Spiral flounces!

Oh dear, I haven't posted in too long. I have been crafting but just not blogged about it. Still, there's lots ot catch up on then!

Just to show you what I'm working on right now, i.e. a little taster:

Spiral flounces!

I already pinned the two layers together. The outside curve is not perfect in so far as the distance between them meanders in and out rather a bit but I don't care.

I reckon they're pretty good for a first attempt. And it wasn't even as difficult as I feared:

This is what spiral ruffles look like when you straighten them out:

The top part will follow the curve of the neckline to begin with, starting from the shoulder yoke:

And the bottom part will then run alongside the blouse's button band:

 

I wasn't able to straighten this out completely for the photo, but you get the idea.

This is traced off the Oxfam blouse that I bought and liked a lot, expect for its pasty light blue colour and the fact that it is rather baggy under the arms. That the bust darts didn't point in quite the right direction didn't help either - all issues I can solve in a traced off pattern!

I will re-visit the paper pattern pieces and check about the outside curve. I hadn't thought to superimpose them to check how they would look one on top of the other. Now that I think about it, that would have been the obvious course of action! But you live and you learn.

I'll adjust the pattern pieces for the event that I want to make this again in another fabric.

I must say that I really adore the shapes that this spiral ruffles make. I wonder how big you could go? Must try that.

Master Coriolis socks

Love the colour of the yarn, loved the pattern in the book.  I was really excited to make these.

The pattern is the Coriolis pathway in the book: 'New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One' by Cat Bordhi.

These are toe-up and I hadn't done these “Whirlpool toes” before: you increase every so and so many stitches (in something like six places?) in one row, and then not again for a few rows. The result is a gently rising spiral.  It even turns slightly.  I would have liked to make them symetrical but I increased both the same way.  Something to think about if I use this toe again.

I was fascinated by the spiral that winds its way up the leg.  I just thought that this line would go around the leg for the second time much lower down than it does. I thought I had done something wrong but looking at other examples on Ravelry now I think my spiral just didn't start early enough in the foot section.

I did the cuffs in a K2, P1 ribbing - I love this because it is a little flatter than a K2, P2 ribbing, lies smoother and doesn't look as odd when it gets stretched.

But the problem was that I bound these off a little too tight.  I knew that I didn't want to do them too loosely because then the socks wouldn't stay up, but I didn't realise that the socks would start to feel very uncomfortable when I wear them for any length of time.

I think I will need to re-do the bind-off which will probably make them sit too loosely so they'll slip down.  To prevent that I will then have to weave elastic thread through the inside cuff.

It just feels like it's so much work that I haven't made a start on this yet.  Result: they sit unworn in my sock drawer.  Shame that.

I also made a second knee-high pair of socks that suffer from the same fate. I haven't dared make a third pair yet, so my reaction of this failure has been a bit of a sour grapes attitude: Oh well, I didn't like them that much in the first place.  As if!

I had high hopes with both pairs.  When I make another pair I will have to keep the elastic thread ready for the cuffs.  I'm not going to commit the same error a third time.