The Fashion Show is taking shape! In case you don't know about it - it's happening soon. March 1, 7 pm, Zero Station Gallery, 222 Anderson St., here in Portland. Come and see. We (KnitWit, Purl Diva) asked for original designs, knit, sewn, crocheted, woven - and some interesting things are rolling in! I'm getting excited and nervous at the same time. The gallery is the perfect space for this event...a long narrow space but wider than the shop, and unencumbered by shelves of yarn.

As for my entry...I'm knitting a dress, and am making it my size...theoretically. It's pretty roomy. I think I may need to sneak a little elastic into the line just under the bust part. And I've done that thing that I try to caution customers against - I ran out of yarn. Ordered more but there's no way the lots will match. Waah! Photos above. It looks sort of weirdly truncated because it's not its full length yet - I've been knitting, sewing together, trying on and knitting some more - and it gets long sleeves, a hood, and a sizeable chunk of ribbed edge on the crossover parts of the top and up and around the hood. I'm having fun knitting it though - procrastinated for an eternity, then finally realized I had to clear my slate completely and sit down with scratch paper and calculator. Once that happened, it wasn't a chore, it was my pet project.

I'm making it out of Rowan Summer Tweed, and because I'm a fairly tight knitter I'm doing it on 9's, which makes it go fast. One of the best things about being relatively new to this biz is that I can slowly knit my way through classic yarns with great enjoyment. Summer Tweed just feels nice. It releases little slublets of cotton as I knit, but that doesn't bother me. And best of all, seaming it is so easy - it's just textury enough that you can seam messily but it looks very neat. Every time I slip it on I like how it feels on my skin. (But oh, that biscuity color on my wintery skin...not to mention my shape...I think before wearing it I might need one of those contraptions on the infomercial that magically compresses vast swathes of middle-blubber into smooth, hard planes. How do they do it?)