Yarn Crawl

Weekend Pics and Paloma Progress

I worked on Paloma while I was out of town on my trip and just tried it on to confirm it was at my underbust. I wanted to try it on before washing, but I did a mid-stream wash as I know the linen and lace pattern will relax once that happens. I'm happy with it. I think I'll need the ribbon once it's washed, but I like the way it's further down on my neck than the way it's shown in the book.

after washing

This was my view when we got to the resort and I was waiting for the guys to play their nine holes on Friday afternoon.

Of course, I had brought a tasty half bottle of Duckhorn Sauv Blanc and Paloma to keep me company while I waited:

Then when we got to the villa, this was our view:

The master bathroom was really nice too:

and our bedroom pre-housekeeping on Saturday morning

This was the main floor - two more bedrooms and full baths, and a sleeper sofa were downstairs

It was a fabulous place to stay and was perfect for Jim and I and three of our friends! We had a really great time. Fried Green Tomatoes in Galena is also a delicious restaurant, and the guys loved playing The General and The East Course. Fun was had by all and I got a lot done on Paloma to boot!

Lion Neck Modeled!

This morning it's pretty cool out, so I decided to wear Lion Neck on our road trip today. Here it is:

Pattern: Lion Neck Cardigan from Wendy Bernard's Custom Knits, a book I love and highly recommend

Size: second smallest

Mods: none except sleeve length; I knew the body would be long on me but I kind of wanted that sweater coat effect. I intended the sleeves to be wrist length but with wear, they sort of shrink up to be 3/4 length, which is actually fine too.

Yarn: RYC Soft Tweed in "Bramble"

Needles: Size 10.5 Clover Bamboo

I really love it - it's warm and cozy without being TOO warm and cozy because the yarn is somewhat more "lofty" than other yarns at this weight. It's really not bulky either despite the 3 stitches to the inch gauge. I was shivering when I woke up this morning as we had the windows open about an inch or so last night and I reached for this while I was packing stuff and warmed right up!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Another Butterick 4976 Wrap Dress and a New Knitting Project

Here's another Butterick 4976 dress - I had started this one a long time ago and messed up on the sleeve, so put it in a bag in the closet. I just took it out a few weeks ago, fixed the sleeve, and finished it up but didn't have a chance to show it. This version fits better/more closely than the green/black/white one I showed for the party the other week as I sewed it with all 5/8" seam allowances instead of 3/8" on the sides.

The orange part of the print is not as bright as it looks in the picture - it's more like a dark burnt orange.

and the shoes...

I really love this pattern and I want to make another one in this fabric next:

I also started Paloma from French Girl Knits - my mini KAL with Debby:

I'm on round 6. I ended up ripping back and starting over last night as I messed up on the lace pattern, but was able to get back to where I was before I went to bed.

It will look like this when it's done (except green, as I'm making it in "Shamrock" Louet MerLin)

Tomorrow we're leaving for Galena for the weekend so I won't be around til Sunday. Have a great weekend everyone!

Lion Neck Cardigan

As promised (but unmodeled) here is the Lion Neck Cardigan from Custom Knits. I made the 2nd smallest size, and it looks much better on than it does on the dress form. I haven't put the crochet chain ties on it, as I'm not sure I want to put them on at all. I think I would probably just wear it open or close it with a shawl pin or something. This was a super quick knit, using some RYC Soft Tweed from stash. I actually didn't make ANY modifications on this one except to start the sleeve ribbing 5" from the desired sleeve length rather than paying attention to when they said to start it.

I'll model it in the fall or when we have a cool day!

Back, with a Knitting FO!

I had taken a few days off work over the long holiday weekend and also took off from blogging as well - it turned out to be beneficial for both! I got a lot of knitting and sewing done, which I think this time I am going to just show (a day at a time) instead of blathering on about it in bullet points. No one wants to read that. Let's get to the pictures, shall we?

I finished two sweaters this weekend, and I'm going to show the first one today.

Rose Gable - this is the Green Gable pattern from Zephyr Style, modified to have just-slightly-longer-than-elbow length sleeves. I made the XS (32) but picked up a few extra stitches under each arm to give myself more room. I love Cascade Pima Tencel - it is great for summery tops. Today it's in the low/mid 60s, so it's perfect weather for this.

front

side (too lazy to crop out the white space - if I get too perfectionistic about the pictures they never get posted)

close-up of the front (with the top of my head cut off - again, I had five minutes to take and upload these pics before leaving for work)

I'm happy with it!! Coming up...Lion Neck Cardigan!

Weekend: Unplugged!!

I decided to take this afternoon as a vacation day as well, and plan to completely unplug from the time I leave here until Tuesday morning. I'm feeling burned out by electronic devices right now and need a break from it all! Have a fabulous Memorial Day weekend, everyone! I'm starting mine early!

Tuesday Update

I missed the weekend update as yesterday was pretty bad, even for a Monday (work drama, but it's better now.) I finished a dress I had started awhile ago and thrown into a bag as I hadn't sewn the sleeve cap in right at the time and was frustrated with it. I wore it yesterday to work but didn't have a chance to get a picture of it - next time! I also finished Rose Gable and will have pictures of that soon. I ripped a few increase rows back on Hourglass Jacket as it was going to be too big in the front, but it's back on track now. Also ripped Karma Tank as I wasn't liking the way it was looking. Have about 9" from the armhole done on Lion Neck Cardi, so I should be starting the 5" of bottom ribbing soon (at 11" as it is supposed to be long.

Other than that, not too much to report. I bought a pattern to try sewing jeans with this Patternreview sew-along and ordered some stretch denim for it. I'm off Friday and Monday for the holiday weekend so I'm trying to get some things knocked out at work before that, so I may not really be posting too much this week.

Saturday Jim and I are going on a bike ride with a group of friends to the Mississippi River, so that will be our first long ride together. I think it will be a couple of hours each way but I have to mapquest it. Should be an adventure! On Sunday we have a graduation party for one of our second cousins who just graduated from high school. Other than that, just lots of sewing, knitting and crocheting on tap. I need a nice long weekend as I am wiped out. Next week will be another short one as well as we're going to Galena (Illinois) on Friday for a weekend of golf, shopping, spa-ing and sitting by the pool. We probably will get our pool open once we get back -waiting for all the little "helicopters" to fall off the trees by the pool before we take the cover off.

Friday At Last!!

What a week! I am out of here at 12:30 and am heading over to Jo-Ann's for their pattern sale (Butterick, McCall's and Vogue!) - I'll have pics of what I picked up later.

I went a little crazy fabric buying yesterday - I just tell myself it's way less expensive than buying clothes. I spent a total of about $75 and got five outfits and hours of fun, is how I look at it. Cheaper than dinner out, which we've been cutting back on anyway to cut costs and calories - we ended up financing part of the bike we bought and I want to get that payment GONE!

So anyway, that didn't stop me from buying more fabric. The first four are from Denver Fabrics, which has lovely ITY jersey fabrics but take a little while to ship, so I figure by the time I get them (probably in a few weeks) I will have sewn through some more of my stash.

I got 1.25 more yards of this to go with the 1.75 I already have, as I decided this would be a really cute dress instead of just a top:

2 yards of this for a non-wrap dress (usually those need 3) -

Pink is quite the color right now, so I indulged in it with 3 yards more of it:

and 2.5 yards of this

Next, I saw Adrienne's animal print dress and decided I needed to participate in the animal print trend. I bought 2 yards of this from Gorgeous Fabrics:

I then bought this pattern over on Patternreview after seeing someone's review of just the bottom - this gave me the not-so-unique idea to just use it for the bottom piece of a swimsuit.

I don't like tankinis on me (wearing a triangle top lengthens my torso and besides, I would hate not getting my stomach tan) so I hadn't really looked at this pattern before, but I think I will combine it with another Jalie pattern I have for a triangle top to make a new swimsuit. I like bottoms with more coverage, and this one looks cute. I have two different pieces of swimsuit fabric in my stash and the lining for it, so I really will have no excuse.

Boy, I had more to say than I thought I did. That always seems to happen when I sit down to write! Getting started is the hardest part but after that, it just flows! Last night's party was a lot of fun, which is really saying something for any type of work event. It really reminded me of what great people I work with - this is one of the things I do love about my job - for the most part, the people are really fun to be around and I can relate to them really well. I love that my old boss (former CFO) is now CEO, even though I miss him as my direct boss. He's such a nice guy and really deserves to be where he is. With so many bad stories out there about CEOs at public companies, he really is the exception - strong moral character and has his priorities straight - someone we can really look up to as a leader and just a real, down-to-earth regular guy born and bred in Michigan who's worked both hard and smart to get to the top spot in his mid-40s. So I don't usually blog about work, but as it's all good, I figure I can say it. As cheesy as it may sound, having a great leader matters!

Have a great weekend everyone! It's raining here so it's going to be a good sewing/knitting day - not sure about the rest of the weekend yet, but all I have planned is a get-together with my friend Patti on Sunday - probably a 5 mile walk and lunch. I love when I have not much planned and can just do whatever the spirit moves me to do - Jim has taught me to appreciate this and go with the flow and it has been a great lesson for me!

Butterick 4976

I finished Butterick 4976 last night - this was a quick and easy pattern!! See complete review here, but here are the pics if you don't care about all the specs:

and the shoes!!

These shoes are so comfy despite having about a 4.5" heel! ! The whole outfit is comfortable, which is good as I'm going to be wearing it until about 9 pm tonight - we have a retirement party for our former CEO right after work, so I thought this would be a good day-into-evening look. I had to get a tan yesterday too - I feel so much better with a little color to my cheeks!

I also washed/blocked the Hourglass Jacket last night (before starting the waist shaping, accomplished through crochet ribbing which I've never attempted before) and I'm happy to say it "grew" lengthwise but not in width, which I was hoping for. I had to wash it midstream to make sure it was going to work, as it would have killed me if I made the whole thing and it was saggy and loose after being washed. I think it's going to be perfect.

Vintage Patterns and Lion Neck Cardigan

Last week, Keana, one of my long-time blog friends, sent me a bunch of very cool vintage patterns (from the 60s and maybe early 70s, based on the look of them.) Then yesterday, I was checking out Patternreview and found that I just missed a vintage pattern-sewing contest that just ended May 1. (I originally thought it was going for the entire month of May for some reason when I looked at it yesterday, but that's OK, now I can work on the patterns on my own schedule.)

Here are the patterns Keana sent me:

This could be (is) in the pattern collections shown now:

LOVE this one - halters are my thing:

This one is really cute - I especially like the version on the right:

The white suit in the background looks very Jackie O to me -especially with the little gloves! Wearing gloves (especially little white gloves) with an outfit is something I think I'll never really relate to, as it's not something I ever saw being worn in my era.

Here's another cute one- I've used a similar fabric to that one on the left (my yellow/gray/black print dress) - and those little white gloves again! They crack me up. (I'm equal opportunity though- they don't make me laugh any more than some of the 80s styles - some of those were some doozies. I think that was hands-down the darkest era in fashion.) Although I like this one, the three piece "EZ" label scares me - it looks like it would look like a sack on me. Very good for the inverted triangle girls though. I might have to make this one for Dawn and get her to model it.

This one is interesting - you're supposed to make this out of two scarves?

A few things to note - check out the prices - less than $1 full price for each of these! And the sizing - pattern sizing is very different from today's RTW - but these are sized even a little smaller than today's patterns. They will be fine as I can either sew them with knits (which are a few of the recommended fabrics) as I usually sew a 10 in knit patterns anyway (and these are mostly a pattern size 12 but all correspond to pattern size 10 in their sizing) or make adjustments to make them fit for wovens. I think I'm going to trace any of these that I make, so that I can preserve that flexibility. Which one of these do you like best?

I also started the Lion Neck Cardigan from Custom Knits yesterday at lunch - I needed some knitting candy and figured I deserved it after the Monday I had. I had the recommended yarn, RYC Soft Tweed, in stash, and had been thinking about making this for awhile. Here it is, after a total of about 2.5 hours of knitting time - sleeves already separated!

I like this yarn as it's pretty light and airy even though it's a chunky gauge. I can see why Wendy B. picked it for the design. I have quite a bit of this in stash, so I'm thinking maybe I'll even make it longer as she suggests as an option - kind of a sweater coat, with the added benefit of the oh-so-now ruffle around the neck.