Res Completa: Paris Bolero

I have been greatly enjoying reading the profiles in KnitKnit: Projects + Profiles from Knitting's New Wave by Sabrina Gschwandtner for some time now, so a couple of weeks ago I decided to try out some of the patterns. I love that they're not your ordinary knit designs, and they generally involve some very interesting construction. Exhibit A: The Paris Jacket:



Pattern: Paris Jacket by Risto Bimbiloski for KnitKnit: Projects + Profiles from Knitting's New Wave by Sabrina Gschwandtner
Yarn: Plymouth Alpaca Boucle, 5 skeins of white (10), and Nashua Creative Focus Chunky, 1.5 skeins of black
Needles: US 10.5 (for the boucle) and US 8 (for the Chunky) straight needles
Start to Finish: January 31 - February 7, 2008
Mods: Non.



Notes: Well, I needed a whole lot more yarn than the pattern called for. Once I had knit through the 280 yards I had originally bought (thinking I only needed 250), I was still about 3 feet short on the length of the main piece. Yes, 3 FEET. I went back to my LYS intending to buy 3 or 4 more balls of the yarn, but they only had two left. Such is life. I knit it all up and ended up with a piece about 1.5 feet short, stretched it out with some blocking, and just dealt with it. I think it turned out ok, though the jacket would be quite a bit swingier if I had had enough yarn. In addition, the pattern calls for 100 yards of the collar yarn, and I needed 150.

And speaking of the collar yarn, I chose a chunky 100% wool instead of a fuzzy wool/acrylic blend because I couldn't find a good substitution, and the collar ended up a little heavy. I would recommend going for the blend for an appropriately floppy collar.

Despite my aforementioned issues, it was very fun and fascinating to make a jacket with a flouncy collar out of these three simple pieces (note: the white boucle is a 6 foot long rectangle):



The jacket is more of a bolero on me, which always happens to me because of my freaky long torso. I like how the top back looks semi-circular...



And though it's not floppy, I do like the big, ruffly collar. It's almost a hoodie!



AND I love that you almost can't tell if it's a jacket or a cape, unless you spot the cool, big arm-holes from the side.



I think this is such a beautiful design. The hard part will be finding somewhere fabulous enough to wear it!