Finally A Finished Object

Lookit! I finished something! Yay! Pretty novel, huh? Meet Hermie:

I adore his eyestalks! And his claws. And his sweet whiskers. He is quite large too. You can judge the relative size by the fact that his shell alone is bigger than my fist. And if he was a real hermit crab he'd be looking for a new and larger shell very soon! I'm very happy with the results. Hansi Singh is an amazing designer but one needs to have quite an extensive skill set to make one of her "Hansigurumi" creatures. There is complex knitting, picking up stitches, stitch grafting, stuffing and assembly actions all going on - sometimes simultaneously. Not for the faint of heart for sure. But hey, I did it! Go me.

I want to complain that the title of Hansi's book from Interweave Press, "Amigurumi Knits: Patterns for 20 Cute Mini Knits", is very misleading. The patterns are not really cute (unless you have my sense of humour) and as written they are definitely not mini. The publishers obviously had their own notions. Hansi herself describes them as "peculiar" which is a perfect way to say they are more realistic than cartoonish. The yarn called for is worsted weight. You could of course use finer yarn and smaller needles for a smaller sized critter. But trust me, you might want to practise with the big stuff first! You also would have to find a smaller wire than chenille stems if you want to make the limbs posable. Though I think the giant size actually makes my hermit crab even more delightful. Can't miss him!

However, I missed yesterday's outfit post but it was a retread of the day before - minus the boots - so you didn't really miss anything. Here's today's:

• Grey and black jumper, MM (self-drafted pattern, poly knit)
  
• Oatmeal henley t-shirt, SB
  
• Black knit ruffled capri pants, SB
  
• Green striped knit socks, MM (pre-Ravelry)
  
• Black Birkies
  

Dressed for: Teaching small kids to do spool-knitting. Only partially successful but fun!

In other news my camera remote finally showed up. Told you it was on the slow boat! And hello, it actually works. My photos may get more exciting. Or not. We'll find out soon enough, won't we?

What's New

I have a new computer! (And no, I'm not writing this on it.) More on this subject shortly. Right now I want to discuss a new FO:

This is my Midnight On Catalina Shawl that I began way back in mid-September. Then I found out it wasn't travel knitting and I could only work on it while sitting quietly. The pattern is by Lana Jois from Interweave Knits Summer 2016 and comes in both a larger and a smaller size. This one is a little larger than the small size since I did the lace repeat 2.5 times instead of only twice. It's the perfect size for the way I like to wear shawlette tied cowboy-fashion around my neck. I was a little concerned that the lace wouldn't open far enough when blocked but not only did it block perfectly:

...it also holds the blocking very nicely. Not every yarn will remain open and flat the way I prefer but this one does. I didn't even swatch it first so who knew? Just some old 2-ply wool from Very Deep Stash and a bit on the rustic side yet it washed up fine. I used a little creme rinse at the end and it may have helped soften the prickle a little. It's comfortable around my own neck but the more sensitive types might notice it more than I do.

Otherwise I haven't done much of anything in a crafty way. Instead...

***Tech Alert! Those who have no interest may tune out now!***

First of all, I want to mention the new iPad app that I'm now using to post to Damselfly's Delights. I'll do anything to avoid using Blogger's native editor. Or their app. Bleh. This is the first one that not only actually works as it's supposed to, but is also easy and intuitive to use. It's called Blogo (NOT "BlogGo" which is one of the ones that didn't work for me) and its only drawback is that the free version works with just one blog. If you have multiple blogs to post to then their paid subscription version is necessary but IMO is much too expensive to consider. I did contact them to say how pleased I was but was only referencing the free version so YMMV, as they say. They did respond quickly and positively to my praise (as well they should) and promised to share it with the development team. Anywho, here we are perfectly posting!

Next up, I want to rant discuss my new desktop computer:

The only really new bit is that black box with the silver stripe down there under my desk. The mouse and keyboard that came with the thing were crap not to my taste. The keyboard was a dinky little thing not much bigger than the bluetooth one that I use for my iPad with the addition of a numerical keyboard. I couldn't type on it! Kept hitting wrong keys that are too closely spaced. I prefer my big old ergonomic beast of a keyboard, even if it's starting to lose the labels off the keys and needs frequent cleaning out to fix occasional non-working keys. It's comfortable, like an old slipper.

And the mouse was just the opposite - huge! As I've mentioned in the past I have very small hands and much prefer my little wireless laptop mouse. That's fine since I have two of them! Then my old 19" monitor wouldn't hook up to the newfangled cable connection so I ended up swapping for Thom's big 22". Nice! He never rarely uses that desktop anyway in favour of his Mac Air. Plus it's still running XP and can't be upgraded. Hmmm...where have I heard that before?

We did finally get everything set up and plugged in to my satisfaction. However I haven't even started to talk about setting up and learning a new operating system. Oy! I happily managed to skip Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1. It was more than a little intimidating to go straight to 10 and since Thom has no more experience with it than I have, he can't really help me much. Good thing I've been using computers for over 30 years, huh? At least it's not completely opaque to me.

The hardest part is getting all the software on there that I use. My needs have changed quite a lot in the last few years, especially since I got the iPad. Believe it or not, in some ways it's far superior to the desktop computer, depending on what you want to do. I prefer the iPad for the web, social media, reading, taking and posting photos and accessing my knitting patterns. I can't put a desktop in my knitting bag or use it to take pictures while on a hike or read with it in bed! On the other hand, the Big Guy is more useful for things like file storage, backing up, document creating and project designing. Plus it can do most of the web/social media stuff as well if I'm already using it instead.

So naturally there have been a few hiccups including updates and software that won't install. I've lost several legacy programs in the switch but retained a couple that I use the most. (One more I'm not sure about yet since I haven't had the gumption to go through the convoluted method needed to install it yet.) I'm learning what new programs/apps there are in Win10 that will substitute for my old favourites and I'm beginning to customize the environment to suit my style. It seems to be taking a few days just to learn how to navigate around and what all the different things actually mean! It's slow going and more than a little nerve-racking. It's also kind of fun! Yeah, I'm weird. But you all knew that.

***OK! Enough technobabble. Back to your regular old crafty blog.***

Summer & Winter Placemats

The Neverending Warp is finally off the loom! If you'll recall, I started this placemat project nearly a year and a half ago but injured my hand very soon after beginning to weave. And when my hand was finally well again I was busy doing other things. It sat there taunting me but it was really hard to get up the interest level to get back on the bench. Instead I did everything else but weave: knit, clean, garden, paint doors, sew, sew and sew. 

However my guild decided to organize a tea towel exchange and I had the brilliant notion to join in to push myself to finish up the project languishing on the loom. Or to cut it off! Of course I can't waste that warp so I finally jumped in and just got 'er done! It was surprisingly hard to get a rhythm going again, to find the treadles with my feet and to make even beats and neat selvedges. It didn't help that I had planned to use different treadlings and wefts for each mat! I played along with that decision through the second one (which I had already started) and continued limping through he next couple of variations. By the fourth one I realized that I was losing interest again so just did borders with plain weave in the middle. The fifth one was the charm though. I liked the results and it wasn't hard to weave. I was finally getting some of my skills back. So I wove the last four (out of eight) the same. So now I have four totally different mats plus a set of four matching ones. Done.

The big cut-off:

I wove a minimal sample of each structure at the end of the warp for my notebook.

So nice to finally take the shears to this beast!

Unrolled off the cloth beam.

Washed, pressed and hemmed.

The deets:

Weave structure:  2-block 4-shaft Summer & Winter

Warp:  3/10 mercerized cotton, natural, sett at 20 epi (2 per dent in a 10 dent reed)

Wefts and treadlings (top to bottom in above photo): 

1. 3/10 mercerized cotton, peach. No tabby. Lace treadling.

2. 2/8 rayon, dyed orange. 10/2 mercerized cotton tabby. S&W variation.

3. Slub cotton/rayon novelty, yellow. 10/2 mercerized cotton tabby. S&W variation.

4. 2/8 rayon, dyed orange and teal. 10/2 mercerized cotton tabby, 3/10 mercerized cotton plain weave. S&W polychrome.

5-8. Cotton bouclé, natural. 10/2 mercerized cotton tabby. S&W variation.

Final finished size:  each approx 13" wide by 17.5" long.

There are wonky selvedges and at least one treadling error that I tried to fix. But they are done! Now I can move on. Next project: inventorying my yarn stash! I needed to shake up the stash anyway. It's getting dusty and dirty and I actually found m*th evidence in one basket! Yikes! I found an easy to use app for my iPad so more about this soon. However I'll leave you with this image of a small selection. Perhaps there's enough there to weave a blanket?

 

 

Another Rabbit Hole

Big mistake. I finally joined Instagram! Since damselfly was already taken I settled for damselfly.ca (as in a Canadian damselfly). Ummm...now I know why I've been ignoring it. TOO MUCH STUFF!! It's like a combination of Flickr and Hipstamatic with a dash of Twitter and a sprinkle of Pinterest. I haven't posted anything or used the camera yet. The whole thing feels completely out of control to me. Gorgeous image upon even more gorgeous image. And underneath that there are conversations going on. How does anyone find the time for it all? I already spend way way too much time on the internet as it is! I would prefer to accomplish more and be distracted less.

The only reason that I finally succumbed was the fact that my weavers guild has a presence on Instagram (@GVWSG) and they wanted to share our tea towel exchange (#teatowelsgvwsg). As I said last post I'd prefer to keep my plans more to myself. At least until we have the final exchange at our June meeting. I know - mean, aren't I? Heh.

In other news, I finally finished my slippers! First I knit the giant socks and then I fulled them in the washing machine with hot water, Orvus and a couple of towels to speed up the process. I already had the inner soles made, cut from a big piece of grey Romney-cross wool handmade felt. And I had the new slipper soles which turned out to be a thinner grade of split leather than my last pair. At first glance they look like sheepskin but that's just an attached piece of polyester pile knit. Here are the pre-assembled parts:

I turned the slippers inside out and used the same wool yarn to stitch on the inner sole. Those claw hair clips work great to hold things in place.

The felt inner soles aren't necessary but I like the extra thickness and it seems to protect the knitting from wear, at least a little bit.

Then I turned them back right side out and used doubled nylon thread to stitch the leather soles on:

The clips came in handy again! 

These are not the classiest slippers of all time but they're warm! Check out the old pair:

You can just see one obvious hole by the heel but lurking underneath the grubby soles are several more big ones. The inner soles are worn right down to the fake fleece at the heels. I ripped off the slippers from the soles and chucked them but even though the soles are dirty and the polyester is nearly worn right off, I put them away. Just in case I need them for a pattern or something. Since I can't get these anymore I'm concerned that I won't have replacements when the new ones inevitably wear out. They get worn indoors all winter unless I'm wearing my Birkenstocks for more support.

Warm feet! Ahhhh....

Scattered Thoughts

Silly me. I discovered that I never did show the finished Lichen Twist sweater! Took photos ages ago on Debbie Double and put the whole thing right out of my little brain. So here you go:

You can wear it a couple of ways but I like this one best. It does tend to slip up beyond the bust a little as I move around. As a draped front it just seems to want to fall off my shoulders:

I know - everything always wants to fall off my shoulders. Probably due to the lack thereof. Looks kind of dramatic like this however, doesn't it? This little darling is a lot warmer than it looks too. A shawl with sleeves!

Speaking of Lobaria, the new batch of lichen is still drying in the dye studio. I can tell the parts that are still damp because they're still green. I'm looking forward to eventually dyeing something with it to see if the colour comes at all close to my old batch. Did you know that Lobaria is a symbiosis of a fungus, a green algae and a cyanobacteria? Three completely different kingdoms of life! And it takes until they're 25 years old to reproduce sexually? They can also reproduce vegetatively as well. Wow. Complicated little darlings, aren't they?
 
On the loom things are progressing slowly:

I managed to finish placemat number 3, this funky bright yellow singles rayon with cotton fluff rather loosely attached. Just another oddment lurking in the stash. I've started number 4 but I'm not sure whether I have enough of one colour to finish it. I may have to get even more creative! Yikes. I forget how much warp I put on in the first place so who knows how many of these Ugly Ducklings I'll end up with? The weaving is getting a little easier though. My body is finally remembering how to do it. Still very slow.

As for the tea towel exchange, my group of five has chosen a photo as inspiration for our set of towels. Unfortunately I don't have enough of the right colours in my stash of cottons. I can use some of what I have to add interest to the warp but I want to use just one colour for the weft and it's going to take 3 cones of 8/2 cotton to weave them all. Luckily Fibres West is coming up soon so Jane Stafford will happily supply me with what I need from her booth, thus saving me postage. These are sure going to be precious textiles! Hopefully useful too. The deal is we make 5, keep one and distribute the rest to our group along with complete info on the yarns and weave structure we used. I'm planning for 6 in case the first one is wonky. As it well may be!

I'm going to be somewhat quiet on this exchange until it's over in June. Sorry about that but I don't want to spoil any surprises for anyone.

An FO In Red

I finished this little shawlette while we were away but had to wait until we got back to block it. 

This is a slightly modified Emporté par le vent (Gone With The Wind) by Laurence Mériat, a free pattern on Ravelry. The yarn is the rest of the ball of Raventwist Torc that I used toknit the lace beret. That tiny ball was all I had left and I was several rows short so the last few short rows got truncated. Doesn't really show much anyway. Even though I used a needle two sizes larger to cast on for the lace it still curls a little when I wear it. Note to self: go larger still. This yarn is 100% wool and holds a block pretty well, at least after I removed a bunch of the excess twist from it with the spinning wheel!

For some reason the chart that came with the pattern and the photo illustrations don't match. The 3 rows of eyelets are reduced to only 2 so several people have recharted it to be more like the picture.  I went with that idea too.

I used smaller needles than the pattern called for since the yarn is only a light fingering weight. I also substituted ssk for skp and in the short rows worked k2tog on the knit side and ssp on the purl side. I think it's more invisible at least for me. Now I've used up this yarn and I have a coordinated hat and scarf/shawlette!
 

In other news, the slippers are still not quite dry enough to finish up so more on them later. I've been knitting on the one project I have left, my Still Dark Tunic (the Still Light Tunic by Veera Välimäki). For some reason it seems a little looser than I had envisioned but that's probably a good thing for this garment.

I'm now a few inches past the underarm join and just about to start the increases for the pockets. The yarns are two cones from deep weaving stash used doubled: a Shetland tweed, colour "Macbeth" and a fine worsted , colour "charcoal". The yarns were damaged more than I thought from long storage, at least on the outside of the cones. They broke a number of times on me in the beginning and I got very good at spit-splicing them back together! Totally invisible. Good to use up the stash anyway.

I might have to start something more portable soon. These big yarn cones are hell to drag around! And I always need a small and easy knitting project for when I'm out and about, right? Somehow everything I want to make these days is large and needs me to spin yarn first. What's with that?

I've also started back in on my loom. Yes! Finally after a year and four months I'm attempting to get those annoying summer & winter placemats off. 

It was hard to remember where I was! The last placemat was left a few inches from the beginning and it was drawing in unacceptably. So I figured since this one was going to be ugly anyway, I got out my temple to bring it out to the correct width. Unfortunately after I finished weaving it there was an error that I could only see from the back! Only one pick wrong so I'll have to needle-weave it back in correctly when this comes off the loom. The next mat is proceeding. I'm making them all different which means thinking too much! That slows me down and I don't get a good rhythm going. I need to persist though because I've signed up for a tea towel exchange with my guild. More on that later.

Moving right along...

 

Mods

Ah, here we are again. Firstly good news: we have a dryer! Yay! It's a bit futuristic in that it has one magical dial and a bunch of touch censors. And a sloping top surface. Really, do they not want you to fold things on there? I mean, who doesn't do this? Style trumps function. Boo. I'm hoping my towels don't end up on the floor. Plus I'm not especially thrilled with the flimsy and hard to catch door latch. I'm expecting this will ease as I become familiar with how hard I need to close it. (Clue: a good slam does the trick, though it seems rather excessive.) Ahem. They sure don't make appliances like they used to! A practical test coming up very soon.

Meanwhile I was revamping (yet again) a top that I made awhile back and already fixed once. It's an interesting black ruched texture with Lycra threads gathering a fine woven fabric. Can't remember if it's rayon or polyester at this point. Sleeves and bottom band are cotton/Lycra knit in charcoal gray. It still wasn't working for me. See how the hem sticks out awkwardly?

Yuck. So I dug out the rest of the yardage and started chopping and pinning. I ended up with this:

The off-grain areas reflect the light differently but it's the same fabric. I left the cool fringed selvedge on and stitched a piece also onto the back point. 

I like it a lot better now. Even if some people have issues with pointy hems. I love them! And I also had enough of this fabric to cut a sleeveless triangle top layer. Of course the points go the opposite way - side to side instead. I can wear it as a nice light top for hot weather with shorts or layer it over this one or the other T-shirt that I made in the same charcoal knit. Nice to have options. I haven't had time to sew that last one though it should only take a short while. I'm going to recycle the hem from the original for the neck and armhole binding. Waste not and all that.

Another mod I did today was to fix the Ribbon Cardi. As I wore it the neckline stretched and tried to slip off my shoulders. So I worked a row of crocheted knit stitches across the back, including the raglan sleeve areas, to snug it up a little bit. I think I'll be much better now.

Plus I finished the Featherstonehaugh:

It took two days to dry! And a gabillion pins. I think it's rather pretty.

Kind of Easter-eggish springy pastels - very seasonal. If nothing else it goes perfectly with my Stripey Cardi. Hard to believe those are all natural dye colours, isn't it? No "mud"!

So now we're cleaning house and packing for our camping trip south. We're both really looking forward to getting away for a week or so. The weather promises to be reasonable for several days at least. After that we'll take it as it comes. Can't expect more this time of year, can you? We will try to be ready for virtually anything.

I'll leave you with one of our resident Anna's hummingbirds. We currently have at least one nesting in our arborvitae and as many as half a dozen showing up to the two feeders. So cute!

That's one of the males. It's hard to catch their magenta chin feathers. They have to shift them in sunlight to show the iridescent colour! The rest of the time they just look black. They move so fast that it's hard to photograph them at all! Thom took this one with his cellphone.

Crocus Time, Plus Ducks

Yesterday we were out walking and realised that the crocuses are out in full splendour. There are a couple of houses in our neighbourhood where the lawns are completely covered in them! So pretty. However you're going to have to take my word because Bad Blogger forgot to take a picture. Smack!

Meanwhile, I also forgot to show you the little item I whipped up at our Spectrum Study Group last week. The theme was needle felting but I didn't want to make an animal or critter. So I dug around in the stash and found a languishing piece of wet-felted wool from a past Spectrum that hadn't yet found a purpose and I made this:

It's a needle case for double points:

I needle-felted the toggle button and the patch over the hair elastic button loop, just to be on-theme. All my stitching began and ended with obvious thread knots a la Alabama Chanin:

And, hey-presto - a Finished Object! For once. Sadly I think I hardly ever actually finish anything at our meetings. I usually end up with bits and bobs, samples and components, some of which work their way into projects and others that sit forlorn. Oh well. It's a lovely group and we have a great time anyway every month. In retrospect I think I should have lined the case with cotton fabric because it's a wee bit tricky to get the needles in without poking through. Alternatively the outer felt could have been processed harder to make it somewhat more impervious. Never mind. It's functional and funky and it'll do the job.

So today's adventure is our annual winter expedition to Reifel Bird Sanctuary with the extended fambly in honour of Nana's birthday. Hopefully any of that wet stuff will hold off until we get back to my brother-in-law's for snacks and cake. We have a huge bucket of birdseed ready to go. It's amazing how much seed the little kids can chuck at the ducks! Thom's mom enjoys this outing so much and we hope to keep up the tradition as long as she's able to walk some of the trails with everyone.

Onwards...
 

 
 

Lightening Strikes Twice

My deep apologies for the darkness of the photos of my shirt! I swear the details were visible on my iPad but on my big computer screen - not so much. They're somewhat blown out now but at least you should be able to see the shape better. My luck for sewing nearly-black garments in darkest January!

So, the front:

The back:

Detail of the buttons and collar front:

And the naughty ripply shoulder dart:

Is that better? Hope so. Yes, it's an oddly fitting shirt but it's just weird enough that it doesn't matter. At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. I wear the heck out of my blue linen-blend vest version but then vests are more versatile anyway. I also wear the vest that I made out of the scraps of this fabric. I hope I can find enough occasions to wear this shirt too. The fine worsted wool fabric is just yummy! Did I mention it passed my machine wash and dry test with nary a wrinkle? I'll be more gentle in future but no damn dry cleaning for this baby!

Moving right along. This next FO should show up alright - it's definitely bright enough! I give you the finished Stripey Sweater:

I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I started with the Mon petit gilet raye'  by Isabelle Milleret, a free pattern on Ravelry. It's one size and needed quite a lot of modifying to fit me (as usual) so I booted up the old Knitware program and rejigged the yoke and body shaping. Of course the fact that I ended up with two different gauges, one in the striped area and a tighter gauge in the main yarn, kind of messed up my careful calculations but it came out all right in the end.

If you'll recall, the yarns are Plymouth Happy Feet Dye For Me (90% merino/10% nylon), dyed in my homegrown madder. And Plymouth Alpaca/Tencel/Bamboo, dyed and overdyed in seven different shades with natural dyes. I added a little Fair Isle pattern to the striped section for variety since I'm not that fond of plain stripes. The buttons, all 15 of them, are ceramic handmade years ago by Esther Grav (What's Weft, Belleville, Ontario).

I just had enough madder-dyed yarn left to complete the sleeves. It was rather a tight race! The sweater fits very nicely and now I have to find some other garments to style it with. Or maybe it's an excuse to sew more? It thrills me no end that I can make clothes that I love and that fit me so much better than anything in the shops. Maybe it's not always cheaper but most often it is, especially when I use materials already in the stash.
 
Speaking of using things up, I'm cruising right along on the Featherstonehaugh. Nearly half finished! The plan was to use up the rest of the contrast yarns that weren't used in the sweater. The little modular fans are rather addicting to knit though I have to be careful where I put the colours since they are knitted directly onto each other and can't be moved around once I'm done. I'm also finishing in the ends as I go so there won't be a big job waiting at the end. More on this soon.
 
 

End of January

Sigh. The much more powerful blogging app that I found isn't as perfect as I thought. It can't manage paragraphs in Blogger which is rather important! Tech support says soon. I'll wait.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have an FO! This is Marcy Tilton's shirt V8709:

Please excuse the crap lighting. It's been raining every time I try to take a picture and black pinstripes are problematic at the best of times. This is View A with the folded collar and more simple split cuff.

I've made this once before, View B as a vest in a linen blend and I love it. In this version the sleeves look shorter on the dummy but they're full length on Ms. Tyrannosaurus Rex Arms! On the other hand the body needs length so this time I added about 6". I left in all the wonky bits:

The extra odd pleat in the back and the asymmetrical front bands:

Don't know if you can see it but the buttons are also striped. You never know what you'll find in the stash.

I made a few more fitting changes (lowering the bust darts, narrowing the sleeves and shoulders) but I'm not sure it made any major improvement. For instance the shoulder darts I added refuse to lie flat. They press beautifully in this high quality Italian wool suiting but they don't stay! Life pops back into them the minute the fabric cools. Oh well. This lovely (and expensive) fabric is light weight and comfortable to wear in many different temperatures. I hope I can get lots of wear out of it.

In knitting news I've finished the Stripey Sweater! More on this one soon. The sleeves ended up full length but I had this much yarn left:

Not a lot. Obviously I didn't divide the ball equally or I might have gotten another row or two longer. Close enough though.

And there's some really exciting news! We are definitely going to the Sew Expo in Puyallup! Campsite reserved and everything. Who cares if it all costs half again as much this year thanks to the low Canadian dollar. Bleh. I'm not going to let that spoil a good time. As usual I won't be taking any seminars but I hope to catch the Tiltons' style show on Thursday, the one day I'll be attending. Then if the weather cooperates we'll be continuing on more of a camping trip, maybe to the Oregon coast for awhile. It all depends and our plans are flexible. I can stand a few days in our little Westie in the cold pouring rain if necessary. I have knitting and I have books! We even bought our old Fraulein a 27th birthday present, a new propane heater for when we don't have access to electricity. We are ready for anything now. Good. To. Go.
 

 

Two More Sewing FOs

As you might have noticed I'm trying to post more frequently. If they can't be very long at least they can be often!

These two pieces are from the same fabric that I bought in September in Portland on our way home from Colorado. It's a cotton/Lycra French terry in a charcoal mix. It was supposed to be for Thom but I was happy that there was just enough to squeeze out a top for me too. I love this stuff. It's easy to wear, not too warm or too lightweight, skims the curves instead of catching, and generally behaves itself nicely.

First as a warmup I sewed mine:

The pattern is a mashup of parts of my previously modified Katherine Tilton's B6101 (top half including sleeves, neckline and collar) and the lower half self-drafted. The pockets are single layer facings top-stitched to the front:

The stitching barely shows and they lie nice and flat. I stay-taped the opening edges so they won't bag out. Yeah, I know it's kind of a shapeless sweatshirt but it's something I just about live in this time of year.

This fabric is very easy to sew despite its excellent stretch capability. So the second go-round was done in a day:

Unlike a lot of guys, Thom is pretty appreciative whenever I make him something. It really doesn't happen as often as it should! This Thread Theory's Finlayson Sweater was totally the perfect thing:

This is the type of sweater that Thom wears all the time. This one obviously fits him perfectly so I plan to make more as soon as I find the appropriate fabric for it. It needs something not too thick since the collar front edge has many layers of fabric in it. This French terry is actually the third piece I bought! One was too flimsy and thin and one was too bulky. This one was just right!

Speaking of the collar, I got tripped up by the instructions. Sorry, dear Morgan, you have it with the under collar on the top side when you're done your tricksy method! I also get confused by the shaded wrong-side/white right-side illustrations which are the complete opposite to what I've been using for the past 50+ years of sewing experience. So I did it my way and the collar looks just fine and rolls correctly. I even remembered to note my changes on the pattern. Don't want to have to rip anything next time. Big pain in the posterior.

So I still haven't sewn up all the garments that I cut out before the Holidays. I'm currently working on the ones to be sewn with black thread so I don't have to keep changing it. However there are also plenty more pieces in the queue that will need pattern fitting before I cut them out. It's an ongoing process. Stay tuned for more!
 

 

First Sewing FO of the Year

Yup! I finished sewing my Lattice Dress:

The pattern is the second time I've used Marcy Tilton's V9112 and I'm even happier with this dress than I thought I would be. The lattice print cotton had a selvedge that said it was a VIP print by Joan Messmore, Cranston Print Works Co. It turns out that Cranston was in business from 1812 and closed in 2009, another victim of the US manufacturing policies that sent everything overseas. I've had this piece for so long that the shop I bought it from is long gone as well. Nice to finally use it for something interesting. The black slub rayon was also hovering around waiting for a project. You know how you never want to use the "good stuff"? It's committed now! As I said I consider this dress a freebie and hope that I don't have to wait until it warms up before I can wear it.

I'm beginning to feel like I have a much better grasp of what to sew that will integrate well into my wardrobe and lifestyle. Better fabric choices help as does better fitting on my body. Now that I've got my narrow shoulders and small armholes down nicely I was disappointed to see more loose and boxy shapes coming into fashion. Bleh. They don't look good on me at all. At least I don't have to be dependent on what's in the shops! I can make exactly what I prefer and pftth to them all.

So next I'm sewing a warm tunic top (frankenpatterned) from a heavy French terry in a charcoal mix. It's kind of a test sew for the Thread Theory Finlayson sweater that I want to make for Thom from the same fabric. More on these coming soon.

Meanwhile I was perusing the new books I recently received. Here's one of them:

The Shirtmaking Workbook by David Page Coffin is quite different than what you might expect. The subtitle helps a little - "Pattern, Design and Construction Resources" but what you really get are a lot of shapes for shirt details, especially collars. For example:

 

This is just one of many spreads like this! Plus quite a lot of inspiration and examples of shirts and of course the details can be extrapolated for women as well as men. 

The really interesting bit is that a lot more is available online, including many full-size collar and cuff pattern blocks to play with. Some reviews have bemoaned the fact that these are not in the book itself. However I think this hybrid idea uses the strengths of both print and digital resources and keeps production costs down. Coffin also included quick profiles of some well-known and not-so-well-known (but should be!) designers who share a talent for taking the ubiquitous shirt to new levels. What this book is not is for beginner sewists but for those of us with some pattern making and designing experience, it's a complete treasure trove.

Obviously I really like this book - even though I will likely never try to make so many different collars! I'm looking forward to exploring both the print and the online resources and seeing how I can use the info in my own sewing. After all, I've promised Thom a "tried and true" shirt pattern and have yet to deliver on it. And I make shirts for me too, even though mine aren't exactly your standard shape. Always more to learn and do!