{"id":9432,"date":"2018-05-10T06:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T13:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.tincanknits.com\/?p=9432"},"modified":"2020-07-07T13:17:56","modified_gmt":"2020-07-07T20:17:56","slug":"sonya-philip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.tincanknits.com\/2018\/05\/10\/sonya-philip\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonya Philip, an interesting wardrobe, and projects that require practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently I’ve realized that I am at a point in my life where many of my current projects require PRACTICE, repetition, and solid habits. Maybe its the theme of this decade (my 30\u2019s)?<\/p>\n

The things that I\u2019m interested in taking forward in both my creative work and my personal life are the sorts of things that don\u2019t come easily or quickly. These kinds of projects require daily or weekly attention, a load of work, and seem to develop so very much more slowly that I’d prefer!<\/p>\n

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Just a few of the swatches and prototype projects that I’ve made as I develop colourwork designs for our upcoming collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few things I’m working on personally are my posture (pilates), fitness (regular running), and re-learning piano (I just started lessons). In my knitting and design I am focussed on building skills and experimenting within stranded colourwork, as Alexa and I put together our next collection.<\/p>\n

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Let me tell you, designing in colourwork requires A LOT of practice! These hats are from our Week Of Colour blog post serie<\/a>s that explores different colour strategies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Perhaps somewhere between the professional and the personal floats my grand ambition to develop a more interesting wardrobe for myself. For as long as I can remember I have bemoaned my lack of an \u2018interesting\u2019 wardrobe. Despite being a designer, my clothes have always been woefully boring, and yet I’ve always admired women and men who let their personalities and playful sides show through clothing.<\/p>\n

As I write this post, I realize I have a load of stylish friends who inspire me; Ysolda<\/a> puts together quirky yet thoughtful combinations and wears loads of hand-made items, Jess of Ginger Twist Studio<\/a> rocks vintage pieces alongside a stunning array of knits, and the lovely ladies of PomPom<\/a> never fail to impress with their whimsical mix of delicious colours and modern designs.<\/p>\n

Sonya Philip, creator of 100 Acts of Sewing<\/h2>\n
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A view from the Instagram feed of Sonya Philip<\/a>, textile artist and creator of 100 Acts of Sewing.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I recently met a woman who REALLY knocks me out with her fashion sense and creativity. At the Edinburgh Yarn Festival this year I ran into my current style idol, Sonya Philip in person! I’ll have to admit I butted right in to her conversation with ‘OMG I LOVE YOUR WORK SO MUCH’ in true awkward fan style. Luckily I ran into her later on and apologized!<\/p>\n

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Sonya and I headed to EYF 2018<\/a> – we made a pretty great colour combination eh?! Photo by Jeni Reid<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sonya is a San Francisco-based artist and the creator of a series of sewing patterns, called 100 Acts of Sewing<\/a>. In 2012 she began a project to sew 100 projects. In her words: “What began as a personal challenge to make 100 dresses in a year, has developed into a larger exploration of praxis.” <\/em>Read more on her site<\/a>.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Sonya\u2019s Instagram feed<\/a> is one of my very favourite. Ever. It just makes me crazy happy! There are many things that I love about her work, but the thing I want to focus on is PRACTICE.<\/p>\n

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100 Acts of Sewing patterns<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the 100 Acts of Sewing patterns<\/a>, Sonya has created basic patterns which erase any barriers to creation. It is in each person’s use of these patterns, their curation of fabrics, pattern, and details where these patterns really shine. For me, Sonya\u2019s work is an invitation to play, to practice, to become proficient. Not to BE perfect, BE proficient, or HAVE the ideal thing instantaneously, but to create, step by step, day by day, and revel in the joy of this process and its results.<\/p>\n

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Sonya wears her designs so well! I find her combinations of colour, pattern, texture so joyous and inspiring. How can I drool over this endless source of inspiration, but then pull on the same jeans & tank top every day?! Well… because it is a long process, a daily or weekly practice, to go from boring shop-bought wardrobe to interesting hand-made wardrobe. And to be honest (and make my excuses!), my kids are 2 and 3.5, so life is only just now becoming a tiny bit easier!<\/p>\n

an interesting wardrobe for me<\/h2>\n

So there it is, a 30\u2019s life goal \u2026 making and wearing clothes that speak a little bit more of me, who I am, and what I love. I\u2019ll be starting with sweaters (naturally!), and moving from there. I made these swingy tank tops<\/a> last year, and I think I\u2019ll make a few more because they\u2019re what I really love to wear under my sweaters.<\/p>\n

To move beyond jeans, I think the sewing project that I need to \u2018nail\u2019 is trousers (I suppose that 7 years in Scotland means I’m converting from ‘pants’!)<\/em>. So I\u2019m hoping to find or develop a perfect pattern for a) high waisted wide leg trousers and b) slim trousers, like a jeans fit but made in other fabrics. Any suggestions for likely sewing patterns that might fit this bill? I\u2019ve got some great woollens collected to get started on\u2026<\/p>\n

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As for the sweaters I have planned\u2026 Well it\u2019s all about yokes for me for at least another year! I\u2019ve got A LOT of sweaters planned for me. In the past I\u2019ve had very few handmade sweaters for myself, but recently I acquired a hand operated knitting machine. I\u2019ll talk more about this useful tool in a future post, but suffice it to say that it\u2019s allowing me to complete<\/strong> some sweaters for my own wardrobe, something I have seldom had time for in the past few years.<\/p>\n

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A few initial concepts \/ colour explorations for the sweaters I have planned<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I may work on adding to my wardrobe in \u2018outfits\u2019; one sweater plus one pair of trousers. Conceptually, I don’t want to do a lot of different things, I want to take 2 or 3 basic patterns: our Strange Brew yoke sweater<\/a> recipe, and two styles of trousers, and work various iterations within these basic patterns. There are SO MANY ways I could do a yoke sweater, right?<\/p>\n

Here are a few of the recent yokes I’ve made, but this has only just whet my appetite for more!<\/p>\n

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And with one or two trouser styles, and a stack of different colours and textures I am sure I will be able to build a handmade wardrobe that I find both interesting and practical. Inspired by Sonya Philip’s iterative exploration of simple basics, I will work within the canvas that I’m loving (the yoke sweater), and practice; again and again.<\/p>\n

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Concept sketches of my new ‘uniform’ … let me tell you, yoke sweaters are featuring BIG in my imagination! And sexy trousers… and boots that go stompity stomp.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Neon… it goes with everything, right?!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This amazing green has been especially calling to me lately. Next year’s ‘Christmas Sweater’ is going to be this vivid ‘Vintage’ green with pinks and deeper greens at the yoke. I swear, I probably told everybody I met at EYF this year about this green sweater idea I was obsessed with… So after talking it up so much, it had better be good!<\/p>\n

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I just need to swatch to determine which pinks & greens to use through the yoke. Or maybe a little of all of them? The cone is Rennie’s Supersoft<\/a>, and the balls are from Jamieson & Smith<\/a>, Jamieson’s of Shetland<\/a>, and Rennies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Do you have grand master plans for a handmade wardrobe? Or to bring more of your personal style out through the clothes that you choose to buy?<\/p>\n

Tin Can Knits sweaters that make great wardrobe additions:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

\"Strange<\/a>\"Flax<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently I’ve realized that I am at a point in my life where many of my current projects require PRACTICE, repetition, and solid habits. Maybe its the theme of this decade (my 30\u2019s)?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2970212,"featured_media":9510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2622],"tags":[586603523,86439489,30314,82540465],"class_list":["post-9432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-story","tag-knit-wardrobe","tag-memademay","tag-sewing","tag-sonya-philip","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1z4ty-2s8","builder_content":"","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.tincanknits.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/20180508-img_5565-e.jpg?fit=1258%2C1800&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tincanknits.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tincanknits.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tincanknits.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tincanknits.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2970212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tincanknits.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9432"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tincanknits.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13137,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tincanknits.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9432\/revisions\/13137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tincanknits.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tincanknits.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tincanknits.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tincanknits.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}