Finished knits & cross-stitch progress

I have finished not one but two knitted items so far this month! Sadly, one of them is very disappointing.

First, a moment of deja vu, in that I made a cowl for my sister-in-law in December for her birthday and now I have made an absolutely identical cowl for myself this month. I was able to do so because I had a total comprehension failure over the description of the yarn and bought twice as much as I needed for her gift by mistake. Luckily for me, her cowl turned out so interesting and striking that I immediately wanted one for myself anyway. It was absolutely no hardship to knit another, especially as the pattern (the free Gap-tastic Cowl pattern on Ravelry) is one I have now used many many times and could most probably knit in my sleep.

Deja Vu Cowl (pattern: Gap-tastic Cowl on Ravelry, Yarn: Universal Felicity in colourway Open Meadow)

Second, my latest jumper is finally finished... and I don't love it at all.

Finished Il Grande Favorito jumper in Drops Paris Recycled Denim, Dark Wash

The pattern is actually pretty great. It's Il Grande Favorito, by Isabell Kraemer, which can be found on Ravelry. I love IK's patterns -- this is my second of hers and I will probably use more -- because the knitting process is very clearly described and they seem to be very consistent in terms of the outcomes, as the many hundreds of very similar jumpers produced by Ravelry knitters to this particular pattern confirms. I have to admit is a very simple and straightforward pattern to begin with (much more so than my last jumper, the Wanderling, was). It's a stocking stitch jumper in the round, so once the initial complications of all the increase rows for the neckline and sleeves were done, it was just endless rounds of knit knit knit knit knit knit knit. It sounds dull but it's quite a heavy yarn and it's mindless, so you can make a surprising amount of progress with very little mental energy expended. I made two tiny changes to the pattern -- I added a couple of cm in length, and I made a small change to the cuffs by decreasing two stitches to make them narrower

Front view of jumper

Side view of jumper -- you can just about see that the back is slightly longer than the front (deliberately, I should add!)

The problem with the finished sweater is the yarn. I chose to use a cotton aran, specifically Drops Paris Recycled Denim, in the Dark Wash colourway, and I had no problem at all getting gauge.  In a skein, I liked the yarn very much -- it was soft and squashy and I liked the colour. However, I think yarn is already looking very jaded even before I've worn the sweater, which is not what you want at all from a jumper you've spend ages and ages knitting. It looks pilled and tired. The yarn is very splitty as well, and it's hard to keep it twisted together properly if you have to do so much as tink a few stitches, let along rip back anything significant. Cotton yarn always shows every flaw anyway and adding this splittiness on top makes it look a real mess in places. Ugh. Luckily it was inexpensive, but as with all knitting the real cost is the hours and hours of work that went into it!

I tried to photograph the pilled/fuzzy finish, but this is the best I could do

The other big problem is that in the time between casting on and finishing it my ever-fluctuating weight changed by about 1 size. This is, frustratingly, entirely my own fault, because I always seem to stall out at the sleeve stage. It took almost exactly a month to knit the body and neckline -- from the very end of July 2016 to almost the end of August -- and then it hung about sans sleeves until I worked up some enthusiasm to start up again in late December. If I had cast on in December I would have made it a size larger. If I had finished the sleeves in a more timely manner I could have worn it before my weight hit a peak (from which it is now declining, sadly never as fast as it goes up.) That said, the fabric also has that cotton yarn tendency to grow when it warms up, so maybe if I wear it it won't be so bad. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I am pleased with how even the stitches appear to be after blocking, which was not the case as I was knitting it!

I am really disappointed overall. It's only my third completed sweater so I know I shouldn't expect it to necessarily turn out brilliantly, but knitting anything is such a long-term investment of time that it really annoys me when it's very much less than successful.

Lace-weight scarf in progress -- Pattern is Groovy (sock & lace weight), yarn is Drops Silk & Alpaca Lace in black

However, I am not entirely ready to give up my needles, so next up for knitting I'm going to try to finish the lace-weight shawl that is my oldest (and now, only) knitting WIP. Lace-weight knitting is such a black hole though. I did two solid hours on the shawl last night and as far as I could tell I achieved absolutely nothing in that time. The shawl didn't seem to get any bigger and the skein of yarn never seems to get any smaller. However, the yarn is silk and alpaca and it makes the most delightful fabric so I do want the finished product! I think I'll soldier on with it for the rest of January but plan to cast on something new on the 1st of February if I don't finish the shawl by then. There's only so much time I can spend on the lace-weight black hole before it gets too much.

Time lapse embroidery! From left to right on the 3rd, 11th and 18th of January

Meanwhile, I have also been working on my new cross-stitch kit. I really enjoyed the two kits I bought and finished over Christmas and decided to buy a harder/larger project to work on more slowly the next several weeks/months. It was actually quite difficult to find a larger kit that was aesthetically interesting to me to the point that I would be willing to e.g. frame and hang it at the end of the project. I eventually found one that I liked, a Dimensions kit called Mason Jar Line-Up, and it's going pretty well so far!

Christmas Crafts

I hope that everyone who is celebrating the holidays this week is having an enjoyable time of it so far! I managed to have a minor flare of my chronic illness right in time for Christmas, which is just typical. Luckily, as this confined me more or less to my house and sofa, I had some projects to kept me occupied. Here is a very quick roundup:

Gap-tastic Cowl in Universal Yarns Felicity

 1. This cowl I knitted as a gift for my sister-in-law, whose birthday is few days before Christmas. The (novelty) yarn is quite weird in that it's almost like a ribbon, but it actually made up beautifully into this really simple seed stitch cowl. The pattern is the Gap-tastic Cowl, a free pattern that I have used several times before. I ordered the yarn in a last-minute rush, somehow got the quantities totally wrong and ended up with exactly twice as much as I needed. Since my SIL lives in Australia, I might well make a second, identical one for myself as at least we will never get them confused or wear them at the same time!

"Fungus" scarf in Plymouth Yarn Joy Rainbow

2. The last couple of years I've picked out a super-easy scarf project that I could start and finish on Christmas Day, and I did the same this year. This one uses another novelty yarn that makes up into a sort of ruffly scarf thing when you use the "pattern" on the label. I use scare quotes because the pattern is basically doing 6 stitches per row of garter stitch. It took less than two hours to knit from start to finish. My mother said it looked like some kind of fungus or seaweed or something as I was knitting it, and so now in my head it will always be the fungus scarf.

Completed Vervaco "Cheerful Santas" cross-stitch kit

3. Continuing my infatuation with cross-stitch, this insanely adorable little kit I'd bought turned up on December 19th. I felt so rotten at that time I actually more or less stayed in bed sick the following couple of days, and since being in bed is very boring I got started stitching early on the 20th and worked on it quite extensively every day (and mainlined Person Of Interest on Netflix at the same time!). I finished it up this morning, the 27th, exactly 7 days later, which I think was pretty good going. There are a couple of little mistakes in my stitching, but nothing that I think is too obvious. The kit, if you're interested, is Vervaco's Cheerful Santas, and I bought it on Amazon. It's rated Easy, which I think is a fair rating, and there are relatively few colours to juggle. I really loved the extra-large chart that Vervaco supply as well. I was amused to discover that although they are called Santas in the English packaging, in the original language (Vervaco is a Belgian company) they are actually Christmas Gnomes! I know nothing of Belgian Christmas traditions, but their gnomes are cute. I'm going to frame my finished stitching and use it as a Christmas decoration in future years. :D

There are very few days left in the year. I'm going to post my reviews of 2016 this week some time, and I'm also chugging as quickly as I can through the sleeves of my Il Grande Favorito jumper, which has been lurking, sleeveless, in my knitting bag for months now. I've been making myself work on it a bit and I'm actually making pretty good progress -- I'm just a little under halfway through the first sleeve and it really hasn't taken as long as I thought it would. If I am very disciplined I might even get it finished before the start of 2017!

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.

Knitted Objects 2016: #2 Drop Stitch Scarf in pink

I've been planning to start knitting a jumper on August 1st and I thought I'd best get back into knitting practice. I couldn't face my very boring lace-weight knitting WIP, which I can only bring myself to work on sporadically, so I decided instead to knit this fast little scarf, out of season though it is. This is a pattern I've knitted before, the free Drop Stitch Scarf (Ravelry link). The yarn is Malabrigo Rios in English Rose, which is a subtly variegated pink at the fuchsia/purple end the of pink spectrum.

Malabrigo is one of those ~~artisan, indie yarn brands that people go on and on about. I am not normally all that patient with that kind of hoopla -- or the accompanying price tag -- but in this case I have to admit the yarn does seem to live up to the hype. The colour variation is lovely, the yarn is gorgeously soft and squashy and knitted up well. The finished object is very pleasing indeed. I'd knit with this yarn again for sure, though I am pretty sure I am never going to find it affordable to make a whole sweater or other large project with it. I was sucked into this purchase because I saw something made up in this yarn/colourway and absolutely fell in love with it. I was still only willing to buy a single 100g skein for a small project as a treat. I can't afford to become too much of a yarn snob!

Little things

August was not a good month. I spent most of it feeling quite heinously unwell, and alternated between lurking on my own sofa being miserable and lurking on my mother's sofa being miserable, which is a revoltingly boring way to spend your time. So: roll on September! My health situation is a little bit more under control right now, the next couple of weeks are allegedly going to be quite pleasant from a weather point of view, and therefore I am determined to be optimistic that September will be all round an improvement.

Apart from a sleeveless blouse (which I only wore once due to weather, but actually loved on that one wear, so that's a win) and finishing my Backshore sweater, I did manage to finish up a couple of teeny tiny projects in August.  It's heavy on the knitting side of things because knitting is something I can do while sitting miserably on various sofas with a good level of success, whereas sewing is a bit more energetic and therefore was more than I could manage for most of August.

First little knitting completed object: a sparkle scarf. Ages ago my mum bought (for £1.99) a ball of sparkly multi-coloured yarn from the reduced bin at Aldi (a discount supermarket, for those unfamiliar), and asked me to knit her a scarf with it.

Drop Stitch Sparkle Scarf

I picked and very slightly adapted the (free) Drop Stitch Scarf pattern (Ravelry link) and made her a long skinny, sparkly scarf. I can't say I loved the yarn, which is a chunky acrylic variegated with a thin gold thread, but I think it turned out very nicely for a £2 investment and a few hours of my time. At any rate, my mum really likes it and she is the one who will be wearing it, so that's a success. I like the pattern a lot: once you get the hang of the drop stitches it goes really quickly and I really enjoy the shapes it makes. I want a green scarf this winter and I am planning to invest in some nice Aran weight yarn to make up with this same pattern.

The second little knitted object I made in August was my first ever hat. Right at the start of the year, I made a cowl from some vintage DK and boucle yarns held double. It actually turned out lovely -- I love the burgundy colour and the nubbliness of the boucle and the way the two different yarns, which are slightly different shades of burgundy, combined together with they were held double. It also goes really nicely with my winter coat, which is grey. At any rate, I wore it loads and decided that when I got the chance I would make a woolly hat to go with it. I hit upon the (free) Quick and Easy Slouchy Hats (Ravelry link) pattern, which has three simple variations. My cowl is just seed stitch, so I made variation 1, a seed stitch, moderately slouchy hat (the instructions say to knit 8" above the ribbing for some slouch, and 12" for a LOT of slouch, and I chose the former).

I look like a total plonker in knitted hats, but if the weather is cold enough to need one, I prize a warm head over aesthetics. However, there will be no modelled shot! :D

And finally, I have managed to sew a TINY bit in the last few days as I've started to feel a bit better. Fortunately (or, not fortunately, but something) I had a fairly urgent need for something very simple to get me started sewing again, a basic white t-shirt, after there was an Unfortunate Incident involving my sole remaining RTW basic white t-shirt and a large pot of apparently laundry detergent resistant dark chocolate pudding.

The only remotely interesting details about this are that (a) after making a lot of tees based on New Look 6150, this is actually a new but only marginally different base pattern, Ottobre 02-2007-03. This is because that pattern has a really nice V-neck variation (pattern #5) that I plan to make next -- this round/slightly scooped neck version was a quick test of my mashup of the pattern my knit sloper before I try the V-neck version; (b) it's in tactel, which is a knit fabric I have not sewn with before, and which is remarkable only for wanting nothing to do with the iron in any way. Other than that, it's a basic white tee, surely the least interesting of sewing projects but I am happy to have finished SOMETHING, no matter how basic!

Next up: I have started a new sweater! Prepare for regular updates if you follow me on Instagram as I am once again planning the Knit A Bit Every Day approach and I enjoy documenting my progress; I will be sewing a (more interesting) knit top as I am able over the next few days, and I am absolutely, 100% determined that Operation Jacket is a go now that it's the first of September. My goal this week is to get the pattern traced.

Groovy

At Christmas, I was sitting with my mum, knitting one of the many cowls I made around that time, and she said a fatal phrase: "Hmm, the way you purl is odd."

For the last two years I had been wrapping the yarn the wrong way when I purled. The way I was doing it is, it turns out, actually a real stitch just not the stitch I was trying to do. On the one hand, this does explain why I found knitting into purl rows so difficult/tight, and why my fabric never looked quite right. On the other hand, I now had to correct a two year old habit in order to start purling the correct way. I tried for a bit kind of half-heartedly on some minor projects, but then I knitted my Nurmilintu scarf (which has no purl stitches at all) and when I came to gauge swatch for something else I found I had regressed and was still purling incorrectly out of habit. I decided the only thing to do was to brute force a change in habit by knitting something with masses of purl stitches and making sure that every single one was purled the right way. I have therefore been knitting the Groovy scarf (Ravelry link), which is pure stocking stitch and thus includes many many thousands of purl stitches.

Groovy scarf in fingering (4-ply) weight cotton/wool yarn

By the end of this scarf, victory was mine! I think I have successfully changed the way I purl. Initially, my purl rows took FOREVER while I tried to break and relearn the muscle memory of how I've purled up to now, but by the end I was whizzing along just a little slower than on the knit rows. My fabric looks much better (no more weird little twist) and I found it MUCH easier than I ever have before to knit into the purl rows when doing stocking stitch (which, uh, probably should have told me I was doing it wrong before, maybe? I just thought I found it harder than other people seem to because... the knitting gods did not gift me with great knitting prowess. I don't know.)

As far as the actual scarf goes, apart from my own personal agenda: the pattern is fine, and I got exactly what I expected to get from it after all that knitting. It was a great knitting-while-watching-TV sort of project and good for picking up and putting down on and off all day if I wanted.

The actual scarf, though, eh, not my favourite thing I've made, mainly due to the yarn I used. I chose to knit with this very basic cotton/wool/nylon mix that I bought from Lidl (a discount supermarket) when I was living in Ireland. I've used other colourways to make two pairs of socks and probably I should have stuck to using it to make socks, because it's SUPER ITCHY when it's up against the rather more tender skin of my neck and face. I hoped, rather optimistically, that the blocking process would soften it up a bit, but NOPE. SO ITCHY. I don't hate it, but it's reinforced my intention to buy much less yarn of much higher quality from now on.

Next up on my needles: I am knitting a very boring rectangle for felting & bag making purposes next, though that should be a relatively short project.

Made: Nurmilintu scarf/shawl

I finished another knitted thing! After knitting a whole series of (very easy) cowls at the end of last year, back at the start of January I decided to cast on something a little bit more challenging. I picked this shawl/scarf called Nurmilintu (Ravelry link), a free, single skein fingering weight pattern mainly in garter stitch with three small bands of lace. I had previously bought a skein of Debbie Bliss Fine Donegal Tweed in the Midnight colourway intending to make socks. However, the extreme nobbliness of the yarn (not a technical term -- I have no idea what the technical term would be for how lumpy and irregular the yarn was) was not at all suited to knitting on toothpick sock needles, and I therefore repurposed the yarn to this shawl. I am not sure this pattern suits the nobbly yarn any better, actually, but I don't care, I like my finished product and as it's cashmere and wool, it's delightfully soft and cosy.

Lace pattern (observe my many, very obvious, mistakes!) and draped in shawl fashion on Flossie

There were a ton of new things I had to learn as I worked through this pattern: reading a lace pattern chart (very badly, I had to rip back the first lace panel three times), knitting the various lace stitches, including one that was new to me (also badly, so the first two lace panels have SO MANY mistakes in them. I think I got the third and final panel all correct, go me), and the fun bobbly edged cast off at the end. I also had to block the scarf, which was an interesting experience. I've blocked socks, but all I do with that is wash them and then stretch them over a vaguely foot shaped form I made from a coat hanger. Blocking this involved spraying and stretching and pinning and all sorts.

Unblocked lace pattern (also you can see the multicoloured yarn flecks best in this shot)

I made one minor change to the pattern as written, and really just because I hate scrap yarn. The pattern is written that you finish the scarf after the third lace panel. I have to admit I wasn't 100% sold on this anyway, though if my yarn had worked out that way I would have followed the pattern. However, when I got to the end of the pattern as written I had fully ~18g left of my yarn of a 100g skein, and that just seemed wasteful. I added a final half width panel of the garter stitch and finished up with just a tiny 3g ball of yarn left over at the end, and I think I actually prefer how this looks overall.

I'm not really sure how you WEAR one of these weirdly shaped shawl things. This was my best estimate!

I've already cast on not one but TWO new knitting projects. The first is another fingering weight scarf (Ravelry link) in a pattern best described as "utterly mindless" -- endless stocking stitch. It's a very portable project, and thus useful for travelling/hospital appointment waiting rooms and also perfect for mindless knitting-while-watching-TV. If I pick this up and put it down as much as I expect to, it'll probably take a good long time to finish.

The second project is a sweater (Ravelry). I know, I know, I swore off knitting sweaters after the Purple Monstrosity Disaster! But I have this goal for working my way through my yarn stash and this huge pile of aran yarn that I don't know what to use for if I don't make actual knitwear, and I found this sweater pattern that I thought would make an actually easy casual aran weight sweater and... yeah, I don't know, it will probably end just as badly as the last sweater I made. Further updates from the field to follow, please feel free to make O.o eyes at me when it all goes wrong. /o\

Bits and pieces

1. I finished knitting yet another cowl. I know, I know, I am the most boring knitter in the world, even more boring than my sewing.

Yet another Gap-tastic cowl, this time in vintage burgundy bouclé and DK held together

I am on a mission to substantially reduce the size of my (thankfully, not very large to begin with) yarn stash this year. When I first started knitting at the very end of 2012/start of 2013, the impetus was being given a huge box full of my maternal grandmother's knitting accoutrements, untouched these last twenty or thirty years. I recently discarded much of what I acquired in the box because it was mostly remnants of cheap, unpleasant yarn, and I sold some other yarn. However, I kept two things: a pile of burgundy DK 25g skeins (13 of them, to be exact) and a similar tone of burgundy bouclé yarn that I tried but failed to knit once before. It's actually more red and less brown than this photo makes it appear.

I adore how this turned out. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the bouclé totally obscures the stitch so the cowl is just a gorgeous nobbly texture, and the interweaving of the two shades of burgundy looks so gorgeous in real life. So, even though this is really uninteresting because it's just Yet Another Cowl, I consider it a raging success, hurray!

Meanwhile, I am also plodding along knitting the shawl I started. It's going well so far, but then I haven't hit the lace pattern yet. Updates from the field soon.

2. Quilt progress: Back on 22nd December I cleared up all my WIPs and made sure that the only thing I carried into 2015 was the World's Slowest Quilt, which I originally started in April 2012. Since then I've: bought the remaining quilt top fabrics I needed; cut out all the pieces; made 36 quilt top blocks; organized the blocks/batting/backing sandwiches (I am making a quilt-as-you-go quilt, so I have to assemble each block separately); and started quilting. My quilting so far is really REALLY basic, I've just been outline quilting along the seam-lines of the blocks. I plan to try to get fancier with my quilting, including possibly trying out my free motion foot that came with the machine, as I progress further into my pile of blocks. (So far I have quilted 3 of 36, so I have time!)

Blocks waiting to be quilted (the very large pile) and already quilted (the very small pile)

I'm not disliking the experience of quilting -- there was something very satisfying about making all those lovely straight lines of stitches and pressing the seams open. However, I can't say I'm a massive quilting convert so far. Plus, to be honest I keep looking at the part where I have to connect all the blocks together at the end and going D: However, forward momentum has been achieved!

3. Partly momentum has been achieved because I am dragging my feet on my next garment project. Well, next but one -- first I have to make a boring but necessary pair of yoga pants, but then I am going to make a new shirt or two. However, in order to make it I have to muslin it and eh, I have a case of the don'twannas about the whole thing.

Here is the pattern, Vogue 9906 from about 1978-9 (ish), which I picked up from eBay in my mad pattern buying spree at the end of last year. I shan't be wearing a beret to accompany my version, but I am planning to make view B.

Vintage Vogue 9906

There are several reasons I have to muslin this blouse -- mainly that the bust fullness is provided by shoulder gathers rather than a dart so I can't do what I did with my previous shirtmaking attempts and slap a darted sloper over the top as a comparison. Also, the shoulder is forward and I always have to adjust, sometimes quite dramatically, for square shoulders, and I am not entirely certain how to do that with this pattern -- stick a wedge in it somehow, is all I know for sure.

4. Meanwhile, my sewing-related reading at the moment is dominated by tailoring books and the Alabama Chanin books (not intended for use together). I am still obsessed with making a jacket (although if I have the don'twannas about muslining/fitting a shirt, you can't imagine the extent to which I am digging in my feet over fitting a coat or jacket) and also, separately, with the whole embellishment/embroidery/slow sewing thing at the moment. I keep sort of marrying up all kinds of other, sometimes long-held obsessions with both of these things, with the end result that I have Grand And Epic Plans, in my head at least, for things to make and do in the future. Alas, I fear my ambitions and my abilities are, as always, separated by several miles, but Grand and Epic Plans are always the most fun in the creation stage.

5. And finally, since a numbered post is not a proper post unless it has 5 things in it, a minor personal update. Long-time readers may recall that since I have been quite seriously ill off and on for almost two years now, which culminated in me having to leave my job and return to the UK last summer. I was actually starting to feel tons better in the autumn, almost back to normal even, but then I relapsed spectacularly in mid-November and I've been miserably ill ever since. However, last week some new and different progress was finally made after I went to a long-awaited appointment with the Most Special Of All Specialists down in London. Among other things, the Most Special Specialists FINALLY gave me a diagnosis (except it has the word idiopathic in the name, which basically means: haha, we don't really know why this is happening to you! but never mind). There are several more hoops to jump through before I actually get the new treatment they prescribed, but I am very hopeful that things are looking up already health-wise for 2015. :D :D :D

Unfortunately, I then celebrated by buying 5m of fabric, but let's not focus on that. /o\

Made: Gift cowl and more embroidered tote bags

I have started 2015 doing exactly the same things I was doing at the end of 2014, for basically the same reasons. I'm currently unwell again (still) and so I am mainly limited to projects that I can do while sitting on my sofa in my PJs or close equivalent. I started to try to pin a pattern onto fabric for something more complicated today but, ugh, no, not happening. Hence my crafty endeavours seem to be limited at present to long blog posts about wardrobe planning, knitting and inept embroidery on little tote bags and may be for a couple more weeks.

"Gap-tastic cowl" in Sirdar Click Chunky, colourway Flock

This is my third Gap-tastic Cowl (Ravelry link) and I may just cast on a fourth in the next couple of days. This particular version is a gift for my mum. I was knitting my blue and grey version and chatting to her about her birthday coming up later this month. When I asked what she'd like as a present, she said actually, she'd quite like a cowl like I was knitting. After deliberation, her yarn choice was this oatmeal with black flecks, called Flock, from the Sirdar Click Chunky range. I really like Sirdar Click. It's not a very expensive or fancy yarn and it's only 30% wool, but it's lovely to knit, stays soft in wear and doesn't bobble, and it comes in a nice variety of colours. I am quite happy with this cowl -- at this point, I am thoroughly competent at moss stitch and the cowl knitted up very quickly and easily. I'm pleased to have got this done for her well ahead of her birthday!

In addition to a plan to make a couple more cowls (one double-stranded with a vintage bouclé yarn to this pattern and one in a totally different pattern, just for a bit of diversity), I also intended to make another pair of socks and started to cast them on last night. However, the yarn I had bought, Debbie Bliss Fine Donegal Tweed, is weirdly lumpy and uneven, and even as I was just casting on I could see that I was going to struggle with it on toothpick width 2.25mm needles. Thus: a change of plan. Inspired by Today's Agenda, and despite the fact that she is self-evidently extremely accomplished as a knitter whereas I am at the level of being happy that I can do moss stitch without making a mistake, I decided I would use my weird nobbly yarn and make a Nurmilintu scarf (Ravelry link), which I had already queued on Ravelry but didn't really think I was ready to start knitting. However, I need a lightweight project to take with me to many forthcoming occasions when I will be sitting, bored, in waiting rooms, and nothing else really grabbed me.

Embroidered tote bags

Meanwhile, I possibly need to stop making these little tote bags now before I vanish under a tidal wave of them. I do enjoy making them though, and it's a way to practice these embellishment techniques while (a) the actual quality of the outcome is kind of irrelevant since it's just a tote bag and yet (b) the stuff I make in the process still has some use.

At any rate, whereas the last couple of bags I made for my own use used reverse appliqué, these two are simply embroidered. On the left, the roses are outlined in running stitch to a design adapted from a stencil in a book I acquired just after Christmas called Printing By Hand. (Which is a beautiful book, though I can't really review it with any conviction as I've not tried anything from it yet nor even read the instructions for anything properly.) The bag is lined in a mottled green inside, so it's quite sweet really. The blue bag on the right (which has a blue lining) uses another Alabama Chanin stencil, this one called Facets (this is the placement version, there's a larger stencil as well). I decided to do that one as a practice at backstitch and, no surprise, I am shockingly bad at it! My "straight" lines are wonky as hell. It looks OK if you stand a good distance away and squint though, I guess.

In the background, I have also made tons of progress on the World's Slowest Quilt. I ordered, and received with excellent promptness, various fat quarters of fabric. I've cut those out and I'm just waiting for one more piece of fabric to arrive and then I will have everything ready to begin stitching. The design I've picked is so incredibly simple that the actual piecing together of the quilt blocks shouldn't take long at all.

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!

A birthday scarf

I know this blog seems to have descended into scarf knitting mania, but this one TRULY is my last scarf this year and we will shortly be returning to your regularly scheduled sewing posts. Honest! I have even just cut out my cape at last and will be posting about it soon, sewing time permitting.

Sirdar Taffeta in Portobello

Meanwhile, however, it was my birthday last week and my mum and dad came over from the UK to spend a couple of days with me. Since the baggage limits are pretty tight on RyanAir they mostly gave me money for my birthday, but they also brought me a couple of little gifts, the most relevant to this blog being a ruffler foot for my sewing machine and a scarf-sized hank of really interesting yarn called Taffeta by Sirdar in the "Portobello" colourway.  I haven't tried my ruffler foot yet, but I jumped right on casting on the scarf.

I'm not going to lie, I was initially utterly baffled by the instructions for how to make a scarf from the yarn that were printed inside the label, and even once I started knitting I had a highly sceptical O.o face going on the whole time.

However, after a half hour of knitting it all started to make sense, and I knit it on and off Friday and Saturday until I ran out of yarn, ending up with this:

I think it's really cute! It's got a slight feather boa look about it, and I love the colours and the fringe. Now I just need somewhere to wear it! (Although, this does make me think again about the amazing theoretical evening wear wardrobe currently still fabric that I aspire to own one day, and how well this scarf will fit into it.)

Goldhawk Road haul and two finished scarves

I was in London this weekend for a pre-birthday treat to myself (my actual birthday is this week). I stayed with my friend B, who also sews and was therefore willing to accompany me fabric shopping (although she didn't buy anything herself). Thus on Saturday we trekked across the pretty much the whole of London to go to Goldhawk Road for my second break from my fabric buying fast. When I moved to Ireland I decided I had TOO MUCH FABRIC and couldn't buy any more this year with two exceptions: the Dublin K&S show at the beginning of this month (where I bought just under 9m of fabric), and this trip to London, where I bought 14m. The only time I broke the rule was when I bought the sheets to use as fabric for my two Washi dresses in the summer, so I am actually really happy with my willpower! I went to London with a list of possible fabrics/colours/etc that would fit into the wardrobe I want to sew over the next 12 months, a budget and a very hard limit that whatever I bought had to fit into my little carry-on bag to come home to Dublin.


On my list were some requirements for lining fabrics for a variety of forthcoming garments. I bought 10.5m of various ridiculous colours and styles because I love a wild lining in an otherwise sober and sensible garment (the blue animal print, white blobby print, leopard print and blue tulip print are all lining fabrics). I also bought 2m of classic stripy shirting, and my absolute favourite purchase, 1.5m of gorgeous lace. The lace was a bit of a splurge, price-wise, and actually in the shop for some reason I thought it was stretch lace and it turned out not to be so that scuppered the original plan I had when I bought it. On the plus side, it's totally in my colour palette, I loooove it and I've already had way more ideas than I have fabric for what to do with it even though it's not stretch. Overall, I'm calling the fabric buying trip a win.

Meanwhile, I also made my friend B a tiny little gift of a scarf before I went. The yarn is Sirdar Firefly, and I bought it at the local yarn shop in Booterstown when I bought the yarn for my Gap-tastic cowl. It didn't photograph very well, unfortunately!

This is a really skinny, interesting yarn with two metallic and black threads connected by little squares in blues and greens. I picked up a single skein so, in order to make a scarf long enough to be useful to wear, I decided to knit it fairly narrow (20 stitches of garter stitch) and on my massive 15mm needles. (I tried on 9mm needles first but it wasn't quite what I wanted). It made for a very delicate looking, airy knit, but I think the scarf actually looks best sort of scrunched and twirled up together like a rope. I decided I wanted to make & gift this at the last minute and I am not 100% happy with the cast on row, but I didn't have time to fix it before I left.

To amuse myself in the boring parts of the travel experience (airports/the plane), I also took another little Aldi scarf kit with me. This red scarf is identical to the purple version I made at the start of October. It's really tremendously unexciting, but it was the perfect travelling knitting project because it required zero brain power. I really need to stop knitting scarves though now. Jumpers or death!

Made: Absolutely positively the last cowl I am making this year

Another really simple cowl -- same yarn (super-chunky from Aldi), same general "pattern" (moss stitch on gigantic 15mm needles) with only one difference that I made it slightly narrower (16 stitches wide rather than 20 stitches like the previous one) and therefore slightly longer. I'm not sure I love this length. Maybe the happy mean is the one stitch width I DIDN'T try of 18 stitches! Obviously it's also in a different colourway of grey/pink/purple. The only disappointing thing is that the previous one I made turned out in kind of an interesting pattern, whereas the variegation of this one just looks like regularly repeating blobs. However, I still like it! It took me basically just Sunday to knit this and again, I am really happy with the way this cheap and cheerful yarn worked out for me. I know a lot of people loathe super-chunky wool and I'm not likely to use a lot of it again, but it's been weirdly confidence boosting to knit with these two cheapie skeins from Aldi and I don't regret buy it.

That is absolutely, definitely the last cowl I am making though. They all go nicely with my winter coat, though, so I should now have enough to get me through the winter season!

Made: Another simple cowl

Super-chunky cowl in moss stitch

Weirdly, I feel like making this incredibly simple moss stitch cowl was a really great learning experience. There was no pattern to this at all, just 20 stitches of moss stitch until I almost ran out of yarn and then grafted together the short ends of the scarf to make it a cowl. I didn't make a single mistake in the whole thing, mainly because with knitting with such a huge super-chunky yarn it was almost impossible that you wouldn't see a mistake while you were knitting. I could really see the anatomy of the stitches, especially since I was knitting on huge 15mm straight needles. So, huge cowl to keep me warm, plus a great way to improve my knitting.

I'm probably not the biggest fan of these super chunky weight yarns, but I would recommend them to a learner trying to figure out what they are doing. The actual yarn was variegated so I had nothing to do with the colour changes - it's just one big 300g ball that I bought from Aldi for €8. I actually have another, more attractive ball the same except in grey/pink/purple which I might make up next. Unless I embark once more on the increasingly depressing purple jumper of doom.

Two finished objects -- and one of them I sewed!

Unfortunately, neither of them are very exciting, but on the basis that nothing exists if you don't blog about it...

Knitted scarf from an Aldi kit in purple

First (and most unexciting of all) another super quick little knitted project, for which I used a kit from Aldi. It's a weirdly bobbly fashion yarn in Cadbury's Dairy Milk purple. I actually love it, but a work of knitting genius it is really not: 11 stitches of garter stitch, keep going until you run out. Even I managed that without too much difficulty!

Scarf hung loose, also, assorted detritus in the background

Sadly, it's a bit shorter than I really like in a scarf if I'm going to wear it hanging, but I do like it rolled up like in the first photo in the neck of my grey winter coat, so it's at least still useful and it was €4.50 for the kit so I don't really care. (Not sure why I took this photo without moving the box that is waiting to go to the tip and my knitting bag out of the way, but never mind!) Now I just have to convince myself not to start another new easy project but to get on with finishing the Purple Jumper Of Doom. :|

Item no. 2, and officially the first garment I've produced in my new flat, and it's yet another iteration of the Ottobre 02-2013-02 "Summer Basics Tee". For anyone keeping count, why yes, this is version number 7 I've made. I might be slightly obsessed with this pattern.

Ottobre 02-2013-02 version number 7 (no, really) in blue polka dot cotton jersey

I had to re-trace my pattern for two reasons. First, I use really cheap thin tissue paper to trace at the moment and frankly 6 uses was as much as it could take. It was more tape than tissue at this point. I really need to find something better to copy patterns I want to re-use onto, though what that would be I have no idea since I balk at the horrible cost of swedish tracing paper. Second, there was a sizing issue. Previous versions were a fairly straightforward 48 shoulders-to-bust, blending to a 46 at the hip. This version started off a 46 shoulder-to-bust, 44 hip, but after a series of surgeries ended up around a 44 shoulder, 46 bust, and 42 hip. The surgeries did not improve the finish I got, but whatever, this is just a t-shirt for around the house, I can live with a mediocre finish.

I have a whole laundry list of alterations of this top at this point -- neckline narrowed by 4cm (unfortunately, I did 3cm on this top and it JUST flirts with showing my bra strap, which I hate) armhole dropped by 2cm, different neckband application, 5cm cuffs to finish the armhole rather than a bound edge. The newest change, suggested by a friend of mine, is a skinny banded hem finish rather than the usual twin needle hem that I do, top stitched (as was the neck band) in order to prevent it from curling over.

Cuffed hem, top stitch to stop it curling up.

I wish I could have made my band a little less skinny, but alas, I had an allegedly 1m cut that was the most mis-shapen 1m I have ever seen. It was 94cm along one selvedge and 106cm down the other. I was lucky to get the top, neck binding, cuffs and even a skinny hem band out of it. It came from Tissu, who usually do a much better job with cutting, and it cost £4 for a metre (with free p&p because I bought it with a bunch of other stuff).

After my 7 iterations, I've made 3 cotton jersey (including this one), and 4 slinky jerseys of various descriptions. Overall, I think it makes up best in the slinkier stuff with good recovery. The cotton jerseys slowly stretch of the course of the day so you start off with it catching at the hip as intended, and by the end of the day it's hang down over your butt.

Next up, I am tracing ALL THE GARMENTS IN THE WORLD, since I have three separate new patterns that I want to make from magazines this month. Luckily I quite like the tracing process, or at least I don't object to it.

Terrible selfie to finish off!