One of the parts of my contract with Dallas-Ft. Worth Fiberfest was that I had to have a contribution to the Friday night fashion show. Some of you who have been following my blog for a while have seen my hints at the project I developed.

I knit a pair of over-the-knee legwarmers, inspired by Turkish sock colorwork. There are 13 colors of yarn: four turquoises, four hot pinks, three hot greens, a yellow and a purple. There is wool, angora, silk and cotton. Turkish knitters mix it up and you get a much more rich look than if a piece is matchy-matchy with the same brand/texture of yarn. I love this depth.

I also brought my self-portrait for show. I’m proud of the piece and folks seem genuinely interested in it. I’m glad I brought it, especially since Margo Lynn, my contact, said she was hoping I’d bring it.

For the record, the shawl is my Perfect Hug Shawl in the Goddess size, knit with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Astrakhan which is a soft boucle, held together with Louisa Harding Impressions kid mohair/polyamid ribbon yarn. Because it is many sizes too large for me, I could wrap it around me in sort of a Stevie Nicks fashion, which made it dramatic for the fashion show… yet because it was pink like my unitard, it didn’t distract from the legwarmers or the self-portrait, which were the focus of my presentation.

I have a lot of photos of the garments/people in the fashion show but no time to post them all right now. At least you can see the two pieces I entered. Yes, I’m sure I looked this wild in the photo of me with the self portrait. I did my best to be a good model and stand still a while in a few key spots. In reality, poor Molly was using my slow old camera to take these photos and I was definitely a moving target. I’m still a toddler when it comes to keeping still! I like to think that’s related to my artful passion for life or something, yadda, yadda. It sounds good, anyway!