Kwik Sew 3892 (plus a hat!)

So I'm realizing as the weather turns colder that ten years in LA has left me with a pretend winter wardrobe. Like things that seem like they would be 'warm' - oh look! it has an alpine deer on it! - when in actuality they aren't warm at all. So I've been trying to winter it up around here.

This is another Kwik Sew 3892 [previous one here]. The fabric is this quilted knit from JoAnn's. JoAnn, that she-devil, she sucked me in with her fall knits - some of them are actually pretty cool looking! This is a soft jersey on top, and then it's quilted to a slightly stretchy polyester backing. It's neato, although I must say I've only washed it twice and it's really starting to pill and get messy looking. I guess you get what you pay for, except in a way not really because this stuff was marked at $20/yard before JoAnn's 40% off pricing trick. So you get what you...chain-store-shop for? I don't know.

I bought the ribbing at JoAnn's too, although I'm really looking forward to investigating some of the ribbing sources in Jen's recent post on Grainline! The fabric was way too thick to do self bands, and the ribbing color choice was limited so black contrast it was. The neckline is already a bit scooped on the pattern but I must have really stretched out this one as I was adding the ribbing because it's a lot wider than the first one I made. It's also mysteriously larger overall. I feel a bit like a marshmallow in it, but a warm and toasty marshmallow.

Speaking of warm and toasty, the hat I'm wearing is a free pattern from the Purl Bee called the Simple Pleasures hat, which is the best travel project ever because you don't have to keep track of any rows except a few at the very end. I actually finished two while I was on my trip. This yarn is Flicker by Berocco. You can't tell in the pictures but it's actually slightly sparkly! and so soft! I've had two skeins in my yarn stash forever and it felt SO GOOD to make something out of them.

These pictures were taken in Berlin, near the Berlin Wall Memorial, but this is not the actual wall, just some graffiti nearby [although I think it may have been historic and somehow related]. I thought I was going to take some pictures in front of the wall, but once I got there I felt weird about it, even though there were people doing handstands against it and I'm pretty sure a headshot session going on. It just felt wrong - and a little selfish somehow - to use such a symbol of oppression as a backdrop for trivial things like sweatshirt ribbing and JoAnn's fall knits. And not just a symbol, but the actual, real thing that did the oppressing.

This could have also been because I was at the actual memorial - nothing like some grainy photos of perished souls to make you feel silly and trivial. There's another section of the wall that's been turned into a giant street art display called the East Side Gallery that would have probably had a different feel.

I'm still going through my trip photos - there actually aren't too many - and in a few days I'll do a post for anyone interested!