Autumn Victory jumper

This is another pattern I'd been meaning to knit for a while and back in May several versions appeared on Ravelry and Instagram, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII - the Your Victory Jumper pattern was issued in June 1945 and is a free download from the V&A website.  However, it took me until July to get started on this...

 I'd had the Noro sock yarn in my stash for a while and thought it would work well for this pattern because it's self-striping and I knew there would be enough yardage for long sleeves.  I didn't bother to do a tension square, I just crossed my fingers that it would fit and despite the fact that with hindsight I think read the pattern wrong and didn't start the body increases soon enough, and didn't do all the increases before casting off for the armholes, it fits fine.  So that's good.

The actual knitting didn't really take very long but was done in fits and starts.  As with the Land Army-ish jumper I wanted long sleeves, but decided to knit them bottom-up since I knew I had enough yarn and also because I couldn't be bothered to work out how to reverse the pattern and knit it upside down.  This is the first time for ages that I've knitted bottom up sleeves and they really didn't take long at all.  Mainly because I can knit more quickly on straight needles than I can on circulars.  There was some unravelling and reknitting to get the stripes to match at the side seams and on the sleeves, but not that much and I think it was definitely worth doing.

This was a very easy pattern, it's only a two-row repeat and is easy to memorise and to knit.  I'd like to do more versions of this, possibly also a cardigan, with proper stripes rather than self-striping yarn.  I keep playing over differing colour combinations in my head... and changing my mind...

I knitted the neckband in the round and picked up fewer stitches than the pattern suggested so I was a bit concerned that it might not go over my head, but it does fortunately.

 All in all I'm very pleased with this and think I'll get plenty of wear out of it.

And now I'm off to sort fabric to swap at the SewBrum meet-up tomorrow. 

Land Army-ish jumper

Well, this has been a long time in the making and I'm glad it's finished - I've probably knitted about 75% of it twice...

I've already blogged a bit about it here and here, so I won't repeat myself.  But I see that I'm about a year behind schedule on this one, despite starting the knitting in January!  I can also see that I haven't completed any of last year's autumn & winter knitting plans apart from this jumper, so I won't be making any plans for this year - although next on the needles will be an Audrey in Unst cardigan.

Pattern, in A Stitch in Time Vol 1, by Susan Crawford and Jane Waller

After knitting the body with smaller needles because my row tension was off with the needles stated in the pattern, I tacked it together and tried it on and decided that it was too clingy.  So that was the first lot of unravelling.  It fitted much better with the right size needles and either my row tension miraculously changed, or I can't count, or it didn't matter because I'm pretty sure I followed the pattern instructions for the armholes exactly.  I can't be sure though because I wrote my notes down with a Frixion pen and following an accident with a cup of tea they vanished.  So although these pens are great because you can rub the writing out just like a pencil, they are not waterproof!

So, after reknitting the body I knitted a sleeve as per the pattern and tacked it in to place so that I had something to refer to when trying to work out the shaping top-down.

Sleeve knitted exactly as per pattern and tacked in place

This took a bit of trial and error with the numbers and increases and they don't look exactly the same because the originals are gathered into the sleeveheads, whereas mine aren't gathered.  They do puff nicely though.

Back view

As I knitted the sleeves down to the cuff I decided to do the shaping with a mixture of 'seamline' decreases and progressively smaller circular needles.  The first version was a bit too clingy (again) for my liking, cue the next lot of unravelling and reknitting.  However, it did make it easy for me to work out where to do the decreases and which needles to use so once reknitted it fitted much better.

Love these sleeve heads

 The final bit of unravelling was the original sleeve.  Knitting the second one was straightforward because it was the same as the first, and because I did it more or less straight after the first one I could still make sense of the notes I took (which were on a different bit of paper and escaped the tea incident).

I did wonder whether I would have enough wool to knit this with long sleeves and as it turned out, I ran out with about an inch and a half of the second sleeve still to knit.  A quick stash search on Ravelry revealed that one of my knitting friends had a skein with the same lot number in her stash and I'm so grateful that she was willing to part with it.  If I'd knitted the body to the length suggested in the pattern then the six skeins I had would've been enough, but I made the body about an inch and a half longer than suggested and so needed a little bit of a seventh skein.

Now  it's finished I love it and I think I'll be wearing it a lot, both with skirts and jeans.  One thing which I might do differently next time is make the bits at the side front neckline a bit wider - I do wonder whether, in wear, the sleeves will pull the neckline so that the shoulder seams don't sit on my shoulders.  If they do, I'll have to think how to tighten up the neckline, but for now I'm leaving it as is.

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.

The Bobby dress

I don't always give my sewing projects names - or the knitting ones for that matter - but this dress gets one.  Last August my grandson was born and sunflowers featured heavily in the flowers which my daughter and I received at the time.  I'd already seen and liked a dress made up in this fabric on Roisin's blog and so decided that I was going to have a dress covered in sunflowers too.  I'm not sure I agree with her about the '90s fashion vibe, but then, I was busy with small children in the '90s and probably completely unaware of what was going on fashion-wise.  In fact, now I think about it, I have no idea what was going on with fashion in the '90s; the only thing I would have concerned myself with when buying clothes was "is it machine washable?"  In fact, this still holds largely true now, although I've actually bought very few clothes since I started sewing again.  The only things I will consider buying that need dry cleaning are coats, and handwashing, well, only things I've knitted.  Everything else goes in the machine, even if the care label says it shouldn't and nothing has been rendered unwearable as a result.

Anyway, I digress, back to the sewing.  Once I'd decided I was going to buy this fabric it took a bit of hunting around on the interwebz to find it, but Ebay came up trumps.  I'd seen it in the flesh at Minerva (I was in the area at the time) so knew I liked it, but they didn't have enough, so Ebay it was.  And then it sat in my stash for the best part of a year because really, I'm not going wear sunflowers at any time other than high summer.  As my grandson's first birthday approached I decided I should really get my act together and make it up.  It's a Butterick 5748 bodice with an Emery skirt and came together very quickly once I'd got it cut out.  I cut the bodice out flat rather than on the fold so that I could get a flower in the centre of it

The Bobby dress

And since we've had a bit of an Indian summer this year I've worn it a few times in September too, but it's put away for the winter now.  Now I must go because I have a big pile of winter clothes which have come out of hibernation and need ironing...

Orange floral maxi dress

I cut this dress out in August last year and then it got put to one side for the best part of a year... Rachel's recent instagram photo hop gave me the impetus to get it finished.  The pattern I've used is Simplicity 1801 view C and it would have been a quick and easy make if I'd made it as per the pattern!

However... this fabric is quite thin and I decided that rather than make the dress with just a neckline facing I would fully line it.  Which meant not following the instructions for the bodice construction - there was a fair bit of unpicking involved to get it sewn together just enough for turning it right sides out, and then adding the midriff pieces.  Getting the pockets to go through the lining (rather than between the dress and lining) was also a bit of a faff, but it was worth it once it was done.

Pocket inserted between outer fabric and lining

I wasn't sure which size to cut, so I quickly sewed up the bodice lining and tried it on and it looked OK, but now the dress is finished it has more ease than I prefer and if I make it again I'll cut it a size smaller.  I also think the neckline is a bit low, so I'll cut out another bodice front and cut the neckline higher (not sure whether I have enough leftover fabric to do this, if not then I'll fiddle about with neckline to make it more sweetheart shaped I think).  I did wonder about just hitching the bodice up at the front yoke seam, but then the midriff section won't sit in the right place, so that idea's out.  This won't be happening any time soon though because realistically I doubt I'll wear it again until next Spring / Summer and I'd rather be knitting and sewing things that I can wear now.

The finished dress

I probably will make another of these because I really like the style, but it will be made with the modifications above and also with thicker fabric so that it won't need a lining.  Should be a quick make then, in fact I'm almost talking myself into cutting one out now, but no, it can wait until next year.

Vintage pattern pledge dress no 1

Earlier this year I signed up to A Stitching Odyssey's vintage pattern pledge and finally I've made the first dress towards it - one down, three more to go!  And I've already got one of those cut out.

I bought the fabric in Fabricland last year and this was a quick and easy make - there will be more of these in the future I expect.

Simplicity 5510 from 1964

The pattern is Simplicity 5510 from 1964 and I made a few modifications - I graded the waistline out a bit and also didn't use the skirt pieces.  There were three - one for the centre front and two back pieces  which came round past the side to about where the bodice darts were.  Since I wanted seams at the side I cut two widths of fabric - one for the front and the other folded in half and cut down the fold for the two back pieces.  I also put inseam pockets in and used an invisible zip.

The bodice neckline is faced, so there was no lining to sew in which speeded things up a bit.  I cut the skirt to the length of the pattern pieces, which is longer than my usual just-below-the-knee length preference.  I'm still getting used to this longer length, but I think it will work well with boots in the winter.

And here it is.

Simplicity 5510 Vintage Pattern Pledge dress no 1

And now I'm all caught up with blogging about this year's finished projects.  Hooray!  And since I have the day off work today, there just might be another dress to post about over the weekend...

OAL 2015 - a complete outfit

Last year Andi Satterlund and Lauren Taylor ran an outfit-a-long in Andi's Ravelry group and I loved seeing what people made, so when they announced that they were repeating the event this year I signed up - I wrote a bit about this here.  Although there were both knitting and sewing patterns suggested, which Andi and Lauren blogged about, I decided to do my own thing and the end result was another toshsock cardigan and an Emery dress.
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It took me a while to decide on the fabric and yarn combination to use, with a couple of options which I eventually ruled out, but which will no doubt get made at some point.

Option 1 - Excelana 4-ply and Dear Stella Queen Anne's Lace fabric

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Option 2 - Malabrigo sock and vintage fabric from Hammersmith Vintage Fair

I finally decided on this combination - I would make the cardigan design up, and the fabric would become a Simplicity 3774 (second dress down). 

Tosh sock and fabric from Barry's in Birmingham

However... once I'd knitted the cardigan I decided that it wasn't a great match for the fabric.

Cardigan knitted in Madelinetosh Sock colourway Stovepipe

The lace pattern on the front is from Erika Knight's Lace and Eyelet Stitches book and the back and sleeves are stocking stitch.  The book actually lists the pattern twice - once as a single column called King Charles Brocade, and once as a repeating pattern called Diamond Rib.  I charted the pattern and it was easy to memorise.

Close up which shows the lace pattern in a bit more detail

These little buttons came from Hammersmith Vintage Fair and I chose them because they were the only ones in my stash that I had enough of - it doesn't show in the photos, but they are mirrored.

Once I'd got the cardigan finished I needed to find an alternative fabric for the dress and after a bit of humming and haa-ing I settled on this Bird on the Vine fabric from Michael Miller which I bought in Fabric Fair in Brighton last summer.  So I now have another bird print dress in my wardrobe.  I spent a bit of time cutting it out because I wanted to pattern match on the back of the dress and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Talking behind my back maybe?

Because this fabric has quite a large pattern repeat and I didn't have enough to cut symmetrical sleeves, it is sleeveless.  Which also saved me the hassle of setting in sleeves, possibly one of my least favourite sewing things to do.  Nothing else to say about the construction really, it's a straight size 6 and I love it!

Bluebirds on the Vine dress

And here are the two together - I'm really pleased with this outfit.

2015 Outfit-A-Long

If you'd like to see what others have made this year, the finished outfits are here - and there are some really great combinations there, more patterns / fabrics / yarn added to my mental wishlist...