It started when my good, serviceable, black shoes wore out. They weren’t anything special, but they went with lots of things, and they were easy and comfortable, and when it came to replacing them, I struggled. I have size 9 feet post-treatment (they used to be an eight) and I am old enough to care about things like Quality and Comfort (while avoiding Frumpiness) – which led to me looking at the most boring shoes ever made. Even a nun would have asked if there was something a little more exciting. And the shoes were £60. And I thought: No.
I needed flattish, blackish, go-with-lots-of-things shoes. What I bought – for considerably less that £60 – was these.
I’d never owned a pair of sneakers before, let alone sequinned ones. (For that sparkle and glisten, my friends, is made by sequins.) But these I adore. I was egged on by an evening I spent in the company of Lucinda Lambton and Shelley Harris. (It’s a long story.)
These are the only shoes I have ever owned that have been admired by all of the following: 9 year old niece, 12 year old niece, 16 year old daughter, mother, nonegenarian aunt, 7 year old godson, husband who usually prefers my shoes a little more starlety (as do I), gay Indian waiter, waitress in tea shop, old lady walking with the help of a Zimmer frame. And they have made me appreciate the power of the sequin.
I blame the shoes for the fact that I woke up one morning absolutely convinced that what I needed to knit next – never mind Christmas, never mind everything already on the needles – was a sequinned jumper. I went to my Yarn Enabler, lovely Kym of Treacle Wool Shop, with my requirements – sequinned yarn but no acrylic – and we came up with A Plan. The plan was lovely, smooshy, midnight blue merino yarn and a fine thread of sequins to hold alongside as I knitted. Genius.
I love the sweater. Can you tell?
If I turn up here saying I fancy some sequinned hot pants, though, someone needs to stop me.
(It’s a modified pattern. Details of the original are here.)