I smell snow. An iconic line from a one-of-a-kind character, in a show that successfully captured the magic of winter despite being filled in southern California. They have me fooled every time!
Gilmore Girls has some of the most inspiring winter fashion of any show I’ve watched! I get excited as the temperature drops each fall because I know it’s almost coat season, hat season, scarf season, etc. From season one onward, Lorelai’s love for winter is magnetic! She has a passion for the flakey white accumulation, wrapped up in the atmosphere of cozy nights, and of course her cold weather accessories. She shares this dynamic winter wardrobe with Rory who can rock a good scarf with the best of them.
These items are not just layers or bulk, they are a canvas upon which to paint and express who the characters are by what they wear. They are sentences without words. Personality in yarn. A conversation starter, or simply a colorful way to brighten the gloomy and the gray. A bright point in our day. When I was thinking about adding a new cold-weather accessory to my wardrobe this was my ethos. It had to be special, something I would treasure and wear until it fell apart.
The Plan
My goal for this winter season was to make a striped, colorful, skinny scarf in the early 2000s, aka prime Gilmore style. To accomplish this I thought I would need a myriad of colorful yarns. You can see from my inspiration photos above, there is a lot of color. In my extant garments from that time in my life, there was also a lot of color. My skinny scarves from Aeropostale in the early 2000s were blended with a myriad of shades, but to my surprise, when I began to work on this project, a small color palette of three produced the most impact.
The Pattern:
On US 8 needles with worsted weight yarn, knit for 40 stitches, purl 40 stitches, and swap colors every 2 rows. To a desired length, I believe my finished product is around 48 inches. If you make one, I wish you happy knitting!
I’m not a big New Year’s Resolution girl, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seriously done that or just made a joking one in my head when I was a teen cause I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. What I do like doing instead is resetting my habits and schedule after Christmas. Because no matter what phase I am in my life that week between Christmas and New Year’s seems to wreck my daily schedule and motivation like no other.
Blocks of Productivity
My plan was literally to plan, I opened Google Docs and made myself a table for a daily schedule. I have tasks I want to be doing each day or every other day – devotions, exercise, Japanese learning, writing, sewing, knitting, art, and cleaning. Without the schedule, I tend to fixate on one thing all day or jump around not making progress on much of anything except for getting through my YouTube music playlists. My solution? Blocking my time like college. Spending a chunk of time, an hour or two, the most three on a given task to get things done and keep my motivation up.
In the morning I’ve decided I have the option to do devotions, Kanji study, art (natural light dependent), or writing. In the afternoon I prefer knitting, sewing, or writing. Intersperse cleaning and exercise in between tasks. The results? One week in and I’d say, I like it! I’ve made progress on my Kanji vocabulary goals – learning 60 Kanji between two lessons. Blocking the Japanese lessons for first in the morning for two hours is the best time for my brain to absorb it. Knitting or sewing in the afternoon has helped me through that mid-afternoon slump.
It’s also allowed me a way to walk away from sewing if I am not enjoying the process. Instead of devoting a whole day to sewing like I did in the past, blocking sewing to a few hours in the afternoon lets my mind feel like I can accomplish a project and still feel okay walking away after an hour. Because sometimes sewing can make me angry. Yesterday, sewing made me quite mad after my three of my hems jammed into the needle plate. The hem was driven down by the needle and unable to be removed without stitch ripping and eventually ripping a hole in the hem. I was angry and ready to be done and instead of angry sewing, I pivoted to something else knowing I could pick up tomorrow and I would because of my new schedule.
Balance in Writing
Another motivator that prompted me to reset my daily schedule was the writing ideas I had. I mentioned before that I have a fiction idea that I have tabled for now for a more pressing idea, a non-fiction fashion research project. This is going to be a big project that needs structure to get done because I have not researched since college and it intimidates me a bit to think of doing that again without the access of inter-library-loan. I don’t know how straightforward the process is going to be on my own without the resources and my mentor to encourage me forward.
I’ve started writing poetry again, mainly to cope with big emotions, something I want to discuss further in a separate post. I’m enjoying it. I enjoy how it makes me feel to write for the fun of it again. I’ve been writing for the fun of it more and more. Last week, I wrote two lengthy pieces that could be blog posts, but I’m not sure if they are “done” yet if that makes sense. And then there is this blog, I need to be more consistent. A reset I am after this month is to get consistent and if necessary make a content calendar to keep myself on task like I used to in my digital marketing job.
Sunshine Come Back
I want to paint more, to sketch daily, and I truly feel handcuffed by the weather. This fall and winter it has been exceptionally dreary. Like we get hints of sunshine and then the gray rolls in. Today, it is mid-morning and the sun has technically risen but I can’t see it behind the sleet, the dark shadows cast by the gray clouds, and the racing wind. It is hecking depressing and I like rainy days and spooky gray skies, but this is truly messing with the art. I need to figure out a lighting situation. Once I do that I hope to get sketching and painting consistently again. Either way, Spring will come or my lighting solution will.
Seasons of Fashion
My sewing and knitting waves of creation follow seasons, the weather seasons, and not the fashion seasons because I can’t keep up and tend to forget that fashion seasons are the opposite of what you would think they would be. That being said, I made a big push in the fall to wrap up cold weather projects before December and since November, I have taken my foot off the gas pedal. But this coasting has to come to an end at some point and that is what this schedule is for because I have purchased fabric for some big, ambitious makes and those are going to take time. For knitting, I’d like to develop more knitting patterns and start looking at launching a shop in some capacity either with patterns or finished goods. I feel more confident in my knitting skills right now than in my sewing skills, but I am going to challenge myself to track my patterns for sewing this year.
This reminds me, I need to transfer a self-drafted pattern I cut out yesterday to my brown kraft paper before I sew up the side and finish the garment. I should go do that before I forget!
To develop a pattern I could rely on I’ve been studying mittens. Different shapes, proportions, and ribbed versus knit-purl have been tested to see what I like to wear and make. It’s been a fun journey! A journey where I’ve learned how pattern development involves skill refinement.
October 2022
The brown mitten was developed first. It was a project on a whim to make better hand-warming devices than I had before. In the Fall and Winter of 2021, I made mittens out of cheap, bulky weight yarn that while soft looked like whales breaching out of the water instead of hand-shaped mittens. They lacked dexterity, polish, and honestly, lacked taste. They were ill-fitting because they were a prototype and I tried wearing them but tossed them at the end of the season to try again. Enter the brown mitten.
The brown mitten had a good shape. It was created from a worsted weight yarn on size 7 needles compared to the previous bulky yarn on size 11. The brown had even stitches, warmth, and potential! I got so excited that I forgot to write my project notes and boldly decided to make the second one later. This never happened. This mitten floated in my cold-weather accessory bin until I let it go.
August 2023
Next, I worked on the black rib knit mitten. Instead of a knit-purl structure I made a crucial error and decided to make the entire mitten, not just the cuff, with a rib knit. Why was this an error? Well, the tension across the yarn was stiff and this made the mitten difficult to wear. It also looked messy because I had to reduce my stitches to achieve that curved shape at the top. When you are developing a pattern you are improvising and experimenting so as you can guess my reduction led to uneven ribbing and wonky texture.
It was not my best work and harkened back to that weird breaching whale shape. Not a fan!
September 2023
The Blue Sheep mittens were a wonderful delight! I picked up a blue tweed yarn at Joann’s on a sale and began making things that made me happy, like this recreation of my Blarney Woolen Mills gloves from the early 2000s. My mom and I bought matching sheep gloves in this color when we visited in 2001. As they wore out we repurchased them online until Blarney Woolen Mills stopped offering them.
I don’t currently have the understanding of how to make gloves so I tried recreating them in mitten form. They worked well except for the fact that I made them too wide at the top and too short at the bottom. I added a piece at the bottom to make the cuff longer. The little sheep brought me so much joy! Unfortunately, I forgot to take notes on this one too, and was unable to make a matching one. I recreated the blue tweed mittens in another batch that I scaled too big and passed them on to my husband because they were simply too big for my hands.
November 2023
The hot pink mittens are my gold standard. The fit is sublime. The shape is lovely and yes I took notes and changed my order of construction in order to make mittens that match in size and shape. I now knit the mitts first, so four in total, then the cuffs, and lastly the thumb pieces. Then I sew them together at the same time. This system works. The proportions are perfect for my hands and have truly saved this study of mittens from feeling like a multi-year flop!
Project Takeaways
Always take notes of your stitch count and needle size to make the project repeatable!
Never stop between mittens, trust me you will not go back to finish the second.
Cute details like sheep or other motifs are kind of awesome! I plan to experiment with this technique in the future.
Reduction speed will affect the shape and potential wonkiness of the mitten, proceed with caution.
Mittens are actually a great beginner project. They are quick and easy.
In mid-December and January, I tend to drop off into cozy land where all I want to wear are leggings, fuzzy socks, and hoodies. I feel unproductive and I don’t know what to wear. This is odd because, in terms of fashion, this is my favorite season for fabrics, garments, and occasions. I love layering coats, hats, scarves, boots, mittens, etc.
To fight the slump, I’m leaning into bright colors and bold prints.
I’m pushing myself this year to rediscover the love I used to have for dressing up when it got cold like I did in college. I still indulge a bit when I can pair cozy pieces with more polished items but they have to have more personality this year! I am setting a hard line with my clothing choices to break out of the athleisure slump.
To accomplish this goal, I’ve found myself reaching for my colorful knitwear! I’ve spent the time making the items, I need to wear them. This sweater dress is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. It is just as comforting as a hoodie but looks like a dress and can be worn over jeans or leggings depending on the occasion.
Going into the fall, I knew I wanted more knitwear and accessories but I was dubious about my design choices. Would they work together to form cohesive outfits? Well yes and no, it depends on a matter of taste.
To someone who wears neutrals and classic accessories, this might be a bit ugly. But to a maximalist, like myself I enjoy the color palettes and pops of color these pieces bring to the brown and gray landscape of early winter.
I prefer having that neutral coat and having that punch of accessories to bring the look together. Hats and scarves can say a lot in an outfit yet are easy to mix and match, it’s a hit of creativity for minimal effort.
I’ve been reaching for my cat-ear beanie like a staple which I have to be honest I was not expecting. I get some stares, good and bad, but for every weird look, there are two expressions of joy at the sight of the cat beanie. If I can dress to bring people joy by the color and unusual design then that is a win for me.
Another style I am dabbling in is the academic style of a collared shirt and a vest. In this version, I styled a mini dress over a long flannel (from the men’s tall section) to create what I say is a Chandler Bing outfit. This was an insanely comfortable outfit yet mixed up my casual style for the winter. Because the colors are a bit unusual for the academic silhouette I felt playful and more like me.
I’m happy to say I’ve reached for some of my handmade pieces on those cozy days I may have opted for leggings or sweatpants like this laundry day outfit of a flannel “cardigan” over a thermal crewneck and the patterned corduroy pants that drafted myself. It was an odd combo but the colorful patterns truly brightened up a gray and dark snowy day.
That’s not to say that I haven’t reached for the cozy staples but with more polish, like this Aran Jumper style sweater that my mom knit for me. It’s a stunner!
How do you dress in December and January? Like me, in this dark winter do you struggle to find the joy in getting dressed?
This was my most ambitious project yet and I’m happy to say it’s done! And on schedule too because the deadline in my head was by the end of 2023. I didn’t think I would get there, especially with other projects, but it happened!
It’s funkier than I first designed, and it’s also a dress now which is fun and unique to my wardrobe. I don’t have any sweater tunics or dresses like this. I’m excited to play around with styling this piece as winter is yet to come. It’s still autumn technically which makes me want to jump for joy because I’ll be able to enjoy this piece all season long instead of partially or not at all like some of my former projects.
I’m currently working on a big knitwear design project. Probably the most ambitious project that I have taken on yet in my time designing knitwear and fabricating sweaters. It is a sweater coat with varying stripes that I have knit in sections over the past few months. I’m currently three months into this project, and per my working style, I’ve worked on smaller projects alongside this big project to keep me stimulated and my motivation high.
This was my progress at the end of September. I had the entire bodice done and sewn together at the shoulder seams, back seam, and under the arms until the point of the sleeve opening. Because I sew, this process of knitting makes more sense to my creative brain than the knitting in the round process. If this type of knitting drives you nuts, it’s only going to get worse so I warned you. 🙂
September Progress
October Progress
In October, I honestly futzed around with the hood and collar and that was about it. I knit one other body panel so two out of four were done and drafted collar and hood patterns, over and over again. I initially expected to make more progress in October and to have just the sleeves left going into November. That didn’t happen.
It was that dang collar and hood section, that kept me in this place of indecision and design frustration. I initially made a collar with a normal stitch, not a ribbed which looks a bit cleaner. I think I was concerned about the collar looking cohesive and was afraid that a solid collar in rib instead of a knit-purl stitch with a stripe would look less cohesive. It looked odd actually. The stripe was good, but the flat collar which began to roll on the end looked ineffectual for a collar. After I sewed it in I carefully cut the collar away which was discouraging from a progress perspective, until I realized the stitched of the collar remained (because I was afraid of snipping the wrong yarn and destroying the shoulders) and the neck opening had this lovely fit and structure now. The shoulders were slightly gathered up to the neck opening and the fit was fantastic now! It just needed a new collar.
I had an idea – what if instead of a collar I went straight to a hood. I had been watching a lot of Gilmore Girls throughout October, seasons four and five to be exact which spanned the years of 2003-2005, peak 2000s fashion. And you know what was popular during this time? The duster! I had an idea, what if the hood was just one piece of this puzzle, what if I made it longer, much longer, added a hood, a rib trim around all the edges with a button closure! A funky duster the likes of Sookie, the Olsen twins, Lindsay Lohan, and even Lorelai herself would have worn during this time.
I knew I wanted to keep the stripe theme going, something that looked labor-intensive and expensive, like a bohemian duster or sweater coat that would be featured in an Anthropologie campaign. I wanted the hood to carry on that stripe motif to make it feel integral to the garment, not an add-on.
Last October, I learned how to draft hood shapes for several outerwear pieces that I crafted for my loved ones as a part of my Potato Technology’s Autumn/Winter 2022 Collection so I am pretty comfortable with the shape and sizing scale for a hood on an outerwear garment. The thing I underestimated though was how tricky it would be to form the hood as I went, as you do with knitting, instead of cutting the hood shape out of fabric. This kicked my butt. I spent a weekend making one half of a hood out of yarn and it was so cursed. When I took it off the needles it didn’t look like the hoods I had created out of fabric and thread. It was lumpy, too short, and not going to work for what I needed.
Once again, I got my scissors out cut the bind off loose, and proceeded to wind the yarn back into a ball. That is when I decided I had to move on to a new section of the project, for my own sanity. Because I still didn’t know how the hood became misshapen in the fabrication process. None of it made sense. Going straight back into making a new hood when I didn’t know how to solve the problem would be a waste of time and resources. I only have one set of size 7 needles, there was no need to tie them up in another likely failed attempt.
I pivoted to the the length of the duster. To make the bottom have more structure I decided to knit this section in two pieces.
November’s Progress (11/16)
This was a good move. I made the first half 30 stitches wider than the previous body panels to create some drape around the hips and the results are cute. The sweater has this sophisticated little flare that accentuates the waist – I was not expecting that! 🙂
With this step in the right direction, I got to work and powered through the last two body panels and the second flare panel at the bottom. It was a lot of work but only took two weeks to complete with focus, stretching, and snacks.
I have a tendency to let the garment lead me. I like to see how the fabric or yarn responds to the vision I have in my head and adjust the design accordingly to the way the project is coming together. The flared panels at the bottom of the sweater inspired me to pivot again, to step back from the hood and long duster to a sweater coat cardigan that could be buttoned into a sweater dress if I would be inclined to wear it as such.
That’s where it stands now. I began drafting a sleeve and designing the color work I had planned for the stripes before I continued any further because I could change my mind and add more length. The hood is out through, it’s just not the vibe.
When will this project be done? I sure hope by the end of 2023, but we shall see.
Two years ago, I made a longer cardigan using a complicated “Flying Goose Stitch” which I mentioned in Knitting Tests My Patience, it was a fun yet incredibly frustrating project to undertake as my first try for a cardigan. I thought the complex stitch pattern that involved a sequence of twelve rows that tested my ability to focus and count.
Credit to knitpurlstitches.com for sharing the pattern on Pinterest.
It’s funny looking at this finished project in 2023, compared to 2021, I actually like and I’m proud of how it turned out but that might be because the stitch photographs well. I remember the fit of this project being off, in the arms and shoulders because I didn’t know how to attach the pieces properly. This sweater took 4 months of tedious knitting. I remember listening to audio books while knitting it including Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Holier Than Thou by Jackie Hill Perry and various writings of C.S. Lewis. I remember not being able to focus if I watched something in the background. I’m happy to report my 2023 project is going much better! I’m about 1 month in of focused work on the project and I have all the shoulder pieces finished and sewn together with a bottom panel designed and attached.
I am not using a pattern for this project but I am making it up as I go along. I’m taking notes as I go to draft a pattern by process and for easier replication of the shoulder pieces. The shoulders are fitting fantastically! This current project is far more comfortable than my 2021 attempt. This new project is a blend of four colors of yarn. The stripes of the bottom section will be carried on in the sleeves. My plan is to make striped, colorful sleeves and a hood or dramatic collar. There will be a ribbed bottom edge added at the end to mitigate the rolling of the hem. I debated on making this a sweater dress after learning those are apparently trending for Fall 2023 but chose to continue with the cardigan plan as I think I will get more wear out of this.
I may even add more length if it feels right. There have been countless moments through this project that have made me question my design sensibilities. This cardigan has been hovering the line between a design I think is cool and straight up ugly. There were many times during the striped panel design phase that I thought, “I’ve ruined it” but I am happy to say now that I personally like the mix of colors and think it balances the upper portion into a innovative sweater design. I was inspired by the quirky knitwear of Gilmore Girls and that peak early 2000’s style. I like that it is colorful and that the stitch is simple. That was my biggest takeaway from the Flying Geese project was to keep the stitch pattern simple for efficiency. That has payed off! My morale is higher. The stripes actually help me keep pace. I’m learning to knit quickly, yet with care to keep my stitches even. I can also knit while watching something in the background. A lot of things actually.
Long-form YouTube video essays
Look Books of fashion
Sports!
Japanese Vocabulary
Skz Code with subtitles
Music Videos
NCT 127: The Lost Boys with subtitles
Favorites like Gilmore Girls and Impractical Jokers
The possibilities are truly endless thanks to that muscle memory! Thank goodness because I can get super bored with these projects. Speaking of my pace, I’ve been truly pleased by my progress this week. I completed a shoulder panel and designed the striped panel within 3 days so around 25 hours of work. That is blazing compared to my old pace. It’s wonderful to see that practicing and failure will lead to growth in some fashion. My hope is to finish this by the end of October, will I make my goal? I’ll let you know. 🙂
It’s the start of a new project. I select my needle gauge and yarn ball. The time to cast on is here. Time to begin the endless loops of yarn twisting around the knitting needles. Let’s make something out of a static strand.
Knitting as a creative process for me has been something akin to ‘The Curse of Oak Island’. Are they ever going to find the treasure? Am I ever going to be good at this? I know what I want to accomplish. I can see the project in my mind and then it’s a blur. It’s like the stitches take the lead and maniac style they wreak havoc.
When the stitches take the lead, things go awry, why am I wasting my time? It’s been a creative tragedy in the Greek theatrical sense of the word, a project unraveled by Act Three. So, why do I keep trying? I want to succeed like all these other knitters I see on Pinterest and Instagram. They make such cute designs. Knitting your own piece is a lot cheaper. It’s rewarding to see your handiwork not just make the design of the garment but the actual fabric! As a seamstress and creative person, I want to climb this mountain no matter how long it takes so that I can finally taste sweet success.
Accepting Trial and Error
It’s weird, knitting has been the most frustrating yet fascinating hobby because, unlike sewing, you begin with nothing. It’s a ball of yarn and two sticks, that come together to create shapes based on how you loop the yarn, stitch after stitch. Negative space to positive.
The tantalizing simplicity of knitting sucks me every time, and yet in three years of trying, and countless attempts, I’ve made one garment that I like. One garment came out the way I pictured in my head. That’s a terrible conversion rate if you think about that in terms of football. What would be the point in continuing unless you love playing the game. Because at its core, knitting is an investment in time. If you want to make a project of size and use, like a sweater, it’s a multiple-month commitment if you’re a quick and capable knitter. It is a slow process. Like painstakingly slow for me at times, and repetitive.
Patience is not my strong suit, and so knitting has challenged me. It has frustrated me to my core when I have dropped a stitch and I have to frog (unwind) row after row of work. Hours of progress dissolved from my project in a minute, only to remain in my memory. But when you get it right, as what happens in life when you accomplish a goal you’ve had for a long time, the victory is sweet. Completing a panel of a sweater or a hat without failure, and the project removed from the needles looks like what you imagined in your head – well that is euphoria!
Because of how tricky executing a knitwear project has been for me I get excited even when it sucks. Like this experimental tank I made in 2021.
It’s weird and avant-garde. My lack of understanding of how knitwear stretches and shapes based on needle gauge caused some rolling issues. The tank was not what I expected but also not a disaster. It’s weird being pleased with your own mediocrity. I think that is what is so interesting about this skill-acquiring process. It’s student work, but it’s your student work so there is a sense of pride. I made this thing and it doesn’t fall apart! It also looks like a crop top – woohoo! There’s an accomplishment in finishing, like when you took a terrible class in college and instead of dropping it and starting over you grind for the credits. I guess it is character-building!
Experimental Success
It hasn’t all been for naught, I would say it is Yarn – 10, Magz – 7. That’s a decent record. It’s cool to look back at things I’ve learned along the way like this Steeple stitch and see that yes, I am getting better. I love the texture of this piece and hope to remake it someday with the proper sizing and needle gauge. Below there is a ribbed hat with pom-pom, a striped scarf, a rugby stripe hat and matching scarf (not pictured), and a Flying Geese Stitch cardigan coat. It hasn’t been a waste of time even though knitting has made me very frustrated. It’s a nice skill to have.
Potato Technology is my brand, my design studio. As I became a more experienced sewist and designer I realized I wasn’t happy just making things. I wanted a brand I could work towards, a cohesive vision to find my voice in fashion. So I followed my dream. Here’s a taste of what I plan to share with you on this platform!
One Rabbit Riot 