Blue – Page 12 – Hopefully Creative

Costume hood

For my new back-up character I wanted to make a costume. I already drew a sketch (here), and started on the skirt (which still does not have a hem by the way). I started the hood the day before yesterday. I had made a hood before out of fleece and drew around it, this made my pattern. I cut it out of the same fabric I used for my coat (which is actually almost finished, just sleeve ends and hems). Found some fabric for lining (the same as I used for the outside of my other costume (here).

Sewed it all up except for the front, since I wanted a button closure. I don’t know if it’s historically correct, and I know my buttons aren’t, but I liked the idea. Then I decided I wanted to add a button band, and wanted some embroidery on it. So I googled and googled and drew and drew and came up with an ivy pattern to connect my buttonholes. It took until late that night to finish it. The next night I sewed on the buttons and the band, and it was finished! Here it is, let me know what you think.

The button band is embroidered with ivy leaves. The vines are darker green and the leaves are lighter green. The vines were stem stitched and the leaves back stitched. The buttonholes were done by machine. I’m really happy with it. I like the ivy a lot. I’m starting to wonder if I should embroider it on everything in the costume.

Productivity, 5.

Lastly, the previous weekend also saw the birth of a refashion. My brother had a pair of pants that he didn’t wear anymore. These jeans are now a skirt for me!

I’ve been working on it for ages, since boy jeans apparently have an angled fly to accommodate the ‘business’. Since I don’t have said business, there was no need to have that extra room there. It took me a couple of nights with the seam ripper, but I eventually figured out how it was put together and how I could put it back together nicely again without the bulge. I have, however, always been scared that I would fail with the sewing. Well Sunday I decided that the time was right (and I wanted to continue the streak) so I took it to the machine. Well both machines, I did some serging on it too. It took a while and frequent running back and forth to the machine and ironing board and pinning stuff together, but it’s finished now.

I chose to take in some with in order to accommodate a back vent. I tried slits before, but they tend to break on me and that looks really hideous. So I finished the vent edges with bias tape and created myself a nice vent. I also hand stitched the hem so it would be invisible. Don’t know if that worked but I enjoyed myself while doing it.

I’m not convinced yet that it will see much wear, me and skirts, not really a fantastic combination. However, I’ll try to wear it this summer. I was planning on wearing it on Monday, but when I looked out my window, it was snowing. Snow and skirts in my opinion don’t go together well.

Gloves

The office where I now work 9 to 5 on my final thesis, is really quite cold. Especially for my extremities. My hands and feet do not seem to have the ability to heat themselves up out of their own accord. It can be really frustrating, so I’ve found ways to deal with it. Simply put.. Stick another layer on there!

So that’s what I did, I made some gloves to stick over those nasty cold hands. They had to be fingerless in order to be able to type. The original plan was to just make a flat bit rectangle, sew the sides up and leave a hole in the side for the thumb. I did this before and it worked fine. However, while I was busy, I wanted some interest, so I chose a pattern with ridges and flat bits and decided to rib from the wrist onwards. This turned out fine (although you cannot see the pattern that well, lousy light).

When it came to making them up, sewed up the side seams with a hole in the middle and it just felt.. empty? I cast on an additional 14 stitches times 2, knitted in garter for 3 rows and started decreasing the two sides whenever seemed right. I already attached one side to a glove before the thumb-bit was finished, because I needed to see where to decrease exactly. Sewed up the ‘side seam’ (those 3 rows at the beginning) and attached it further to the glove. Wove in the ends, et voilà! a fingerless glove. Five more minutes, and another one was done! Another project finished, I’m on a roll!

I also cast on another sock, now in white, with a seed stitch top, haven’t a clue if that’s going to work.. only one way to find out I guess. Keep knitting!

SockS!

Look at that!

I finished the second sock! And only .. one week after 1 finished the first! Oh I ‘m so proud of myself. I’m currently wearing both of my new makes and am very happy with them. They have only been on my feet for 2 hours, but they haven’t sagged terribly yet, nor have bits come out. They also haven’t been hideously unpleasant to wear. At present I call this a success! Also, it has got me in the mood for more of this easy knitting. It’s a simple project I can easily take with me on the train, 20 minutes still lets me do a couple of rounds and in no time a project is finished.

So here they are in full form. Beware, my legs aren’t really whiter than milk, something with flash and bad for overall colours. Also, it’s really strange to take photos of your feet when you are standing up and bending over (second picture), they have a really weird shape there..

Oh I’m so proud of my achievement, on to the next.. now with some visual interest please!

Coat update

Yes, another update can be made on the coat. After ripping it all out again, since I was not happy with having the interlining as a second layer and feeling it was extra bulky. I took it all out and treated the outerfabric and interlining as one. Yes, I know I should have done that from the start, but hey, I’m not so fantastic at this and mistakes are what you learn from, right?

Anyway, before sewing the thing together I figured I’d make the pockets differently, since I was not happy with them in the first iteration. I now had my heart set on slanted, middle-of-the-side-front-panel-pockets, with a zipper and a thingy over the top. I didn’t really know how to do this, but I figured it would be sort of similar to making bound buttonholes. Admittedly, before this coat, I’d never done those before.

However, I figured that they would make the coat more “work”-proof. If I’m going to graduate this summer, I need to do job interviews this fall and possibly winter, and I need a coat that isn’t made for children and has pretend paint spatters all over it. Yes, it’s true, I wear a children’s ski jacket at present, and I love it, even though it’s not very professional.

So I set about re-finding the tutorial for bound buttonholes that I was sure I’d seen somewhere on the 100 blogs/comics I follow. I did find it and used it to make very nice buttonholes (this tutorial). If I do say so myself.

(5 of these)

I did do it a bit different since I couldn’t get the folds to be equal so I just sewed a line of basting stitches to get it to close and then press it and sew the sides to the little flappy bits (yes, this probably makes no sense).

Anyways, following the first couple of steps, I sewed around a long rectangle a little smaller than my zipper, proceeded to cut it like >—< so, and then sewed the end of the zipper right side on right side to the bottom triangle. Folded the whole shebang inside, lined the edges of the zippers and long sides of the box together, sewed along that and pressed. I had to hand do the top, since my zippers were too long and I hadn’t figured out how to keep it closed and sew it at once. But it worked!

I then also attached the pocket bits to this contraption, aligning them such that they would lay flay and sewed that one. I only had to reposition one once, which is a vast improvement on my normal pocket skills (read, at least 5 attempts are needed). Then I sewed the flap on it, and hand stitched the sides. The flap was done! Then I had to put the thing together again. From the first iteration I learned that there was practically no waist and I looked like a Michelin man. So I put all but the underarm and side seams together and then pinned the side seams to my liking. That’s why the right seam next to the pocket is nice and flat and the left one all ugly and puckery. It’s not actually sewn yet. Still pins in there.

However, I seems I am making progress on this project. Hopefully it’s done soon!

Sock

I made a sock. It was my second attempt, since with the first attempt I failed to get the gauge correctly. It did fit over my foot, but it was about twice as long when it was not on my foot and therefore I figured that turning the heel might not work very well. So I took some other yarn (the stuff I also used for the cuffs) and created attempt number two. It didn’t take very long to knit it, only 28 stitches in the round so that goes very fast. It’s again blue and very simple, this is the pattern I used (Ravelry).

Now comes the daunting bit, knitting the other one..

Coat cuffs

Although I am supposed to be very busy with school, I have decided that I should not do any work after say 11 or 11:30 at night. It’s just too late and it won’t work. Therefore, I started making the cuffs for my coat yesterday. I knitted some inner cuffs that won’t show on the outside, but should keep my wrists warm and covered, and prevent the wind from flying up my sleeve. They are very simple, just 34 stitches on 20 or so rows, knitted flat and attached together. I used a ‘drunken German cast on’ (using this site) to keep them stretchy, and another stretchy bind off (from this movie) to keep them stretchy on the other side. Not very interesting, but there is progress!

I also unpicked my pockets because I decided I want them somewhere else, since it didn’t feel right before. I also want zippers in them (don’t know how I’m going to do that, but I’ll figure that out later). Hopefully, I will have my coat done by Monday and I can wear it for the remainder of the winter. Hopefully!

Wish me luck on that one (and the mass of homework still to do). Good luck crafting too!

Coat progress

My coat has taken a spot on the back burner. School is getting in the way, and there is so much yet to do that it is starting to be really daunting. Before I felt like that I did do some work in it. It’s been cut out (the outer fabric and a form of interlining of which I’m not sure yet how to put it in) and the outer fabric has been sewn -> without the interlining, a slight miscalculation. Now I have to solve that, but there isn’t really time to think about it right now.

While I was cutting out the coat, my dad thought it would be a fantastic picture moment. This may have been because I did not want to use pins and therefore took all the mugs and bowls from my parents cupboard to put on the tissue as pattern weights. Our pottery (can I call it that?) collection is fairly.. colourful, so it made a nice picture as evidenced below:

I also made a fairly large length of bias tape from the orange stuff (here), and although it didn’t really go as planned (there was a lot of cursing involved), I can now probably salvage a long enough length for it to work. The project is now in a laundry bin in its entirety and I’m afraid it will stay there for a while. School comes first.

Coat

I need a new winter coat. So Saturday my dad and me went to the fabric market in Utrecht and located some nice fabrics. I need, need, need to make this coat quickly, since it’s cold and my current coat is fugly.

I’ve got navy blue wool, a bright blue for the lining and some orange for piping the lining-facing divide. I hope I can start and finish it soon, because I’m craving a nice looking winter coat, wish me luck!

Shirt fabric

On the left are the coat fabrics, dark blue, orange and lighter blue. I also bought a length of stretch stuff for a shirt. If you don’t see a post about this appearing within a couple of months, remind me about it.. I need to destash.

Tag: Blue