Nice and cool culottes for the warm summer weather.
I wanted some more of these culottes but this time non-stretch, so that they wouldn’t almost fall down when I stick too much in the pockets. So I looked in the hoard and found a bit of the blue fabric I also used for these pants and for a mock-up of another pair of pants. I found the original pattern, cut it out with a bit more crotch depth, freehanded some pockets and pocket openings on the front and set out to sew it together.
This fabric frays fairly easily, so I attempted to French seam it together. This worked remarkably well. I even managed to French seam the side from the zipper down. The zipper was an invisible zip and went in pretty smoothly. I cut the waistband just a little bit too short, which is why there’s a little extra tab on that side. I also added a little snap to keep the overlap to sit flat.
When all but the hem was done, I let it hang overnight so that it could get all the bias stretch out. When I pulled it back on to see if the hem was level enough to sew, I found out that it wasn’t. This wasn’t really surprising, I always have to cut the front down to match the back. It was hemmed with bias tape, which was so much easier than trying to double fold it. The final detail was to add a little d-ring on a ribbon so I can hang my keys. All in all, pretty nice for not too much work!
Nine non-functional kiwi buttons on a fun yellow and white gingham top.
After working on the Ochre Overalls and using the yellow and white gingham fabric as a lining for the straps, it seemed like a great idea to make a coordinating top. So I looked around and found the Kleinia Blouse by Mood Fabrics. As usual with Mood patterns, there are some sparse instructions and the decisions that are made are very strange.
In this one for example, they want you to sew the yoke and bottom together but there is no shaping whatsoever along that seam, so I just cut it in one piece and sewed a fake seam. It was ridiculously big too. I worn it for an afternoon and then cut it down by several centimeters on each side. It was also extremely long.
I do not understand how they wanted me to add buttons along the back when they barely included enough space to do so. Since the top neckline is very wide, I luckily didn’t need a working button placket. So I sewed it all down and added the buttons. There are little kiwi birds on them, and I love them very much. Even if they dig in to my back if I wear a backpack for a full day. I might make it again, but then reduce the height of the yoke and make it a lot smaller from the get go.
Sometimes you see a dress and decide that you want something like it too. At least, that’s what happened to me when I saw this pin (original link). The original maker used a fabric printed with their favorite quotes and book spines. I wasn’t willing to spend that amount of money on fabric, so I searched high and low and settled on a quilting cotton fabric called Library Books and an off-white linnen look cotton with Letters (in French, I have no idea what they say).
Then for the pattern, the original was based in part on the walkaway dress, and I liked that idea. However, I didn’t want to have my book shelves go all crooked with a circle skirt. So I decided on a pleated design for the skirt part. For the top, I did want something to wrap, so I tested a vintage pattern reproduction from one of my sewing pattern magazines, but I wasn’t satisfied. So I went back to my tried and true, absolutely butchered Garden Party Dress by Honig Patterns (which no longer exists apparently).
Pocket!
I made some changes to the darts in the back, so that my shelves would stay straightish and extended the side seams for the wrap portions. The skirts were both hemmed before being pleated and the off-white section is a little shorter than the book cover layer. Then I decided that I wanted some sleeves because they always make me feel more comfortable. This was a fiddly business because the ones I put in were too tight, so I did some surgery to add a pleat. I think this worked out quite well.
The off-white layer closes in the back with a skirt hook and eye but is left open along the back seam. There are also pockets in the side seam, because a dress without pockets is just pure evil. For the shelve layer, I added buttonholes so I could button them onto the front along the waistline. I think it worked out pretty well. The overlap isn’t perfect on the sides, but it does enough of the job. It’s pretty comfortable to run around in, so I’m happy. My book dress dreams have finally been realized!
I know someone who really loves skulls and because I wanted to make her a gift, I looked for a plushie that had something skeletal on it. I settled on Choly Knight’s Sugar Skull Kitty Plush, a free pattern from 2016. As usual, the instructions and the pattern were great and I quickly got going with embroidering the face and stitching down the felt pieces. I just needed to put the pieces under the sewing machine to finish it, but for some reason I couldn’t get myself to do it, so it stayed in bits for several weeks.
Once I finally got going again, it was very quick to finish. Just stitch the body/head piece together, fill it and then stuff the little arms, legs and tail. The tail is attached in the one place and cannot move. The fun thing about this pattern, though, is that it calls for decorative buttons to attach the legs and arms. I wanted to make those movable, so I used some instructions from another pattern to make sure that the limbs weren’t solidly attached. I think it gives the thing some extra charm.
Now it gets to live in a house filled with other skulls. I’m sure it’ll appreciate that!
End of January(ish), so yet again time for a new outfit for a ceremony. This time I was very indecisive. I made several plans and didn’t execute them. I originally thought that I would make this dress in a teal-ish fabric. But I never got excited enough and decided that it would probably be too cold. I then looked through all my pattern stash to see if something sparked joy and it did not. So on to the Pinterest journey where I finally ended up on this: Vogue 1645. It’s a wrap jumpsuit and it did give me some brain tingles.
I couldn’t remember where and how, but I thought I’d seen a free pattern like it at one point in time. So more scouring of Pinterest where I found several other expensive patterns and once I’d basically given up, suddenly the Meadow Jumpsuit pattern from Mood appeared. It’s a free multi-size pattern with very limited instructions. I’ve tried some of the Mood patterns before, and I don’t understand their sizing or their fit. However, having a base always helps me to explore options.
The plan was to follow the pattern as is, apart from adding pockets and widening the flap. This is not entirely what ended up happening. First of all, it calls for a stretch fabric and I’d originally found a brown-purply stretch stuff with a shiny and a dull side. Thought it would look fun but it was also thin, and I didn’t trust it in the winter air. Then I found the Redux version of the pattern that specifies you can add a side zip and use a non-stretch fabric. So I grabbed some grey thicker stuff with a woven and a fuzzy side.
I’d already placed all the pattern pieces on the purple, so I just copied the layout from the purple and started cutting. I ended up widening the flap and its facing by a fair bit. To test fit, I basted the pants part together, which fit well enough even if they were a lot long on my short body. For the bodice, I had already sewn the collar and facings in place before truly trying it on. That meant I had to do some alterations after the fact, since I was not ripping all of that out.
This included taking a wedge out of the shoulder seam, cutting at least 2.5 cm off the bottom, reducing the side seams by at least 3 cm and thereby also pulling the armscyes in further. There are pleats on the top of the sleeves for ease, there is a center front zipper in the pants since I didn’t want to deal with side zippers. I did not understand the instructions for the sleeve flounces, so I just .. did something. And I accidentally sewed one of the ties in the wrong side seam, but honestly, I like this better. It now creates a belt effect in the back, so this was a successful design element.
It held up well during the event and the only parts of me that were a little cold were my wrists. I also feel quite fancy when wearing it. It’s a little bland by itself but with a fun scarf, I can almost pretend to be an actual adult.
Blank canvas allows for letter options on this sweater.
A few years ago, we got a Christmas card at my work that was a white background, with black letters: kerstkaart. (translates as: Christmas card.)
The most minimalistic Christmas card I’ve ever seen. I love it so much. That caused this idea to float in my head about getting a sweater with ‘trui.’ (sweater.) on it, and adding interchangeable letters to the front. That would allow for the outfit to match my mood/the circumstances.
I finally decided to take some action. I didn’t feel like making a super simple blank canvas sweater, so I bought one. Then I found a font I liked on the internet and settled on ‘Simply Mono‘. It looked nice, and the < part of the k was attached firmly and not just stuck on. I liked the shape of the i too. So I decided on the font size (130), printed it out and cut the letters out of a felt placemat.
I attached the pointy parts of snaps to the front of the sweater and the flatter bits to the back of the letters. Since the letters didn’t all have the same amount of ‘letter’ in the same space, some letters are spaced closer together when they are snapped to the sweater. But I’m embracing that imperfection and actually think it looks more fun.
The trui. letters were sewn down, so they are not interchangeable. For now, I’ve made the letters that you see above and the 5 dots. I might decide to make more if I feel like it or find another brilliant idea that has 5 or fewer letters. Leave your suggestions!
Finally a place to store my double pointed knitting needles.
So, at some point in the distant past, I got hold of some DPNs, double pointed knitting needles. DPNs are needles that are used for knitting small things, or things in the round, or i-cord. I used them for the dragon, for example. As I am wont to do, this meant the start of a DPN collection. I never set about to find storage for them though, and that was a problem. They’ve been left in plastic bags, pen-things, stabbed into a cardboard box and I’ve found them in all kinds of places. But no more!
I set out to create a storage for them that was similar to my interchangeable knitting needle storage. Found some fabric in the hoard that had cute dogs on it, some semi-coordinating fabric for the needle pockets and got to work. I first had to sort all the DPNs into size and length to figure out how many and how big the pockets would be. I ended up with 19 different needle size/shape/length combinations from <2.0 mm to 9.0 mm in diameter.
Since the doggy fabric was a specific width, the case would be a maximum of that wide. The height was determined by the longest DPNs I had, so it turned out around 37 cm. I cut out the front and back from the doggies and some batting for the middle. Then cut a long strip of coordinating dotty fabric to into the pockets. Sewed down one end and just started putting the DPNs in and sewed the pocket down so they fit somewhat snuggly.
The interchangeable needle storage has a plastic flap over the top to stop the needles falling out. This works really well, so I decided to implement it in the Doggy case too. Since there is such variation in length, and I didn’t think to split first by length then by width, there are actually two plastic covers, one for the shortish needles and one for the longer ones. To combat the ones on the end falling out, so I made a tiny flap on the side too. I sewed down all the flaps, and bound the edges of the whole thing. Made some spaghetti straps from a coordinating fabric, wrote the sizes with a textile marker and called it a day.
I love this thing and it has already brought so much joy!
A vintage knitting machine pattern in some muted fall colours.
The booklet that came with my knitting machine also had a pattern for a striped ladies pullover with V-neck, DP 2219. This seemed like a fun thing to do with the knitting machine that wasn’t a rectangle of some sort, so I set out on a quest to complete the pullover. This started with dyeing yarn. I chose upcycled quarter round yarn, a sock weight with 425 m/100 g and tried to dye it in the colour scheme of a picture I found on the internet.
It didn’t turn out the way I hoped, although I’m not sure exactly what I was hoping for. However, once I started knitting it up, I knew it didn’t really fall within the colours I would love to wear. Still determined to see if the pattern would work, I continued. I made one major change, by decreasing the depth of the v-neck, but apart from that followed the instructions. I finished knitting the front and back, and blocked them. Then I lost motivation and it sat in a bag for a while until I met up with a friend. These colours suit her much better, and I knew I needed some sort of external motivation if I were to ever finish it, so I asked if she might be interested. She was.
So I knit the neckband and after some cursing and annoyance managed to get that installed in a way I liked. It’s probably not the way the pattern intended, but it’s on there now, so it’ll do! The sleeves and bottom still rolled quite badly, so I decided that it needed cuffs. I first knit some in a mock rib on the knitting machine and had them attached before deciding that the join was too awful. So I ripped it all back, cast on ribbing and knit it by hand, both around the cuffs and the bottom.
I think I probably asked before summer whether my friend was interested (providing no guarantees on when it would be completed) and it still took me until September to get it finished, but it is done! She enjoys it, I’m happy to have made something out of the yarn that I wouldn’t use for myself, I liked testing the pattern and doing something different on the machine. A bit delayed, but still a win in the end!
One of my friends had a birthday in August and I decided to use this as an opportunity for gift giving and reducing my yarn stash. I still had more of that pink stuff laying around that would suit someone who likes pink a lot better. Inspiration was easily found since Pinterest had thrown up a ‘tea cup scarf‘ at some point, and I knew she liked tea.
So I set out to dye some Arequipa singles yarn in ‘tea brown’ (some combination of ‘brown’ and ‘chestnut’), and after it dried, just started knitting on the knitting machine. I cast on 60 stitches on gauge 5 and just zoomed my way through almost the entire ball. I held back a few meters of brown for finishing, then attached the pink yarn and knit until that also ran out. With the last sections, I knit a ‘handle’ for the cup. Then everything got blocked on the hoard room floor, taking up the entire length. This seemed a little.. much.
To remedy that problem, I made the scarf double layered by bringing the brown end up to the start of the brown and knitting down the sides and doing the same thing with the pink. I also added the handle when I was sewing down the pink sides. To complete the teacup look, I knit a small pouch (to hold some stitch markers) and attached a little tea-bag-label with an embroidered cup. I think it turned out pretty cool and it was a fun way to deal with some more of the pink, while making sure it went to a better home than mine!
When trawling Ravelry for more patterns to diminish my stash of yarn, I found this interesting shaped shawl: Portia Shawl by Corrie Purdum. It’s basically three triangles together to form three quarters of square. The claim is that because of those points at the front, it stays over the shoulders well. With the summer happening, I haven’t been able to fully test this, but I expect it to be true.
For the yarn, I chose Krypton sock yarn (100% merino), dyed unsaturated black with dark green in March of 2023. I actually have another ball of this, and this shawl didn’t finish a full ball, so if anyone has suggestions for a project that uses 100 g + a little bit extra, let me know!
The pattern is straight forward and once you get the hang of it, it’s fairly easy to memorize. For fun, I added one extra repeat in the big central diamond shape. The pattern indicates that this scarf needs to be blocked to within an inch of its life. I didn’t manage to stretch it as far as I should’ve. I’m unsure how anyone would manage. I did enjoy playing with my new blocking wires, it does make it easier when you have a meter wire instead of 30-40 cm.
I made a choice with the blocking that the back edge would be blocked to little points, while the ‘sides’ would be blocked straight. This results in different kinds of edges which I think is interesting. I also like that the green randomly appears every now and again. I’m now just waiting for fall for some better shawl wearing times!
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