Trends in the Cut of Clothing and Knits

     Decades ago I read a book about planning a wardrobe and making smart choices when one gets pieces.  It recommended that you study the clothes in the shops and magazines to examine the cut, as well as the colour, embellishment, and texture.  For example, see where the waist sits, where the line of the shoulder sits in relation to the tip of a person's bone at the end of the shoulder, how high the underarm sleeve sits, how closely or loosely the fabric sits against the body, where the hems and seams hit.  It seemed like a sensible and clever approach to me, so I adopted it.
     Recently I had a look at knits on the market and realized that drop shoulders have come back in.  I feel like this change snuck up on me.  I remember the last time they were in and I remember when they went out.  The shoulder is dropped and the body of the sweater is wide like before, but the sleeve is much narrower this time.  With less of a taper, understandably.  The necklines are somewhat wider and lower.  The yarn is a finer gauge.  The modern knits don't have as much texture or colourwork as they did in knitting books from the last fashion cycle.  This may be for style or just because it is cheaper for a factory to make plain garments.
     I suppose if a knitter was enterprising and liked math, she could snap up secondhand some of the knitting books from the 80s and 90s and modify any drop shoulder pattern that lacks armhole shaping.  You'd reduce the number of stitches in the sleeve, plot a new neckline on graph paper, and perhaps convert a pattern to a different, finer gauge by recalculating the stitches and rows or by using the directions for a larger size and accounting for the difference in row gauge.  I saw a used book from the 90s the other day at a thrift store and passed it up without thinking about possible modifications.  On the other hand, using a recently-published pattern would be simpler.
     In the same thrift shop, I saw a cardigan with a colourwork yoke that looked to me like it was handknit, judging by the lack of tag and a texture and gauge like Icelandic wool yarn.  I thought the yarn felt rather scratchy and wondered if that was the reason the sweater was donated.
     The other day I was able to correctly identify a woman's cowl as handknit.  This was out in the wild, not at a guild meeting where the odds are high of running into handknits.  I guessed because the cowl was in garter stitch.  If a factory had made it, the machine would have needed two needle beds.  More complicated machine, more expensive, less likely.  Whereas a handknitter can knit garter stitch flat easily.  
     Besides the drop shoulder sweaters, I noticed some yoke sweaters with colourwork for sale online.  I've seen one person wearing one.  I will have to try and see the details up close sometime.  From a distance the sweaters appear to have been knitted flat in pieces, using short rows to imitate the curved design that's characteristic of handknit yoke sweater patterns from the 80s.  The original designs were a function of the technique in the decreases handknit in the round.  Again, simple for a handknitter, involved for machines.
     It's is nice to know what the new fashionable options are.  Fashion still seems to be favouring sweaters with a natural shoulder fit and a high-ish underarm seam.  I consider these to be more flattering and more trend-proof.
     This begs the question, why am I knitting a sweater with a raglan sleeve.  Expediency, I think.  Brick is such a simple pattern that the directions make me confident I can finish knitting it if I keep plugging away.  I expect the result with Brick will look acceptable and be comfortable to wear.
     It might be fun to do another sometime in two colours like a baseball t-shirt for a retro look.

Rabbit Hole of Research in Knitted Texture

     I created a bundle of favourites on Ravelry and called it texture.  I created it so I can view at a glance pictures of a collection of patterns and projects that show texture in the knitted cloth and that particularly appeal to me.
     When I saw the URL for the bundle, it appeared hundreds of other people had done so before me.  Found I could type in a different number in the URL and see other bundles.
     I'll be a while.  The results are very cool.
     Am also looking at projects made with undyed yarn, using the advanced search feature, sorted by most favourited projects.  Some of them are very pretty.
    Myself, I just finished knitting Julie Hayes' beret pattern Colette in undyed brown yarn.  Love the concentric decreases in the crown.  Am wondering if I should mail the hat to a family member now or wait months and months until Christmas.
     I applied concentric decreases to a stockinette hat that's fresh off the needles.  I knitted it without a pattern as a sort of test swatch for a sweater, as is recommended in Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Without Tears.  Used the same yarn as I used for Colette but with one needle size down and a different natural shade of wool on the white side.  Am not into brown.
     Have cast on for the sweater, Brick, using the same yarn but in a medium natural grey shade.  While I wish the wool was glossier, the colour appeals to me.  Brick is a plain stockinette raglan sweater so it has no texture to it.  I plan to knit the trim from the Susie Roger's Reading Mitts pattern on the cuffs and hem, with picot at the collar.
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     Oh, wow.  There are hundreds of bundles of favourites under the name linen too.  Love linen.
     You can type in www dot ravelry dot com slash bundles slash [name] for any name or word you think is likely, and see what comes up.