it's that time of year again!

Woohoo! I just wanted to take a few minutes and talk about my FESA plans for this year. Due to my current time constraints, I'm keeping it simple this year, and only committing to a handful of projects-- after all, I also have a little Halloween costume that I've been mentally planning since, oh, last Christmas. So here's what I'm hoping to accomplish...

Fashionable Foundations for Frosty Weather 
I have fabric that I think will work to finally try out the Cake Espresso leggings in two different colors, though after the disaster that was my last attempt at sewing leggings, I'm definitely double checking the stretch first this time! Assuming all is well, I plan to sew the black pair, because that will go with nearly all of the skirts I own that currently fit.  I'm most likely to wear them as tights with boots. (Honestly, based on my initial fiddling to check the stretch, I think this fabric will be too see-through to use them as anything else!)

Fabulous Frocks
For the third year in a row, I am putting the Megan Nielsen Darling Ranges dress, in this very fall-appropriate rayon challis print, on my list. And I am determined that this is the year I'll actually make it, dangit!!! After all, it looks like the perfect style for postpartum and nursing. I have managed to get the pattern traced, the fabric cut out, and the darts sewn so far. So third time is the charm, right?


Baby It's Cold Outside
This may be cheating, since I've been working on this particular project for over a month already. But I've been knitting a cowl (the Wine Country Cowl) out of some bulky yarn that I originally bought as the top part of a sweater that I've since abandoned the plan to knit. I could not figure out the very first steps of the pattern at all, and decided I didn't like how the two yarns coordinated after all. "I can't wear wool" substitution problems strike again. Anyway, I'm over halfway done this cowl, I think--it's been one of my methods for coping with Hobbit's penchant for napping best when on my lap and leaving me chair-bound for long stretches of time. Sadly, I think that my plan to use up the entire stash of this yarn isn't going to work out, given its current length. Any suggestions for what else I can do with one or two balls of this stuff?

The nice thing is that if I finish all three of these projects, I'll have one complete outfit! If I can get those and the costume done and still have time left, I have a fairly substantial mental list of additional projects that I could add in. But since I am unsure at this point what the greatest needs in my wardrobe will be, or what I'll be most motivated to work on (SO important right now), I'll just see how this goes first.

9 months in the making

Believe it or not, I can actually do a small June round-up. Although I haven't had a chance to take pictures yet, for the most part.

So this month, I...

• Finished all of the hand-sewing on the second quiet book, thanks to a week where I literally had nothing left to do except hang out at my parents' while Doug was at work and wait to see if I'd go into labor. All that needs to be done is to sew the finished pages back-to-back with the machine, and assemble the book. 
• Finished knitting a scarf from a Craftsy class that I started last year sometime. And I have quite a bit of the second ball of yarn left, but I do have an idea for a project to use it on. Just need the time.
• Did not use up any of my fabric stash. But I did order 7 yards, because Fabric.com suckered me in with geeky novelty prints. 
• Got the scrapbook that I've been working on almost completely done, minus a few pictures that just got ordered. (Since I got married, I've been doing one per year, running from June to May in order to coincide with our anniversary. I seriously love the pocket-style scrapbooking, it makes it so much easier to keep up!) I even managed to finish up some older unfinished album pages, too! 

Oh yeah...and I finished this project.

He was born on June 22 (a week and a day past his due date), 20 3/4" long and 8 pounds 10 ounces. He's 10 days old now, and though it's been pretty exhausting, it's been fun getting to know this little guy, too. He's usually pretty happy, except when he has to get a bath or I take too long in getting ready to feed him.

Of course, when I do feed him, then he looks more like this:

Speaking of feeding, he's ready for that again. Hobbit was a very accurate nickname.

Back later...

pondering knitting

Me and knitting have reached a weird point in our relationship. I have a couple of UFOs that I just don't feel like working on at the moment, about half of the projects in my Ravelry queue are pullover sweaters (which are obviously out for now), and I'm not really sure what to do next.

So I recently swatched for a cardigan that I already bought yarn for, the Rocky Coast from the Coastal Knits book. Amazingly, the gauge actually worked on the first try! But I wonder if the yarn/needle combination makes it look too loose of a knit. The trials of almost always having to substitute the suggested yarn, I suppose. I may go ahead and start this one anyway, because it has enough cotton in the yarn that washing could tighten it up. And knowing me, by the time I finish knitting this, it'll be just in time for fall 2016 and my body will probably be at its new normal anyway.

I also had this random single ball of yarn that I bought at the beach shop a couple of years ago, and I figured a bulky yarn would knit up fast and get out of my stash. I wanted to take advantage of the yarn's ability to change textures--it kind of knits up like a t-shirt yarn, but can open up to more of a lacy mesh. And I haven't been able to find any patterns I liked for the amount that I had, so I attempted to design my own cowl pattern. The pattern itself worked fine--it's a combination between a moss stitch, to show the closed texture, and a drop-stitch to hopefully allow part of the yarn to open up. I think I'd have to block this to make that happen. The problem is, I only had enough yarn to do three repeats of the pattern before I had to bind it off, which makes for a very narrow cowl! So I've had this sitting on my table for something like a week, trying to decide if I should go ahead and block it and see what happens, or to unravel it and try to come up with a different project. Any thoughts?

Either way, I'm feeling kind of mental blocked on anything yarny until I make decisions about what to do about these two projects. So in the meantime, I've been tracing out patterns that I was given for Christmas for geeky baby quiet books instead.

The last little unblogged bits of 2014

The good news is, I think I'm finally starting to get better. The constant nausea is going away, at least, but it's kind of hard to tell--just when that started letting up, I got slammed with a virus 2 days before Christmas! The doctor at the clinic called it "flu-like", and while I wasn't actually having stomach issues from it, I did have to spend the next 3 or so days fighting off fevers. Since then, it's just felt like a nasty cold. And hopefully without going TMI, when I'm really stuffed up, I easily get nauseous anyway. So I still haven't had a nausea-free day, but I'm hopeful that it's coming soon. At least I'm slowly able to start expanding my diet again--I can actually drink water and a little tea now, and I've been eating fruit in the form of smoothies. I may even be able to start cooking dinner again soon, and while I know that takes up time, when you've been living off of chicken noodle soup and cheerios for a few months, that's pretty exciting!

All that to say, I wasn't able to do much sewing for those first couple of days after I finished up at my retail job. Because that ended the day before I got sick, and I was feeling so progressively lousy that day that I couldn't even finish cutting out one of the projects I do have to show. But I did get that done on Monday, and then sewn up yesterday.

I'm going to start with some knitting today, since I recently finished this fairly quick project. The pattern is called "Magic Hat", and it's supposed to be so stretchy that it can fit a variety of sizes. I used some leftover bamboo-blend yarn that I already had, and knit this up in the 4-12 month size, since Hobbit will probably be about 5-6 months old when he or she will need a winter hat. I also didn't quite use up all of the yarn, and I'm rather tempted to see if I have enough left to add some Yoda ears! But the yarn is so drapey, I'm kind of afraid it wouldn't work.

The hat looks a little cone-head on the table, so I had to improvise on a model. My parents gave us a few Christmas presents for the baby, including this little stuffed German shepherd. So its ears seemed to be enough to make the approximate shape. Cute, right?







I do have a little sewing to show. I stitched up this first one back at Thanksgiving, but never posted it here. Just a quick refashion--my mom was getting rid of some unwanted pants, so I picked the zipper out of these corduroys, scooped out the front and stitched up what was left of the fly, and then added this stretchy panel. I know it looks kind of distressed brown in the picture, but these pants are actually black. I have another pair all cut up and ready to sew, save the panel, in navy blue. Hopefully I can knock that out soon, because I literally have two pairs of "work" pants (both black), and two pairs of jeans right now. And that's it. I swear I bought 3 pairs of jeans, but the one pair seems to have vanished without a trace!

And then yesterday's sewing project was these burp cloths. I promised Doug I'd make some hockey-related things, so I found this flannel print that has the logo and colors of one of his two favorite teams. I managed to use up about 2 yards of flannel on this, between the one yard of Penguins fabric I bought, and the solid black that I partially got for this and partially to back one of the geeky bibs I made earlier in the month. There's a total of 9 burp cloths here, and I know my mom has a stack of others for us, too.

I do have one more bib to sew up, since Doug also really wanted to help make one! So he cut one out yesterday and I'll be sewing it. I also need to fix a pair of pants for him ASAP, but then I'm hoping I can start sewing some clothes again! 

I did some quick looking over my spreadsheet to see what my final tally was for stashbusting this year! It looks like I started 2014 with about 340 yards in...and ended with 375. Oops. Granted, I did just buy about 20 yards of stuff to make diapers with, which will get used up in the next several months and accounts for the bulk of the overage. On the plus side, it looks like I sewed up close to 72 yards this year. And I did manage to use up about 27 pieces of fabric altogether. I think that's pretty good, considering that I spent the entire last third of the year unable to do much at all, between traveling and pregnancy sickness!

2014's top 5 hits and misses

Time for the Top 5 lists, as hosted by the fabulous Gillian! I'm going to start off with hits and misses today.

Top 5 Hits
Looking back over my posts this year, I guess this was the year of pants, coats and dresses.

1. The Thurlow Trousers-- all 4 pairs of them I made this year. I'm just showing the grey pair here, since they show up in photos the best. Along with the brown test pair I made in 2013, these got a ton of wear during the cooler months this year. And unlike most of my jeans, I was able to wear these pretty much all the way through the first trimester--it was just last week that I had to resort to safety-pinning them closed rather than buttoning them. So I'm feeling hopeful that, even though I'll have to retire them for the remainder of this winter, maybe I can pull them out again next fall.







2. The Robson coat. I love the color, and I'm quite happy with the inside finishing. I will confess I need to do a tiny bit of repair on one of the pocket flaps where the stitching has come out, but aside from that, everything's holding up nicely. I actually took this with me to Paris and ended up wearing it pretty much constantly, and it was the perfect added layer. Also, dragon buttons!












3.  The teacup Cambie. I loooove the print on this dress, and I have to admit that this is probably the dress that I'm most nervous won't fit again post-pregnancy. Here's hoping, because I really feel like this dress deserves more wearing than I was able to give it in one season!














4. The Tiramisu maxi-dress. This one did get quite a bit of wear over the summer, since it's a little more casual of a dress than the Cambie, and that makes it easy to wear for teaching and such. This one did adapt very nicely to the longer skirt, and I'm glad I got a chance to try this hack out!













5. Even though it did take forever to make, I'm going to have to say the peacoat. The time I spent on the tailoring seems to have been well worth it so far, as was the investment in the Thinsulate. It's much less stiff to wear than the old one, and so far, it seems to be keeping me warm.













Top 5 Misses: 
Not all of these are necessarily sewing projects, or even entire sewing projects. But still...

1. The daisy Sorbetto. It's not so much that this project was a fail, as that I just haven't worn it much. I pretty much have this one skirt that it works with and that's it. Plus it got cold pretty quickly after I made it, and, well...you know, all my clothes starting to not fit. I'll probably pull it out again sometime, though I doubt I'll get much wear from it next summer, as it's not the most nursing-friendly top.











2. My jeans hardware installation skills. I think I would have gotten a lot more use out of the skinny jeans earlier in the fall, if the button hadn't started to get loose after one wash. My dad used some of his epoxy-type stuff to ensure that it wasn't going anywhere, and that's worked. But it's also made the inside waistband really scratchy right behind the button. I managed a quick fix for awhile by just sticking a band-aid behind the button, but I need to stitch a patch over it for a more permanent solution. I just never got to it, and now that those jeans won't fit me for awhile anyway, my motivation to do so has been quite low.



3. This hat. I think it would have been better for me if it had been about an inch longer. It barely covered my ears at all, and that bugged me to no end. I ended up giving it to my mom, since it fit her much better. I guess I have a big head or something?













4. The Tauriel costume, which I attempted to make for the Sewcialists' "March of the Shieldmaidens" sewalong. A combination of bad choice of fabric and less-than-stellar pattern alterations left this looking pretty awful. And though I love making costumes, I wasn't having much fun with it, and was just getting stressed at how many more things I'd need to make for DragonCon vs. how long this was taking. So I ended up throwing it out and wearing my old Eowyn costume instead. Which was probably for the best.

5. Honestly, I think the biggest miss for me this year, or at least the last couple of months, has just been sewing time. It's not that I didn't want to, or even that I didn't have any free time in which to do so. It's just that my "morning" sickness ended up being so bloody awful and I just didn't have the physical stamina to do it as much as I would have liked.

So what's your favorite thing(s) that you've made this year? Anything you wish had gone better?

The slowest refashion I've ever made

I mentioned in my FESA post that I had finally finished a knitting project, and here it is!

This is the Roheline cardigan, as modeled by the floor. I tried to get a good picture of it on me, but I was completely unable to avoid the canine photobombs today. Plus the sky is about the same color as this sweater right now, and that really doesn't help on the lighting front! Oh well, you can see the drop stitch detail better this way anyway.

I call it the slowest refashion, because the yarn is actually recycled! Several years ago, I bought three sweaters from the thrift store, as a cheap way to experiment with how my skin would react to some different animal fibers/percentages of wool.

I ended up tossing the yarn from #2, since it unraveled into a gross tangle of cheap acrylic and just enough wool to annoy me. I still have the yarn from #3 and love the colors, but I'm leaning towards tossing that one as well, since I suspect that even a measly 8% wool is going to be too much for me. So this all came from sweater #1. It's a mostly cotton/acrylic/viscose blend, with a little bit of rabbit hair. And I guess I'm ok with rabbit, because this one didn't bother me to knit with at all!


Making this was definitely a learning experience. I already knew how to do drop stitch, and had experimented quite unsuccessfully with short rows in a failed sweater attempt before. But I did finally learn how to do them properly on this. I had to learn Kitschener stitch for the underarms. I also taught myself how to do "magic loop" knitting so I could do both sleeves at the same time, which was mostly successful. I guess I still need to work on that, because I was unfortunately left with this obvious line down the sleeves where I was jumping between the two circulars and the stitches are a bit looser/sometimes look like I left holes. Is that normal? I did sort of try to block this when I finished, meaning I basically just dumped it in the sink, ran some water over it and squished it around, and let it dry. I know the yarns I can generally work with don't block as nicely as wool-based ones, but I guess I should try actually washing this for real and letting it dry to see if I can smooth that out some more.

For the most part, I knitted this straight off the pattern, since I frankly don't really have the knowledge to add extra shaping to knitting yet. But I did add a little extra length to the sleeves, about an inch, which I think was a good move. It's nice to have my wrists completely covered when it's cold outside!






And here's my attempt to get it as an outfit photo. This was seriously the best out of the multiple tries. Crosby really wanted to model today, I guess! Considering how long it took me to knit this sweater (a full 15 months!), and current events in my life, I am SO glad that I decided to do a cardigan for my second sweater, so I can actually wear it this winter!

I'm in a weird place right now, wardrobe-wise. I'm pretty firmly in the camp of having to wear maternity stuff on my legs already, since the waistbands of everything else are just getting too uncomfortably tight. But I'm still able to fit into my regular tops very well, as long as I'm ok with the "I ate one too many cookies" look. (Just minus the fun of actually getting to eat the cookies, sadly, since I'm still waiting for that nausea to go away.) So this is maternity leggings (from Old Navy) and a maternity denim skirt (from Goodwill) with my regular purple Sadie tank. I'm slowly in the process of trying to assemble a wardrobe that will be as mix-and-match as possible, but I think that will have to be a separate post for later. As of now, I have a lot of holes to fill. But since this cardigan fits very nicely with the palette that's emerging, at least I have one layer to work with.

FESA report card, and other news

Now that it's December, and the Fall Essentials Sew-along is over for another year, let's see how I did...



Well, I didn't do great. I had seven things on my original list. Very conservative of me, I thought!

1. Espresso leggings (Fashionable Foundations): didn't get to them.

2. Roheline cardigan (Chic Chemises): The knitting part of this one is done-- I barely finished in time, as I wove in the rest of the ends and sewed up the underarms on the 30th. I do still need to add buttons, but first I need to find some. The buttonholes ended up being a lot smaller than I expected, and I somehow didn't buy enough of the original buttons I purchased for this. Either that, or I lost a pack. So I need to find some small enough to fit through those tiny one-stitch buttonholes. Not that I'm likely to button this much, but oh well. Pictures to come.

3. Darling Ranges dress (Fabulous Frocks): My original plan of sewing this for The Monthly Stitch's Frocktober got scrapped when it became apparent that my peacoat would have to be a higher priority. Maybe next fall?

4. The peacoat (Baby It's Cold Outside): I did finish this! And since I've already talked about why it was such a time-suck, I'll leave it at that.

5. The Scraptember skirt: I worked on it, but didn't finish it. In my defense, Julia's had it in her possession for awhile to figure out what she wanted to do about another tier, so I haven't actually had access to it.

6. A scarf: I knitted part of this while I was on vacation. And haven't touched it since, so I could concentrate on my sweater.

7. The Disney sewalong project: Which would fall under Chic Chemises and Fashionable Foundations. You know I already finished the shirt, and I did also finish the skirt last week. I have a little extra time tomorrow, so hopefully I can get some pictures of the outfit then.


So, not my most productive period of sewing. But once again, life happened while I was busy making other plans...the truth is, there is a reason why my sewing mojo has been so low during the past couple of months, and it's not just all of the tailoring involved in that coat. Some of you whom I chat with on Twitter may remember me mentioning some major jet lag and nausea when I got back from my trip in September. Well, turns out it wasn't jet lag...I've also been busy over the last couple of months with making a tiny human! My "morning sickness" has really been 24-7 nausea for about 6-7 weeks straight now. So most of the time, I've felt too crappy after work to do much of anything other than sit in front of the tv, and sometimes knit. It really was pure stubbornness that enabled me to finish that coat!

Thankfully, I'm just about at the second trimester, currently on week 12, and hopefully that means I'll stop feeling constantly sick soon. (Oh please oh please...) And yes, there is going to be some baby-centric sewing going on here, but I seriously need some more maternity clothes, so I'll still be making stuff for me as well, I promise! Finding RTW maternity clothes that aren't in boring colors or fit properly in places that aren't supposed to change that much--i.e. my shoulders and the length of my arms--is really hard, you guys!

an American fabric-shopping in Paris!

Yeah, that happened! There's a lot more I could say about my trip, but we all know you're really here for the fabric chatter, right? Of course right.

Several people were kind enough to give me recommendations for places to check out, via Twitter. Specifically Sonja and Sarah--thanks, ladies! I knew I would have to limit myself on how many places I could visit, since I'd be dragging Doug with me, so I ended up picking one recommendation from each sewcialist.

First up was Les Coupons de Saint-Pierre. I'd been forewarned that this place was one you'd have to dig through piles, but I've been a thrift shopper since I was 13, so I have no problem with that.

To be honest, I could have spent hours in this part of town alone--there were so many tables full of fabric sitting outside multiple shops, just begging to be noticed! For a girl who only has a handful of Joann's in her entire state to pick from, this was a dream! But for the sake of my long-suffering husband, I restrained myself. Yes, there was a lot of digging to do. All of the fabric is piled onto tables by type, in 3-meter cuts--there was a huge pile of cottons, a section for linen, a part with leather hides, a huge section on the one side of the store for "silks", etc. (I put the silk in quotes, because upon closer examination, I deduced that the sign probably meant silky and the biggest pile was actually polyester. All of the labels were in French, of course, but I made sure to look up the words for the different fiber types before I left!) So I bought 3 pieces of fabric here. When we were walking to the metro, I spotted a fourth "coupon" on an outside table that I couldn't pass up, so we quickly bought that as well and kept moving. I forget the name of that shop, but it also had "Coupons" in the name, and looked to be pretty similar.

Here's what I ended up with, from left to right:

1. A fine-wale corduroy, covered in embroidery and sequins. This was on the 5 Euro table outside the store. My first instinct says jacket, but since I already have a brown corduroy jacket, I'm pondering a fall skirt. A Beignet, maybe? French named-pattern for a French fabric!

2. The piece on the side of the road I couldn't leave! It's a thin jersey, and I do so love brown and teal together. I think this could be very nice as the lately-released Muse Jenna cardi, though I don't have that pattern yet. 4,75 Euros.

3. A denim with a slight amount of stretch. I liked the cross-hatching in the weave. These will eventually become jeans, of course. I'll have to decide whether to make them skinny, since that's pretty much the only pants I saw anywhere in Paris, or give myself another pair of bootcuts.

4. An ITY floral jersey. This color scheme is odd for me, and almost completely outside of my palette, but something about it called to me. I don't know what this one will be yet, but it's not like I have a shortage of jersey patterns. I'm open to suggestions, though!

All together, the cost of these fabrics was just under 30 Euros. Which made the whole shopping trip cheaper than almost every single meal we ate. Those cafes are expensive when you're buying for 2! Even for just sandwiches!

The second store I visited later in the week was La Drougerie. I didn't end up buying any fabric here, because there was only a small selection and it looked like mostly quilt-type cottons. It was also sold by the meter instead of the 3-meter cuts, so it looked like that would add up quickly. It looked like the big draw here was the yarn--it's the first thing you see when you walk into the door, and dominates the whole first half of the store. There's also a room to the side where you can browse beads and buttons and trims, and again, I could have spent a lot more time here.




I decided to limit myself to just a small yarn purchase here, since the yarn is sold by weight. It's a good thing I came armed with fiber translations, because as usual, there's wool in almost everything! But I did find this super-soft linen/bamboo blend. It's called Kaleido, Ravelry has it categorized as fingering weight, and I ended up with about 330 yards. So probably enough for a hat or a lacy scarf or something along that line.


Finally, I did do some crafting while I was gone! This was mostly done during times like airport layovers and sitting in the hotel room at night-- I was originally thinking to knit on the plane some, too, but for both of the long flights, I ended up in the middle seat with not a ton of elbow room. This is the Unleaving Shawl from Knitty, which really looks a lot more like a scarf than a shawl and highly increases the chance of this actually getting worn. And it's a really simple pattern, unless I'm so tired from flying for 8 hours straight that I screw up the pattern and can't figure out how to backtrack and fix it. (Yeah, that happened once. Hopefully it's not too terribly obvious. I really should not knit anything other than straight stockinette when I'm super-tired.)

One other fun sewing-related story from the trip: Doug and I had just gotten on the metro later in the day after dropping off my fabric at the hotel, to head to Notre Dame. There were two older ladies in the seats near the rail we were holding onto, and one was telling her friend (in English) about something having to do with a silk-cotton blend and the pattern she was working with. So when there was a pause in the conversation, I asked them if they sewed, they answered in the affirmative, and the three of us got to chatting about sewing clothes! I didn't have time before our stop to ask their names or where exactly they were from, though I'm guessing America based on the accents (or lack thereof, to my ears). But they did like my Cooper bag that I was carrying, and had heard of Colette when I replied to their question of what pattern I'd used. It's amazing that I could instantly find someone to talk to in a random subway on the other side of the world because of sewing!

If you do want to see travel photos, I have a small selection up on my Instagram. I still need to sort through the photos on my SLR, and when I uploaded those and the ones on my phone this morning, I have over 700 photos from the week! But I'm also going to make a Flickr album of my favorites, mostly to make it easier to upload and print. After all, this is exactly the sort of trip that makes me want to dig into my scrapbook paper and play!

FESA plans!

It's that time of year again! I do love this sewalong, and this is the 3rd year I've participated. You all know how I feel about the cold, and my ironically wool-phobic skin doesn't help matters. (I say ironic, because since I got married, my last name now starts with Wool! Go figure.) So this is a great way to keep me focused and excited about making things to get me through the winter.

So without further ado, here are my plans for the next couple of months. I'm keeping things rather conservative this time, so maybe I can actually finish everything?

Fashionable Foundations for Frosty Weather: I have some stashed knit to try out the Espresso leggings, and I'd like to knock out a pair or two of them. Since woolly tights are a sad no-go for me, I think this could be a great way to keep my legs warmer for wearing skirts. (I wear boots with skirts a lot, so the no-foot-coverage thing won't be an issue.) Not to mention it's a layer I can wear under my jeans while I'm shivering my way through the last bit of October at the outside register at my retail job. (I have some black, too, but it's a much bigger bolt since I'd also bought this fabric with that aborted attempt at a Red Velvet in mind. Oh well. I can always use black knit somewhere, right?)

Chic Chemises for Cool Climates: The definite is that I'd like to finally finish up the Roheline cardigan that I've been knitting since August 2013! (Though I really didn't get it started until last September, since I had to restart no less than 7 times.) I'm so, so close to finishing the sleeves, which means I only have the yoke and buttons to go, so it's not unreasonable. Depending on how the time goes, I also wouldn't mind trying out the Archer blouse, since I didn't get to that in my summer plans.

Fabulous Frocks: I would like to do a Darling Ranges dress if at all possible, since the colors will be great for taking it into the winter. Also, I meant to make it last year, so it's time. I'm hoping to knock this one out next month, since The Monthly Stitch's theme is "Frocktober" anyway. I'll just need to find a layer to go over it--I have yarn to knit a yellow cardigan that will pair nicely with this, but there's no way I'll be able to finish 2 cardigans in this time span.

Baby It's Cold Outside: My old peacoat that I made in 2007 is starting to fall apart. Replacing that will be first priority! (Even so, 7 years, including the polar vortex of wintry doom that we had this past year, is not bad at all for my first me-made winter coat!) I'm hoping to play around with a few more tailoring techniques, but I'm using the exact same pattern as the first one, so at least fitting won't be an issue. I actually have started cutting this one out already, but since there's 4 layers involved, I'm still on the outside. (The black and white tweedy fabric has been cut, but I'm underlining most of the pieces with that greyish silk organza that's right next to it. And that's taking a little longer. Especially given that I haven't been able to touch it since Saturday.)

Other projects: I'm hoping to knock out a skirt before the end of the month, because a long-standing project I've been making for my sister-in-law is perfect for Scraptember! I may knit up a scarf, too, since I'm strongly leaning towards a one-skein project to take on my upcoming trip to France. (Next weekend! Eeeeee!) After all, I have a lot of plane/airport time, and at least 6 hours on a bus to get to Normandy and back, and I'm not sure how well my Kindle battery will hold up for a cross-continental flight. Also, I know from experience that I sadly cannot read on the bus without getting sick.  Maybe I'll have better luck with just keeping my hands busy.

I'm also beginning to plot out what I'm going to make for the Disney sewalong that Katie and I are co-hosting in November, but that project is still a secret!

Extermi-knitting

So I finished a knitting project. Despite all of the crafty geekery that's been going on around here lately, these handwarmers are not for DragonCon! They were a birthday gift for my sister-in-law, who is also very much into all things Doctor Who. (Happy birthday, Julia!)

The pattern is "The Oncoming Storm" by Laura Isaacs. She gives options for knitting in the round and flat, and I chose to do the flat version since this already had a couple of things going on that were new or fairly new to me-- I haven't done that much knitting with multiple colors of yarn, and I'd never had to pick up stitches for a thumb before. So for the latter in particular, I figured it would be simpler to just leave a hole when sewing it up instead of lots of binding off for a thumb hole or whatever.

The black yarn was leftover from Doug's hat, and I'd actually purchased the grey yarn for this (Caron's Simply Soft) about 2 years ago, because I've been meaning to make these for her for that long. But, time being the wibbly-wobbly thing it is, it got away from me a bit and I just never seemed to be able to get them started. So I started knitting these back in January, because I figured if I did that, surely I could finish them by August! I probably would have finished them a lot faster, if I hadn't been doing things like taking Craftsy knitting classes with my mom, working on that never-ending cardigan, and having my usual springtime work-induced carpal tunnel flareups. So it was very stop and start. But I did finish these around the end of July, save a quick wash and light blocking that I had to do last week. I don't think the blocking made much of a difference in the stitches since it was all acrylic yarn, but one of the silly dogs likes to carry things around in his mouth, so he's perpetually stealing things like any sock he can get his paws on, and my pajamas. And apparently, one handwarmer, because I was dumb enough to leave my knitting bag on the sewing room floor. You just can't give family members gifts that are coated in dog slobber, you know?

Aside from having to figure out the picking up stitches thing, they went together pretty easily, and I'm feeling a little more comfortable with switching between colors now. I do still have a pretty good chunk of that grey skein left over, and a little of the black, but I figure I can always use that to make Doug another hat or something. Hopefully it won't take me another two years to get to that.

I didn't manage to get a picture of both mitts on, because Doug was working on a messy house-related project outside at the time and I didn't want to interrupt. But I can leave you with a canine photobomb shot!

June in review

All things considered, it wasn't a bad month, sewing-wise. I did two of the four challenges for The Monthly Stitch's Indie Pattern Month, busted a couple of pieces of stash, and made some progress towards what I need to get done for DragonCon.

1. Projects completed: 3. There was the Tiramisu maxi-dress, my Tiramisu-Moneta mashup for my Belle costume, and since I had a yardish left of the maxi-dress fabric, I tried out the Maria Denmark Kirsten Kimono tee. I haven't had a chance to take pictures of it yet, but will try to do so soon. I also hemmed a skirt for the same friend whom I did some prom dress alterations for a few months back--she gave me the skirt at the same time, but I'd been slacking.

I ended up with approximately half a yard left of the blue from the Belle dress, plus some large, oddly shaped scraps. So my stashbusting total for the month is 6 yards used up (2.5 from the Belle dress, and 3.5 from the maxi-dress and Kirsten tee.)

I also added some stash, though-- my mom was cleaning out a bin at her house and found all of these fabrics she'd been given that wouldn't work for quilts, but would work for clothes. So I took four pieces off of her hands, which adds up to about 11 1/2 yards in. Yikes! That light greyish lavender solid piece is going to need some work--there's some rusty-looking stains on it, and that's not a color I'd wear, but I figure it could be a good candidate for a dyeing experiment. And they all need to be washed a second time, because after one trip through the washer and dryer, they still have a weird musty smell. But I'm kind of in love with the colors on that plaid. And already plotting possible shirt ideas for how to use the gingham without the results looking too country, and found some cute ideas on ModCloth, which are now on Pinterest.

Side note--I'm not surprised, but slightly annoyed, that it's so much easier to find stashbusting ideas for fabric I wasn't planning on having than, say, the pieces of brocade that have been sitting in my stash for years!

On the knitting front, I'm making slow progress on my Roheline cardigan. I haven't gotten past the point where I'm increasing every few rows yet, but I tried a sleeve on the other day, and they're almost up to my elbows. I am planning on making the sleeves about an inch longer than the pattern calls for, to accommodate my monkey arms, and I still need to do the shoulders and yoke once I get to the point where I can attach the sleeves to the body, but that gives me hope that I might actually finish this one before it gets cold! Which is good, because I already have my next cardigan picked out and have the yarn for it. I'm also working on a couple of smaller projects on the side. One of which is for a gift. So I'll talk about those later.

One non-clothes thing I made, which might be a little cheesy: an anniversary gift for Doug! Since the traditional gift is paper, and I didn't have a ton of time to make anything, I decided to go with an idea I'd seen on Pinterest awhile back for those nights we want to hang out but aren't sure what to do. I kept the basic principle of different colors for different kinds of dates (at home vs. cheaper nights out vs. dates that take more planning and/or money), but decorated the sticks with scrapbook paper that I already had in addition to the paint. And since I didn't get all of the sticks written on before our anniversary, we did some brainstorming to add some things that fit us a little more than the ideas that were on the original website--there's at least two sticks in there that have something to do with hockey! He liked it, and we did finally have a chance to pull an idea from it for what to do last Friday night (board game night!) So I think this will be a fun thing to have around.

I sat down recently to review my capsule wardrobe list, and all things considered, I've been doing pretty well with it so far! Though I forgot to factor in the DragonCon stuff at the time. So for the upcoming month, here's my goal list:

From the capsule wardrobe: the black maxi-dress, which will be super-fast since it's basically a long knit tank top, and the Reglisse dress, hopefully in time for the Sundress Sewalong that Heather is hosting. Also, the skinny jeans, which I have somewhat started already, at least as far as pattern retracing and altering goes. I'm hoping to get those cut out today and start sewing by the end of the week. They'll double as part of the DragonCon sewing (yay for Doctor Who companions who wear normal everyday clothes!), and the timing is perfect for Lizzy's Jeans in June/July sewalong!

Aside from the jeans, I'm also hoping to knock out the rest of my Belle costume-- I need to make a white top to go underneath the dress, which I'm pretty sure I have something in the stash I can use for that, and a hair bow.  The Monthly Stitch's theme this month is monochromatic (all black and white), so between that and the black dress, I should be good to go! If I have time, I can probably also finish my Amy Pond outfit, since all I'll need to do aside from the jeans is to slightly refashion a plaid top that I found at Goodwill awhile back. But if not, I can easily knock that out in August. I have one other costume to do aside from those, plus buy a wig. (And now that I decided to go with my old Eowyn costume instead of finish the Tauriel costume, I found out yesterday that Simplicity just released a pattern for one of the other Tauriel costumes! Go figure.) I'm trying to get better about being realistic about what I can accomplish in my sewing time, so let's see how I do, shall we?

a post of small things, part 1

None of these are really the sort of thing that warrant an entire post by itself, so this is going to be more of a round-up. Which I'm actually going to do in 2 parts, because otherwise it's going to be super-long. So I'm going to start with what I've actually been working on or finishing up lately, and then move to the things I have to think through a little more tomorrow.

1. First off, my most recent completed sewing project. I've used this bib pattern before, though I think this may unintentionally be the last time-- I left it on the kitchen table and now it's not there, so I'm thinking that the dogs ate it. (Our dogs are the type who would have legitimately eaten my homework when I was a kid. They recently ate our checkbook, as evidenced by the fact that we recently found a quarter of one check with a chewed-up edge on the floor....and we haven't found any other remnants of it!) I hope I can find it or something similar again. It was an online freebie, though I can't remember from where since I downloaded it years ago. I like that it's a larger size to keep clothes cleaner, and this has become my go-to for the homemade portion of any baby shower gifts. And I have another friend who recently found out she's pregnant, so I know I'm going to need it again in the next few months!

I made this set for one of my oldest friends, who is expecting a baby girl in May. It's kind of neat when you unintentionally choose perfect fabric--I needed a little more on a recent order to get free shipping when I picked up something for my Tauriel costume, and knew this was coming up, so I ordered half a yard each of this owl fabric and some coordinating flannel to back it with. The owls were cute and on sale, and I figured the colors were neutral enough that she could continue to use them if she has a boy somewhere down the road. Then I found out that she's decorating the nursery in an owl theme! So there was a lot of owl-themed stuff at her shower. (And a lot of pink. So yellow is probably a nice change!)

2. My mom and I are working through a Craftsy knitting class together. We agreed that it's probably a little too easy for us, though I have still learned some useful things. This was the main scarf from the class, which I finally finished a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't sure how it would turn out since I used a more textured yarn and the ends were lacy, but I kind of like the funky look of it. Also, I managed to knit the entire thing continental-style, and I'm pretty proud of that since continental purling is the weirdest hand motion. I still don't really feel like I have the hang of it, but the ability to switch back and forth from my usual English-style might be useful with my carpal tunnel issues.

The yarn is Chacabuco from Araucania, which Ravelry says is now discontinued. I found it mostly ok to work with, though pulling the puffier bits through the loops was sometimes difficult, particularly when binding off. I'll have to keep that in mind when choosing a future project, because I do still have one skein of this in a different colorway. I actually got to this particular skein pretty quickly as far as stashing goes, since I bought it back in August specifically for this class, and I mostly used it up. (There's about 20 yards left. What do you do with 20 yards of bulky yarn? Seriously. There really weren't that many options on Ravelry.)

3. My costume for the Shieldmaiden Sewalong continues to go slowly, but I did get a little further, at least.

Hey, look, actual #shieldmaidenmarch progress. pic.twitter.com/u0bG4714SE
— Becky (@sew_and_so) March 21, 2014

I have two more pieces to cut out, plus any other little decorative overlay bits I may want to do. It's a good thing I'm making this out of bedsheets, because it's a bit of a fabric hog!

February Stash Diet update

Here's my totals for the month!

For sewing, I finished a whopping 6 projects! Three pairs of Thurlows, a Plantain tee, plus an infinity scarf and a tablet case. I love the months off from my retail job. I only used up two pieces of fabric completely, though I made nice dents in the fabrics I used for the pants. I did also buy several pieces of fabric this month--there was my travel exception that I made for Mood, plus I used my regular allowance to buy a piece of faux leather for my March of the Shieldmaidens project. I also bought two half yards of fabric to make a baby gift for a friend, since I needed a little more to get free shipping anyway and I really don't have baby-friendly stuff on hand.

Total fabric out: 7 1/2 yards
Total fabric in: 10 yards
Difference: + 2.5 yards
Total stash left: approximately 327 1/4 yards
Pieces of fabric completely used up: 2 (the cherry print cotton for the charcoal Thurlow pockets, and the paisley knit for the Plantain/scarf)
Patterns used: 2. I believe I have one more to go for my pattern buying allowance.


For knitting, I finally managed to start the sleeves on my cardigan! I also finished up a scarf for the Craftsy class that my mom and I have been working through together, aside from sewing the two halves together and weaving in the ends.. I am so, so close to finishing up that skein of yarn-- if the method for figuring out yardage from weight that I found is correct, I only have about 20 yards of this particular yarn left. Seriously, what do you do with 20 yards of yarn?

I didn't do so well on the yarn in vs out this time. Since I was sharing my beginner knitting Craftsy class with my mom, she decided to buy another one for us to work through together--the "Improve Your Knitting" one, which is probably what I would have gone for in the first case if it had been available at the time. I did check my stash, but unfortunately didn't have anything on hand in the right weights and amounts for the three projects that we'll be making for this class. So I ended up buying another 8 skeins of yarn! Hopefully these will get entirely used up during the course of this class, but I will not be counting these towards my yarn purchase allowance when I do use them up.

On the plus side, aside from my cardigan, I can make my totals a little more accurate now. I was finally able to give one secret project to its recipient--I made these dishcloths for my bestie, who recently bought her first place! So this was part of her housewarming gift, which had a geeky-but-practical theme going. So these have the Earth symbol from Stargate, a TARDIS, the Golden Snitch from Harry Potter, and the Starfleet Academy symbol from Star Trek. (I also bought her this apron--it references both Lord of the Rings and the Big Bang Theory, and is a favorite quote to throw at each other on a regular basis--a cookbook, and a cast-iron skillet--also known as Samwise Gamgee's/Rapunzel's security system!) I basically used up both skeins of yarn on these dishcloths.

I didn't quite finish my Robson coat in time for the end of #bluefebruary, so I'm going to count that yardage total towards March. I also did some dyeing to prepare for my costume yesterday--I'm trying to do my costume on a pretty tight budget, so I dyed some bedsheets that my parents were getting rid of. They did get darker, though not quite dark enough for my intended costume. So I think I might sew the main part of the costume up anyway, and then try the one dye I know works for polyester. (You have to boil it on a stovetop, so I need a smaller quantity than queen-sized bedsheets!)

Knitting away

Since I'm extending my stashbusting pledge to my yarn, I thought I'd give an update on what's going on there!

Unfortunately, I haven't managed to use anything up. But I did finish a couple of projects.

First up: The Chunky Irish Hiking Hat. I used the same yarn that I used for those handwarmers back in the fall, and still didn't use the stuff up! I'm honestly a little less-than-thrilled with this one. For one thing, the top cable got crossed the wrong way, though I was too lazy to rip back since I was knitting this at my mom's house and using a pencil as a cable needle. For another thing, it's too small and/or too short for my head. I wore this for the first time on Friday night, and it barely skims the tops of my ears, which makes it virtually useless for keeping one's head warm while sitting in a college ice rink to watch a hockey game! (I went with several of my cousins, because the colleges we went to were playing each other. Doug was more than happy to play interpreter.) It also kept riding up to stick up funny, so I had to keep pulling it down. I'm not entirely sure whether I should just rip the whole thing out and make something else with it, or send it to the thrift store and cut my knitting time losses.

I was much happier with the Whittier hat. It's surprisingly warm for a mesh hat, and once you get past the edge, the mesh pattern is pretty easy. The most challenging part of this one was the cast-on. I'd never done a tubular cast-on before, and was pleasantly surprised when I took the waste yarn away and the whole thing didn't fall apart! The yarn is Bernat Alpaca Natural Blends. I'm still surprised I can use this stuff, since I can't even touch wool without reacting. And though it worked fine for my Cadence sweater, I wasn't sure how it would be wearing it on my head. It gets a little itchy on occasion, but if I shift the position on my forehead every so often, I'm fine. So, at least to 30%, alpaca is a go! The buttons were already in my stash, from a thrifted jacket that I replaced the buttons on, and I think they look much better here than on the jacket!

I still have quite a bit of this left (I had two skeins and didn't even use half of one), so I think my yarn usage total for January, not counting in-progress things, was about 101 yards. According to my initial estimate, that leaves me with 19,827 yards...but hey, it's still progress!

While I'm at it, here's my fabric totals for January:
Yards in: 2 (from Stash Diet Swap)
Yards given away: 1 (gave a piece to my mom, since they didn't send enough for my project and I had no use for it otherwise)
Yards sewed up: 4.25. Though I actually used significantly more than that, since I cut up several more yards for more Thurlow pants. But I'll get to those later--I'm quite close to finishing 2 of the 3 pairs.
Net total loss for January: 3.25 yards/3 pieces, plus some scraps for Itty Bits projects. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

(Of course, I'm going to NYC this weekend, so it's a good thing I gave myself that travel allowance! Mood, here I come!)

I do have a few more knitting projects in progress. One will not be pictured here, since it's a gift and also a project I've been keeping at my parents', but here's the others:

I made visible progress on the Roheline cardigan! I finally reached the point where I can divide for the sleeves. I just haven't gotten any further than that, because I need to actually sit down and watch a few videos--ideally, I'd like to do both of these sleeves at once, and I found instructions for how to do that with two circular needles. Way better than wrangling double-points.




I've also started a very basic project--awhile ago, I bought the Knit Lab class from Craftsy, thinking it would be good to help me make sure I've mastered the basics. Of course, since then, they added another class that would probably have been more along the lines of what I wanted. But my mom had mentioned that she was thinking about doing this same class, so rather than both of us buy it, I've been going over there a little early on days I teach at her house and we've been watching through it together. So this is the start of the Lacy Keyhole Scarf project from this class. I like the texture of this yarn! It makes it look way more interesting than just basic garter stitch. I'm also taking this opportunity to try to get the hang of continental-style knitting, since that's what she demonstrates in the video, to see if it really is better for my wrists. We shall see. I haven't had any luck ever with purling continental, so that may be a big determining factor.