New Year, New DIY

DIY Rodarte-inspired cardigan, Six Six Sick ribbon top and ruff collar, hand-me-down vintage skirt from my mom, Triskaidekaphobia Necklace, H&M socks

I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions, but I figure that maybe if I write one down here, there will be a greater chance that I actually make good on it. I only have one resolution, that encompasses all the areas of my life. In 2011, I hope to be more proactive about getting things done, whether it's meeting deadlines, returning emails, invoicing clients, or just cleaning my house. I also want to make sure I finish all the projects I get started on, whether it's jewelry, blog, or DIY related. I am a master procrastinator, and even though I have the best intentions, I only end up completing half of what I set out to do.

I've started by getting my first DIY of the year done as quickly as possible. Since I always need more sweaters, I knit myself this Rodarte-inspired cardigan during the Christmas/New Year holidays. It only took me about a week, and involved watching plenty of good movies (Exit Through The Gift Shop, I'm Still Here, Toy Story 3) and bad TV (not telling). Although it's loose-knit, it's surprisingly warm. I plan to do a lot more knitting in the next few months (more scarves and cowls are definitely needed), so hopefully I will keep up the momentum to get them all done before the end of winter!

-Tiffany

Monsters Inc: DIY Rodarte-Inspired Looped Cardigan

DIY Sweater, Elizabeth and James tee, VPL bra, Carin Wester pants, Dieppa Restrepo brogues, Devaki hat, Slow and Steady Wins the Race Sunglasses and purse, Triskaidekaphobia necklace and ring.

So, I know I haven't put up a DIY in ages, but I kinda got hung up on one monster project that took me a lot longer than I could ever have anticipated. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know I have a thing for Rodarte, and have tried my hand DIYing their tights, dresses, and leggings. All of those projects went relatively quickly, taking no more than a few weeks max, so I thought I would take a chance and give the Rodarte hairy-looking looped cardigan a try. I went for a Where The Wild Things Are-inspired muddy color story, which felt appropriate for such a shaggy mess of a sweater. I knew it would be an ambitious undertaking, but I didn't expect to take me almost a year to finish.

Most of that year was a eight month long pause between last winter and this one, getting sick of the ridiculous project, and wondering why I was devoting so much time to something so fashion-jokey (I will be the first to admit that this sweater looks like a prop-piece from Zoolander). It took me less than a week to knit the body of the sweater, but the main bulk of the time was spent latch hooking the whole thing. Judging from the runway images, I made the mistake of thinking that the Rodarte sweaters were entirely latch hooked, and didn't realize until I saw them in person that their hairy texture is composed of a mix of loop-knitting and latch hooking. If I had figured this out before knitting the sweater body, I would probably have saved myself a lot of time. Latchooking seems easy, but when you're working with such bulky, chunky yarns, it actually is a huge pain in the ass.

Anyway, I'm not actually going to bother going through the DIY instructions for several reasons. First, I'm not going to delude myself into thinking that anyone else would want to make this, wear this, or look like this. I know that I'm probably the only person in Manhattan willing to be mistaken for an Asian-Amish vagabond (yes, I actually walked out dressed like this, and yes it did elicit a lot of funny looks). Second, even though I got every single scrap of material I used for free from my former job, it probably amounted to about $500 worth of yarn, which is a rather huge amount of money to drop on such a fashionably questionable project. Third, I never work with a pattern. If however, for some reason you would like to give it a try, or are working on something similar on your own, feel free to leave any questions in the comment section and I'll be happy to explain or clarify any of the steps I took.

Now that this nonsense is finished, I think I will get back to some lighter projects--maybe some more practical sweaters and scarves for winter that don't involve making yarn-dreadlocks. On the plus side, the monster sweater was a great way to get rid of scrap yarn, and I have to say--it's as crazy-warm as it is crazy-looking.

-Tiffany

Rodarte for Dudes

I'm in Maui for New Years, but I wanted to take a short break from the beach to post these pictures of the Rodarte's first foray into Men's wear, which just arrived at Opening Ceremony. They've taken their signature cobwebby knits, and made them into men's pullovers and cardigans, which actually look pretty unisex to me. In these pictures, taken from the Opening Ceremony website, they're modeled on our friend Sean, who you might recognize as the tattooed bod in the recent spate of McQ advertisements. I think they look quite awesome as a fishnet-like layer over all his tattoos, even though I doubt my own husband would wear them with quite as much panache (actually, he wouldn't wear them at all). It's also a reminder to get back to finishing my own Rodarte style sweater, which is half-way through being latch-hooked, and must be completed so I can start making one of these (for myself though, not for any boy).

-Tiffany

All In The Family

Laura Mulleavy, left, wearing some of her mother's charm necklaces.

I haven't written about Rodarte in a while, mainly because after my multiple Rodarte DIYs (knit tights, dress, and cutout leggings), I wouldn't be surprised if the Mulleavy sisters were to serve me with some kind of restraining order, a la Tyra Banks and her stalker. As if I couldn't be more of a creepy obsessed fan, I recently found out that Laura and Kate's artist mother, Victoria Mulleavy, is behind the Rodarte jewelry line. Even though much has been made of the incredible Rodarte collaboration with jewelry designers Mark Walsh and Leslie Chin for Fall 2009, there has been very little press on Mama Mulleavy's vintage Cracker Jack charm necklaces, which sell at Barneys and The Cooper Hewitt for around $1,100 each. Pricey, yes, but looking at her crafty work, you begin to see where Laura and Kate get their very DIY aesthetic from; neither of them are formally trained in fashion, and Victoria was the one to teach them how to sew. In turn, the girls chose to name the line after her maiden name. I don't think a sweeter family fashion story has ever been told...

Vintage Cracker Jack prize necklace.

Doll charm necklace (deer by someone else).

-Tiffany

When I Grow Up I Want To Look Like This

When I Grow Up from Fever Ray on Vimeo.

Ok, so I normally don't like to repost stories that I see on other people's blogs (I think it's laaaazy), but when I saw theses images from the Fever Ray video that Luce posted on Ink, I thought they were too beautiful not to share with everybody. In all honesty, Jimmy has been playing the new Fever Ray album on repeat for the past month, and I still haven't been able to get into it. While I think the songs are haunting and beautiful, Karin Dreijer Andersson's solo work just hasn't entranced me in the same way that The Knife does every single time I listen to them.  Nevertheless, Karin maintains the strong aesthetic vision set forward by The Knife,and  when I saw these images from the video for When I Grow Up, I was pretty blown away.  In particular, I can't get over Karin's outfit, which looks like a cross between Rodarte Fall 2008, and Ann-Sofie Back's Fall 2009 Exorcist inspired collection.  Today Christina and I were actually walking around the district looking for parts to make our own DIY dreamweaver skirts, inspired by Ms. Back, but maybe this is a better source of inspiration?  I don't know who designed this, or if it's just a costume piece made for Karin, but it's pretty incredible.  Watch the video!

Music video stills from When I Grow Up, courtesy of Ink.

Ann-Sofie Back Fall 09 from her website.

Rodarte Fall 08 from nymag.com.

-Tiffany

Go Hard Or Go Home: DIY Rodarte Dress

DIY Rodarte Dress and DIY Rodarte Leggings, worn with an American Apparel liquid-look black bra, Burberry boots and a Gerard Yosca necklace.

Even though I half-ass a lot of things in my life (dish washing, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping...), when it comes to work and creative projects I believe that if you're going to do something, you may as well do it right: go hard or go home.  The DIY Rodarte knit stockings and the DIY Rodarte diamond cut leggings that I made a while back were all just part of the buildup to making the Rodarte dress of that I've been dreaming of since it came down the runways of their Spring 09 show.  Here's how I did it.

What you need:

Size 10 circular knitting needles

Size 10 or medium sized crochet hook

Size 5 or small crochet hook

Yarn needle

5-10 different colored and textured mohair yarns of your choice, 1 skein each

Bits of metal chain

Metal Ring

1. This was one of the many original inspiration pieces that I wanted to base this dress off.  The best part about DIY is getting to really make the piece your own.  I didn't really like the colors of this particular dress, so I chose a darker blue and black palette with shocks of white, sparkling grey, pink and violet.  I already was lucky enough to have it all on hand (I got it for free from my old job as an Assistant Knitwear designer at Sweetface), since all of the mohair and angora knits that I used are actually very very expensive, which is part of the reason that the real Rodarte pieces are astronomically priced.


2. While the skirt of this dress is more tightly knit than my dress, I chose to go with the cobweb style loose/sloppy knit of their Fall 08 collection.  To make the skirt, I cast on 100 stitches, reducing 10 stitches every 5 rows until I had a total of approximately 25 rows, with the last row being 50 stitches, and tight enough to form a decent waistline.

3. This is where the dress gets very tricky to explain.  I chose to crochet the entire top half of the dress, using a large crochet hook.  I never follow any patterns, and always feel like it's the most intuitive to improvise it as I go along until I feel like it looks right.  The Rodarte dress lends itself to this kind of haphazard technique since it is meant to look a bit like a hodgepodge knit collage.  I had wanted to incorporate a chain at the waistband, like the original, but I couldn't find anything that satisfied me, so I chose to only use the metal ring and a small bit of chain, which I crocheted to the base of the dress.  I turned the skirt around, and added a crochet backbone section of sorts that extended from the waistband of the dress.

4. I crochet the top separately, starting with a circle for the base, and then crocheting the front and the back parts individually, whip stitching the shoulder lines together with a yarn needle.  I then took the two sections of crochet that I had attached to the skirt, and stitched them on to the front and the back of the crochet top.

5. To finish, I used the small crochet hook to crochet small wispy white strands around the ribcage area.

Sorry if this DIY is poorly explained and difficult to follow, but really most of it was improvised.  I'm happy to answer any questions or make any clarifications.  And if you do chose to make this and blog about it, please don't forget to give us credit!

-Tiffany

Counterfeit It: DIY Rodarte Diamond Cut Leggings

DIY Rodarte-style leggings, Coven sweater, Count Aapo Tee, Burberry booties, Antti Asplund cross necklace, Iosselliani ring.

So, after getting a headache from doing so much Rodarte knitting, I decided I would take a small "break" from my dress project, and make some diamond cut leggings, similar to the ones that they showed at their Spring 2009 show. Thinking that this would be a pretty easy project, since it's a no-sew, no-knit DIY, I grabbed my old American Apparel wetlook leggings, which were starting to look tired anyway, and decided to give them a makeover. While it was pretty easy, it was actually much more time consuming than I ever expected, and I would take knitting another couple of pairs of Rodarte tights over doing this project again. Just warning you. If you are interested in doing it, here's how.

What you need:

1 pair of wetlook leggings

shears (I suggest Gingher)

tailor's chalk

graph paper

*a lot of time (and preferably the Twin Peaks box set to keep you company)

*anal retentive attention to detail

Inspiration: The leggings from the Rodarte show, which I haven't actually seen in person, appear to be made of laser cut leather, with zippers up the back. They aren't actually full leggings, they're thigh highs that are held up with a garter. The pattern in the front is completely cut out in diamonds, and has the appearance of large fishnet.

Close up, you can see that the pattern become irregular at the back. I followed the same idea, cutting out the entire front section of the legging, while cutting diamonds selectively (but not arbitrarily) from the back. Also note that since the wetlook fabric is spandex, it will stretch a lot more than the leather.

1. I started by making a stencil for myself on graph paper, which approximated the size and pattern of the diamonds.

2. Carefully, I cut out each of the diamonds.

3. I turned the leggings inside out, and placed the stencil on top of it. Using tailor's chalk, I transfered the pattern onto the legging, starting first with a couple of rows. I proceeded to carefully cut out the diamonds, starting at the tip of a diamond and making a tiny V shaped incision with the scissors, and then cutting around. Try to keep the lines clean, and straight! When I finished, I repeated the step, being very careful to line up the stencil with my previous cut-outs to ensure a uniform pattern. Continue this step until you reach the bottom of the leg. Do the other leg.

4. For the back of the legging, I used the stencil to design a more random pattern. I also made sure that I cut some random diamonds down the side of the leg, to avoid having a long continuous line of unbroken black fabric.

Anyway, this is kind of a massive pain in the ass project, and if you do it, don't be surprised if you find yourself thinking "F***, I'd rather be knitting/blogging/making out" so I advise you to do it bit by bit. I completed this pair after working on it a little bit every day for a week.

-Tiffany

Rodarte's Anti-IT Bag

Yesterday, Nicollette gave me a very belated Christmas present, an eco-tote bag bearing an original Rodarte fashion illustration on it, that she bought when she was working at the Paper Magazine 24 hour store in L.A. last fall.  Apparently Rodarte was one of the many supercool vendors to partake in this very special retail events, but instead of selling their pricey pieces, they set up a booth that exclusively sold these shopping totes, each with a different sketch on it.  Nicollette snapped up one for herself, one for Christina, and one for me, each bearing a girl who most resembled our individual styles.  My lady naturally sports a hot pink, one-shouldered flouncing number with an exposed bra.  My Rodarte obsession probably can't get any worse at this point, but this is probably the closest I will get to owning an actual Rodarte rather than spending hours making my DIY craftacular versions.  And since Rodarte haven't launched any proper bag line, this little number is kind of a DIY one-off of their own, an Anti-IT bag if you will...Material wise it might be the antithesis of a luxury leather handbag.  Still it remains extremely rare, and bears the clear personal touch of the designer, and that's what matters the most to me.

-Tiffany