That tears it, I'm learning French!

English is my first and only language. If pressed, I can bumble about in Spanish, because I have no shame if my sentences are right or wrong, I just want to be understood. I have never really had much truck with French, until now.

Phildar has been holding out on us, my limey knit mates (or, I haven't really gone through the back issues until now, yeah... that's it). The catalogues are cheaper (only €5,50 vs €10,50 for the English version. To be fair, it's two copies of the same magazine, but still), and they have scads of back issues, from 2005, y'all.

Look at this cute- as-a button garter stitch hat. Slouchy, yet stylish and tidy. Isn't it just darling? Don't you like this vest, with the alternating garter and stocking stitch texture? The oversize collar can double as a hood if you exaggerated it enough. Along with the ribbed gauntlets (you can't call them fingerless gloves, can you?), the look is rocking without being too matchy matchy and try hard. I like the fact that the vest can carry over from spring to fall (my aim for knit basics 2008). I even like the payne's grey colour and think that it would look fab on me.


The stitch detailing for the red orange pullover is clever. Cunning ribbed patterns add interest to the top of the sleeves and neckine, the shirred ends of the sleeves give the look of volume that will never date, but always look quaint. I must admit, I'm not a fan of the oddly shaped pepums (is that the word?), or the use of i-cord for shaping. I'm too zaftig to leave my shaping to chance.

Really though, what I do admire about Phildar is their attention to stripes. Most designers tend to just do stripey stuff ala Breton, or Where's Waldo/Wally, with the broad swathes of white, broken up by tiny lines of blue, or alternating lines of red and white prison stripes. Not caring about the nod to size or colour placement.


Phildar does stuff better. Look at this top, they use two colours, biscuit and denim to give stripes a lot of interest. I particularly like the bust minimizing blue, and the button detail. It's nice to come across something that can be used for stash busting, as well as something that I'd be pleased to wear (I have teal and biscuit in my stash, rock!). It's also in cotton/acrylic (my stash). I'm thinking of doing it top down, because I only have six balls of teal and four balls of biscuit. Also, I hear the sleeves for this pattern as knitted is long. But I don't know how I'd do the khaki swatches between the bust and the armscye. Any suggestions?

Right! My additional new year's resolution will be to knit a pattern from a Phildar magazine in its original French. There shall be weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. But I heard tell ravelry has a French knitter's group. I shall have a butcher's.