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!
In my last big undyed yarn purchase, I included 10 skeins of ‘Thick and Thin DK’-weight yarn. It’s single ply but it varies in thickness along the length and therefore has an interesting sort of effect. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, but I was intrigued by how it worked. So I set off to dye it with some soft yellow and green sprinkles on 3 June 2023.
Once it was dry, I had to figure out what to actually do with it. I tried several patterns until I ran across the Seas Shawl by Puff Updater. It seemed like a fun, slightly involved pattern that wouldn’t mind the uneven nature of the yarn. You can still lightly see the waves made by increases and decreases, hence the name, I guess. I started on July 23 and finished it on November 19. It traveled with me a lot, together with an ever more crumpled piece of paper with the instructions on it.
After blocking and pinning out some points, it turned out a bit smaller than I hoped. I knew I would never really wear it as it was. So I decided to ask one of my colleagues if she was interested and it has now found a nice new home. The end result is only a small part of what I enjoy about knitting. It’s mainly the relaxing nature of knits and purls that keep me coming back to the needles.
Making a new cardigan that doesn’t look anything like the original pattern.
Most of the tops I knit are sweaters, they don’t open in the front. This probably has to do with my slight fear of button bands and not ever having put in a zip in a knit. However, those fears do mean that I don’t have many things to wear over dresses during Me-Made-May, for example. So in February, I decided to add one more center opening item to my wardrobe. I chose the 5 Naisen neuletakki, Women’s cardigan by Lea Petäjä. It has raglan sleeves and a lace pattern at the top. My version also has some other adjustments, so it doesn’t look anything like the original.
The pattern calls for 2 cm of ribbing at the neckline and then the lace pattern starts. The lace is charted and really nice to follow. I appreciate that sort of geometrical design. When I put it on though, it seemed a bit big, so I stopped following most of the instructions after the lace was completed. There were fewer increases to get to the sleeves and more decreases to get the body to be a bit more fitting. I also wanted to add some fun details to the sleeves, so I made yarnover triangles near the cuffs. Once the sleeves were finished, I continued the body and added another triangle, to the right front only.
By then, I really didn’t like the neckline anymore, so I meticulously pulled out three rows of the ribbing and started ribbing upwards. This means that there are some twisted stitches in the ribbing where I started knitting ‘the wrong way’. There are also some strategic decreases to make the neckline fit better. Once I was happy with the length of the neckline, I started work on the button bands. The top of the button bands have decreases to sort of mimic the neckline. A straight edge there would seem a little weird. Finally, I had to attach the buttons, which took a few days of procrastination to get started, but I got them done! So now I have this lovely black sweater that should go with just about all of my other clothes. Hopefully it’ll get a lot of use!
Making my own red & black lace bra that I’ve never been able to find in the shops.
In January 2022, we were again hosting a graduation ceremony for some students and I tried to sew a dress for it. It was made of an odd red, fairly thick stretchy fabric. I knew that no one was going to see me during the online ceremony, so after struggling with it not fitting right, I gave up and threw it in the box of shame (it’s still there.. shame). However, it did have some scraps leftover and I recently decided to put those to use in a new bra. Same pattern as always, the Boylston bra from Orange Lingerie. This time I planned on adding some black lace since I’d always wanted a red & black lace bra. However, the only ones I could ever find in shops had padding up the wazoo and I couldn’t see my feet.
As usual, many construction errors were made. Somehow the bridge is not wide enough for the casings and I don’t think I left enough space in the underwire channels. I’d also twin stitched the cup seams down which somehow led to a pointy boob effect that was less than charming. After finishing the entire construction of the bra, I ripped out the cup-fabric seams and hand sewed them back in place again. Since my hand sewing is not the neatest ever, that made the lace extra important to hide those seams.
I found the lace in a local fabric shop and proceeded to fussy cut it out so I could applique it all over the cups. With some creative adding and snipping away of lace bits here and there, I really like the final coverage of the cups. It took me about 3 hours per cup to sew down all the lacy edges. Luckily, this turned out to be quite a meditative practice. Because it was black on black, neatness was less important – the sewing is mostly invisible anyway. I have yet to wear it for a day, but I assume it will wear similar to the first and second bras. The third one doesn’t have enough stretch in the frame so that one is a little tight. I’m going to try and learn from that experience!
Always good to finish a project that has been hanging out in the sewing box since last year.
In my first post about Edwardian combinations, I talked about a pattern drafted from the American System of Dressmaking that I hadn’t gotten to work for me. It’s been hiding in my box of projects since that time and I recently decided to finally get it done. Main reason being that I want to empty the project box, with added benefit of ending up with combinations with wider straps. The other combinations have straps that keep slipping off my shoulders which is quite annoying. So I set to work.
Front
Back
I had the top mostly finished and was mainly stuck with attaching the leg pieces. To start, I added some buttons and buttonholes to the top.Then I sewed down the facings that I’d already made for the legs. I grabbed Tropical and started pinning some pleats into the legs that I already had. In the end, I cut a 15 cm high triangle of the top of the back leg pieces because it just wouldn’t work as drafted. Then I needed to finish the bottom of the legs and decided to grab all the cut offs from the first set of combinations and a bit of lace. I wouldn’t be able to use those for anything else and I didn’t want to throw them away. The length of the bottom ruffle was determined by the length of the bottom lace. The transitions between different sections of fabric were made using some more of the triangle insertion lace.
Lace insertion in the bottom ruffle
Top lace
This thing was effectively one big problem solving mess. I needed to add insertion lace to the top because it was just too small, so that’s why there is some on an angle and in the back. The original pattern for the drawers created such a weird shape that I couldn’t get it to do what I wanted at all, so I had to cut bits off. I would normally gather those legs to the top, but it was easier to do pleating as I wasn’t sure where the end of the legs would even go. It took some head scratching, but I’m very glad I finally got it finished and my project box that little bit more empty.
The corset cover with mistakes at every turn. Luckily you can’t see those on the outside.
Sometimes simple projects take for ever to finish. I’m not sure what my issue with this one was, but it took me many a day and many a night to get myself into gear enough to get this little cover finished. I seemed to make it difficult for myself at absolutely every turn.
It of course started with deciding on a pattern. This took weeks, maybe even months, depending on how you count. I’d been sort of looking ever since I finally chose the blouse pattern. In the end I settled on the Wearing History E-pattern of a 1910’s Camisole or Corset Cover. I want to stay in the 1900-1908 with my Edwardian project, but this thing claimed it could work for before 1910’s so I decided it would do. Printed it out, taped it up and cut out the size 28 waist.
Front
Back
For fabric, I chose a white fabric with tiny leaves that I also used as the lining for my plaid jumpsuit (I still love that jumpsuit). I didn’t have a lot of that fabric so I figured that corset covers didn’t need much and it was a good way to use up scraps. I chose to cut it with peplum but without sleeves. So far so good. Now came the bad choices. It started when I sewed the bodice together and only then determined that I needed to finish the seams. I agonized over that and in the end decided to double fold the seam allowances (that were quite large) over and stitch them down. Ok, that turned out well.
Finished insides
Arm hole and strap
Then, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to only sew the row of gathering stitches along the edge of the body and forget the one about an inch above. This was a problem because sewing gathering stitches evenly is much easier when the fabric is flat. However, I skipped that step and went to gather the bottom and attach the peplum to the inside of the waist. Next, I stitched a line at the seam allowance of the outside of the peplum and folded it over using the iron. However, sewing single layer had shortened the peplum so it wouldn’t fit into the waist anymore. I had to take my thread back out again. Luckily it stayed nicely folded over. Then I positioned the lace on top of the outside peplum on top of the regular peplum seam and sewed that down. Because this meant invisible sewing, it’s not neat on the inside, but it’s sewn down and that’s all that matters right? The top of the lace still needed to be attached, so I had to hand sew gathering stitches as there was no way to do that by machine anymore. I did manage to get it done.
“Design eyelet”
Waist lace
Next I needed to figure out how to finish the armholes and neckline. The pattern called for beading lace, so I went to get some and didn’t get enough. I also didn’t love it enough to go back. So I gave up, cut 3 cm wide bias tape from some scraps and folded one edge in by a centimeter. I then attached the bias to the outside of the armholes and neck edge, stitched it down and turned it all inside and stitched it down again – effectively creating tunnels. I sewed little eyelets in the top of the neck for a drawstring and once completed, figured out I made them in the wrong spot. With an overlapping button band, you cannot put two exits on the same side where they overlap. It won’t work. So I made another eyelet at the back of the overlap. I’m calling the useless one a Design Choice.
Buttons
Ladder tape and laces
Now the cover was mostly done, just the buttons and buttonholes to do. Cue days of staring at the thing as if it had done something wrong. Eventually I came up with another solution. I grabbed some of the tiny bit of ladder tape that I had left and created an ‘invisible’ placket. In built buttonholes, so no fiddling about with that. Adding the buttons to the other side went fine. They are spaced 5 cm apart. Then I tried it on and it gaped at the bottom. Solution, attach two ribbons so you can tie the bottom together. It might not be pattern but it works.
If you choose to make this, please don’t use my terrible construction as a guide. Think ahead and choose one of the countless methods that are faster and actually nice. I may have to make another just to prove that to myself..
A pair of Edwardian-esque combinations with lace and blue ribbon.
I became somewhat obsessed with early-ish Edwardian underwear lately. I’m not sure how it happened, but I did decide that I wanted to make an S-Bend corset. Now, what I’ve learned from following all kinds of historical and costume sewists in blogs and on YouTube, is that one does not wear a corset on bare skin. So off I went to make a pair of combinations. A pair of combinations, in this case, is a set of open-crotch drawers connected at the waist to a top of some sort. I’d been googling and reading a lot of projects from other people including Sew Historically and Amelia Marie. Next to that, looking at images on Pinterest, collected here.
Eventually I got to work using the book Amelia Marie recommened, The American System of Dressmaking. I had a lot of attempts, first to try and draft the top (which did not work as planned as it was too small), then I drafted a pattern from a few pages earlier which I haven’t gotten to work yet (still working on it). Next I did use the drawers pattern from page 502, but increased it along the back and raised the ‘crotch point’ up by a decent amount. I cut out my original top draft from about armpit level down and added more width to the sides. Once it was mostly sewn together, with some ladder lace along the waist, and a lace with holes along the top and insertion in center back, I needed to decide on the legs. I chopped off about 10 centimeters and added a ruffle of about 10 cm with lace at the bottom and ladder lace at the top. The center front has a facing and then hand worked buttonholes and mother of pearl buttons. The majority of the project was sewn on my treadle sewing machine (I love that thing!).
Open crotch
Open crotch
Normally one of these would be worn directly on the skin, but with the sheerness of the fabric, I did not want to expose the internet to that.. So I wore a black camisole and underwear underneath it. It’s really quite comfortable to walk around in and I do understand why ladies wanted to wear open crotch underwear under their corsets now. Still the overlap ‘covers’ enough that it’s ok to sort of wear it. Not outside by itself mind you. I also used blue ribbon in most of the lace with holes so that it could theoretically also count for ‘blue things’.
You are by now probably aware that I have a box of projects that I gave up on partway through. Some of these projects have been in there long, others shorter. Today I’ll show you another saved project that entered the box at least two times. It’s a cotton cardigan and the pattern is called Gaia.
Gaia is a free pattern by Kristen TenDyke that features a button closure and a lacy bust section at the front. Originally it has fairly short sleeves and a band of different stitches beneath the bust. Since I don’t generally wear short sleeved cardigans, I lengthened the sleeves. The instructions were fine, it did take me a while to figure out how to increase to the bust, but the knit-along on ravelry helped me out.
I first chucked Gaia in the box when I had the body done completely and one sleeve set up. It was winter and I subconsciously knew I was never going to wear a cotton cardigan in winter and therefore there was no hurry to finish it. I think it again went in the box with both sleeves partly done and it stayed on my ironing board waiting for some anti-gaping ribbon to be installed on the button bands for quite some time too, I sort of chronicled that in the ravelry-project.
When even the model picture shows gaping in the button bands (and only two buttons buttoned), I guess that there is something to worry about. This is the one real negative I have about the pattern, that the button bands gape so much, even after I tried reinforcing them with ribbon. Below you can see the before picture.
There were some really nice matching buttons in my stash that were also the right size, so that made me very happy. I have worn the cardigan a bit since I finished it, you’ll see it in a MMM round up at some point. It’s not perfect, the sleeves have become shorter than intended and there is still some gaping, however, it’s not uncomfortable to wear so it might see the daylight more often.
I have also finished some socks, so you’ll see those soon.
At some point in the past I found some Wibra Fenna yarn that had all kinds of different colours that slowly changed into each other. I really liked the combination and I figured I knew someone else who would really like it, my very colourful mom. Since it was a couple of months before her birthday, I figured I would have enough time to make something from that yarn I found. That made me convince myself that buying the yarn was a good idea.
So I browsed Ravelry in search for a pattern. I wanted to experiment more with knitting lace, so I chose a nice easy lace-y pattern. It’s called the Wakefield Scarf from Knitting Daily and you can see my project details here, including the link to the pattern itself. It’s actually quite easy knitting, the repeat is *k2tog, yo, k2tog, yo, k2* on even rows and purl on the odd row and then shifted over one stitch every knit row. This creates a diagonal lace pattern, which is very interesting with a horizontally striping yarn.
I told my mother I had a present for her, but sadly I only managed to finish it in the week after her birthday. Due to the wish to work on another knit project (see the next installment of Hopefully Creative for that project). She was worried that it wouldn’t be warm enough, due to the holey nature of the fabric. However, she does love the colours and they go with everything, so she has worn it, voluntarily, and received many compliments. Especially the texture in combination with the colours seems to be interesting.
This is it, it curls up on itself, but that’s also part of the charm. You can also barely see the areas where I had to switch to the second ball of yarn and where I made another connection. Scarf knitting takes quite a while for me, with a lace pattern especially, but I still enjoyed the process over long periods of sitting in the train and listening to audiobooks.
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