The flowers are out, the sun is shining, the geese have started nesting on our barges, and I’ve gone and bought the last few months of KnipMode magazines to see me through…
February 10
KnipMode often do celebrity style features, but this time it’s (squeal with me now—) Michelle Obama style!!
The first jacket/dress combo is a bit matronly for me, but I love the shirtwaister with the pleated hemline, as well as the layered skirt. Though, as NancyK learned with the Oprah celebrity-style dress, when Knip don’t sew up a sample themselves for the magazine, it’s always a good idea to make yourself a muslin first!
Ooh, look at this cute Plus jacket and jeans (yes, Burda, this is what Plus sized women look like. No, we are not afraid nor are we turned off the pattern because of it.)
In fact, this outfit totally reminds me of the jacket + jeans combo I liked in the November 09 issue:
Ooh, it doesn’t matter how many trench coat patterns I see, somehow I still want more (never even sewing one up for myself yet, hrmm). Here we get one traditional trench coat with set-in sleeves, and one more feminine one with raglan sleeves and a gathered skirt. Both come in long or short lengths, too!
March 10
March came with a special supplement magazine, but nothing really struck my fancy… So the designs below are all from the main magazine.
This blouse looks awfully familiar… I love the beige jersey skirt with the front ruffle, though (also seen on the cover above)
Ooh a nice simple woven sheath dress with a scarf tie-through collar:
Aaaaaaaahhhhhh! Sod the jumpsuit – she’s wearing my shoes!!
Remember my shoes?? The United Nude ones I still get multiple compliments on every single time I wear them?
Same shoe, different colour-way! Yes, they’re even credited in the photo!
April 10
I like the wrap top here and the little skirt, too. But is this a bit too “Flashdance”?
This gathered dress kinda looks familiar, too. Or even more like their own gathered top (though the pattern pieces are TOTALLY different, I already checked)
And as long as they keep producing these origami dresses, I will keep on loving them:
May 10
May comes with an extra Jeans supplement magazine. So I got really excited, because my two favourite pairs of jeans are from KnipMode, yeeaaaaaahhh! Only the patterns in this supplement are all really gross clothes made from denim. In a really bad 1980s throwback way (weird gathered, off-the-shoulder bustier peasant blouse, I’m looking at you.). Except for a basic stretch pair of jeans. But where’s the fun in that? Pthtththth. So all the following designs are all from the main magazine.
From the “World Mothers” feature, I really like the skirt the Singapore mum is wearing, and the dress on the Nigerian mum (also featured were a Swedish mum wearing blue prints and a half-English mum wearing roses).
They totally should’ve had a Finnish mum in head-to-toe Marimekko and had a Scottish mum in tweed, though. Or a Japanese mum in kimono prints? This thing could run and run…
While this Plus photoshoot was embarrassingly super low-budget (this was definitely the best of the bunch!), I really like this dress:
sigh We Brits, we were doing so well, with everyone thinking we’re English roses. But now… now we’re totally CHAVtastic! Really? Burberry? facepalm
Note to anyone outside the UK: Burberry-style checks/plaid like that are really embarrassingly bad taste. Even if it’s genuine, pricey Burberry.
There was another celebrity-inspired feature, but this time I had to look up Maxima on Wikipedia (pssst, she’s Argentinan-born Dutch royalty!). Check out that red dress – wowza!
Annnnnnnd, this pattern happens to be one of the few they pulled out to give several pages of huge illustrated instructions to (what I’ve scanned above is the full page – they really are that big!). So the big diagrams of how to best pleat that bodice are really going to come in handy for pleating my bridesmaid dresses! Nice timing Knip!
And finally, for the daring girl pilot in all of us, an ensemble of casuals. I’m such a sucker for grey marl anyway, but how cool is the wraparound hooded sweatshirt?
I can’t believe I’m actually up to date with the Knip issues for once! Now I just need the Pound/Euro exchange rate to come back down into reality for a little while again so I can finally get my subscription! (Doesn’t it just figure – I wait two years to get the money together for a subscription, then as soon as I’ve got it, the Pound plummets in value, grrrr).