The Purl Report: Raffia Rules
Plus: The Barcelona bag report, knitting with beads, and a rare Rowan sale.
Greetings from Printemps, the new-ish department store on Wall Street with the best little café in the neighborhood, Salon Verts. For the price of a $20 Caesar salad, I have access to a table with a view of Broadway and the spring ‘26 collections, plus the nicest public restrooms in FiDi.
I’m back in the city after a week in Barcelona, which I spent shopping, sunning, and knitting—an itinerary that’s not too dissimilar from how I spend my days Stateside. It felt revolutionary and restorative nonetheless.
Today’s dispatch is a bit meatier than usual, and includes the updates I’d meant to send last week during my downtime. (Turns out I’d grossly underestimated the amount of naps I’d require to beat back the jet lag.) Tonight I’ll be watching our shockingly decent men’s national team in the World Cup as they take on Bosnia/Herzegovina in the first knockout round of the tournament. The plan is to have a wine glass in one hand my latest WIP in the other. They say knitting is good for stress…
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The Purl Report: July 1
Welcome to the Purl Report, a weekly digest of knitting and fashion news.
News
Rowan is offering up to 60% off select yarns, including this alpaca/cotton blend that’s perfect for late summer projects, as well as select colors of their famous Kidsilk Haze, which I wish I’d seen before embarking on my latest WIP.
Louise Trotter of My Favourite Things Knitwear has released a brand new pattern, Blouse No. 5. The mockneck cardigan falls in line with the Billions of Buttons trend you’ve seen all over Pinterest. While visually pleasing, the trend is kind of a pain from a purely practical point of view. Blouse No. 5 is also spiritually similar to the viral Silhouette Top by Lykkegaard Knit which I butchered pretty terribly thanks to an incorrect gauge (my fault) as well as a couple now-corrected mistakes in the pattern (not my fault).
Michelle Obama wore Kallmeyer on the cover of People magazine, a fact which Feed Me’s Emily Sundberg pointed out last week alongside a quote from Mattie Khan’s 2023 Marie Claire profile of the designer: “It’s about a feeling, not about a look. The idea of being squeezed into a cupless bustier or a pant with a tiny waist or clothes that you can’t sit comfortably in and talk to your friends in without adjusting—that is a feeling that I never wanted to replicate.” I think a lot about the difference between male and female designers who are designing for women, and this quote pretty much sums up my thesis. It’s about the feeling you have while living in the clothes, not simply wearing them.
Trends—Barcelona Bags Edition!
Everywhere I looked in Barcelona, women carried bags that were woven, knitted, netted, and crocheted. Some were beaded and some threaded with sequins, however most appeared to be made of raffia or some other crinkly, straw-like fiber, like dried palm leaves, and featured supple leather handles—a Spanish specialty. According to various Parisian trend-spotting Instagram accounts, these bags are also a must-have across the border in France, too. That tracks, considering every luxury store at Charles de Gaulle, where we had a two-hour layover, was selling some version of a straw tote. A quick Etsy search turned up dozens and dozens of pattern options, but these are some of my favorites: this oval-based tote pattern, which reminds me of this Loewe basket bag ($1,150); this simplistic tote, which mimics the shape of the Miu Miu woven tote ($1,950) collection; this Japanese knot bag, which has the same vibe as this Lauren Manoogian net bag ($510); and finally, a classic rectangular tote that’s a great dupe for the Khaite Zoe bag ($1,580).
I didn’t end up purchasing any bags in Barcelona, but if I had it would have been this beaded tote from the Spanish brand Cordera (€499), which is handmade in collaboration with artisans in Latin America. I’ve recently come across some “knitting with beads” tutorials on Instagram, so perhaps a dupe is in my future?
WIPs
My plane project for the 8-hour flight to BCN was the Aura top by Rows, a.k.a. my attempt at the Khaite Wendy sweater I can’t stop talking about. I purchased a three skeins of Knitting for Olive silk mohair in the color Green Woodpecker. I’ve been obsessed with this intense mossy green lately, a fact I became aware of when my boyfriend pointed out that my nails, my phone wallpaper, and the top I purchased at a market in Barcelona were all the exact same shade or chartreuse. At least I’m consistent!
Progress on the Aura top by Rows and evidence of my chartreuse obsession. (Yes, that is the Sagrada Familia in the distance!) I also purchased two skeins of a black cotton and alpaca blend (Illimani Sabri in Black 31) for my next project, the Rows Scribble top. I was so impressed by the clarity of the Aura top pattern I decided what the hell, let’s get both. I’m hoping to cast off both projects before my late July trip to Paris. Stay tuned
Culture Corner
What I’m watching and listening to while knitting.
Mary H.K. Choi’s Pool House is my latest knit-along audio book. As reviewers across the Substack-verse have attested, Choi writes brilliantly about designer clothing and the kinds of people who wear them. Her study of fashion reminds me of another book I finished on vacation, The Coin by Yasmin Zaher. Like Choi, Zaher understands not just the designer aesthetics, but the psyche of their customers. Who buys The Row, and what are they trying to tell the world? It’s shocking how effectively you can communicate a character’s inner world with a description of their closet.
My favorite music critic, the New Yorker’s Amanda Petrusich, wrote a raw and fascinating essay on grief following the sudden death of her husband in 2022. Petrusich focuses part of the essay on EMDR therapy, which got me thinking about the potential healing powers of knitting. Like the “eye movement” component of EMDR, knitting is also a form of bilateral stimulation. This is just a theory, but it seems to be working for this grief-centered knitting group in Brooklyn.
I’m three episodes into season one of Sugar, AppleTV’s wacky noir mystery series starring Colin Farrell, and I’m hooked. It’s strange and beautiful and intensely watchable—a completely unexpected entry into the Rich-People-Behaving-Badly-Murder-Mystery genre spawned in the wake of The White Lotus. Season two premiered on June 19, so I’ll be speeding through the rest of the episodes of season one to catch up. Unfortunately, Sugar warrants your undivided attention, so knit along at your own risk.
I couldn’t help myself, I watched Every Year After on Amazon Prime. Compared to Off Campus, Prime’s other bingeable young-adult romance series, Every Year After is positively G-rated—and suffers for it. If you’re not going to give me a sex scene, at least give me some palpable sexual tension! It doesn’t help that male love interest is rage bait in human form. Though it had promise early on, this one’s definitely a pass.