French Girl Knits

Aack!

The posts keep piling up in my head but I am having a certain amount of difficulty (pure laziness) making that transition from thought to actual post.

I received the new book, French Girl Knits, last Tuesday, a week ago now.  And actually I suppose I am glad that I waited before writing anything about it.

I suppose my first impression was that it was interesting but much of it was not my cup of tea, which is actually my opinion of several of the French Girl patterns.  There are a few that I love and more that are lovely but just not my style. The sweaters are beautiful but I feel they tend to be a little too frilly and feminine for me.  There were several sweaters I loved but was not convinced I would wear, I have changed my mind about some of those.  And there are a couple I adore but would never wear out in public, but that doesn't mean I would never wear them.  I am rather fond of soft feminine things to wear in the evening at home, as long as they are feminine but not frilly.

But the more I looked, the more enamored I became of this book.  To begin with there are a couple of patterns which I outright loved on first sight, one of them being the cover sweater, shown above and this wonderful cropped cotton sweater with the buckle closure.

There are other sweaters of course, sweaters that are lovely and are growing on me more slowly. They are classically beautiful and wearable.

But even more appealing is the attention to technique. There is much to learn from this book.   Most of the sweaters employ seamless construction and there is all kinds of useful information in the book about knitting and construction techniques as well as fitting and how to get a sweater that is perfect. 

Now both of these sweaters are just lovely and would look attractive on me or many other people.  I am particularly drawn to the one shown in beige, but the lacy dark one is slowly worming its way into my heart as well.  They are both knitted without seams.  

The beige sweater, called Paloma, is knitted from the top down.  In the other sweater, Niobe, the sleeves and body are worked separately from the bottom up (in the round) where they are joined at the armholes.  

And there are others that I also love, two that I mentioned earlier that struck me as perfect lounge-wear and another that has a very strong 20's feel.  I have always had a weakness for the 20's, although I probably can't wear the styles anymore.  

The book is definitely a keeper.

Comments

[Liana]

You do make this book seem appealing, and I have a weakness for '20's fashions too.

[materfamilias]

No way I can even think about adding yet another knitting book until I make something from one of several recent purchases, but I definitely see the appeal of this one.