Purple gingham vintage Simplicity 5921

This dress is a wearable toile - I'm going to make another version of this with shorter skirt, deeper frill and long sleeves (possibly more than one version...), but I wanted to get the yoke and armhole fit right before making one with sleeves.  I bought this gingham in John Lewis originally intending to made a shirtdress with it but never did, so it's turned into this.

This pattern was published in 1983, but there are several similar contemporary patterns - what goes around comes around!

Purple skirt

Having reviewed my autumn wardrobe I felt I could do with another skirt, and that's how this came about.  I bought the fabric years ago in Fabricland intending to make a dress from it, but never got around to it so decided it was time to use it for a skirt instead.

The pattern I used was a vintage New Look / Maudella one, from the 80s I'm guessing, by the hairstyles of the models on the cover!

I made the four-gore option and there's not really anything to say about the construction - it was straightforward.

I've already worn it a few times, and it will be just as useful in summer with bare legs as it is now with tights and boots.

Cloud Illusions x 2

My sister asked me to knit her a scarf for Christmas, and even though she chose the wool and the pattern, and knew she was getting it, I've held off publishing this post until after she's received it.

Before and after - the magic of blocking

So, this one is for her, knitted in Malabrigo sock which she chose from my stash.

Front view

Back view

And this one is mine, knitted in Skein Queen Wisp which I bought five and half years ago at Unravel and just haven't got around to knitting up until now.  It's lovely yarn, like wearing a soft, fluffy cloud.

 As this is skinnier than the Mal sock I knitted it on smaller needles (3mm and 3.5mm as opposed to the 4mm and 4.5mm for the purple one) and decided to knit it straight after the purple one while the rhythm of the pattern was still fresh in my head.

Neither of them took very long to knit - I do like this pattern, I've made it five times now!

Ultramarine cardigan

This cardigan is knitted with the last of the Fyberspates Scrumptious 4-ply in my stash and it's a lovely deep, rich, purple (the shade colour is Ultramarine).  I started it in January and finished it in February.

The ribbing is 1 x 1, I used the stitch pattern from Baile, a pattern I've already used for this cardigan (and which I have subsequently found in my Second Barbara G Walker Treasury - the twin leaf panel and fancy shell rib look very similar, if not actually the same), and there is some shaping at the sides.  I decided to do a v-neck, it was knitted in one piece up to the armholes, with fake side seams and seamed, short-row shoulders.  The sleeves are knitted top-down and I worked eight two-stitch, one-row buttonholes.  So pretty much standard shaping and construction for me really.

The buttons were from Textile Garden, my supplier of choice for modern buttons.  I think I bought them when they were exhibiting at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival last year and with a different project in mind, although I don't now remember what... (initially I was going to put red buttons on this cardi), and they're a great match colourwise.

I'm very pleased with how it's turned out and I can see it getting quite a lot of wear all year round as it goes with both winter and summer clothes.

Purple bricks dress

I bought this fabric in John Lewis a couple of years ago and it's lovely quality - I really don't know why it took me so long to sew it up!  This is a Simplicity 2444 and I lined the bodice rather than use the facings that come with the pattern. 

Not really anything else to say about it!

Suffragette City

I'd been wanting to knit another Your Victory jumper for a while but not necessarily in red white and blue.  I love purple and green together so I tried a couple of stripe sequences and decided the one on the left looked better so that's the one I went with.  The name is a nod to both the colour combo and David Bowie.

This is such an easy pattern to knit.  My first version had long sleeves but this colour combination made me think of spring so I decided to do short sleeves this time round.  I had to change the rate of increases on the sleeves to get the right number of stitches at the point of casting off for the armholes, and I picked up and knitted the neckband in the round.  Other than that I followed the pattern.

I really like this and may well knit another one - there are lots of lovely versions on Ravelry with different colour combinations.

Hilary cardigan

This was my first knitted FO of 2016, finished at the beginning of February and it's taken me more than a year to blog about it - oops!

I became aware of this pattern when it popped up on my friends' activity feed on Ravelry, rather liked it and decided to knit it.

I made a few changes as I knitted it - different stitch count because my tension was different, as written it doesn't have a v-neck, bobbles knitted differently and I found it easier to use a cable needle than follow the instructions given in the pattern.  I also changed the armhole shaping and the pattern across the yoke - the front and back yoke patterns are different depths and I knitted it so that they were the same.

 

I like the pleated shoulders.

The button band in the pattern was knitted-as-you-go garter stitch but I picked it up and knitted in moss stitch.  I should probably have gone down a further needle size than I did, but I'm not going to redo it!  The buttons came from Textile Garden.

This was a cardigan that I was glad to finish knitting - the pattern was a bit of a fiddle - but I do like the way it looks and it has a definite vintage feel to it.

Purple polka dots dress

This is another dress which I cut out in August last year and have only recently got around to finishing, although I actually sewed most of this up before I abandoned it, so it only needed the back seam finishing, hemming and the sleeves setting in.

The pattern is Simplicity 3184 from1959, and because I did most of the sewing last year I'm not counting it towards my vintage pledge.

I really wasn't sure whether I'd want to put the sleeves in, but decided to cut them out anyway since I could always remove them if I ended up not liking them.  Fortunately I do like them, so no need to unpick and refinish the armholes!  I seem to remember it took me a while to cut this out, because I wanted the polka dots to line up, so there was a fair bit of moving pattern pieces around on the fabric.

It didn't take me long to finish this and I'm really pleased with how it fits, I'll probably make another one, although possibly without the sleeves, just to have a slightly different version.  Also, I didn't put the bows on the back and I cut the skirt 6" shorter.  I don't remember now why it got put to one side for so long - it may simply have been that I felt a need to do more knitting and less sewing - but I'm glad that it's done now as this was the last of the dresses that I cut out intending to sew them up on August bank holiday weekend last year - ever the optimist!  (The others were the Carmen Miranda dress, the turquoise Ditto roses dress [and I still have another two dress lengths of this rose print fabric to make up, I love it], the Scandinavian birds dress, and the orange floral maxi dress.)

I bought the fabric in Fabricland and I used all two metres of it.  So, another spotty dress to add to my collection of spotty dresses!  It's also a really good match for my purple hearts cardigan, (or the cardigan is a good match for the dress, depending on your point of view), so that's good.  Now I'm off to my knitting group which I have sadly neglected for the past couple of months.

Purple hearts cardigan

And another long blogging gap - life has been busy this year!

This was my first finish of this year (back in January) and I've already written a bit about it here so I won't repeat myself.  I'm pleased with how it's turned out and I managed to power through the sleeves pretty quickly - well for me anyway - with the added impetus provided by the #sundaysweaterkal on instagram and Foyle's War being back on TV on Sunday evenings - sadly finished forever now - a great series which I will miss.

Purple hearts cardigan in Madelinetosh Sock colourway Thicket

Because I used 4-ply wool rather than the aran/worsted weight the pattern was designed for I was able to add more pattern to the front, and I also put lace panels on the back - it was an easy pattern to knit and I'm quite tempted to use it again. 

Back view which shows up the stitch pattern a bit more clearly

I've knitted four more cardigans so far this year - I rather hibernated during the winter evenings with TV box sets of series set in the 30s, 40s and 50s and now have a long wishlist of jumpers and cardigans I want to knit based on those I've seen on TV!  I've also got two jumpers on the go at the moment as well.  All this knitting has meant that I've only just recently started sewing again - I'd already knitted more yardage by the middle of May this year than I did in the whole of last year and there are only so many hours in the day, well evenings and weekends, so the sewing was rather abandoned.  However... my machine is now back in action and I've made two dresses and have another which should be finished soon.  I actually cut it out on the August bank holiday weekend last year and would really like to wear it before this summer disappears!

Me made May week 3 round-up

And here we have the outfits I wore during the third week of May - lucky there has been a long bank holiday weekend for me to do some blog catching up!

15 May - Shell Pink cardigan and rtw jeans and blouse.  As is obvious not a very good mirror selfie!  But this was the least worst of the dozen or so photos that I took...

Day 15 - Shell pink cardigan and rtw jeans and blouse

16 May - Honeybee cardigan which I made during Spring 2013, and Vogue 8789 orange dress.

Day 16 - V-8789 orange dress and Honeybee cardigan

17 May - rtw dress and Purple Hearts cardigan - blogged about here although I haven't yet published the post which I wrote once it was finished...

Day 17 - Eucalyptus dress and Purple Hearts cardigan

18 May - Pink birds dress and Bette cardigan - I've only recently finished this, so, yet another FO which I haven't blogged about yet!  Wrote about the dress here.

Day 18 - Bette cardigan and Pink Birds dress

19 May - This is a cotton cardigan which I made back in 2010 and which I haven't worn that much in the past couple of years because I prefer waist-length cardigans with dresses with full skirts.  However, I love the colour and should wear it more.  The t-shirt and skirt I've had for quite a few years.  The skirt originally had a tie sash on it, but I unpicked the side seams and took it out because I think it looks better without.  Love the vintage-y look of it.

Day 19 - Yellow cotton cardigan, skirt from Next

20 May - Shell Pink cardigan (again) and green daisy Emery dress.  I love this dress, it's so summery (shame the weather hasn't caught up with itself yet though).

Shell Pink cardigan and green daisy Emery dress

21 May - This is a tie front cardigan which I made a few years ago, and the dress is a modified Elisalex which I blogged about here.

Tangerine Dream cardigan and Birdielex dress

And now I'm all caught up with me-made-May.  Phew!  Just the posts about this year's finished cardigans to finish writing and publish now...

Round up of my knitting and sewing year - 2014

A bit late to the party for this, but I've enjoyed reading other bloggers' round-ups, so here is mine!

Knitting

I've knitted three cardigans for myself and two for my grandson (all blogged).  I've also knitted him two jumpers and a hat.  And that is the sum total of my knitting output in 2014 - not really very much!  The second jumper is another incarnation of the striped Debbie Bliss pattern I blogged about here, just different colours and a larger size.

Another Debbie Bliss striped jumper

And the hat is from the same Debbie Bliss book - a straightforward 1 x 1 rib with a pompom on top.

Debbie Bliss baby hat

I've also knitted the body of a cardigan for me, but still need to knit the sleeves.

Another Toshsock cardigan for me

I spotted this pattern either on bygumbygolly's blog or instagram feed, can't remember which now, and decided that I really wanted to knit it - I bought it from Subversive Femme on etsy.

However, I wanted to use 4-ply wool (from my stash of Madeline Tosh sock yarn) so I haven't actually followed the pattern at all, I've just used the lace pattern instructions - which I charted because I find it much easier to follow charts than written instructions when it comes to knitting lace.

I don't really enjoy knitting sleeves, but they do provide an ideal opportunity for TV knitting, so I plan to sit down with a boxed set or two and just. get. them. done.  And since they will be top down once the sleeve caps are done the knitting will get quicker because I'll be decreasing steadily down to the wrists.

Sewing

I completed 21 dresses, all of which I've blogged about except this one.

Christmas trees Emery

My sister and I had a day visiting various London fabric shops back in November (at least I think it was November - it was whenever the new Islington Sew Over It had their opening weekend) and I spotted this fabric at Fabrics Galore in Clapham.   It isn't on the Christmas section of their website so I don't know whether they still have it.  I've bought from them before at shows - they've always had a great selection of fabric and really friendly and helpful staff and I was very pleased to find that the shop was just as good - a treasure trove in fact, and I bought three more dress lengths and a couple for my sister too as an early Christmas present.

The dress is an Emery by Christine Haynes - a great pattern to show off a print because of its clean and simple lines.  Nothing to say on the construction front - it's a straight size 6 with no modifications made, although I traced the front bodice and front skirt pattern pieces so that I could cut them on a single layer of fabric rather than on the fold and be picky about pattern placement.

I also made a skirt for my mother which I haven't blogged yet - details will follow.  :-)

I finally sewed a couple of dresses from my vintage pattern stash which goes from one extreme - unprinted, just cut tissue with holes, to the other - printing with seam allowances and all sorts of other instructions on the tissue, far more detail than current patterns have in fact.  The two I have sewn from fall into this latter category, but I aim to use some of the others in my 2015 sewing.

Overall, I'm very pleased with what I've made this year - I've really enjoyed both the knitting and the sewing.  I've also joined instagram and pinterest.  It's been great to follow other knitters and sew-ers on instagram and meeting up with some in real life has also been good fun and is something I'd like to continue with in 2015.  I have yet to do anything with pinterest though, I suspect it may be an enormous rabbit hole...

Autumn and winter sewing plans

My sewing plans for the next few months are to make up dresses in the following

Purple tape measures - a shirtdress (although not sure which pattern yet), John Lewis purple bricks - at the moment I'm thinking a Simplicity 2444 with a stand up collar and long sleeves.

Tape measures and bricks

Khaki polka dot fabric - another shirtdress, olive atomic fabric - something with a fitted bodice, long sleeves and a straight skirt, mustard keys - not sure yet, but something with long sleeves and not too many seams to break up the pattern.

Olive atomic, mustard keys and khaki polka dots

Viva Frida fabric - still undecided on pattern for this one.  The brown and blue floral and the turquoise roses are, I think, destined to be made up with 60s patterns.

Viva Frida, brown & blue floral and turquoise roses

 
The sunflower fabric I absolutely love, and I think I'll save this to make up when we have some grey, gloomy days in the depths of winter - which I'm sure we will - and it will cheer me up as I sew.  Not sure of pattern, but maybe an Emery.  The resin beads fabric (I've called it this because that's what it reminds me of) will be a Simplicity 3774. 

Sunflowers and resin beads

Then  there are three Liberty fabrics which my mother has had for years and now they are mine!  The yellow floral one is voile and has a real 40s vibe to it I think, so I'll almost certainly use a 40s, or 40s inspired pattern for it.  The other two are Tana lawn - there is enough of the top one to make a dress - maybe a 40s pattern again, but the turquoise one will probably become a blouse because I don't think there's enough for a dress.

Liberty fabrics

I'd also like to make some separates.  The two fabrics below are destined to become skirts although I haven't decided on pattern(s) yet, and I'd like to make some shirts and blouses, but haven't decided which patterns to match with which fabrics, and in fact, to start with, I might just practise by using up some of my left overs - I like the way Rochelle New mixes and matches the fabrics she uses.

Trees and ferns

I realise that even without the knitting this is almost certainly far too ambitious to get through in six months, but ever the optimist I'd like to think I'll get at least some of this done.  And I can come back to this post next spring and see just how much I managed to make (or not!)

Check these out

Well, so much for getting a couple more posts in before Christmas.  Time just ran away from me but there is now a lull in the festivities between now and New Year, so time to catch up with the blogging.

I really like gingham but the fabric that I have sewn with so far hasn’t been great, so I’ve realised that actually I really like cotton gingham, and there doesn’t seem to be nearly as much of that around as the polyester & cotton gingham that the next three dresses are made from.

The first one is Vogue 8727 made with ⅛” gingham from Fabricland.  I bought this pattern mainly because I thought it would be a good starting point for recreating the shape of the Limb teadress which I blogged about last month.  I think with the NL6824 narrow skirt option and some self-drafted (should that be self-draughted? Hmm… not sure) cap sleeves it’ll work rather nicely.  This is a pattern which would have completely passed me by if I’d only considered the initial photograph, however, the line drawings showed that it had potential and so I bought it.  For its first outing I cut it according to the pattern and did view D in a size 14.  Which as I now know, turned out to be too big and so I had to do some fiddling around with the side seams to get it to fit.  Next time I’ll cut a size 12.



Vogue 8727



I love the shape of this dress and it can be dressed up (with a smart plain navy jacket) or down (on its own with some wacky jewellery) but is now put away for the winter since I don’t have enough wardrobe space to not have to pack away summer clothes in the winter and winter clothes in the summer.  As an aside, there was a thread on Ravelry which I came across whilst noodling about, asking how many dresses ravellers had.  So I did a quick count this evening – there are currently 26 rtw and 4 handmade dresses hanging in my wardrobe, so I reckon the total count (including summer dresses) is probably quite a bit higher.  I do love me a dress.  In fact I really like the one I’m wearing right now which I got in H&M a couple of weeks ago.  Let me see if I can get a link to it.  No, sorry, not on their website.  It’s black, sleeveless, just above the knee (probably half way up the thighs of a 5’ 10” model), fitted through the waist and bodice and with a flared skirt.  I may take a photo of it at some point, it’s a perfect go-anywhere LBD – I wore it out for lunch today and could just as easily wear it to work or for an evening out.

On to dresses two and three, both made in purple gingham fabric which I bought because 1. gingham and 2. purple.  However, these fabrics are truly unpleasant imo, they’re shiny, full of static and fray like be-atches.  So they have both become trial versions of patterns which I will be making up in better fabric later.  The 1” gingham is Simplicity 2444 (and yes, there is a seam down the bodice front, don’t ask me why I cut down the fold because I truly have no idea), and the ¼” is New Look 6567.


Simplicity 2444

New Look 6567

For both these dresses the sleeves feel a bit skimpily cut, so I might try them with the sleeves from Butterick 5813  which fit fine.  I don’t think I have weightlifters’ arms by any means, but they’re not stick thin either.  I’ll see how I get on, if it’s too much hassle I’ll probably stick to making sleeveless dresses, but as it’s winter I wanted some sleeves.  Or it could just be that the fabric has no give in it at all and cotton, with a bit of widthways stretch, will be fine.  The New Look dress is also surprisingly short.  So far, I’ve either hemmed dresses per the pattern instructions or chopped off between 5” and 7” of the length, but this pattern could do with being a bit longer – not much – just enough for the finished length to be at the cutting line, but it was a bit of a surprise when I tried it on.  It sewed up very quickly but once I put the sleeves in I found that they pulled the shoulders down, so when I make this up with ‘proper’ fabric I’ll probably cut either the square or the sweetheart neckline, because they have more fabric at the shoulders, and I might cut the back neckline a bit higher.

I have another gingham dress cut out waiting for me to sew it up which will also be a test version because it has several small flaws in it.  Not sure that anyone else would notice them, but I know they are there so it is a trial run for Simplicity 3673.  I’ve got some 1” gingham for the final version – I thought this pattern would be good for a version of the Peggy Olson check dress which has popped up on various blogs as part of Julia Bobbin’s Mad Men challenge – but that won’t get made up until next year.

Well that’s all for now, I hope to be back tomorrow.