The Knitting Fiend

 
In the late 80s,
baggy sweaters were in style;
one size did fit all.

---

From Knitting with Simplicity Fall 1986. Directions are given for bust size 34″-36″. That’s it.

It’s unshaped, so if you wanted it bigger, I guess you could figure out how to add stitches to the edges!

---

Yah know. I knit a sweater sort of like this in the 80s. I used a thick fluffy undyed yarn I bought from a hand spinner who had a studio in Libertyville. I then fulled it slightly to close the holes. It wasn’t sexy, but let me tell you, sitting in the sort of poorly heated apartment grad-students could afford, my sweater was warm!

 

A city slicker
in a stockinette tent dress,
she dreams of camping.

 

---

From Vogue Knitting Fall ‘91.

---

I lived through the 90s. Either I was blind to the fashion zeitgeist or tent dresses never really caught on. I wonder if anyone knit this?

Mind you, it’s would be a fairly simple knit: endless stockinette. On the other hand, it’s an endless boring knit. And when you are done, you have a shapeless figure concealing dress you will probably never outgrow. I’m going to suggest my friend KitKat knit this because she really needs to start concealing that bulge around the middle.

 
It’s not knit in blue,
brilliant pink, white or pale green:
Not hydrangea.
 

---

Remember, I said Rowan has decided to show more wholesome stuff?

This rather ordinary tank top would normally not rate a haiku. After all, it’s just a tank top knit in a nearly - but not quite - monochromatic color scheme; there’s a matching sweater with little intarsia blobs (maybe pyramids? Who can tell?)

It’s the sort of thing that lots of people can fit in their wardrobe.

But why does Rowan call it hydrangea? Yeah, I know, if you look, you can find dull-purplish or bright magenta hydrangeas– after all, the color of the flowers do change with the ph of the soil. Still, these colors just don’t make me think “hydrangea”! (The top Rowan called “Periwinkle’ is dark beige; “Lupine” is brown and white. Go figure.)

Oh well, I guess the “Secret” is the key word in Rowan’s “Secret Garden Collection”.
Rowan