Blue and yellow striped McCalls 7948

This started out in June as a New Look 6352, however when I tacked the sides and shoulders together for a quick try-on it was obvious that I'm not the right shape for this pattern.  The armhole shape needed changing and darting, and so did the back of the dress, there was a lot of spare fabric just being there looking surplus.  I couldn't be bothered with all this, the pattern envelope does say the dress can be made in an hour, so I already had expectations!  Fortunately I had more of this fabric and in July I came back to it and changed it.

I cut two rectangular skirt pieces from the dress I'd already cut out, a McCalls 7948 bodice (using modifications I'd previously made to this pattern), Demeter pockets and additional pieces of fabric to piece into the side of the skirt.  With the remaining fabric I cut a frill, so all in all I used the full 3.2m of this quilting cotton, which I'd had in my fabric stash for a good few years.

I do like the end result, I just wish it had only taken an hour! 

Peppermint / Elbe Bardon dresses

Here is another pattern which had caught my eye on Instagram and so far I've made four of them.  The first I made in May with some quilting cotton that I bought years ago and never made up because I kept changing my mind about which pattern to use.  So I finally made a decision and it became this.  The lower tier is a bit narrower than the pattern piece, because of the width of the fabric.

The next one, which I started in late May and finished in early June, was made with Coco linen from Merchant & Mills.

Bardon number three, which I made in July, was from some red cotton gingham which I bought years ago in John Lewis with no clear plan - I think it was an end of roll and reduced, I only had 1.7m, which is not a length I would have bought by choice.  Because of that I used different pockets (from a purple Simplicity gingham dress which I made in July - I'll link to it once I've written about it) - the ones which come with the pattern are quite generous.  As it was, one of the pocket pieces is made from two pieces of fabric sewn together!  The front skirt piece is also slightly narrower than the back, because of the not-really-enough length of the fabric.  For this one I modified the armholes to the next size down (although I can't now remember whether this was just for the front or the back bodice as well...), which gives a better fit.

And the last one so far is this one, which I made in August, in a lovely salmon double gauze which I bought from Fabric Godmother this summer.

The skirt pieces (tier 1) are per the pattern, but the next one down and the bottom frill I cut to use up all the fabric length.  Again, I used smaller pockets (the same ones as for the red gingham version).

And here's the pattern, which unfortunately is only available as a pdf, so I pieced the bodice together and traced it, but helpfully the dimensions are given for the skirt sections so I just used the measurements and cut them out of dot and cross paper.  (I hate piecing together A4 pdfs.)

Love it!

Me Made May 2017 week 1 summary

I've finally finished my clothes cull and have donated several bags of clothes and shoes to charity so now I  have a bit of storage capacity for new makes.  That being said, I haven't actually finished anything yet this month, but I do have tomorrow off work, so there maybe something finished soon!

I spent some time last weekend sorting out and photographing outfits which led to the realisation that I need to knit up the cardigan quantities of green yarn which I have stashed, and I could also do with a pink t-shirt!  Photographing things in advance saves the hassle of doing daily photos, which I find makes for an easier life.

So, without further ado, here is my round up of the first week for this year's Me Made May challenge.

Monday was a bank holiday and therefore was freezing cold!  I wore my Monochrome Breton jumper with some black leggings (although the photo shows a skirt - I can't put trousers on Myrtle unfortunately).

On Tuesday I wore a dress which I made during MMM 2016, and an rtw cardigan.  I have these in several colours and they will probably feature a few times this month.  They're very useful with summer dresses and are from Woolovers, although they don't seem to have them on their website now.

Simplicity 2444

Wednesday's outfit was another dress which I made for MMM2016 and an rtw cardigan.

Christine Haynes Emery

On Thursday I wore a lime green By Hand London Elisalex dress and rtw cropped cardigan from Fever - again, not on their website now.

By Hand London Elisalex

On Friday I wore my green birds dress with an rtw cardigan

McCalls 5764 - vintage from 1961

Saturday's choice was my tape measures dress and rtw cardigan from H&M.  A woman came up to me in the petrol station as I was going to pay and told me she loved my dress - it's lovely to get a compliment like that, I was smiling all the way home!

Vogue 8789

And today I'm wearing my red roses dress and an rtw cardigan by Banned.

Butterick 5748

I hope to spend a large part of tomorrow sewing because I haven't taken the cover off my machine yet this month!  Actually this year...  There has been progress on the knitting front though, so that's good.

Starring stripes! jumper

One of the groups I belong to on Ravelry is running a year-long vintage knitting KAL this year which I decided to join -  my challenge is to knit four vintage patterns with a striped design using stashed yarn.  This is the first.

I'm not sure when or how I acquired this pattern - possibly from a work colleague who gave me a carrier bag full of vintage patterns several years ago.  Maybe.  It's a booklet called Two designs by P&B, number 635, and has a black, white and red checked / fairisle design on the front cover.  Anyway, this is a good stashbusting project if you have  lots of part-ball leftovers.  I used Drops Baby Merino for this.

Again, I altered the neckline so that it wouldn't need a button placket in the back, and I also made the sleeves slightly shorter to conserve the main colour.  As it was I used every last scrap for the neckband.

Apart from the multitude of ends to be sewn in this was a quick knit.  I've given it to my sister but I would quite like to knit another one for myself at some point as I really like the style.  I still have enough leftovers to do all the stripes but I'd have to buy more wool for the main colour, so, maybe next year...

Toddler jumpers and 2016 sum up

My final knit of 2016 was this jumper for my grandson.  Yes, his name begins with 'B' ;-).  Despite editing, the colour isn't really right in this photo - the 'B' is navy and the red is a bit brighter, but every time I brightened the red the blue became even further from its original colour.

I used this pattern as a starting point although it has a lot of ease, so I measured an existing jumper and adapted the pattern accordingly.  I marked out the letter 'B' on graph paper and knitted using the intarsia method - my first, and so far only, time of doing this.

Whilst I'm catching up I also knitted him a stripey jumper earlier in the year.

This was loosely based on this pattern (although without the lace design obvs), which I'd knitted for my daughter when she was a tot.  I've been stashing knitting patterns for years ;-).

As I'm writing this in April 2017 I feel it's a bit been-and-gone to do a round up of 2016 really.  An eventful year, I was very glad of the creative outlet of being able to design and knit the ideas I can see in my mind's eye.  In summary, I made four dresses, two shawls, eight cardigans, four jumpers and two children's jumpers. I also ended the year with less yarn than I started with which I'm pleased about - I did a fair bit of destashing as well as knitting.  I'm not so sure about the fabric side of things, I think given that I only made four dresses I probably increased the size of my fabric stash!

And looking back to this post I see I only completed two cardigans and started one jumper from the projects I listed!  The others are still in my queue to be carried forward...

Casbah cardigan

This cardigan came about because I decided I wanted to stripe the variegated yarn with the semi-solid.  I used my usual construction method for self-designed cardigans - bottom up, body in one piece to armholes then split for the front and back.  Sleeves top down.  I used a knitted on i-cord buttonband because the buttons I chose to use are small and I think would have got lost on a ribbed buttonband (and probably wouldn't have stayed done up either).

I bought the yarn from Purlescence, although she has very little in stock at the moment.  The buttons are vintage but I can't remember now whether I bought them at Camberwell or Hammersmith vintage fair.

I love fact that they are all slightly different from each other and I have enough left to use for another project.