Embellished

I haven't made much progress on anything significant the last week or so, like my outerwear plans or making more tunics. I did, however, start and finish two little projects, both of which made use of more embellishment than I usually do.

First of all, another Grainline Linden sweater. Late in the summer, I made a green and white raglan top and at the time I mentioned I'd noticed that mixed fabric/embellished raglan tops seemed to be something I was pinning a lot on Pinterest. I used this image to show the sort of thing I had been interested in:

Some raglan tops from my Pinterest collection (again)

This time, I used the photo in the upper left for inspiration, with the mix of knit and lace. My top is made with a very fine black knit (the same knit I used on last week's Ottobre top) with an extra layer of a stretch black crochet/lace knit in the front and back bodice only.

Is there anything less rewarding than taking photos of black clothes? (Grainline Linden with crochet lace overlay and black knit -- if you click on the image the lace detail will actually be visible when the image is larger!)

It seemed like most RTW I glanced at with a similar design just put the lace on the front, presumably in an effort to decrease their fabric use. I didn't have anything in mind for the rest of the fabric and I thought it would look nicer on both sides. I made the top exactly as usual, and just treated a layer of the black knit and the lace as a single piece of fabric when I was sewing. This was unproblematic except that it made for an interesting experience sewing the band at the bottom since I had quite the sandwich of fabric layers going on. I had to recut the bottom band and try again because it went a bit wrong the first time, but my struggles are not evident in the finished product. Overall, I'm really pleased with how this turned out.

My second embellishment project was also fairly straightforward. If you've read this blog for a while you'll know I've been passingly interested in the Alabama Chanin books/techniques. I keep meaning to make an actual AC knit garment just to see how I like it. (I have to be honest, I have major doubts that I don't think I'll clear up until I actually give making a wearable garment a fair shot.) One of the things the book tells you to do is stencil in your design onto the fabric with fabric paint before you start sewing/embroidering/whatever. Stencilling is not something I have ever done before, so I decided to do a mini stencilling-only project first.

Things I used on my scarf

Thus: One pot of grey fabric paint. One cosmetic sponge (from a large bag of them from the £1 shop). One large black fabric scarf purchased from eBay direct from China for 99p. One simple stencil from the first Alabama Chanin book, transferred onto template plastic because I thought the cardboard would go soggy if I used the one in the book.

I quickly hit on a technique for splodging the paint through the template. I decided to do a sort of border print along the short edges of the scarf, but other than that I made no attempt to plan out the actual layout of the stencil. I just tried to fit it the stencil in at different angles somewhat organically as I was going along.

Finished stencil painted scarf

And here is the finished product! I definitely learned some things about stenciling from doing this that I plan to carry over to an actual AC garment, and I like my finished scarf as well.

Next up: the weather having finally become somewhat autumnal this week, I am in a hurry to make more tunic length tops so I can actually start using the jeggings I bought. I will probably be focusing on that over the next couple of weeks. On the plus side, that means lots of fun new patterns for me. On the minus side, lots of fun new patterns means lots of my least favourite sewing job: tracing and/or cutting out patterns.

Alabama Chanin Samplers

At the end of last year/start of this year I picked up the Alabama Chanin books after thinking about them for quite a while. There were quite a few bloggers doing AC type clothes and other projects last year and I thought it might be interesting. I first used the templates back in December to make a couple of embellished woven tote bags, just as a trial of the ideas (although all the AC book projects and recommendations involve using knits, so I used slightly different techniques for the reverse appliqué).

At the moment, I am not keen to embark on any actual AC style garment sewing. This is not because I dislike the sewing part of it -- except for that squares appliqué, see below, which drove me bonkers -- but for two reasons: first, I have to admit to a reluctance to make anything takes a really long time to make when my weight is changeable. I am all for sewing for the body you are in right now and not delaying sewing things until you're some mythical "right size" to make something you want. Plus, even when my weight is in flux, it doesn't swing too hugely. In the normal course of things, therefore, when most garments only take a week or maybe two at most to finish, I don't let my changeable weight worry me too much when I am sewing (though it does deter me from sewing much more than a few weeks ahead of the next season). However, given that there seems to be an overall direction to my current changeableness, starting something that takes ages that will fit when I start and might not remotely fit when I finish seems pointless.

The other reason I am hesitant about making an actual garment at the moment though, is that I am undecided about the Alabama Chanin thing overall as a look. I have loads of AC stuff pinned on my Alabama Chanin Pinterest board, and every time I go through the pins I find the garments I've chosen to save really appealing and desirable. But then I think about the actual clothes I wear on a daily basis and the overall aesthetic I like to present the most... and I'm not really sure how the AC clothes would fit in at all. Sometimes the AC thing looks kind of "suburban art teacher living up to a mild reputation as an eccentric" which apart from the suburban part is so very not me. I feel like I still need to work out what it is about the things I've saved that I find so interesting and appealing, and then, I guess, try to spin it into something I would actually wear.

In the meantime, however, I wanted to have a go at some of the the actual sewing, all my doubts and queries notwithstanding. The books suggest making samplers of some of the techniques using scraps of appropriate jersey fabric, and since I had a couple of pieces of cotton jersey in my pile of scraps, I did precisely that. I made a long list of the techniques, ideas, whatever that are in the AC books and also that are represented in other photos of AC clothing/accessories that I've seen, and I planned out five different samplers, pictured below along with some of the garments/inspiration photos that I used to help me pick out samplers to try.

Classic reverse appliqué using "Falling Leaves" template

The first sampler is kind of classic Alabama Chanin and therefore not really all that interesting. The Falling Leaves template is one of the least complex in the books, and it's done here in reverse appliqué, with running and backstitch in various different colours. This was quicker to stitch than I expected, but the cutting away of the inner pieces was more awkward and fiddly than I anticipated (and resulted in me forking out for a proper, pointy and very sharp pair of embroidery scissors later on). My main discovery from this was that I prefer the low contrast stitching to the high contrast, and that mixing high and low contrast stitching makes it hard to see the actual stencil pattern -- your eye is drawn to try to make sense of a pattern in the similarly outlined leaves (there isn't one) rather than seeing the shape of the stencil.

On the left: an AC polka dot blanket from their website; on the right, my sampler of the same technique using the Medium Polka Dot template

The polka dot template is very basic (and it comes in three printable sizes on the AC website). The AC books call this particular look "3D appliqué" because it mixes classic appliqué (on my sampler second row down), reverse appliqué (1st and 4th row) and stitching on the flat (3rd row). To do this properly you should use a stencil and paint the fabric as well (as you can see in the image on the right, where the grey circles are), but I did not. It would definitely have been more interesting if I had. I actually quite like how this looks, but again, cutting away the reverse appliqué neatly proved to be difficult (as you can tell from the photo!). I definitely feel like more interesting colour choices plus the stencilling would improve the outcome, and I'd kind of like a massive polka dot blanket for my bed.

A photo of a coat in the AC shop (stolen from somebody on Pinterest, sorry for the lack of attribution); my sampler of the same square appliqué

The next one wasn't in the books but it was pretty clear from the various photos I found on Pinterest, what the basic approach was to make this appliqué with a million tiny squares. Again, my own version is considerably less visually interesting because it has no colour contrast or variation. I tried two different methods of attaching the squares as you can see. Both methods are painfully slow and tedious, and I was profoundly aggravated throughout by my inability to (a) cut perfect squares out of cotton jersey; (b) sew them into anything like straight lines; and (c) prevent the corners from curling. It looks awful close up as in this photo, but it also, to be fair, looks pretty dire in the close-ups of authentic AC garments as well -- I am not the only person who can't cut squares perfectly or sew them in perfectly straight lines (though of course the actual AC garments are much better than my sampler!). However, it actually looks surprisingly good from a distance. My willingness to ever make anything with this particular appliqué method though is pretty limited. I cannot even begin to describe to you how boring and fiddly it is to appliqué even this relatively small numbers of squares.

Image from AC website of ruffle stripe wrap; my stripes sampler

One of my favourite items in the books is a cream-on-cream wrap with strips of fabric appliquéd into place with what the books call the "random ruffle" method. I also really like a couple of other garments I found through Pinterest that have been embellished with simple stripes. I had a go at a few of the different methods of attaching the stripes on my sampler -- two different stitches for attaching it (bottom and second from top), plus the "random ruffle" (second from bottom, harder than it looks!), twisted stripe (middle stripe, also harder than it looks and probably more interesting if, as the book suggests, you use two different colours on top and bottom so the twist has a colour contrast), and a gathered ruffle (top) which surprisingly I decided I liked most in the end. This whole sampler was quick and easy to stitch once I got the hang of the embroidery stitches used to attach the stripes.

Relief appliqué: on the left, a garment from the AC website; on the left my sampler using the Anna's Garden template

The last sampler I did, which too the longest time for me to finish for some reason, was the relief appliqué. This is classic appliqué, but the pieces you cut are 15% larger than the spaces they are intended to fill, so you sort of squish and pinch the extra fabric as you appliqué it into place, creating the 3D effect. From a purely tactile perspective, this is the nicest and most interesting of the classic applique I did. I am not sure it's enormously attractive though, having squished up little shapes sewn on to your clothes. After I made this I also wondered if it would look better if the individual applique pieces were larger (the Anna's Garden template has a lot of relatively small elements).

All the versions I've seen used very low contrast or the same colour for the applique as for the base fabric, so perhaps that is why it doesn't look too good in my contrasting blue fabrics. This highlighted another thing I learned from this sampling: how important picking the colours is going to be. I never liked either of these two fabrics all that much from a colour perspective, which is why they were still lurking in my scrap bag, most likely. As I was stitching the relief sampler, I really noticed how much I didn't like the contrast between the two fabrics, and wished I had done a same-fabric applique as in the inspiration photo. Based on my pins, I tend to prefer AC garments that are either subtle tone-on-tone or same-colour (especially white-on-white) garments or else really vividly high contrast (like black on white or vice versa) mixes. My less subtle blue-on-blue really didn't do much for me at all.

In conclusion: I am mulling over what to do next. I don't think I will be producing my own wardrobe of AC garments any time soon (though I am lost in admiration for CoreCouture, who is doing precisely that for SWAP 2015). However, I'm not ruling out making one or more garments later in the year when (if) my weight settles down and I think of something I really want. In the meantime, I'm going to move on from this to a bit of embroidery for my on-going hand-sewing project.

January Projects Post, plus February plans

I have been rather dilatory about blog posts for the second half of January. This is mainly due to the fact that my time for anything enjoyable, including sewing, in the second half of the month has been much reduced by (more of the same old) illness. When I did feel well enough to sew or knit, a lot of what I have been doing has been slow going and/or part of a bigger project, or else a not-very-interesting pattern repeat. Thus, this post, which I plan to do each month this year just as a catch-all of things that don't deserve a post all of their own.

Garments: I didn't make much in the way of clothes this month. However, I did manage to knock out a couple of easy pattern repeats:

Burda 11-2005-127 and Ottobre 02-2013-02, both very easy pattern repeats

On the left, a pair of Burda 11-2005-127 yoga pants in blue, a pattern I made up previously in December 2014. I have nothing to say about the pattern beyond: A+, would sew again, just like last time. These are very unphotogenic yoga pants, though. They look much better in person.

On the right, yes, that is yet another Ottobre 02-2013-02 "Summer Basics" tee. That is my 11th use of that pattern. It wasn't my first choice for this fabric at all. I bought this border print as a "panel", and I had a plan in mind for it thinking I was getting a 1m piece. What actually arrived was a scant and badly cut 85cm piece. I was not thrilled, and I am still not clear to what extent this was as a result of me misunderstanding of the fabric description and how much is the fault of the vendor (the very uneven cut, at least, was entirely their fault). At any rate, my original plan was out, and as I was feeling grumpy about the whole thing I flung this pattern on it and cut it out as it was all I could think to do with such a small piece. I kind of regret this decision because once I got over my grump I realized it would have made an interesting contrast piece in a Grainline Linden sweatshirt or similar but, eh, too late now. As it turns out though, the biggest problem with this top is that the fabric is very itch inducing, so I'm not sure the way I used the fabric in the end matters when thinking about garment longevity -- I just can't stand itchy clothes.

My February garment sewing plans are a bit vague at the moment, even though I have a whole huge list of things to make in my sewing queue. The problem is that I find it hard to think about sewing for spring when we've actually got snow on the ground at the moment, but I really don't need much more in the way of winter clothes. Plus, quite a few of my favourite and most enticing projects are at the more difficult and labour intensive end of the scale, and thus the whole continuing-illness thing becomes a stumbling block. I'll have to see how I get on, I guess.

Quilted quilt blocks ready to be sewn together with sashing

Quilt: Since my mid-month update, I've been quilting the individual blocks in dribs and drabs and then trimming off the excess batting/backing. It's actually been a nice project while I've been feeling ill because it's a perfect project to sew in very short bursts. Each block only takes a couple of minutes to quilt and a couple of minutes to trim, and thus even if I only felt up to venturing into my sewing room for 10-15 minutes I was usually able to get a couple of blocks done in a day. I was also able to do a bunch of different shapes when I was quilting: some I stitched in the ditch, some have just lines across the block, and a half a dozen are quilted with big concentric circles. That said, I have to admit I was totally over the quilting process long before I'd done all 36 blocks and was glad when I finished them up. At this point, there are really only two more tasks left: putting the blocks together with sashing and then binding the outer edges. Thus, I'm hoping that the World's Slowest Quilt will become my first finished quilt during February.

Alabama Chanin style "Bloomer" stencil on knit, testing out different threads and stitches

Hand-sewing/embroidery: I'm still pursuing the Alabama Chanin and hand-embroidery thing. I decided a useful way to spend some time was to make some samples of AC-style embellishment using knits. I dug out a couple of large-ish scraps of knit in two shades of blue (left over from a raglan tee I made in October 2013) for which I had no other use, made a list of "samplers" I wanted to make, and got started. You can see my first finished sampler above, which was a test first and foremost of this method on knit (I had previously only used the stencils with wovens when I made a couple of little calico bags) and of some different weight and colour threads. It turned out very ugly as a result of the mix of thread colours! I'll be carrying on with my samplers for a little while, mainly because I'm still percolating a much bigger plan for where I want to take this next. More on this soon.

My Nurmilintu scarf. You'll have to take my word for the existence of the lace section, since I couldn't get it to come out in the photo

Knitting: This is my Nurmilintu scarf (Ravelry link) in progress - it's about 40% done, I guess. I'm really enjoying knitting this even though my first lace section, one of three in the pattern, turned out really badly. I was fine (as you would hope) on the long pointy bit of garter stitch, but as soon as I started out the lace section I had to rip back the first three rows 4 times. Mostly, this was because I didn't understand how to read the chart, which meant I got the pattern all wrong initially. After consulting a more knowledgeable friend, I at least understand now what I should be doing, although I don't always seem to manage to actually do it. As I got further into the lace pattern, I realized I had I made multiple mistakes in several rows that didn't seem fixable short of wholesale ripping back, which I kind of couldn't face. In the end, I decided I could live with my mistakes and kept going. Thus my first "lace pattern" section is perhaps more properly described as "a section with some randomly spaced holes". Still, I love the yarn, the colour and I've decided I can live with the imperfection, especially since, as the image above demonstrates, the lace isn't really all that visible. I am a pretty slow knitter, so I suspect most, if not all, of February will be taken up with finishing this project.

A pile of pompoms

Random: For sick-and-insomnia-ridden-and-in-charge-of-a-credit card reasons, I recently bought a 99p (with free postage) pack of pompom makers from an eBay vendor in China. Pompom makers + an assortment of cheap, nasty and brightly coloured yarn I once obtained from the front of a knitting magazine = one afternoon spent gleefully and pointlessly making pompoms. I made some in plain green (on the right, idk why they look like they're glowing) and then experimented with various ways to make them multicoloured (green and white halves on the left, and then mixing two or three colours in the rest). I like the giant pink and purple one (bottom left) best, though I have no idea what to do with any of them now I've made them.

Made: Embellished tote bags and quick knits

I have finished up my sewing/knitting year with a pile of little hand-sewing and knitting projects, probably because they're all the kind of thing you can do while sitting on the sofa watching Christmas TV and hanging out with family.

There's been a bit of a trend in some of the (many) blogs I read of people trying out the Alabama Chanin books and methods this year. Normally I'm not very excited by a lot of embroidery or embellishment, but something about the AC garments I've seen appeals to me and I really wanted to make something similar. I ordered one of the books just recently, but while I was waiting for it to arrive I decided to take a detour from the actual AC project suggestions from the books (which mainly use knits and involve hand stitching the whole project) and try out some simple reverse appliqué by hand on a woven fabric that I then constructed (by machine) into a tote bag.

Tote bag embellished with "Bloomer" stencil reverse applique and running stitch

For the first bag, I slightly modified one of the simpler stencils that I downloaded from the Alabama Chanin website (this stencil is "Bloomer") and then added in a circular "frame" in running stitch. The bag is a very simple box bottom tote bag with a separate lining (so where the reverse appliqué is there are three layers of fabric -- calico outer, mustard appliqué layer, mustard lining). From a distance I really like how this bag turned out, but the close up view of my hand-stitching/reverse appliqué is, alas, extremely unimpressive. It was immediately obvious why the AC projects tend to use knits, because it is definitely much harder to do reverse appliqué when you have to worry about turning under the fraying edges as you do the appliqué. Getting the edge turned over properly at any kind of point or corner turned out to be pretty much beyond my skill level.

Book bag embellished with Alabama Chanin "Anna's Garden" stencil

Nevertheless, I decided to make a second calico bag using the same technique but with a different, more complicated stencil ("Anna's Garden"). I left this one as a book bag (also lined, in the same green sateen as I used for the reverse appliqué) rather than a boxed base so that I could fill the whole of one side of the bag with the stencil. However, I realized almost as soon as I started stitching the stencilled section that some of the shapes in the stencil were just totally outside of my ability level with reverse appliqué if I was going to turn the edges under. I decided therefore to just outline many of the smaller and more complicated shapes in running stitch. The kindest thing I can say about the quality of the actual reverse appliqué bits is that I was probably slightly better at it by the end than I was at the beginning of making this. Very slightly.

Overall, I feel like the second bag did not live up to the image in my head at all, mainly because of the amount of running stitch I ended up doing. If I were to do it again, I'd probably do something different with the parts I couldn't appliqué and/or try to get a different balance of reverse appliqué vs. stitching for a better outcome. However, you know, it's a tote bag that cost me about £1 to make in materials, I am not going to cry over it not turning out quite as well as I hoped.

In conclusion, although my outcomes from these Alabama Chanin inspired projects were not very good from a technical point of view, I found the process of stitching these bags very enjoyable and I do like the outcomes aesthetically. I definitely want to have a go with (hopefully much more forgiving!) knits in the very near future.

Yoyo bags: version 1 with lines of yoyos; the interior with dancing hippes; version 2 with a heart and silver beads

The third and fourth bags I could possibly have included in my recent finishing-up-WIPs post as they're partly made from a very old project. However, that would suggest that I have any idea whatsoever why I (a) originally made 50 red and white yoyos back in 2011 and then (b) put them in a sealed plastic bag, inside another bag, inside a box where they then stayed for two and a half years. I am pretty sure I had some sort of plan, but whatever that plan was I evidently didn't follow through and it didn't stick in my memory; when I found them again the other day, I honestly couldn't bring to mind a single clue what it was I thought I was going to do with them. Lacking any specific purpose for them, I decided that I might as well sew them onto some basic white cotton twill tote bags that I made. The lining in each bag is Dancing Hippos from Ikea. I'll probably fling these onto my Etsy shop eventually.

Gap-tastic Cowl in blue and grey aran weight

I have also been knitting furiously and over the last couple of weeks I've made two easy cowls. The first is another Gap-Tastic cowl (Ravelry link) which I previously made in September 2013. This time I used two very light aran weight yarns held together in two different colours, which is the first time I've tried this technique. The yarn is Aldi's 'Rustic Aran', which I got several enormous skeins of while I was living in Ireland. The pattern actually called for chunky (bulky) weight and working with two light aran yarns made for a very dense knit. I ended up finishing up about 10cm short of full pattern width because it was turning out so very heavy. I do like the finished product though, especially the grey/blue colour mix from using the two yarns. I'd like to make a hat to go with it but I am struggling for the perfect slouchy hat pattern for this yarn weight. In the meantime, my mum has requested a cowl of her own to this pattern for her birthday (in January) so I have more yarn on order for that already.

Seriously Chunky Christmas Day Cowl

The second cowl is in cheap and cheerful Cygnet Seriously Chunky (in the Nightjar colourway). I just did a very simple 18-stitch wide moss stitch scarf on giant 15mm needles and then seamed it together at the end as I have done before with similar yarn from Aldi. I started knitting this on Christmas morning after we had all settled down post-present opening in the morning, and I finished it up in the early evening just before I went home, to the amazement of my little niece. She was quite taken by the idea of knitting. I actually got her started for herself with a stocking stuffer gift that my mum had coincidentally bought her, a knitting dolly (also called a knitting nancy, or spool knitting or French knitting). She did also ask if she could have my scarf when I finished it, but I am sorry to say I told her no as I wanted it for myself!