency Sweater. This is a very pretty and rather romantic look on the whole, but the rather wonky-looking wavy lines and beads at the neckline and cuffs aren't doing much for it. I'd nix the lines and stick with some simple beading.





Soirée Purse. Very pretty and finished-looking and something a little girl could carry with her best dress as well as being something a grown woman could easily use as an evening bag if made in colours to go with her evening wear. I'm imagining it done in black or a metallic.





Ruffled Cardigan. Quite attractive, and so well shaped that it sits perfectly.





Entwined Bolero. The description for this calls upon us to "re-engineer the cowl by making it part of a stylish, modern bolero". I'm not seeing how the word stylish applies here, and I'm not sold on the idea of combining the bolero and the cowl in principle, though I might like to see other attempts at it. It looks like a pain to get in and out of, for one thing. And what are we to call such a creation? The cowlero? The bocowl?





Blakefront Cardigan. Very pretty little item.





Lavender Sails. The lace design here is very good, but the lines of this piece have such an unfortunate foreshortening effect on the model that it looks as though her shoulders are sagging nearly to her waist. I'd tweak this so that the opening of the sleeves sits at cap sleeve level.





Golden Shores Shawl. Some lovely lacework in this piece.





Summer Swing Tee. This is acceptable design, but it definitely deserved a more attractive yarn.





Artisan Tunic. The tunic is well shaped, but the decorative stitching on it has an unfortunately crude look.





Upcycle Notions Case. A fun bag. The pattern descriptions suggests using old gauge swatches, but it could also be done with wool sweaters that are past being wearable.