Paid pattern – Hopefully Creative

Thin Stripes Sweater

Spiral striped sweater with a hint of yak.

I saw the # 18 Top down Pullover by Lana Grossa as free pattern on Ravelry and immediately fell in love. Too bad the free version was only in German and this pattern was quite difficult to understand. I became so obsessed with making it that I went online to find an English version of it and ended up paying for a whole stack of printed paper of all the patterns in the magazine it was published in. We’ll see if I make any more of the included items.

One dark gray skein, two gray skeins and two white skeins.

For the yarn, I dyed some MCN DK, a dk weight yarn with Merino, Nylon and Cashmere in a grey/brownish tint. I also used two more skeins of that yarn but undyed and two skeins of Tibetan DK, with Merino, Yak and Silk for the thin stripes and hems. I purchased the yarn bases way back, based on their listed gauge, before I even got hold of the English pattern. That’s how much I wanted it.

When I had my pattern and my yarn, I got to work. I believe I followed the instructions pretty faithfully up to the transition from dark to thin stripes. I messed up a little there but I think I managed to hide it pretty well. The pattern uses spiral stripes to get those thin stripes, which is such a cool technique. It did take me a bit to figure out how it worked though, so there are some increase errors in one of the raglan areas.

Thin Stripe Pullover neckline view on mannequin.

Thin Stripe Pullover dark gray to thin stripe transition.

I followed the pattern until separating the sleeves and even a bit further, put it on and thought it looked like a tent. So I frogged a whole bunch (also super interesting with spiral stripes) and separated for sleeves a lot sooner. I also didn’t add as many stitches in the underarm and I decided to continue the one raglan pattern p, k7, p down the body and the sleeves. I thought that was a fun little detail. Then it was on to a whole lot of stockinette knitting, three at a time. The separate balls of yarn were in the sweater which was held closed with safety pins. This worked really well.

Thin Stripe Pullover front view on mannequin.

Thin Stripe Pullover back view detail of white cross marking on mannequin.

For the bottom, I chose to do a 3×1 rib so I didn’t have to do a fold-over hem. I didn’t have enough yarn to make it in the same colour as the top, so I used the yak yarn for that. Seemed like a wiser choice than white cuffs, especially for such a klutz like I am. I did hours and hours of research on bind-offs, chose one, did it wrong and decided I liked it better than what it was supposed to be, so I left it. The final touch was hiding all the ends and stitching a little cross in the neckline to mark the back. I don’t own much brown clothing, but I do really like this thing. I hope it is as soft to wear as it is to touch!

Ochre Ophelia Overalls

Giant pockets on a strappy ochre overall.

I saw the pattern ages ago somewhere on a blog probably and sort of secretly fell in love with it. The Ophelia Overalls from Decades of Style have been hanging out in my mind for a while now. There’s an ochre/white version on the pattern envelope and their sew-along version is ochre. When I found some ochre diagonal corduroy on the fabric market for a very reasonable price, I needed it. So I bought some amount of fabric and that then languished in the hoard for a lot longer still.

But I finally convinced myself to purchase the pattern and I got to work. I tried to follow the instructions but I did end up deviating here and there. For example, they want you to topstitch the big pockets on, but it’s just as easy to sew them on flat and fold them back up and then topstitch. My topstitching is also a different width than indicated, the straps are lined, there’s some extra d-rings on loops added to the side and the front pocket and I put snaps in the side seam and on the straps.

The are some interesting choices made in the instructions, such as indicating that certain parts don’t need to be serged, when they will be serged half-way through. Also, for my size, it’s absolutely not necessary to have both side seams open up. There’s plenty of space to wiggle myself in without even opening any of those snaps. They also wanted to me to just fold over the edges of the straps. Luckily, I’d read a review and followed their hints to line the straps and attachment point. It makes me feel a lot better.

Ochre overalls inside view with white overlocking.

Detail view of ochre overalls with ochre/white gingham lining.

The length of these is also weird. I’m not sure if my fabric just shrunk, but it’s single fold hemmed at 1.5 cm and it fits. I’ve never been able to use a full length pants pattern without shortening it. Now, the straps are a bit too long, so maybe my waist is in the wrong place or something? Nobody knows. However, since I’ve finished it, I’ve worn it plenty, even if it’s probably a little hot for summer. It’s extremely comfortable and I really like the colour and the feel of it. So I’m strongly considering making this in pants without bib and no (or maybe one) side opening too!

Turquoise Sweater

Machine knitting a self-dyed sweater with big sleeves.

I’ve been wanting to make a wide sleeve, long narrow cuff sweater for a while. But the search on Ravelry didn’t want to provide me with sweater options that I liked, so I continued looking. Eventually I stumbled on a 30s sweater pattern from Etsy that looked promising. I purchased it and promptly found out that it wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped. The instructions don’t say anything about the ribbing that’s used in the pattern images, for example.

Front of turquoise sweater on me with arms up to show the sleeve buttons

In the end I settled on dyeing four skeins of crazy eight dk yarn with spruce and teal, plus some black speckles. The original patterns requires you to knit the bottom hem first, and then increase to the front and back panel, same with sleeves, cuff first and then increase. However, when I started this sweater I didn’t have a ribber attachment for my knitting machine yet, so I started with the back panel above the hem. I’d figure out how to do the hem later.

4 skeins of yarn 'crazy eight DK' dyed with dark green / teal and black.

Sleeve detail of ribbed turquoise sweater with 8 buttons.

The front, back and sleeve panels are basically the same. With the only difference being that the the front panel needed to be cast off sooner than the others. Presumably for a lower neckline in the front. After having knit those four giant panels, I only had about 40 grams of yarn leftover. That didn’t seem like it would ever be enough, so I dyed another skein. This one turned out a little lighter, so it was good that I was only supposed to use it for the hems and cuffs.

Front of turquoise sweater on a mannequin

Side of turquoise sweater on a mannequin

I have since also acquired a ribbing attachment for the knitting machine and set about learning how to do the cuffs. It took a few tries, but it’s definitely quicker and more even than hand knitting. I kitchenered the ribbed sections to the corresponding body parts and left sections open for buttons. The overlapping edge gets stitches picked up in a regular interval, where some stitches are not picked up on purpose for the button holes. Then a garter edge is knit for some stability. Buttons are attached on the other edge and that allows all buttons to be functional.

Neckline detail of turquoise sweater with 5 buttons.

Neckline of turquoise sweater on a mannequin

I decided to increase the neckline height at the front to the same level als the sleeves and back piece. I still don’t know how they expected things to line up with them not being the same height. But fine. It’s now done, and I really love the colour – it doesn’t show up on camera accurately at all, but in person it’s great! It wears well, even if the sleeves are somehow just a little bit too short.

Little Kraken Friend

A smiley eyed Kraken plush

A while ago the shark plush has found a new home, but I didn’t want him to be the only plush in his new abode. So I made him a friend!

I used the same Kraken pattern from SewDesuNe as for Brian, however, I exchanged his face from one from the Octopus pattern. The original features included in Kraken are ‘angry’ and ‘happy’ but I wasn’t too big a fan of the happy one. The Octopus has some other fun options and I chose the ‘smiling eyes’. I tried to use fabrics that were sea-coloured, hence the blue-ish hues. For the bottom suckers, I used a dotted minky.

I think he’s very cute and hope he’ll have a lovely life.

Futuristic Spark Skorts

Shorts, pockets, skirt, what more could I want?

After completing the yellow Sparks, I set about to create some shorter shorts from some mystery futuristic stretch fabric in the hoard. The legs were shortened such that the pockets would still work, but they wouldn’t come down my leg as far as the yellow ones. I probably made a mistake in that shortening because the hem looks like the weirdest zigzag when it isn’t on my body. But nobody is going to care about that when it’s laying in my cupboard, right?!

This is the Greenstyle Spark Tights pattern underneath. I made the same alteration to the waistband and cut a little bit off, and I added a skirt. No pattern involved, which also meant that it didn’t really go well first time round. I had to cut a lot of the waistline of the skirt in order to get it to lay approximately flat. You’ll also see that this fabric has a white background, and since the waistband just uses the stretch to keep the thing on me, it is much lighter in colour than the non-stretched skirt. I’m just going to go with ‘design element’ on that one.

I’m still amazed by the thread colour I ended up sewing with. I did not expect that I would have to opt for green as the most suitable colour. The sewing went pretty well, the general Sparks pattern came together easily. It still has the same pockets underneath that I can fit a phone or something else in. I love pockets, they are great! Since I only finished the hemming recently, I still have to wear them around for a bit to see if they work as well as I’m hoping. Fingers crossed!

Yellow Sparks

Ready to sweat in these banana shorts!

I’ve been trying to do bursts of short, 10 minute exercise every morning for a while now. I used to do it upstairs, but recently started watching tv in the living room at the same time. That meant that I wanted more shorts in case people would look in. YouTube was kind enough to show me an ad for exercise shorts that looked super fun, and I decided to look for a similar pattern. The Greenstyle Spark Tights seemed to be pretty close. After purchasing, printing and taping together, into the hoard I went. I returned with some yellow stretch fabric that would also make this suitable for roller derby as the team colours are yellow and black.

The pattern includes pockets, always essential if you ask me, a seamless front, three different length options for the legs and multiple options for the waistband. These yellow sparks were made in bicycle length. Cutting was pretty easy and fairly economical, you don’t need a lot of fabric for these tights. I sewed them together on my treadle with a slight zigzag stitch and did the hemming with a twin needle. I don’t have yellow serger thread and this seemed to work just fine when you stretch the fabric enough while sewing.

The pattern requires fabric with a lot of stretch (75% horizontal and 50% vertical), which makes it possible to skip elastics. I chose to make the high rise waistband (not the super contoured option) and removed about a cm from the top edge because it wanted to bunch when it was that little bit higher. The waistband is the same fabric as the rest of the shorts but they stay up really well. I’ve been wearing these every morning for the last week or so and I’m enjoying them a lot. Since they were so quick, I immediately cut out a second pair but this time with built in skirt. That’ll be up soon too.

Rainbow Spot Socks

Using your self-dyed yarn to make some socks is very satisfying.

So next to having a stash of yarn just pre-dyed, I now have also accumulated a stash of undyed yarn. There was a temporary stash of self-dyed yarn, but I’ve knit most of that up by now. It made the starry night sweater, the red-black neck warmer and this new addition: rainbow spot socks. I chose some yarn called Blue Faced Leicester Superwash / Nylon Sock weight for my new sock project. The yarn was dyed using this tutorial by Nicole Frost.

The plan was to create a yarn with different coloured spots on a black background. So 10 cable ties were wrapped on the dry yarn, which I then dumped into some black dye in my pot on the stove. I let it simmer for a little bit and then put the newly dyed yarn onto some plastic wrap. The cable ties were removed and different dyes were squirted onto the still white spots. Red, yellow, green, turquoise and blue and those repeated. It worked out really well. This sock yarn was then wound up into two little connected balls and left to languish in the hoard for a while.

Recently, I decided that I did want to knit it up and see if I can still knit some socks, this time preferably some that I could actually wear. At some point in the fairly distant past, I bought the Fish Lips Kiss Heel by Sox Therapist. It’s basically a recipe for making a heel in a sock and uses a cardboard cutout of your foot to get the proportions right. I paired it with Two at Once, Toe-Up Magic Loop Socks by Knit Picks Design Team for the details on how to make a toe and cuff. First time, I knit about halfway up to my foot, tried it on and it was just too big. So I frogged the whole thing and started again. Sweet spot for this yarn seems to be cast on 10 stitches per 3 mm needle (20 total), and increase to 22 per needle, around 50-55 rows before the heel. These ones are a tiny bit loose in length, but perhaps some laundry will be helpful for that. I have worn them for a day and they were comfortable so I’m pretty happy. They did only take about a quarter of the ball of yarn, so I should have enough to make another pair – that I’ve totally already cast on… Hopefully I get those sorted soon too!

Tag: Paid pattern