Hi Ho Silver cardigan

This cardigan is my first knitting finish of Me Made May and gets its name from the theme song for Boon, which I have been watching recently.

I knitted this in one piece up to the armholes then separated for the fronts and back and made fake side seams.  There is waist shaping, top-down sleeves, one-row two-stitch buttonholes and an i-cord neckline.  This is pretty much my usual construction method for cardigans that I make without following a commercial pattern.

I love knitting with this wool (MadelineTosh Sock) and I think this colourway - Espadrilles - is gorgeous, although it's now discontinued and also difficult to photograph.  Despite editing these pictures I don't think I've got the colour quite right - it's a lovely deep pinky coral and goes very nicely with my new flamingo skirt!

The lace pattern is from Drops 160-17, but I substituted the column lace from the Honeybee pattern for the cables.  Having just knitted both a cabled cardigan and jumper I wanted a break from cables!

The buttons are from Textile Garden - I actually bought them with a different yarn in mind, but decided to use them for this cardigan instead.

Goes very nicely with Carmen Miranda, Flamingolex, Watermelons! and Tropicanna dresses

I can see I'm going to get plenty of wear from this - it also goes with quite a few of my me-made dresses.

Me Made May 2017 week 4 summary

Gosh, this month is flying by and finally, the weather has warmed up!  This has definitely influenced my choice of dresses - the summery prints are now in circulation.

Monday's outfit was an Emery dress with rtw cardigan.

On Tuesday I wore my Get Cutie bird print dress with an rtw cardigan.

Wednesday saw flamingos making an appearance with my Flamingolex dress and an rtw cardigan from Audrey Star's Boutique.  I love this dress - the style and the fabric, and I have enough fabric left over to make a skirt - I should get on and do that, I'd much rather wear it than let it languish in my leftovers box!

On Thursday I wore my Carmen Miranda dress and an rtw cardigan.

On Friday I wore my Beachhuts Cambie and an rtw cardigan.

Saturday saw the first wearing of my lemon print dress - I bought this in Sainsbury's a few years ago now and love it.  I paired it with a me-made tie front cardigan from pre-blogging days (I didn't use a pattern, so no link).

And to round off the week today I'm wearing my orange floral Simplicity 1801 maxi with an rtw cardigan.

Thinking ahead, a couple of weeks ago OAL 2017 was announced.  This is a challenge to create a complete outfit with a knitted and a sewn garment, and is hosted by Lauren Taylor and Andi Satterlund.  In 2014 I watched from the sidelines, in 2015 I made these, last year I didn't get around to joining in but this year I definitely will. The challenge runs for the whole of June and July and I've got two possible combinations lined up - I'm not sure that I'll get both cardigans knitted, but two dresses should definitely be possible.  I've got the cardigan pattern for one combo and the dress pattern for the other finalised, so still need to decide on the other two in order to get a complete outfit!

Me Made May 2017 week 3 summary

Well, we've had another week of dreary weather.  Although there has been some sunshine there hasn't really been much warmth and several days were really rather grey and either damp or downright wet.  Urgh!

So, I started the week off with an Anna dress and rtw cardigan.

Then I had a few days away with work, so Tuesday to Thursday's outfits were chosen with suitability for travelling and survival in a suitcase in mind.  On Tuesday I wore an rtw skirt and t-shirt with my Primroses for Spring cardigan.  I'm not sure how much longer this skirt is going to last, I've had it a few years now, love the colour and have worn it a lot, so once it finally does get to go for recycling I'll be looking out for some corduroy in this colour to make another one, although the style may be different.

On Wednesday it was another rtw skirt and t-shirt and my blue Palm Leaf cardigan.  This is another skirt which I've had for years and really like.

On Thursday I wore an rtw dress which has so many colours in it that I'm spoilt for choice when it comes to pairing it with a cardigan - but I chose this orange Emelie cardigan which I made in pre-blogging days and which is a bit big really now - I'm not sure though whether I can be bothered to unravel it all and reknit it, maybe... because I do love the colour.  Just not yet.

On Friday I wore an rtw t-shirt, a skirt which I've just bought from Lindy Bop, having seen Kate Davies wearing it in a pattern photo - I absolutely love it, and the yellow of my Bette cardigan is a perfect match.  I love the jumper in the Kate Davies photo as well, I hope to make it this winter...

On Saturday I had a day at home catching up on the washing, ironing and general housework and wore an rtw t-shirt, skirt and my Cherry Blossom cardigan.

And today, yay, the sun is shining and the forecast is saying that we are in for a sunny, dry and warmer week.  At last!  So I've ditched the tights and as a small celebratory gesture, I'm wearing a dress covered in sunflowers.

I haven't sewn a stitch yet this month (apart from the curtains mentioned in last week's round up post), but I have done some knitting and have finished a cardigan, which I'll write about during the week.  The second cardigan I have on the needles is also coming along nicely, I'll get the body finished today which will just leave the sleeves to get done before the end of the month.  So at least I'll fulfil the knitting part of my pledge if not the sewing one!

Me Made May 2017 week 2 summary

So, week two.

On Monday I had the day off work and as it was 8 May, which was VE day (also it wasn't particularly warm), I decided to wear my Suffragette City top with black leggings.  I did get some sewing done - I had a pair of curtains which needed hemming - I'd cut and pinned them weeks ago and then put them to one side, so I got my act together and finished the hemming.  Bonus is that now I have plenty of pins available for dressmaking use!  I then cut out a denim skirt, but haven't done any more to it than that yet.

On Tuesday I wore my Anna La Paloma dress and an rtw cardigan.

On Wednesday I wore my Paper Roses Cambie dress and Sam Stewart cardigan.

On Thursday it was my pink polka dot Butterick 5748 dress and an rtw cardigan.  This dress changed colour slightly in the wash some time ago and the dots are a now a more vintage-y looking cream colour which I actually prefer to the original white.

Friday was my Cath Kidston birds dress and an rtw cardigan.

Saturday was Bluebirds Emery dress and an rtw cardigan.

And on Sunday I wore another Emery with an rtw cardigan.

And that was week two.  Another not very warm week unfortunately - what is it with the weather?

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.

Me Made May 2017

So, May is nearly here and it's time for me to put in writing what I would like to achieve during this year's Me Made May challenge.  My aim is to wear something me-made every day during May which means having a bit of a blitz on the ironing this weekend.  I've finally got all my summer dresses out and washed and aired them, but there is still some ironing to be done!

These are all ironed and ready to wear

If the weather isn't so great I've got a good selection of hand knitted cardigans that I can wear, so it should be possible to get through the month with no repeats.  I'll try and do daily photos on instagram too.

On the making front I've got two cardigans on the go at the moment which I'd like to get finished,

Madelinetosh sock in Espadrilles

Fyberspates Scrumptious 4-ply in pink (or maybe it's called Baby Pink...)

and I'd like to sew four dresses.  I've already matched pattern and fabric for these two

And I'd like to make a couple of these up with one or two of the vintage patterns I blogged about here.  (I'd like to make up all this fabric obvs, but I won't get through it all in May!)

This should be possible because we have two public holidays this month - the first one being this weekend is a bonus as I'm intending to get all the cutting out done.  I've also got a couple of extra days off work as well, so with a bit of luck and a following wind I'll have six new garms by the end of May.  Fingers crossed!  Although not while I'm knitting or sewing. ;-)

Fleur de lis jumper

This is a jumper which I saw being worn by Sienna Guillory in an episode of the TV series Miss Marple (with Geraldine McEwan - A murder is announced - there's lots of great knitwear in this episode).

Rather grainy screenshot

It took me a while to track down the pattern and I'm not sure now how I actually came across it, but it's from the March 1940 issue of Stitchcraft magazine.  I first started knitting this last year with different yarn, but after completing two full pattern repeats (and having already reknitted it because the tension with the needle size given in the pattern was too loose - gah) I decided that it wasn't a pattern/yarn match made in heaven and unravelled it.  I think the pattern got a bit lost in the semi-solid yarn really.

Version one - frogged

So, that was that until Fyberspates brought out some new colours in their Scrumptious 4ply.  The jade colourway was perfect!  I'm really not one to knit up patterns so that they look like the photo (although actually the pattern photo is black and white), but I loved the colour as worn by Sienna Guillory and this was pretty similar, so when I saw it I knew I'd found the right yarn.

I can't honestly say it was a pleasure to knit - the k5tog stitches were a bit fiddly, but fortunately they didn't come along very often.  Also, I had to change the instructions for the flowers - as written the stems all sat to the right which didn't suit my desire for symmetry.  But I love it now it's done.

This is the second of my vintage KAL projects.  And now, 21 posts later,  that's this blog all up to date!