Tuesday 8 August 2017

Celia Birtwell's Botticelli-inspired knitwear and dresses for Valentino


I love Celia Birtwell's work - fabulous prints that she designed for Ossie Clark clothes in the 1960's, which were re-invented a few years ago for ranges of blouses, tops, dresses and t-shirts for Topshop, then John Lewis and, lastly, Uniqlo.  These were very affordable - especially the Uniqlo items - unlike Ossie's original prices in the 60's.

Her last print range, which was now a year or so ago, was for Valentino - selling for prices that were completely "out-of-this-world"!!  More work must have been involved this time as, instead of adapting her original print designs, the new range was based on flowers from a dress in the famous painting, Primavera, by Botticelli.

As well as floral designs for printed fabric, the flowers appeared on a range of Valentino's knitwear.  I love this cream sweater with embroidered flowers and yoke.  (All photos below are from the internet)


Below is part of the Botticelli painting "Primavera" showing the floral dress.


This is a photo of a black version of the embroidered floral sweater - which I like even more than the cream version.


The same flowers appeared on a long cabled knitted cardigan - worn here with a fantastic floral printed t-shirt.


There was even a sweatshirt top decorated with the same flowers.



I was in love with the fantastic range of Celia's Botticelli-inspired floral prints on Valentino's range of long and short dresses.  


Her prints even appeared on knee-high boots - how amazing is that!


 


I think this embroidered evening dress is absolutely gorgeous.


 If only I had the money, figure and places to go in order to wear these amazing creations!


Well done Celia, Valentino and - it goes without saying - the wonderful Botticelli!

Tuesday 19 July 2016

Hollyhocks and vintage multi-floral cardigan


Recently I went for a walk in Hyde Park.  I got off the underground at Hyde Park station and went into the park near the lovely flower walk.  There I saw some of my favourite tall spiked flowers - Hollyhocks - in varying shades of pink and white.


I think the colours of these Hollyhocks looks great against the dark maroon leaves of the shrub in the background.


I loved the delicate colours of the white Hollyhock with lemon sorbet centres.


There was a large patch of tall Hollyhocks by the pergola walk.  Unfortunately, the poppies had finished flowering and I expect that they had look magnificent.  I love Oriental poppies too.


The design for the vintage hand knitted 4ply cardigan in the below photograph incorporates lots of different flowers, including Hollyhocks.  The other flowers are Lily-of-the-Valley, Daffodils, Irises, Lilies, Poppies, Sunflowers, Cornflowers and Roses.


Below is a graph chart for a design of very tall Hollyhocks and which was used to form part of the pattern for other floral tunics, sweaters or cardigans in the past.

Monday 20 June 2016

Foxgloves and vintage knitwear

Foxgloves are beautiful flowers and very easy to grow.  They look wonderful in gardens or growing wild in fields, where they can look amazing mixed amongst other wild flowers.

The foxgloves in the photographs below are growing at the bottom of a large garden, where they have self-seeded and are just growing as wild flowers.

Foxgloves growing wild at the bottom of a Suffolk garden
The beauty of the plants is that they come in a great number of shades of pinks and white.  I love their tall spikes.

Wild foxgloves in a Suffolk garden
These great flowers have also been the inspiration for designer knitwear - such as on this vintage hand knitted cotton cardigan.  It is covered with vases filled with flowers - jerberas, muscari and foxgloves - with climbing wisteria flowers twirling round the top part of the front and back.

Hand knit cardigan covered with vases of flowers and climbing wisteria
3-D foxgloves are growing round the lower part of the body and sleeves on another vintage hand knitted cardigan.  This time clematis twirls around the top part of the cardigan, with bees dotted between the flowers.

Hand knit foxglove and clematis cotton cardigan
The amazing group of tall, spiky, pale pink foxgloves in the photograph below was growing in the garden of a house I visited some time ago.

Flower bed full of light coloured foxgloves
Don't they just look absolutely incredible?

Monday 6 June 2016

Pandas on knitwear

My love for Pandas inspired designs for knitwear.

A PDF knitting pattern is available from my Ravelry store for a pair of 4ply fingerless mitts with a panda holding a piece of bamboo across his tummy.  The gloves can be hand knitted in any 4ply weight yarn - wool, cotton or cashmere.  Knitting instructions include typed pages for the shaping and graph charts for both left and right mitt.

Panda fingerless mitts
The panda also features on a hand knitted cushion and it is surrounded by a circle of flowers similar to those shown in the graph below.  There are also flowers on the  back of the cushion, with a buttoned fastening in the centre.  A PDF knitting pattern for the cushion is also on Ravelry

The graph below shows a design which was used for the body of a child's cardigan/sweater.  A selection of different sizes were made for stores in the USA.

Graph showing pandas and flower design for child's sweater
Another panda glove pattern in my Ravelry store is for a pair of 4ply mitts with a panda's face on the front.  The palms of the mitts are plain.

Panda Face fingerless mitts
I don't have access to the real thing, so the photo below was taken from a non-copyright internet site. The panda looks quite content while chewing away on the bamboo pieces, or whatever it may be eating.


Saturday 28 May 2016

Bewick swans and swan mitts

Living in Barnes Wetland Centre are two beautiful Bewick swans.  They seem to love swimming around together and are very synchronised.

Synchronised swimming for the Bewick swans
Two Bewick Swans
What a beautiful face, with lovely yellow and black beak.

Bewick swan
I have a PDF knitting pattern in my Ravelry shop for fingerless mitts with a Bewick swan on the front of each glove.  The original gloves were hand knitted in denim blue 4ply wool and are available in my Etsy shop.

Swan fingerless mitts
Swan mitt - left hand

Monday 23 May 2016

Peacocks - knit inspiration and noisy birds

One of my ideas for a knitwear design some years ago was based on vases of flowers and peacocks.  Unfortunately, I do not have any photographs of the actual knits, but the designs are still sitting on my computer.  I took a photograph of the screen showing a design for the fronts of a hand knitted 4ply-weight waistcoat.

Peacock and flowers design for the fronts of a hand knitted waistcoat
I am fascinated with peacocks and have seen them wandering around London's Holland Park and Quex Park, which is not far away from London.

I often go to Pendley Manor in Tring for their yearly Shakespeare Festival in August.  This year, for a change, I was there last Friday in order to attend a Murder Mystery dinner with friends, which included an over-night stay in the hotel.  There were, as usual, peacocks wandering around the grounds.  In the garden, I came across this lovely brightly-coloured peacock with a very long set of beautiful tail feathers.

Colourful peacock with very long tail feathers
There was also a dreamy ethereal white one too.

Ethereal white peacock
There are usually signs in the car park to tell people that the peacocks have right of way!

There was one big drawback - however much I love peacocks, I could do with them keeping quiet in the early morning.  One must have been roosting somewhere below my room and it started mewing at 5.30 a.m. and kept on at regular intervals until it was time for me to get up.  I was lying awake thinking about another victim for the Murder Mystery!

Thursday 19 May 2016

King Kong gloves and a shop window full of monkeys

I love monkeys, gorillas, apes and any sort of primate.  In fact, I have a large collection of them - soft toys, ceramics, such as monkey-shaped teapots, cups and plates decorated with monkeys and a plastic Kong Kong-shaped water-drinking bottle - but not the real thing!

My design of King Kong's face and part of the Empire State Building features on a pair of fingerless mitts and the PDF knitting pattern is available from my store on Ravelry

King Kong's face and the Empire State Building on a pair of hand knitted fingerless mitts
I have been to New York several times in the past and on one of my trips came across this shop window display.  Of course, I had to take a photograph of it!

New York shop window full of toy monkeys and bananas
http://www.ravelry.com/designers/twisted-classics