Catching Up With Sewing Projects

I knew there were a couple of dresses that I had not shown here, but going through photos I found two other sewing projects that also I had not talked about.

Firstly the two dresses; both made for my granddaughter. I am really pleased by the first one as I drafted the pattern myself. I could not find a pattern in this style, so I measured a shop bought dress of hers and made my own pattern. I wasn’t sure how to work the neckband but found an example in a book I got at the library.



The second dress, she chose the fabric herself and I found a simple commercial pattern. Unfortunately, the fabric has shrunk so much in length in the washing process, it is now worn as a nightie.



Which brings me to the next make – which is a nightie. I was given the fabric, and it seemed suitable for nightwear. It is hard to fins commercial patterns that are not overly frilly. This was the least I could find. I didn’t have quite enough fabric but that did not matter as she is not very tall. She loves this and I can see myself making another.



And finally something for myself – a bag. My sister gave me a fat quarter for my birthday last year. I knew it would become a bag, but which style? Finally I opted for my standard drawstring bag but using as much of the fabric as possible. (Note to self – next time make bag a bit wider.)

A Little Stash Enhancement

I have purchased very little yarn this year. Partly because I don’t NEED yarn, but also, because I am enjoying knitting with what I have. Quite a few of my skeins are earmarked for specific projects. Earlier in the year I bought a skein of yarn in an online sale to go with yarn already in my stash which will become a big shawl. And in March I purchased yarn to make a jacket for my granddaughter; which has been knitted and worn. Including a couple of gifts and the yarn I sold, up until a few days ago, more skeins had left my stash than gone in.

So what happened? A closing down sale. A yarn store is closing its doors after many years in business. Although this is sad, I don’t think it will have much of an impact on me as I didn’t frequent them often. But they did carry the brand of needles I like. I had no plans to go to the sale but on Friday I had a number of errands to run and happened to drive past the store. Why not pop in and see what is left?

So yes, I bought some yarn. I could have spent a long time looking at yarn and patterns on Ravelry but I was conscious that later in the year is Stitches SoCal and I want to save some enthusiasm for that event. I bought 6 skeins of yarn and some needle tips. Only one skein do I not have a plan for – the grey sparkle sock yarn. Grey is a good neutral to have in my stash. The skein on the far left is more turquoise than the photo shows and is to go with two other yarns in my stash for a specific project; the two blue skeins are for a specific project. The gradients follow on from each other and I have an idea of the pattern I will use, but it is not definite.




I am pleased with what I got as it is not too overwhelming and I will enjoy making things with it.

A Tale of Two Appias.

I like lacey cowls that cover my shoulders as evidenced by the two Starshowers I have made. As seen here and here.

So it’s no surprise that I wanted to make another with this yarn that I bought on the LA Yarn Crawl last year.

But I decided to change it up a bit and purchased another of the designer’s pattern – Appia. I swatched on three different size needles and worked the project on size 4mm needles. (I had worked the two Starshowers on size 5mm needles.)

I really like the final project.



Of course, I had to make another one and used yarn that had been in my stash since July 2017 but I couldn’t think what to turn it into.


I decided it would be my vacation project and that I would use 5mm needles. Except I messed up when packing my needles and didn’t have any 5mm needles with me. Rather than going down to 4.5mm I worked the project on 5.5mm needles. I don’t like the end result and wonder if it would have been better made on smaller needles. Here’s a picture of the two Appias side-by-side and you can see that the new one does not have any drape.



I had not sewn in the ends so I have started a new project right from the end of the old one.

A New Photo of an Old Project

I finished this shawl in March 2017 but I have not shown a good photo of it. The main reason being that I have not worn it. A couple of reasons for this - firstly when I finished it, I really needed a break from it. I had not enjoyed the knitting of it although I liked the finished item. Secondly - I needed an occasion to wear it. It is a large but delicate shawl.

That opportunity arose last week and my friend quickly took photos before she had to rush off. (There was plenty of standing around at the event I was at but I was too embarrassed to ask anyone else to take a photo.)

A Finished Item

It's been awhile since I've posted anything, not because I haven't had anything to say but because there is too much I want to write about. So rather than spending the time finishing and editing a post I'm going to show a finished item.

I showed this project in January last year. At that time it had been put to one side and that's where it remained for many months. I even considered frogging it but that wouldn't solve the problem of what to do with the yarn. In the end I decided to finish it by the end of the year which I did - 31 December to be exact. And then took a couple of weeks to sew on buttons, and nearly five months to take a photo.

Having a visitor that could deliver it to my great-niece in England was the final push I needed.



The yarn is Beach Baby DK by Wendy and the pattern is Patty Cake Cardi.

Gnometastic

I finished this project last week and would have shown it then if I hadn’t been trying to think of a catchy title.

Today I have two finished items to show. Firstly the gnome. Here he is enjoying the sunshine.



After a pretty crappy winter we are back to sun and warmth. This was an easy mystery-knit-along to keep up with and I was able to use all left over yarns. I had picked out my colours before the pattern was released but changed my mind about the beard colour when we knit a leaf on the end of the hat. All the knitting was finished by 26 March but it took me a week to sew on the features. I was concerned that the beard was a bit too long and was thinking about reknitting it on a smaller needle. In the end I kept it and am happy with it.

The other finished item are some fingerless mitts which were supposed to be a hat! It had already been cast on twice as a hat but I wasn’t feeling the love and went for mitts. I am glad that I did as I like the finished project. Although having said that, I would put the buttonholes closer to the edge, I would make the edges the same stitch (the buttonhole band is moss stitch and the button band is rib so the gauge is different) and I would have the cable pattern on the back of the mitts rather than close to the buttons. Despite all that I like them. I took them with me when I purchased buttons but still managed to buy slightly too small buttons so I sewed down the inside edge of the button band. After all I couldn’t see myself undoing and doing up the buttons.



The pattern is Zeppelin Mitts and the pattern for the gnome is Gnome-de-Plume.

I’m still working away on the cardigan for my granddaughter. The collar is taking forever but I need to hurry up and finish the whole thing before the weather is too warm.

Baby Quilt

I have finished the quilt for my nephew’s (unborn) baby.) I have not shown any photos of it in progress so before I show the finished project – a few works in progress. I used this pattern. I have made this quilt before for my other nephew’s second baby but I finished that one in a different way and used much different fabric. (Although two of the squares crept into this blanket because I thought I needed two more.)

I do not have any photos of the strips before they were cut but here is the final layout before and after sewing.



As there are so many colours and designs I added a narrow border (1/2 inch finished) before deciding on what I wanted as a wide border. But once I added that narrow border I knew it did not need anything else. You’ll have to make do with a photo of the quilt laid on the backing.



I used the same fabric for the binding so as to not detract from the quilt. Here’s a photo of an uh oh moment. I had plenty of binding so how did this happen?



I trimmed both ends 2 ½ inches from where sewing started and stopped. So I unpicked the start and end of the binding for a few inches and sewed the cut binding back on, good thing I had plenty, and then finished properly. But when I had sewn the binding onto the front I had another hmm moment. This is a baby quilt, how much use and washing will it get? I don’t really want to hand sew the binding I should have machined the binding to the back and then machined from the front. Which I have never done by the way, hence not thinking about it. I used Wash Away Wonder Tape to attach the binding to the back before machining and then gave it a quick rinse in the washing machine to remove the tape. The quilting is simple straight line quilting on the inside of the long pieces of each block and after completing the binding I added straight line quilting on all the outside blocks.

I am really pleased with the finished quilt. All the fabric is from stash including the backing which was enough to join two pieces down the length.

Baby Clothes

I have finished and photographed the projects I have knitted for the soon to be born baby. But still haven’t finished the quilt. As we do not know the sex of the baby, I used navy blue and teal as well as off white. All the yarn was in my stash, even the ribbon but I did have to buy buttons for both the cardigans. I have made the bootie pattern a number of times but both hat patterns and cardigan patterns were new to me.

In no particular order here are the items that will soon be flying across the pond.



The pattern is Lara's Version of Stay-On Booties and the yarn is Wendy Beach Baby DK left over from a crochet project.



The pattern is Little Greenup and the yarn is Vanna’s Choice. Taiga Hillard has many simple and similar baby patterns available on Ravelry. I had made a couple for this baby’s sibling but wanted to make something different.



This pattern is Baby Sophisticate and I have thought about making it for a while. The yarn is Red Heart Soft. I like the shawl collar design but I don’t think this is the best pattern to achieve that.

I like making baby hats but I wasn’t sure how much they would be worn as this baby will be born in Spring. So I made the Magic Hat as it is designed to stretch. Having made one hat, I had to make another so I made Quick Ombre Hat. I love this pattern and will make it again for a different baby.



While knitting all these baby things, my mind was wanting to make something for my own granddaughter, so some yarn was ordered and there was yet another cast on on Friday.

Some More Cast Ons

You would have thought that after working so hard to finish a load of projects at the end of last year and into this year and not working on existing projects so that I could knit some baby clothes that I would be holding back on starting new projects. But no!

Somehow I have managed to cast on three projects this week.

This year I wanted to make a concerted effort at using yarn that I had been given but had put this off to make the baby clothes. I started with the yarn that I knew what I wanted to make from it (or so I thought), I even had set up a project bag with yarn, pattern and needles for when I was ready. Except I changed my mind a few rows in. I started the Speargrass hat pattern as I had heard people say that it was a good pattern for handspun yarn. I had less yardage than called for in the pattern but wasn’t too worried as I would make the hat less slouchy. I wasn’t worried about yardage up until I cast on. And then I became more convinced that I would run out of yarn before finishing the hat. So I pulled it out and started One Night Hat. I’m much happier with this pattern, although by the time I finish it, it will not be hat wearing weather.



The next cast on was a mystery knit along that started on Monday. There was a big lead up from announcement to start of the MKAL. As you can probably tell from reading this blog, I do like mystery knit alongs. This one is for a gnome! And I can use left overs. This is the first clue which is part of a hat.



These are the yarns I am going to use. The pink is for the hat and the purply is for the body and one of the other two colours will be the beard.



I am not concerned about this MKAL. There are many, many people taking part, it’s a small project using leftover yarn, the designer has already published other gnome patterns.

The final cast on was for Pi day. I didn’t have a Pi day project last year but was keen this year as I had pattern and yarn. The yarn is a merino/silk blend that I purchased on the LA yarn crawl last year and the pattern is Evenstar. This is the start.



So once again I have way too many WIPs but I like seeing all the lovely yarn on the needles.

And Here’s The Knitting

I’ve finally got a photo of my finished Advent project. This is the project that three of us were working on in December and none of us finished in that month. I’m really pleased with the result – it’s big as you can see. I used three complete skeins of yarn. The lilac is Candy Skein Yummy Fingering in Lavender Latte, the colour of the month for April 2018; the other two colours were specially designed for the Tits Out Collective, the dark is by Earl Grey Fiber Co. and the light is by Queen of Purls.

And Sewing It Is

Because it is easier for me to take pictures of small flat objects. Here are the last two blocks for my block of the month.

First is December’s.



The only reason this didn’t get made in that month was that I ran out of time. The green is from the fat quarter I bought to make March’s square. It seemed excessive at the time to buy a whole fat quarter for a small requirement but it has been used in many of the blocks. The yellow is from the fabric I purchased for August’s square. All the other fabric is left overs from various projects.

September’s square was delayed as I could not make a decision about which fabric to use. There are small amounts of six different fabrics; the example used plain and print fabrics. I have plenty of prints but hardly any plain fabric but I did not want to buy more fabric as such small amounts were required. In the end I went with a background fabric that showed quite a bit of white.



The theme for December was half square triangles and for September was corner square triangles.

Now I have finished the squares, what to do with them? They are all different sizes ranging from 6 inch square to 13 inch square and some are rectangles. The first thing to do is make them all the same size, so I purchased some plain colour fabric in Jo-Ann’s sale. I had worked out how much I needed and then rounded up to the next yard to allow for any mistakes. The cutting is something I will want to do when I am not going to be interrupted! When I have twelve squares all the same size I can decide on sashing and borders.

Knitting or Sewing?

This is just an interlude until the next post containing photos. Which may be sewing projects or knitting projects as I have finished examples of both.

I have finished the two remaining blocks of my block-a-month project. Now they need to become a quilt. I have some ideas but no fabric, in the meantime I should finish the dress I am making for my granddaughter and the quilt for my nephew’s soon-to-be-baby. I have finished the top and have fabric in my stash for backing and plenty of batting. All that’s missing is the time to do it.

On the knitting front I have finished the Advent shawl that three of us decided to have as our little KAL. I would have finished on time if I hadn’t made it bigger. But now it is waiting for some decent pictures and as our weather is the opposite of decent I don’t know when that will happen. Also I have made a cardigan for the aforementioned baby, it needs buttons so no photos yet.

Despite the recent finished objects my WIPs don’t seem to be going down as I cast on a new project this week. Socks! Yes, everyone was surprised. My last finished pair was 24 December 2016 – Christmas socks for my husband. I did cast on a sock at the beginning of January 2017 but only got as far as the cuff before deciding yarn and pattern did not work together and haven't started any since.

E decided to knit Monkey socks. In the spirit of camaraderie, P and I decided we would knit them too although I have already knit a pair. P has finished hers and E wants to take her time. A quick look at my original project page showed I had started them on 10 February 2008, so the same day but this year seemed an obvious choice and plenty of time to choose (i.e. keep changing my mind) yarn. I thought about frogging the Hitchhiker, but I have plenty of yarn in my stash, so why use that now; then I thought about some yarn E had given me as that seemed appropriate; but I finally chose a dark red tweed yarn and love it. Despite implying at the beginning that there wouldn’t be any photos, this is my progress to date.

A Big One and A Small One

Two projects finished in January - one of my Advent projects and a quick little project for my Granddaughter.

The Advent project finished is the Advent to Epiphany, which I would have finished on time if I had bound off at the end of the pattern. But I had yarn left over and as it was gradient yarn I wanted to use all of it. The shawl was knit in sections of garter stitch and lace, with all the garter sections having the same number of rows and all the lace sections having the same number of rows. The shawl ended with a garter stitch section so I decided to just repeat that but that didn’t use up all the yarn. I pulled out the extra rows and added a lace section. The lace sections had all been a different pattern so I searched my stitch pattern books for a pattern that would fit in with the others and be the right number of rows. This used up most of the yarn and I finished with a few rows of garter stitch before binding off with an Icelandic bind off.

The pattern is Combinatorics by Tetiana Otruta and the yarn is from Alexandra's Crafts that I purchased at Stitches SoCal.

This thing is big!



The other two Advent cast ons are still being worked on. I am managing to work a few rows of the lace mystery nearly every day and the other one would have been finished if I hadn’t decided to use up all the yarn – such a theme of mine.


One day, walking to school, my granddaughter declared that she needed gloves and I could make her some. When I asked her what colour, of course she said pink. I knew I had yarn in stash and it would be a quick project it was a matter of finding time. Ann Budd’s Handy Book of Patterns came in, well, handy. The yarn I used was fingering weight, left over from these socks.

I doubled the yarn which meant few stitches. What a pain. I didn’t have any double pointed needles in the right size but did end up using two circulars. The reaction was worth it.

My Last Block Isn’t The Last Block

This week I sewed January’s block. As I started the blocks last February, this should have been the last one but I still have two more to make. December’s, because I just ran out of time and September’s because I couldn’t make a decision on the fabric.

The technique for this block is corner square triangles and I thought it would take a while to make as I had to cut nine white squares and 18 of each of the other two colours. But it did not take long at all and I made the square in between sewing squares for a baby blanket. All the fabric was in stash which made me happy. Now, to make the two missing blocks.

Social Media Influencers

I first heard this term when a friend doing a photo shoot, bumped into someone else also doing a photo shoot and she called the other person a Social Influencer. I thought that was strange and just for the young people because they wanted to have the latest and greatest. But in researching for this post, (ha, I Googled Social Media Influencer) I came across this definition –

A Social Media Influencer is a user on social media who has established credibility in a specific industry. A social media influencer has access to a large audience and can persuade others by virtue of their authenticity and reach.

The source is pixlee.com because that’s what came up in the side bar of Google; I know nothing about the company and did not open the website.

I like that it says established credibility in a specific industry because that is my subject for today, as I was set to think about a comment I saw this week (not aimed at me) which was “as an influencer in the knitting community, you should be careful what you write”. I did a double take; an influencer in knitting? I have written about fan girls and how certain designers can do no wrong but someone in the community who influences what knitters do?

But thinking more about this; I don’t buy or make something just because someone else has but I do buy/make/read/watch something because I have seen it on a podcast or Ravelry and I am interested by it. So is that social media influencing? I’m not doing something because someone else is but I am doing it because I saw it on their platform. And, although, I suspect that many do something because of the person, most will do it because they like what they saw. In this way we are all influenced by social media.

But the comment also got me to thinking about the responsibility people have when they write their blogs/Instagram/podcast. If yarn can be sold out within minutes of appearing on a podcast, what happens when something detrimental is said about a product? How adversely is the company affected, especially in the yarn world where there are so many sole traders? Can a single adverse review shut down a business? For some they will feel that the testing has been done for them so won’t bother with that product. For me, having seen a negative review of a swift that I have and like, I will carry out my own research.

When I write a bad review, I try not to name names and anything I write here is something I would say in public, I do not hide behind the anonymity of the internet.

On The Twelfth Day of Christmas

Umm… I missed it.

I was going to write about my WIPs but as nothing has changed since my 1 January post there doesn’t seem any point in writing the same thing. But I have to write something, it’s the last day – OK that was Sunday – but I need to close with something – but what? On Monday I wrote some more about pattern designers but I didn’t like what I had written it so I didn’t publish it and I have since decided not to visit that subject at this time. But I really want a closing post.

So here is a collage photo of what I was doing on Sunday.



My shawls are on two shelves and as they needed to be tidied I took that as a good opportunity to go through them and decide if there were some I was never going to wear. The top left is Hitchhiker which I made way back in 2012. I like it and the yarn but it is a scarf that I am not going to wear so it will be frogged and become socks at some point. Interestingly looking at that blog post I said “I could always unravel it if I didn’t like the end result”. Also I commented on the crinkliness of the yarn and this will give me an opportunity to soak the yarn before it gets reknitted.

The top right shows two shawls that I am not fond of. The bottom one P gladly took off my hands; the other one I will keep until……

The bottom left photo shows all my shawls. Yes there are a lot but that shouldn’t be a surprise. I have been trying to wear them more often. There are some that are long but not very wide but I can wear as an accent and not as a cover up. The bag contains my Shipwreck which I am wearing in the last photo. It is quite a delicate shawl so I have kept it in a project bag but I really should wear it.

On The Eleventh Day of Christmas

In which there was no Day Ten. And that was a conscious decision rather than not getting around to posting. When I looked at my list of things I was going to write about in this Christmastide, I changed my mind on one subject and as Friday is a busy day I decided to not post.

Today I want to write about designers, specifically pattern designers. I have written previously about not knowing what you will get when you purchase a pattern online. And as my last mystery pattern shows, you cannot always rely on the designer’s previous publications as a guide to the quality of their latest patterns.

I am going to ask a controversial question. Should pattern designers make a living from what they do? In other words if this was all they did, could they live off the income without having a second job or a supportive partner? I don’t think there is a correct answer to that. I appreciate all the designers and their work but it certainly isn’t necessary for life, and, although the piece of work derived from the pattern could be considered art, the pattern itself is not necessarily a piece of art.

The pattern design world is like sports and music a few top names and many wannabes. This does not mean the top designers are better than the others but that they have been successful in getting name recognition. In the fan world of the internet, these designers can do no wrong so they will continue to stay at the top making it harder for new designers to get noticed and, therefore, start receiving an income.

For some items the hardest part of the pattern design process is writing and formatting the pattern. So many people need their hand held when following a pattern that a lot more goes into the printed page than I deem necessary but there is the problem that once one designer has done it, now everyone has to. A good example is charts or words. It used to be that patterns would have one or the other. Now knitters are demanding both increasing the work of the designer. Have prices increased to reflect this? And I am having to pay for all these extra words and pages that I do not need. I’d rather pay more for a concise, well written pattern.

The internet has made it easier for independent designers to publish patterns but it has given all the knitters/crocheters the chance to become a designer. I really do not want to see another pattern for an asymmetrical, two-colour, garter stitch and lace shawl. A quick search on Ravelry for triangle shaped shawls using more than one colour and incorporating some lace came up with 1113 patterns. Over 100 of them are free. Is it any wonder that new designers cannot get recognition and established designers cannot make an income?

On The Ninth Day of Christmas

You’ll see a dress.

Another project that you haven’t seen because better photos are needed. In the meantime there’s an OK photo and video.





I’d bought the unicorn fabric to make a different dress pattern but based on how particular she has been with some of the things I have made, I ended up making a pattern I knew she liked. But, of course, I did not have enough fabric. The pink is left over from a quilt I am making. She loves it and wears this one or the other one all the time.

On The Eighth Day of Christmas

There’s some finished items.

I have photos of two shawls I finished last year but never had photos of them completed to show. I was hoping to get some nice outdoor shots but it was cold this weekend, so me up against the wall it is.

In April, I showed yarn I had purchased to knit a specific pattern. The Changes Shawl.

I love the yarn and pattern but it took longer to finish than it should have as I did not take it on vacation and then I had to get a new needle. I love the colours, the yarn, the pattern and wearing it.



The other project is also a shawl, but so different. Where Changes is warm and cuddly this one is so light it almost isn’t there. The yarn is a gradient I bought at the Vista Fiber Fiesta in 2017. Being a gradient I wanted a pattern where I could use every inch of the yarn. And I thought I had achieved that when I started the Begonia shawl. It said it was easily adaptable but when I got to the end of the pattern, you had to add complete pattern repeats and I did not have enough yarn for that. My options were to bind off, add a different pattern, frog. The first one would have missed the point of the yarn, the second would have spoiled the effect of the pattern. So leave it or frog it.




I went on an active search and came up with a pattern that was easy to change the size. In fact I was so effective at this, that this is all the yarn I have left, too small to even register on my scales.



The pattern is Fruit Cocktail and this is what it looked like pre-blocking.



I knew a good block would make all the difference and here it is.

On The Seventh Day of Christmas

It’s a new year and a new plan.

Not a plan exactly but an idea of what I will do this year. I am starting the new year with a new cast on. I am not against frogging projects but I usually wait until I know what I am going to do with the yarn as I know if it goes back into stash then I am unlikely to pick it up again. In August of 2017 I started a shawl mystery knit along. It was a new to me designer but she had held many mysteries and I liked the designs that came from them. I had broken my foot so needed something to do and my friend took me shopping to specifically buy yarn.

The knit along was a disaster, the pattern was badly written with many mistakes and would have needed much more added to it for it to be any bigger than a handkerchief. The yarn and my time deserved better. So the project waited and I have decided to knit Viajante. This is going to be a big knit and will take a while but I think will be worthy of the yarn.

I am starting the year with four projects on the go. Two of these I am expecting to finish this month – two of the advent projects. The third project is also an Advent cast on that I mentioned that I hope I can work two rows each day. The fourth project is a cardigan that I started way back in March. I really started it to get some old yarn on the needles and I should pick it up again before it is a year old. I also want to make a concerted effort to use yarn that I have been given. But I do not want my WIPs to build up like they did last year.



I still have to make December’s block for my block a month and as I started in February the last block will be this month. (Except I didn’t make September’s as I couldn’t decide on fabric.) So to be up to date with this project, I should make three blocks this month. I’d like to get those done before I sew anything else.