When the Winter Twist came out a few months ago, I was quite struck by the Oscillate pattern. I liked the sinuous cables, and never missing a chance to knit an Amy Herzog design, I cast on almost immediately.
This is the sort of sweater which must be very carefully styled. Twist was on to this, displaying the yellow sample on bare skin and with agressively teased hair. Written with 3/4 sleeves and knit in Angora, I could easily hit the twee side of fashion, and I generally am not a fan of twee. In contrast to the style of Zooey Deschanel, I prefer the more agressively structured shape of actual vintage clothing, rather than modern interpretations of vintage clothing. There's a reason half my closet is older than I am.
I knit my Oscillate in a luminous silver blue from Sanguine Gryphon, at a larger gauge for drape and finished with antique French Silver buttons from the 1920s. The gently bloused silhouette, paired with a pair of ankle length cords (Talbots, of all places) and a skimming flat is a pleasing nod to the gamine shapes of the 1960s. For a sweater in such a delicate color, dark bottoms are a must, and they need to lean slightly downtown and dirty. This is not, for example, a sweater I'd wear over a full skirt, even if the idea of a sweater girl pattern seems to beg for it. Instead, I wanted to capitalize on the sexiness of a skinny pant with a softer top.
The pattern is lovely. I made the sleeves full length, since I got a tad bit carried away with my hipster aesthetic, knit the entire sweater on the same size needles and skipped the tubular cast on for structure. I'm quite pleased, and think this will see a lot of use over my daily wardrobe of slim cut jeans, city girl flats and laptop appropriate purse.
oh so fantastic! i love the whole outfit!
Posted by: andrea | January 17, 2012 at 07:16 PM
Your sweater looks great and I think you paired it beautifully with the pants and shoes. Your blog is a real boost to my knitting plans, thanks so much.
Posted by: Julie Culshaw | January 17, 2012 at 07:57 PM
Beautiful! I've got that pattern in my queue (though admittedly, I do lean a bit towards Zooey style twee fashion) and this is making me itch to start it!
Posted by: Stephanie Ivy | January 20, 2012 at 11:22 AM