Trendy

As much as I hate to say it, I am normally a trend follower. In the 1990 I had a spiral perm with the alternating colored slouch socks. In 1996, I owned and wore the elephant pants on my 5’8” and 100 lb high school stick figure of a body. Soffee shorts? Please, I own a pair in every color-sometimes two pairs. (Was I a cheerleader? No, but those shorts were cool.) Your-dress-shoes-could-be-mistaken-for-a-strippers-heels? I owned those. Low rise, flare leg pants reminiscent of bell bottoms? You just described every pair of my jeans.

Thankfully, the stripper shoes have since been thrown out and the rest I out grew. (Except the soffee shorts, they’re too comfy.) I would like to say that my tastes elevated to a somewhat more classic level sometime during my college days. But it would be untrue. The real fact of the matter was money or the lack of it. Meaning, since I was paying not only for my clothes, but for my car, rent, meals, two cats and a dog as well, I learned that the things in general had to last. I became leery of following the crowd; instead I tried to imitate the look with similar (most lasting and therefore cost effective) apparel. Making me a little behind the trend, so that I can pick up the sales.

Enter knitting, which has become trendy and not-so-cheap. I’ve been able to knit since I was seven. Up until this past year my knitting consisted of lots of scarves. Scarves are not bad things. More power to the person who is content knitting scarves. Fashion forward me? Not so content anymore. That’s when I discovered designer yarns and patterns. That’s why I’m just now knitting Adrienne Vittadini’s Spring 2005 collection.

However, I am noticing the recent trends in knitting, such as Green Gable (shirts), and Clapotis (shawls/scarves), Log Cabin (baby blanket), Potatomus (sock) and dish cloths in this pattern. Thankfully none appealed to me for different reasons. (Including but not limited to the following: I'm working on enough shirts. I don't wear shawls. Log What? I hate dpns. I own a dish washer.) However, being the better-late-than-never person I am the trends are starting to wear me down.

The idea of paring down of my yarn stash through the making of “smaller” items, like dish clothes and the log cabin blankey, are starting to look good. It’s quite possible that I just have the beginning of startitis, because I’m experiencing some of it’s symptoms-uncontrollable need to buy large amounts of yarn, the hours spent “just looking” at other person’s FOs, the massive downloading and printing of knit patterns, and the nights spent organizing the order in which I would like to knit said patterns. All of which take precedence over my current projects. Still, I really want to tackle some of the more trendy projects.

Maybe if I wait a little while longer the urge will go away-or more likely, it will skew all sense of reality until I start another project.

Maya says start her a kitty pie already, 'cause this camp chair sucks!