Sunday, February 17, 2013

Playing Catch-Up

Reifel

Reifel Bird Sanctuary, a week ago. This is a favourite place for family outings especially in winter when the weather cooperates. This cute little northern saw-whet owl sleeps unconcernedly right by the path:

SawWhetOwl

We were joking that it’s really a stuffed toy! There’s also many other birds to see including trumpeter swans, many kinds of ducks, herons, sandhill cranes, chickadees that will eat sunflower seeds out of your hand, redwing blackbirds (their calls play havoc with my hearing aids!) and a group of very rare black-crowned night herons. I got pictures of the latter but they were unfortunately rather fuzzy.

On Valentine’s Day we babysat the Littlest Grandbeastie for the full day. It was really a lot of fun! At two she is so darned cute but won’t hold still for a second in order for us to get a half-decent photo. But since she was wearing the blue dress that I knitted for her I was determined to show it off. This was the best I could do:

RosebudDress

It actually fits her quite well and it doesn’t seem to get in her way while she plays. I’d call that a win! As you might be able to tell the pockets are especially appreciated. We had to search ’em for stray toys before she left. We held up pretty well over a full day but of course both grandparents slept like the proverbial logs that night! Whew.

Next I have to show off the latest finished sewing project:

The Flashy Dress

Completed:  February 16, 2013

Fabric:  heavy cotton/lycra interlock, 54” wide, 1.75yds, magenta pink, dyed with golden yellow, emerald and navy Procion MX in low water immersion technique. (Note emerald dye washed out.) Fabric was from my ex-neighbour’s free box.

Notions:  sewing and serger threads, 4mm twin needle, stay tape, Steam-a-Seam 2 1/4” fusible hem tape.

Pattern:  Butterick 5246 View A.

Mods: Fitted to my narrow sloping neck, shoulders and sleeves. Dropped the front yoke line by 1” for my low bust. Left off the back ties and added a back seam with a little shaping. Attempted to add inseam pockets but ended up with patch pockets instead.

Comments:  This is as close to a pink dress as you will ever see me wear! Very spring-like, don’t you think? The modifications I made fit me quite well but the inseam pockets didn’t hang right. The fabric is just too heavy. I cut them off and with the little bit of remaining fabric added patch pockets. I set them a little on a slant to match the line of the yoke. They change the look of this dress somewhat but I am willing to sacrifice style for function. Must have pockets!

I had a little trouble with this interlock stretching as I sewed it especially on the cross-grain. I was smart enough to use stay tape on the shoulders but didn’t on the yoke and the twin-needle topstitching didn’t help much. I should have used clear elastic in that seam instead. I also needed to use the serger’s differential feed on the hem and only figured that out near the end. A setting of 1.5 made it lie much flatter. I hope I will remember these tricks in future because I still have 3 more pieces of this fabric left. You can bet I will dye them as well.

In Knitting Knews, I’m nearly done the Rosa Grey Tunic and because it’s knitted top-down, I was able to try it on after adding a longer cord to the circular needle. I quite like how it’s coming out and it just needs to be about 6” or 8” longer now. Lots of yarn left still. I’m also finding the Orange Aeolian Shawl quite fun to do so I’m knitting on it every day. I changed its name from “shawlette” to “shawl” because I think it’s going to be a little larger than the smaller version though perhaps not nearly as big as the full-sized one. The madder dye is a perfect colour for my wardrobe and the suri alpaca is a little fuzzy and surprisingly soft. Who would have thought that pink beads would coordinate so well with orange? That’s 2 recent pink things for the damselfly who doesn’t really like pink. Hmmmm….

I also got several books in the post recently which merit a review: two on sewing and one on spinning. I finally spent my birthday gift certificate from T’s mom. Plus a little more of course because obviously I can’t just order one or two books at a time! More later. Right now I have to go figure out what’s next up for sewing. Bra? Panties? Something else entirely?

4 comments:

Dixie said...

I'm loving both of these dresses - the one for your granddaughter and the one for you. I think your dying project turned out just fine, even though it wasn't what you intended. The dress looks very comfortable and I'm sure you'll get lots of wear from it, even if it is pink!

Anonymous said...

The dresses look great.

Heather said...

The dress is marvelous,very fun. I would definitely wear such a dress. And your wee granddaughter is indeed a cutie.

pao said...

Oh I love how your dress turned out - both the style and the dye job. I would wear it in a minute!