One red top: modified!

I am so very pleased!  I altered a red top that I had for some years and I still love, love, love the colour, but the fit is much too tight over the bust and I got bored with the overall look.

My good friend Tash unwittingly gave me a great design idea.  She was going to use a scallop hem tutorial and this made me think about what other shapes you could do.

This top makes a great project to try out my shaped hem idea. If it works then great, but if it doesn't then I can either chop off the hem and straighten it back out, or just let this go.

It worked out well!

This is what I started with:

It was only when I looked that I realised that I already had to do a repair job on the top of the side seams.  I hadn't worn this in a while so I didn't recall that there were holes, - and my hand sewing wasn't all that great either:

I machine basted the hem to turn out and press (I pressed to the inside first but realised that this wouldn't work. Lucky escape!).  Then I drew the pattern on and started to v-e-r-y slowly stitch it. It wasn't as easy as I expected:

My shape is a bit overly complex.  But I like it a lot.

I then turned this inside out and prodded and poked until all the little corners and peaks looked okay.  Again not as easy as I blithely assumed:  my scissor tip method did end in a couple of frayed tread ends poking through.  I ruthlessly cut those off.  This isn't a high value item - I just want to enjoy it while it lasts.

Then I edge-stitched this to retain the shape when I wash this next time:

No idea why this is upside down

I also ripped the long sleeves out and inserts wedge shaped gussets into the top of the side seams. This way I could make the top big enough to fit at the bust, and it also had the added advantage of getting rid of those pesky holes. Win-win!

I scooped the armholes out a bit to make a pleasing shape.  That ended up being a bit of a problem: the armholes probably gaped before but this emphasises it.  So I sewed bust darts in, longer ones at first but these looked awful, then shorter ones.  I am still not over the moon with this area, but I think top is wearable.

Here it is:

I think this is a successful project that I hope to get lots of wear out of in the summer!

Thank you Tash for the inspiration!

Red and black skirt - using up stash fabric!

Oh yes, I am using up stash fabric. I can feel the relief coursing through my veins at saying this: I am actually using up material that I've had in my stash for ages! Fantastic.

I have this beautiful true red and black patterned fat quarter, a quilting cotton.  It has these lovely rope or thread motifs on it that somehow remind me of bamboo (I don't know what my thought process is there) - but I have no other fabric that this goes with if I want to use it in a quilt.

So repurposing is the order of the day.

What can I make with one fat quarter? Not a heck of a lot.  But I can if combined with a plain black fabric, like for example a skirt. Marvellous idea!  But the fabric isn't long enough to run down the length of the skirt - therefore I need to sew two separate sections together.

Then I had a sudden vision of a wavy panel, snaking its way down the skirt. I got on really well with putting this together, so here are some progress shots:

 
What I love about designing something yourself: you get to decide what you want to do if there is an issue - like the seamline between my two sections of the red fabric.

I did try to pattern match this as pernickety and detail obsessed as I could but it wasn't perfect. And I would always know that it doesn't quite fit together. But what if I turn this around and make a feature out of a bug? (That's my absolutely favourite design process and objective!)

Why not hide that seam in a way that becomes a defining design feature? Why not sew a sort of tab across?

I didn't want a straight piece of fabric stuck on top, that would have looked silly.  But picking up the wave theme and going with a satisfyingly curved piece of applique: It looks just right!

I did sew the side seam together to attach the tab on the right hand side, now I have to adjust the width for the second side seam because the pattern pieces are way too big. Very odd.

And it isn't because I pulled the black fabric apart to insert the red panel: I actually removed the middle bit that I cut out - I will post lots of photos of what I did in another blog post soon.

Isn't sewing just so much fun?

I (almost) completed a sewing WIP!

Hey, look at that:

I finished a sewing project!

I am very happy - this will count as my second project completed this year, meaning that I am ahead of myself in terms of the four items a year goal. Which in turn means that I might be able to up this to six projects a year!  Completing a garment every two months ought to be do-able - particularly as this one is finished in April and not in June.

I did say it was almost completed. There are two issues with this:  I should add a tab at the top of the zip.  I thought I put the zip in at the right height but there is too big a gap to the edge - it is still wearable though.

Don't ask me why the next photo is upside down, it doesn't matter much for the purpose.

Look how neatly the ribbon aligns "across" the lapped zip!  I am really chuffed with that - all it took was a bit of handsewing at the end because it hadn't gone on straight with the machine.  I am very pleased with that.

The second issue that I am not happy with is the hem.  I might re-do it with my blind hem foot.  Just as soon as I identify which one that is (my sewing machine manual is very helpful, - as long as I consult it that is...)

This is my stashbuster skirt.  I had about 20 odd centimetre of the grey pin stripe and half a meter of the dark red (yes, it is much more of a red than a pink in real life. I wish my camera could turn the colour to this shade through some kind of magic, but alas...)

I couldn't do anything with either fabric but once I realised that they are the same weight and type (superfine 100% wool), then that gave me the idea to just sew the two widths together.  Did I mention that both fabrics were the same width?  That's what swung it.

I started by sewing the two fabrics together and then treated it as if it was one piece.  I just cut all three pieces and carefully aligned the seam.  But it took me a long time to get to today's result.

Here is what it looked like for the longest time:

I need to take a photo of me wearing it.

Once I do that you can see that the seam between the two fabrics hits me at a really odd point on the hips, which is too high up. It looks really odd, trust me.

That made me think that a ribbon would draw the eye down a bit.  I think I achieved the desired effect.

I can now wear this (on Monday perhaps?) and will consider it finished for just now.  I need to get through too much material to get stuck on one project that was never meant to be the best thing I've ever done - I just wanted to use up two fabrics.

Which I did.  So there.

Invigoratingly red

I haven't worked much with yarn or fabric in red.  My favourite colours are pink, royal blue, aqua or turquoise, petrol, purple, black, grey, silver and white.  And true red - but it's very difficult to find.

But I suddenly had the urge to get a red yarn to start a jumper with.

This is the result, well I should say the work in progress:

 

Isn't this just wonderfully colourful?  I find it very good for the soul to knit in a colour that works as a pick-me-up, so stimulating, so invigorating.  I really feel like this colour provides an energy that is making me feel better in the grey, the darkness and the cold temperatures of November.

I am very glad that I started this project.

Semi solid red socks with cable panel

My dark red socks are done!  I'm so pleased:

The colour in the third photo is lots closer to reality.  Very much more red than purple!

Yarn	Sweet Clement - Beloved
Needles	2.75 mm
Pattern	Meander
Source	Free pattern by Lisa Stichweh on Ravelry

This is the first project in a while that incorporates cables.  A fact I only realised once I'd set my heart on the pattern and started the top ribbing!  Cables are the one thing I tried to avoid because I don't enjoy them.  I found them less tedious than I remembered, thankfully, - and the pattern looks extremely gorgeous!

At first I couldn't make head or tail of the cable pattern: there are groups of either two or three stitches involved, some of these get purled, others are knit.  The knit stitches are all knit through the back loop, fine, I can do that.  But which way do you switch the stitches and how many where?

It became easier when I realised that all purl stitches went to the back and never crossed over at the front. Okay-dokey.  Then I could see the meander take shape: there are two stitches of the big meander line on top, and one to the thinner line that runs underneath.  Right!

Once I could see what the pattern is meant to look like, I had no further problems.  I do believe though that one of the symbols early on the left wasn't the right one.  Never mind, I managed to suss it out.

They fit beautifully (the heel might be a touch big but not disastreously so) and the yarn feels so wonderful on my feet!
I am so very much looking forward to knitting up the other two skeins of the same yarn.  I bought one in a dark green and the other one is pink.  I'll have socks in every colour of the rainbow!
Seriously yummy.

I will buy more of this yarn when mine is finished.  Sweet Clement's Etsy shop will be up and running at some point soon.  Pippa suggests to follow her Twitter feed for updates (Sorry, I can only access the feed via the 'mobile.twitter.com' site, you get the idea) and she also has a blog.  And I think that's all the info you would ever want!  You can tell that I am seriously impressed by her beautiful yarn!

Enjoy!

As requested... Madelinetosh Vintage kerchief

Fridica wondered what I would do with my new Madelinetosh Vintage yarn.  Here it is: my Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief.  I think the Thunderstorm colourway is perfect for this!

Yarn	Madelinetosh Vintage (worsted)
Needles	4.5mm
Pattern	The Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief

I made the same kerchief as a present for a friend before:

Yarn	Colinette Jitterbug in Raspberry
Needles	4 mm

With one project off the needles, I started a new one (as you do):

I am calling this my Chrysanthemum shawl.  You can't see the flower shapes that well just yet, the inner pattern looks a bit like something woven, the flower shapes then follow on - but I am still within the first repeat, so not that much to show just yet.

The pattern is Sanne Kalkman's Percy Shawl pattern on Ravelry, - I am thinking of leaving the edge pattern out and instead continuing the Chart B flower pattern for most of the shawl and just binding off in a straight edge.