Yarn Crawl

Knitting Progress and a Short Sleeved 3775

I hope everyone had a great weekend - I know I did!

First off, on Friday afternoon I finished the Knitty Diamond Halter (modeled pics to come soon when I wear it:)

It had just one seam up the back, but I hadn't seamed anything in soooo (sewww?) long I'm glad I remembered how.

I also worked on the Leaf Yoke top and have the hip increases done, but I need to put it on waste yarn and try it on so I know how much longer it needs to be and whether I need any more hip increases.

I started a new project with some Rowan Plaid I had in stash (actually the yarn I had started the Lace & Cable Cowl with a while back and frogged)- Lightning from the Rowan Plaid collection. I remember I swatched for this about two years ago in pattern and thought the double decreases were tricky - it was a piece of cake. I decided to follow the instructions and knit this in pieces for a mindless knit. It wouldn't be hard to convert to do seamless except for the sleeves, as it's a cardigan, but I didn't feel like knitting long rows. The left front is 39 stitches - you gotta love that kind of quick progress.

Jim and I took the bike out for awhile on Saturday and dropped in to visit his aunt and cousins.

Then Sunday I made this - yet another Simplicity 3775, but in the cap sleeve version - I love this fabric and have had it in my stash for awhile:

I made it as a casual, hang-around on weekends or out to dinner dress, but it is good for work too as it has the little sleeves (and cami under it, which is essential!) Technically, sleeveless items aren't prohibited in my office, but I think they can look a little too casual.

I probably need to try this pattern in a size down on top to avoid the really low neck (or figure out how to raise the neckline, which I know is definitely doable but I have to snap out of my comfort zone to do it) but I'm worried about easing it into the bottom, which I don't want to make any smaller. Anyway, I'm still not done with this pattern yet, as I love it, it is easy, and takes me about 3 hours now to make. I did manage to screw up on almost every seam on this version for some reason, which is weird as I haven't had any trouble on the others, and it still took 3 hours, even with ripping out and redoing the messups.

Anyway! I also went to Ulta and found a new perfume I like:

and saw The Proposal with Heather on Sunday. It was cute and funny! I was up for a "chick flick" but wasn't in the mood for the drama of My Sister's Keeper. I have the book on my iPod but haven't listened to it yet, but obviously I know the gist of that one and neither of us were up for it! So we had a nice time, then Jim and I went to Finley Grill for dinner. All in all, a really fun weekend!

Here's What I'm Doing This Afternoon....

Relaxing, knitting and listening to audiobooks on my iPod!

This chaise lounge was on my original home improvement/planned acquisition list so I thought I'd share, as I just added on the umbrella and table setup.

Have a nice weekend, everyone!!

However...

Despite my aforementioned lack of blog mojo, I did just have these five pieces of fabric jump into my online cart over at Spandex World. Check these out - I was careful only to get the poly/spandex mixes - I think the "ingredient" combo I don't like is nylon/spandex, which I have a few pieces of in stash and don't think I'll use. Whatever it is, it's that thicker knit fabric that is solid white on the reverse side - I had picked some pieces of that up in the Vogue Remnant room and I don't personally like it.

These are the new pieces - I did two yards of each for simple summer dresses or tunics/tops:

and a yard of this for a swimsuit, as it was on sale too:

As you can probably tell, I'm loving orange and coppery orange colors lately. They are so nice in the summer with a tan! Now I need to get sewing on my existing stash so I can knock it down a little before these new fabrics arrive!

No Blog Mojo

I haven't felt like blogging for the past few days - Jim and I have gone out for dinner yesterday and the day before and didn't do much after that so I don't have anything really to show.

I dropped off my sewing machine and coverstitch machine on Monday at lunchtime and I couldn't believe they were ready the next day! They said that the coverstitch machine's tension was off, and it's making a much nicer stitch now. The sewing machine just needed a major tuneup, according to them, because of all the abuse it's taken over the past year, and they replaced the automatic threading mechanism, which I didn't even know I had and was broken. I picked both machines Tuesday after work, but haven't done anything with them yet.

I'm hoping for lots of sewing mojo for the rest of this week and the weekend. I have a business trip (in and out in the same day, so not bad) to Dallas/Ft. Worth on Tuesday, and am off Friday, then I have a week of vacation with Jim the following week. Planning on LOTS of sewing and knitting during that time! Trying to figure out some day trips for us that week too. Other than that, not much is going on!

The Weekend - Unplugged!!

Remember how I was saying I thought this was going to be a knitting-focused weekend? Well, I didn't know how true this was going to turn out to be. On Friday night there was a huge thunder and wind storm, breaking many trees near us in half, blowing our mailbox down the street, and along with thousands of other people in the Chicago area, our electrical power went out that night.

Usually I have to say our power service is consistently very good - when other people have power outages that last a while, we are usually lucky enough to have ours out for only an hour or so. Well, NOT THIS TIME. Our power *just* went on at 4 pm today, so we were without power for about 44 hours. Lost everything in both refrigerators (about half of the freezer stuff was old and needed to go anyway - this is a definite case against stashing food) but still it was about seven large Hefty bags worth, we had to go out and buy another battery for our sump pump backup system, and basically sat around by candlelight on Friday and Saturday night.

On the bright side, as you can imagine, I got a LOT of knitting done! Serious progress was made on the orange leaf yoke top, and I only have the straps left to do on the Knitty Diamond halter. Pics to come soon!

Leaf Yoke Progress!!

I just came home and finished the leaf yoke chart on my Knit.1 Leaf Yoke top - loving it!

The lace pattern will open up even more once I wet block it, but as I had the opportunity to show it before doing the pickups from the bottom, I figured I would show it off (plus I'm so giddy about it, I had to share:)

I think it's going to be a knitting-focused weekend!

Finally, the Weekend!

Seems like this has been another long week! This morning I was doing some sewing as I woke up early and my sewing machine started making a weird noise. It just started doing this, and I tried re-threading it and making sure nothing goofy was going on with the bobbin as that usually fixes things, and it got better but still is not running up to par. I think I better take it in for its annual exam as I am about a month behind on that, and while I'm at it I'll take in the coverstitch machine as it's never been tuned up. Both machines have endured a lot of abuse this past year, so I think it's long overdue. But maybe I can make it wait til Monday morning. If the noise starts up like before I'll just give in and bring it there, and knit this weekend.

We're supposed to have rain and hot weather today through tomorrow morning (probably will mess up Jim's standing 5:30 a.m. tee time on Saturday morning) so no pool time until probably tomorrow afternoon. Oh well. I woke up feeling "blah" this morning, but managed to get through an abbreviated version of my daily treadmill workout and watched The Fashion Show on the Tivo. That show is definitely no Project Runway, I have to say. At least I'm out of work at 12:30! Have a good weekend, everyone!

Great New Pattern

If you haven't seen it already, go check out Turtlegirl's new customizable toe-up sock pattern, Candi Wrappers! I am usually not a sock knitter, but I haven't tried toe-up before, and I love the stitch pattern on these. Plus, hello, I love the color she chose for them, and the gauge is not teeny-tiny - a very manageable 5.5 stitches to the inch, not 7 or 8 (though she actually includes options for you to knit them on fingering weight yarn, if that's how you roll.) I'm liking that. What's more - 20% of the proceeds go to a good cause - educating children in Malawi!

More Knit Fabric, Patterns, and Sewing Plans

This morning I was going to cut out another S3868 (Threads) cap sleeve dress (version on the bottom right) before work

and discovered I was missing the midriff pieces somehow. So...as the Simplicity sale is still going on over at JoAnn's, I went over there and picked up another copy of it.

This is the fabric I'm going to use for it - I think it'll be really cute - it only takes 1.5 yards so I can use my smaller pieces with this pattern:

What else? Three other Simplicity patterns jumped into my cart when I was at JoAnn's - a smaller size range of Simplicity 3775 (the bodice on the V-neck version is just a little too large and I think I need the 10 to have it fit perfectly instead of the 12, especially if I make the sleeveless version so I won't have underarm gappage or absolutely NEED to wear a cami to avoid indecent exposure)

and two new (to me at least) patterns -

first one has some really cute dresses that can be made in either wovens or knits - love all of the short versions (especially the two on the bottom right) and none of the long ones:

and a cute new variety of skirts, pants and shorts, all for knit fabrics - I love yoke/contour waistbands - they work really well for me:

Additionally, I cut out a short version of Simplicity 3503 (the long cream dress on the top right, except knee length)

last night, as a trial run for a version of the maxidress - I decided to do Version A/B first as it's different from anything else I have, but wanted to do a shorter version first to see if I like the style before I commit to a larger piece of fabric on the maxidress.

I'm going to use this, another piece from my SP (just like the navy/white print I used the other day for my 3775 dress, except this one is like an emerald/forest green and white)

Do I sound manic? 'Cause I guess I kinda am. Now I'm cutting multiple things at a time and churning out the stuff even faster. AND I just subscribed to BWOF (Burda World of Fashion, a magazine with like 60 patterns in it each month, which has usually about five or six designs in each issue that ImustsewNOW.) Have I sewn anything out of my back issues? Well, not exactly. But I'm working out the best way to copy the patterns. I think I'm going to photocopy them multiple times (once for each piece, as they overlap) to be able to cut them out. The whole tracing thing wasn't for me, as I tried a few different methods over the weekend and didn't like any of them.

I haven't even gotten to the new fabrics yet - I have recently discovered Fabric Mart

Maggy London ITY jersey

Maggy London sunny yellow ITY jersey - $1.39 a yard

Maggy London ITY tribal jersey

Anna Sui knit fabric

and Fashionista Fabrics

and picked up some really great steals from both of them, along with some great paisley mesh knit fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics

and more tricot lining fabric from her that I really like in off-white and black. I also bought this from her a few weeks ago but may have forgotten to blog it:

CRAZINESS!!! I must stop the insanity. But I really am sewing through it!

More Patterns

I hit the Simplicity pattern sale at lunch today and got these:

This one's designed for woven fabrics, but I could either do that or a knit with it - I like the kimono style dress for casual weekend wear and the halter maxi dress:

A pattern that definitely says "fall", which is something I don't even want to think about yet - the shorter cardigan says it is designed for knits (like sweater knits) but I was actually thinking of making the longer cardigan in the foreground in a knit fabric, just in a smaller size to account for the knit vs. woven fabric, and shorter to look more in proportion on me:

Another fall-ish pattern, though this could be changed depending on which fabric was used. I like the red version on the left in a sweater knit or a wool fabric:

Another pattern for these "Amazing Fit" pants (with the slim, average and curvy fits)- this time in a wide legged, cuffed version that I'm seeing everywhere - I had done a muslin of this pattern in a previous version (the curvy, of course) and it fit pretty much right out of the envelope aside from the ever-present length adjustments. I love the contour waistband on this one, and I'm hopeful about this fitting as well as the other - possibly better. (I know, I actually need to make a pair and get beyond the muslin stage. Eventually.)

AND, last but definitely not least, is this:

Jenny oh-so-helpfully drew my attention to this pattern, correctly recognizing that the pink version is a perfect knockoff of this Victoria's Secret top I wanted to find a pattern for a few months ago:

It no longer exists on their web site (where it looked prettier as it was modeled on a Halle Berry look-alike), but I found a picture of it on sale on Ebay.