Vogue Knitting Live Seattle/Bellevue Fashion Shows

Hello:

Round 4 of Sock Madness still has not started, and I thought I had better get in a few posts as soon as possible since it is overdue and once it begins, I will be all socks, all the time.  I was not able to finish my posts about Vogue Knitting Live, Seattle Bellevue because of the last Round, so this post will be about my day 2 at the event.

Saturday at Vogue Knitting Live, I was assigned to help during the free fashion shows that ran in the afternoon on the stage in the Market.  This was a super fun volunteer position, and I would love to do this again.

We met in the back stage area 30 minutes before the first show.  The models were there (they used professional local models), getting their hair and make up done.

They had four  "shows" scheduled for the afternoon, so all of the knitwear was organized on racks and in bags by show around the back area.

Everything was numbered in the order it would appear in each show.  There were 8 models and 8 dressers. We each had a model to dress and undress.  Here is my model:

The models were given black leggings and simple long sleeve black T-shirts to wear under the knitwear, as well as freaky high-heeled black shoes.

The first show was "Laura Bryant & Prism Friends."  The clothes were just amazing.  They were all from the new book, Artful Color, Mindful Knits, by Laura Bryant and featured Prism Yarns.

There were so many things that I found funny/interesting about these fashion shows that have to do with the fact that they featured not only knits, but hand knits that were made to sell a pattern and the yarn - not the clothes themselves.  Mostly, the announcers for each, Laura Bryant announced her show, focused a lot on the yarn used, and how the patterns are able to be sized, etc, and the skill levels needed to make them.  It seemed so different from what I imagine a normal fashion show patter would be.

The knitwear was simply amazing. Each model had at least 3 changes, so we got them in their first runway items, then prepped the 2nd, ready to strip them down to the blacks, re-dress them, put away the first items, prep the 3rd, as quickly as possible.  The speed was not so necessary as the models walked up and down and up and down and up and down the short runway while Laura described the stitches, dye process, etc., but I discovered at the end, that I could slip out and watch the show in between changes if I was fast.

We dressed the models in the first items, and the reaction backstage was so funny.  The girls hadn't really understood what they would be modeling.  Their jaws dropped at the gorgeous knits.  The hair and makeup crew stared in amazement.

One of them said, "I need to learn how to knit." It was dark and a bit frantic for the first show, so I didn't get good photos, but I managed to run out for my model's last run and get a few runway shots.

It was so cool how the patterns were really made to use the specific yarn color repeats in such an artful way.  This is one more runway photo of a different model.  Sorry it is so bad, but I had to give you one more look at another piece from this collection.

In between the 2 shows where I was assigned to dress models, there was a quick fashion show of Steampunk knitwear from Needles and Artifice by the Ladies of Mischief.   As far as I could tell, they were modeling their own designs, or had friends doing the modeling.

The show stopper for this collection was the Null Hypothesis Scarf by Katrina Elsaesser.  It is double knit with no pattern repeats for the entire scarf.

The next show featured Koigu yarns and designs from Koigu Magazines.

This show had some blankets.  Yes, the models just wore blankets wrapped around themselves.  There also were pants and a few skirts.  In the photo above, #5 is pants.

As in the first collection, the clothes were designed to showcase the yarns.

The shows were a huge success and from what I could see in the limited time I spent running out to take photos while not undressing/dressing my model, everyone loved them.  Honestly, I heard gasps from the audience as some of the knitwear appeared, and people saying things like, "I really want to knit THAT."

I think that if I were planning a knitting convention, I would try to have some type of fashion show.  Even the steampunk show, which did not feature professional models, was really fun to watch.

I am still knitting the never ending legs of the Braveheart socks.  I am a bit more than half way finished with the pattern part.

For normal socks, I would be finished, and ready for the ribbed cuffs, but since the Doc likes longer legs, I still have at least 1 or 2 days of knitting ahead of me on these.

I should never have knit the first pair of socks I made for him to 9 inches.  He would have thought 7 inches was fine...

O, well. I took a break yesterday to knit up some swatches for the Eastside Knitters Guild meeting tonight.  There will be a lesson on shoulder seaming, and I had to knit 8 small swatches for the class.  They are soaking right now, and I need to block them so they will be dry in time.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the world with 4 inches of legs.