A Hand Knit Wedding

Last Sunday my friends Rachel and Solumon were married on Columbia Square in Savannah, in front of a fountain gushing green-dyed water for St. Patrick’s Day and among several dozen friends and family ~ many of whom were dressed or wrapped in hand-knit items. 

Rachel was the star, of course, and her delicate lace veil-turned-shawl ~ knit by the multi-talented Kristen of our stitching group ~ was the showstopper of the day. 

  

About a month ago, after Rachel caught sight of Kristen’s work on the lace piece and admired it, the rest of us got together and raised money to buy it for Rachel’s veil.  As you can see, Rachel was delighted to wear the piece, and it really made her wedding ensemble.  Bravo, Kristen!

But Rachel wasn’t the only one rocking a hand-knit.  With the weather unseasonably nippy, we all hauled out our wraps and sweaters (yay! It’s often too warm here to wear anything knitted), and some even borrowed others’ creations to ward off the chill.  I wore my new ‘Grey Gardens’ wrap (down below in the previous post), and several other gals, such as Sarah (below right) wore the colorful and imaginative creations of Tracy (left).

  

Kate (above right), also wearing one of Tracy’s wraps, took many of these pictures (the good ones).  Aren’t all these women gorgeous?  Brooke, Julia and Penny (l-r, below) didn’t wear their hand-knits, but they look so good I had to put them in anyway.  Besides, Julia did all the flowers and decorations for Rachel, and they were wonderful.

Now, here’s one of my favorite pictures, of Sandy (left) and Jennifer walking home from the wedding.  I swear ~ if I didn’t know better I’d say they were somewhere in Central America on the way to sell their handmade goods at market.  Sandy’s is a many-colored woolen wrap, and Jennifer is wearing a piece she hand-spun, hand-dyed, knitted and trimmed with three charming tiny bells on the bottom of that center back jagged edge.  As a matter of fact, Jennifer ~ our fearless LYS leader ~ surprised us all by wearing not one but two of her own creations, the luscious pink angora shell she has on in the picture on the right.

   

Not to forget the gifts Rachel made for her bridesmaids, these pretty sky blue felted buttonhole bags.

It was a lovely wedding on a beautiful day.  Thank you, Rachel and Solumon, for inviting us and sharing this most special occasion with us. 

AND TO THINK, THE FIRST JOB I EVER HAD IN JOURNALISM WAS WRITING UP WEDDINGS!  SOME THINGS YOU JUST NEVER FORGET.

Anthropologie & Urban Outfitters ‘@home’ in Savannah

My friend Liz Demos, the creative talent behind one of Savannah’s most wonderful shops, @home, has confirmed in her blog that Urban Outfitters has signed a lease for more than 11,000 square feet of retail space in downtown Savannah. Now, won’t that just satisfy my shopping jones?  Poor me ~ I got a daughter whose idea of a cute outfit is her school uniform and who thinks Urban Outfitters makes clothes for “weird” people.  So I dream on their website of all the trendy get-ups I would put her in … if I could.  Now I can actually go into the store and dream.

Meanwhile, Anthropologie has already hit Savannah … without telling me! Last night I was browsing through the new catalog when something hit me. There was something ~ what was it? ~ very familiar about those pictures. Then I saw the names of some of the clothing … Forsyth Park Cardigan, Wormsloe Sweater Coat, Savannah Blouse, Monterey Stripe Surplice, Broughton Blouse. Now, if you’ve visited Savannah, those names don’t have to be explained, but if you haven’t, they’re names of prominent sites in Savannah that have been borrowed to go with the backgrounds of the pictures. If Anthropologie would let me download a photo I would, but they’ve got that site locked up tight, so just go thumb through the online catalog and you can get a glimpse of this wonderful, beautiful place I love live.  Where this afternoon, by the way, at the crack of February, it was 67.4 degrees outside my kitchen window and the magnolias were budding on my neighbor’s tree.

So I’ve been messing with some felting and hand-sewing this week and have come up with a little pet-lover’s tutorial ~ a way of making your own cute beaded or otherwise embellished and felted pet collars.  Check out the free tutorial in pdf download on a separate page.