Spring again

it’s that time of year again, when a fashion designer turns to selling Spring 2010. I took the photos of the collection on Friday, thanks to the presence of Sid in Norfolk.

in fact I didn’t make a very good job of it, we used a corner of my neighbour’s new kitchen (old forge) and the light wasn’t even, which I didn’t realise until I had downloaded the photos onto the computer, so in a lot of them Sid’s head is much darker than the lower part of the cardigan. I discovered some bits of photoshop that I had never used before.

this is one of the worst examples, even after treatment. this design came straight off the guardian website, a series of underwater photos, I love the bobbly embroidery (bullion stitch) which represents the coral. I would have quite liked it without the fish actually, just a random abstract texture pattern. this colour seems popular, its in the cotton cashmere mix which is so light and dry. very pretty but not to my personal taste; then the collection is not designed for me.

this photo has some use of the highlight/shadow button. it still leaves Sid’s face a bit sunburnt looking. this design is from a photo L took, of pine trees. the slightly naive embroidery  which gets more simplified on this cashmere shorter cardigan

is fun and elegant at the same time, I think.

this is a similar design, a little less graphic, with sequins added. I found some linen ribbon for the tie, as the yarn is a linen cashmere mix. for the design I took the photo of fig branches against the sky into filter onto photoshop and chose stylize, with glowing edges. this gave thick white lines round the edges of the shapes and some interior contours of neon blue and green. perfect for an embroidery.

you can see it better on the other sample with the grey background.

then  inspired by my natural swimming pool, we have Pond Life – dragonfly, whirligig beetles, giant lacewing, and a pond skater. that was fun to do, I drew the creatures from my readers digest flora and fauna book. I have rashly bought three dark colours in the cotton cashmere (which has almost doubled in price since last year) this dark brown, a chestnut brown, and a dark conifer green. it will be interesting to see if anyone buys it. the handle of the yarn is so nice, and its good to have some dark colours in a very light weight yarn I think.

also inspired by my pool, an image of waterlilies that I pinched off the internet and drew into. I love this one with the sequins, its fun and very striking colours.

then of course I had to put the pond life and the waterlilies together.

back to more classic things; this is a version of a traditional shetland lace stitch, flattened out to make an elegant cardigan. most shetland lace stitches are based on all knit rows, but this produces a more 3-D construction. on a stocking stitch base the stitches lie flat and fall better for a cardigan. again in the cotton cashmere yarn.

I thought it would be good to have sequins on this very dry handling yarn too. just on the fronts of some of my shapes. this is the most adventurous, with its baggy little pockets.

then some amusing hats, like this pillbox effort

and this rather military looking one – in fact its the usual forage cap shape squashed down into a flat topped cap. I love the pretty metallic crochet imitating military braid – “scrambled eggs”.

and attaching the wide chinstrap to the same shape hat  puts it straight into hollywood medieval.

you can see the rest of the collection here.