Maple seed dress

I'm really pleased to have finally sewn this fabric into a dress - it's been in my stash for at least five years and I'm only ever going to wear it in the autumn, because of the print.

It's a Sew Over It Betty bodice with the skirt from New Look 6824 (the same combination as the first dress here, and these two dresses) and it didn't take long to sew, especially when I found a bodice lining which I had already sewn together earlier in the year from my me-made May dressmaking session.

Not really anything more to say about this except that, because the seeds are seven different colours, I have several cardigans which I can wear with it!

Grey jumper

Another stashbusting jumper which I have now crossed off my '2019 to knit list'.

I used the same pattern as for this jumper and this really didn't take long to knit at all, just over a fortnight in fact.  The grey is Drops Baby Merino and the sleeve contrasts are Madeline Tosh Unicorn Tails in Edison Bulb and Neon Peach.

Once I'd knitted the first sleeve (the peach one) it became obvious that I wouldn't have enough wool left to do the second one the same and so tried striping the two colours together, but I wasn't very taken with it.

So I overcame my 'but if I do them different colours they won't be symmetrical' feeling and did the second one entirely in the Edison Bulb.

And I'm perfectly happy with it.  I know I'll wear this as a weekend jumper over the winter - it's a wool equivalent of a sweatshirt.

Koigu Feather and Fan top

This is another jumper which I've knitted as part of my Home Fires project - the fourth garment so far this year, so I'm very pleased with that amount of progress!

There were several of these tops worn during the course of the two series (see my original post here), and although I'd intended using Koigu wool for this I ended up using slightly different colours than originally planned.

I knitted one less widthways pattern repeat and used smaller needles than were given in the pattern (3.25mm instead of 3.75mm) in order to get close to the pattern tension.  I didn't change the sleeves though - by the time it came to knit them I just wanted them done.  As it was I had to reknit the cuffs because I didn't have enough wool to do 12 rows of ribbing on each sleeve.  I knew I was going to be close to running out of wool, so did both at the same time and in the end each has 10 rows, which I think is enough for short sleeves.

The armhole shaping given in this pattern is one I haven't come across before - on the body pieces there is just a large number of stitches cast off on each side all in one go and then it's knitted straight.  When attaching the sleeves you don't sew the side seam up to as far as the first cap shaping cast offs, but leave part of the sleeve seam unseamed and then use that as part of the sleeve cap.  At least that's what I did.  That might not have been correct, the pattern just said "sew the sleeve seam for 5 inches", so maybe I had the wrong row tension (no row tension is given in the pattern), but I don't think my tension would have been out by that much on such a short piece of knitting, and if I hadn't attached the sleeves that way the armhole would have been too big for the sleeve cap.

One unforseen consequence of taking out one pattern repeat was that the centre front neckline looked a bit strange because the pattern went up instead of down.

Original front neckline with 18 stitches cast off in the centre

I'd already lowered the neckline and didn't like how it turned out so unpicked it and reknitted it to be wider at the base as well (28 stitches cast off in the centre) and I think it looks OK now.  I also dipped the back neckline slightly and did short row shoulders.

Even though I carried the different coloured wool up the side of the knitting when possible, there were still rather a lot of ends to weave in, which took hours.  Not enough to put me off knitting another one of these though, although I think the next one I'll do the pattern row in knit rather than purl, just to be a bit different from this one.  And change the patterning so that it dips in the centre front and back.

Definitely a good pattern for using up leftovers.

Rust cotton DK cardigan

This is another stashbusting project - I bought this yarn back in 2011 - and have had various thoughts on what to knit with it over the years but never settled on anything.  Finally... I've knitted it.  This is just a plain, stocking stitch v-necked cardigan - the body is knitted in pieces and seamed, although with hindsight I cound just as easily have knitted it all-in-one, the sleeves are picked up and knitted top-down in the round, the button band was picked up and the buttons are vintage from The Swagman's Daughter.

I don't know whether Drops have improved the knot count of this yarn (Muskat DK 100% cotton) in the intervening years, but some of the balls I knitted with had 3 or 4 knots in them which was a pain.  I've got this yarn in one more colourway and I'll probably knit another of these cardigans with it, but I don't think I'll buy any more.

I did think I might get a dress made to go with this for the #OAL2019 challenge, but as it turned out life intervened and I didn't have time.  It does go with this dress really well though, so, result!

I can't say I enjoyed knitting this, but I am pleased with the finished item and have already worn it a couple of times. 

Beach dress - #OAL2019

At last I've got this fabric made up!  I bought it two years ago and I'm very pleased to have now got a dress from it as it's really only going to get worn in summer.

I first came across the fabric on instagram in July 2017 - someone I follow had made a fabulous dress from it - and a bit of googling tracked it down to an Etsy shop.  I bought two yards - not sure why a shop in Spain is selling in yards rather than metres? - it's a wide border print fabric and there was enough to enable me to do a bit of print placement.

I used the bodice from Butterick 5748 - a retro reprint, and the skirt from Simplicity 3749 - a vintage pattern both from the early '60s.

Because the fabric was a border print I used half-inch seam allowances on the bodice side and back seams rather than the usual 5/8", to give a little ease.

The cutting out took a bit of time, but the sewing together was straightforward.  I'm not sure whether I'll actually wear it with the cardigan I knitted for the outfit-along challenge though.  They go well together, but I'll probably only wear this dress when it's hot and sunny - when I won't be in need of a wool cardigan - unless I'm in an air-conned building or on a very windy beach!

Agatha Christie cardigan

When I watched Agatha Christie's A Murder is Announced (with Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple) I took rather a shine to the cardigan which Keeley Hawes' character wore.  This is a particularly good knitwear story actually, I have screenshots of quite a few items I'd like to knit from both this and the Joan Hickson version.  Actually, this was in the Joan Hickson version.

I already had some yellow DK in my stash (it's Drops extra fine merino) which I'd bought some time ago with no clear plan for it other than jumper or cardigan.  I'm not sure how long I've had the pattern.

For anyone wishing to use 4-ply, this pattern is pretty similar.

The buttons are from Swagman's Daughter and the button band is skinnier than I would have preferred because I didn't have enough wool to add another two rows to it.  This cardigan used all of the 500g which I had.

I knitted this almost exactly as written except for knitting on the button band (instead of the usual vintage long strip of skinny rib which then has to be sewn on - no thanks!), making the sleeves slightly shorter, changing the slant of shaping decreases which would look better if they were left-leaning (doing ssk instead of k2tog) and dipping the neckline at the back.  It was an easy knit, there is one pattern row and then purl, knit, purl for the next three rows. 

Being DK it knitted up pretty quickly but took me a while to sew up because there were so many knots in the wool, so as well as the seaming there was rather a lot of weaving in of ends.

And here it is

I think this will get more wear in spring and autumn than summer because it's DK, but I'm very pleased to finally have got this wool knitted up!

Paris in the rain dress

I bought the fabric for this dress when I visited Paris last month and the name comes from the fact that the day I went to visit Make My Lemonade on Canal St Martin (which is where I bought it), it was raining.  Quite a lot.

I knew I would be making a dress in this style, I just wasn't sure which bodice pattern I'd use - I decided on Butterick 5748.  This is the first time I have used this bodice with this skirt and I'll be doing so again I expect because they fit together perfectly at the waist, without any fiddling about with the pleats to get a match.

I bought 2.5 metres of fabric - which is lovely - and used all of it - there was enough for pockets and a certain amount of pattern matching which I'm very pleased about!

It was the perfect dress to wear to Hampton Court Flower Show last week - I finished it just in time on the Wednesday evening before visiting on the Thursday, and the weather was lovely - lots of warmth and sunshine.  This really is my favourite style of summer dress.