I mentioned in my previous post how I have been failing to put theory into practice so far as re-stocking my wardrobe goes, and I’ve been dwelling on that the past couple of days. The new items I ordered will move it partially in the direction I want to go, although the purple skirt sits slightly outside the cohesive selection of my imagination.

Thinking about the direction I want my knitwear to take in the coming months, I decided to go back to my source material: the excellent and outdated book “Looks That Work”. The knits in the above spread really appeal to me and I’m looking at three of them in particular. I really like the idea of the sleeveless jumper over and under a variety of tops and, no, that isn’t just the siren song of a quick knit, I genuinely do think it could be a very versatile addition to my wardrobe.

For the second knit, although a big polo-neck isn’t quite my scene, I still love the idea of a warm jumper, slouchy but not massive. In fact, I could quite see this mid-80s design from “Marion Foale’s Classic Knitwear” sitting rather comfortably in that position.

(I think I will forgo the gentleman sniffing my shoulder, though – I try to be tolerant of fetishes, but that’s a bit odd.)

The third knit in this set, the classic v-neck jumper, I could live in. Funnily enough, I’ve had this charming pattern sitting out for the past couple of weeks.

I bought this and knitted the jumper towards the end of the 1970s when I used to shop for wool in my lunch break. I was lucky enough to be working in a bank on the edge of Norwich and opposite the bank was a Post Office, the upstairs of which was entirely devoted to wool. It was a real, old-fashioned wool shop with the yarns stacked in the cubbyholes still in their plastic wrapping and the patterns in plastic folders arranged by yarn weight and gender/age – DK Mens, DK Ladies, Babies etc etc. Actually, I think that it’s still the same system for loose patterns, it’s just that now there are a lot more books and less individual leaflets. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to get back to this one for forty-odd years, so perhaps it’s time to bump it up the list a bit. I really like that skirt, too, but I’ll settle for just the jumper. I can’t for the life of me remember what colour I used before, but after all this time it doesn’t matter if I end up duplicating it. It would, of course, be more practical to do a knit without the lace panel on the front, but you can’t always be practical, can you?

By the beginning of next week, I should have my new clothes and be in a better position to decide which of my existing knits will best suit the ‘capsule’ I’m tentatively edging towards and what colours I need to add. I know at least one item will be navy but, really, I could do for things to be a bit less nebulous than that!

I hope you have enjoyed meandering through my knitting dreams with me today and that you are heading into the weekend on an even keel.