Back on track...

This is where most of my attention has been this month:




It's a little hard to tell from the sketch (apologies for my inability to draw 3-D images), but this is a sleeveless, backwards cowl I'm designing. The yarn is the Jaeger Java that my mom got me in Hong Kong (it's now discontinued but for anyone curious, she found it at Nathan Woollen). I haven't been able to find any info on it aside from what's on the ball band (silk/acrylic/rayon). It has a nice sheen, and I thought it would be nice as a summery top with some sort of drapey element. However due to my lack of, erm, curves, cowl necks don't look very good on me. I've always like tops and dresses that used modest fronts and interesting backs, though. Plus I was a fan of Daniel V's 13th design (the cashmere cowl dress) on Project Runway.

I'm hoping to achieve a similar double layer look like Daniel's dress, but I'm not really sure the best way to go about it. I have a couple ideas that I'm going to try out. The hardest is how to make the layered cowl without adding width to the shoulders. I want the neck to be a little on the wide side so I'm thinking the edges of the cowl (where they meet the shoulders) will end up being the shoulder edges as well. So at some point, I just need to gradually decrease as I get higher to get the width I prefer.