january blues

Wow you guys! It feels like it has been FOR. EV. ER. since my last post! Happy Holidays! Happy New Year! So much belated happiness! My holidays were lovely, with a nice long visit with family on the East coast. Since coming back to Texas (and real life) I've been a bit slow to find my groove. If you follow me on instagram I've been trying to give little peeks at what I've been up to, but honestly my life feels pretty boring right now! I started a new knitting project (the Riptide pullover from Brooklyn Tweed's new Winter 16 collection - and I'm in luuuuurve with it). And I also joined a local gym which feels like a big step since my last post on my fitness journey. I decided I really wanted to lift heavier weights, which just isn't feasible in my apartment.  So far it's been good! I've never been so sore, or hungry! Seriously, I'm like an eating machine... I also got a new lens for my camera (Christmas present from Nick, he's good to me) - a Nikkor 35mm. I love having my camera back in action, but I'm still getting used to the new lens, so forgive me if some of my pictures are a little out of focus. But when the focus is right - oh it's good!

And now we're all caught up! You will note that I didn't mention too much about my sewing plans in the above paragraph. That's because my sewing room has felt a bit stagnant as of late. Perhaps it's the winter blahs and the fact that they really promote couch time and knitting, or that I feel like I'm constantly schlepping from home to gym to work (a choice I willingly made) but I've been feeling a bit uninspired in that department.  It's happened before and I know I just need to ride it out and it'll pass, but it's always disconcerting when the sewjo plummets, ya know?

However I did manage to pull these two pieces out for my latest Mood Sewing Network make (I can always count on those MSN posts to get me into my sewing room!). They're not going to set the world on fire or anything, but they are comfy, cozy, adaptable to my wardrobe, and together look quite chic. 

The sweater jacket uses Mood's Italian Black and White Double Cloth Blended Wool Slubbed Knit (phew! that's a mouthful...). I bought a yard and a half of this stuff back in the fall with the intention of making just such a garment. It's really lovely and thick and because of the wool content it's very warm, however since it's a blend it's not scratchy at all. Basically an ideal snuggly layer. After seeing Sarai's Oslo cardigan hack over on the Coletterie I knew that I wanted to use this fabric to make my own.  However for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to cut the pattern pieces out of my yard and half! I'm actually still scratching my head about how Lauren managed to do it. Granted she did not do the kimono sleeve variation but still... clearly she's a wizard. Anywho. Long story short I had to order another yard. It was worth it. Even if it did mean that this garment got pushed back into the new year.

The Oslo cardigan is from Seamwork magazine.  The variation that I did involved a little bit of pattern manipulation to create the cut-on kimono sleeve, but nothing too difficult. And rather than the buttons in the front I added belt loops and a tie.  The only thing that I'm slightly bummed about is that I forgot to add width to the sleeves to get that cool kimono look that Sarai's has.  I thought the kimono sleeve looked kind of dumb at the regular slim sleeve width so I chopped them off at the elbows.  I say this was a happy accident as the shorter sleeve is kind of cool and makes for an interesting layering option.

Construction wise this was pretty straightforward. I used my serger for all the seams and my sewing machine's 3-step stretch stitch for the hems.  The only place where I got a bit creative was in attaching the collar.  The way the instructions have you do it would have involved me running three layers of fabric through my serger. Since this fabric is quite thick I didn't think that would be the best idea so instead I used my sewing machine to sew the right side down, then attach the underside by stitching in the ditch.  Which was really a breeze on this fabric because the stitches just sank right in! No one can tell how accurate (or, ahem, inaccurate) I was.

The dress I'm wearing is a Closet Case Files Nettie dress made up in Mood's Black Cotton-Viscose Jersey.   I used this same fabric previously to make leggings and I love it. It’s very stretchy and soft. This dress feels a bit revealing when I wear it alone because of the negative ease (I’m not comfortable in skin-tight dresses) but I love it as a layering piece.  I added length to the sleeves to make them nice and long so they bunch up at the wrists.  Construction wise, this was the same as for the sweater jacket – serger for the majority of the seams and a 3-step stretch stitch for the cuffs and hem.  

I love that stitch for stretch fabrics. It's really the only conventional machine stitch I’ve found for knits that doesn’t pop with wear. For some reason my machine’s zig-zag stitch never really seems to have any give, but the 3-step straight stitch does. Plus it looks super clean and professional. I highly recommend you give this stitch a try for knits if your machine has it. I'm sure most do. I have a very rudimentary machine.

As a whole, this outfit works pretty well as secret pajamas. Especially because they're like pajamas and a robe! And when the winter blues come a-knocking it's really all I can do to not wear my bathrobe to work (I wish I had my life together enough to own actual pajamas but...)  This is a decent second best in my opinion.  And both pieces work really well with the rest of my wardrobe. So even if I'm not blowing anyone's mind with these makes, I give them an A+ for wearability and the kind of thing I'll reach for again and again.

And there you have it! My first post of 2016. Feels good to dust off the cobwebs. I missed you guys. Anyone else in the midst of the January blues? Let's all hang out on the couch underneath a heating pad and commiserate...

xx

the first sweater i ever knit but never blogged about

Hey pals! While I'm on a knitting streak here I thought I'd finally do a proper post for this sweater so I can stop referring to it as "the first sweater I ever knit but never blogged about" because that is a long title for such a humble sweater! So since I wore this outfit to work today, and felt pretty good about it, and there was still a considerable amount of daylight left when I got home, I decided to go for a walk and take some outfit shots along the way.

Behold! The First Sweater I Ever Knit but Heretofore Never Blogged About! This was actually the third knitted item I ever made, and therefore, despite it's myriad of quirks, I'm intensely proud of it. I started it early February 2014 (I think...?) after learning how to knit over my Christmas break. It reached completion, I believe, around May - sped along by a rather tenacious upper respiratory infection that had me couch ridden for much of March and some of April.  Which is why it never got photographed or properly blogged about. By May it is already much to warm to even pretend to wear wool for the sake of the camera here in Texas! Just the thought of donning this sweater made me break out in a heat rash! So it got carefully folded and stowed away until the cooler temperatures decided to make an appearance again. And let me tell you, what a lifesaver it has been this winter! Anytime our fickle winter temperatures thought about nearing freezing (or really anything below 50F because I'm a thin-blooded southerner)(yes, I know, cue the tiny violins from all you northerners dealing with real winter!) I pulled on this jumper and immediately felt swaddled in warm, loving, hand-made, coziness.

So the deets. This is the Bedford Pullover by Michelle Wang for Brooklyn Tweed Fall 2011. I knit it up in BT Shelter, a worsted weight yarn, in the color 'Cast Iron'.  This sweater was knit from the bottom up, completely in the round.  It doesn't have any shaping, so the finished look is quite boxy. I think I knit the second to smallest size, although it's been such a long time I don't totally remember.  I do remember that I learned a lot. There was a lot of YouTube-ing various stitches and techniques and knitting jargon! And a lot of visible improvement was made on the sweater as I went.

One of the biggest things I think I finally got the hang of was finding a uniform way to tension my yarn as I knit (of course this is also something that I want to experiment with a bit on my next make to see if it makes a difference in efficiency - constantly learning...).  Sadly this means that the 1x1 ribbing at the bottom of the sweater isn't the prettiest, but you can kinda see in this picture that I sort of got the hang of it by the time I was doing the arm cuffs.  In the end, the fact that this sweater isn't the most uniform really doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. I think it's a lovely memento of my growing proficiency with this new skill, and a humbling reminder that I'm never too old to learn a new craft.

The sweater used a twisted stitch to create this lovely textured pattern, that almost looks like a small scale cable.  There is about a 1 inch 'racing stripe' of purl stitch that runs up the side, a bit hard to see in these photos, but a nice little detail all the same.  And the sleeves are all reverse stockinette - or purl stitch. I got very good at purling...

One issue I've had with both of the sweaters I've knitted is that the neck opening always seems much higher and tighter on me than it ever seems to be on the models.  I think this must have something to do with my wider shoulders, but I'm not sure. It might just be an adjustment that I have to make with all knits, like adding length.

And speaking of length! That was one thing I was pretty disappointed about with this sweater.  It ended up much shorter than I would have liked. Of course it's still 100% wearable, it's more of a wearing preference than anything else. At least in the body. The sleeves really are too short, there's just no denying it! It was for this reason that I was very conscious to add length to my Carpino sweater, despite the fact that I was itching to speed up the knitting process. I knew I would regret not having that additional length in the long run.

While I'm blogging about old(er) knitting makes I thought I would give y'all a two-for-one here and throw in this little hat! I knitted this up in January of this year when I was starting to feel some serious Carpino burnout! I thought maybe taking a bit of a break and focusing on something else, but still knitting, might help me push through the last couple of steps. And I guess that technique worked...? I mean, I did end up finishing my Carpino, but I think this hat was less the result of some fancy scheme to increase my productivity and more the result of me being unable to resist the siren song of a shiny new ball of yarn!

This is the Purl Bee's Traveling Cable Hat (a FREE pattern!) knit up using one skein of Manos del Uruguay's Maxima in the color 'Oxygen' (which I'm not seeing on Purl Soho's site anymore, but trust me, it existed).  I wanted to knit this hat to brush up on my cabeling. Last year I made Purl Bee's Chunky Cable hat, which was a great introduction to cables, but this year I wanted to try a more complicated design, and this seemed like the perfect next step. Plus, I love wearing knit hats in the winter. They are an essential during my chilly bike rides to work, and it's nice to have options.

Nick found me this lovely pink barnacle (note: that is not it's scientific name!) while I was shooting photos, so I had to show it off! 

My one pet peeve about this hat is that it's a little snug - and I have a small head! According to Revelry, this is a pretty common complaint about this pattern.  I could have added another pattern repeat, but I think then it would have been too big. If I make it again I might experiment with sizing up my needles and seeing if that makes a difference. Other than that, I think it's a really pretty hat! I love the way the Manos hand-dyed yarn creates this very subtle shift in blues throughout the hat.

And here I am with the ultimate accessory, lovely Lucille. She's not great at posing for the camera, so this photo was the best of the bunch. It looks like I'm giving her the Blessing... 

Well, I think that about brings me up to date with my knitting, save for a hat I made for Nick as a Christmas present, but I think it just might be asking for a miracle to get that photographed! Just imagine it - it's a very straightforward men's sailor cap in a tweedy navy blue. Exciting, no? So there we go! All up to date! Whew that feels good!

Alright guys, that's all from me! I hope you all are having a great March! Stay warm! Spring will come!

xx

we got there in the end

A sweater!! You guys! I knit a sweater! I'm realizing that I'm actually pretty terrible at blogging about my hand knit items, so I'm trying to change this. For some reason knitting just seems better suited to Instagram than my blog (for me, I love reading about other people's knitting on their blogs). I'm not totally sure why this is, because knitting is so. SLOW. Seriously. You wanna talk about a labor of love, just talk to a knitter! I mean, I can slap together an entirely new, hand sewn outfit in the amount of time it takes me to knit a hat! So you'd think after all that hard work I'd be ready to crow about it from the rooftops, right? And instead my hand knits tend to only get a fraction of the hoopla that my sewn garments get. Well no more! This is me, climbing onto the neighbors roof (because it's more fun if it's trespassing) and crowing: I MADE A SWEATER! 

And it's purple! This is the Carpino pullover designed by Carol Feller for Brooklyn Tweed's Wool People 6. I had my eye on this design since I learned how to knit (*cough* last year *cough*). I love the honeycomb lacework design of the front. It felt like a less girly version of lace, which is good for me, because as much as I love the way lacework looks, I get really uncomfortable in anything too girlish (... I mean, there's an exception to every rule, but in general...) I also really wanted to learn lacework, and this is a nice, repetitive, not-to-complicated pattern. Perfect for learning.

This sweater was knit from the top down, in the round. I followed all the instructions as is for a size 39 - which should have given me plenty of ease, since my chest measurement is closer to 34 inches. I did test my gauge, but I think I tend to be a tight knitter, even when I'm trying to relax. So the finished sweater is a bit narrower, after blocking, than the size 39 specs. I'm actually okay with this. I think the fit is pretty cute, and pretty close to what I had imagined. The only place that I would have appreciated a bit more width is through the shoulders, however I actually think my sweater fits me through the shoulders pretty similarly to how it looks on the model, and I can comfortably wear a long sleeve shirt underneath it, so I'm just gonna go with it! It'll probably relax with time and wear anyway.

I added an extra inch or so to the overall length of the sweater, leaving the arms the original 3/4 length. I did this because 1) I thought it looked short on the model and 2) my first sweater that I knit (never blogged... but maybe I'll get around to that...) always feels a bit short and it bugs me. I think that after all the work and time you put into knitting, you really don't want to have any regrets at the end. While you're knitting it can seem like a pain to spend more time and yarn on one section, when all you want to do is get to the next part of the instructions, but it's worth it in the end. Knitting, I've found, is a practice in the art of patience.

The yarn is Brooklyn Tweed's Loft in the color Thistle.  I love that on BT's updated site they give the color stories for their yarns. I've spent a fair few lazy Sundays just reading each one, they're like little love notes to color! I had to give a hoot when I read that, according to BT, "Playful Thistle is perhaps rather intense for adult-sized garments"... whoops! Um... definitely didn't get that memo! In truth, I actually don't think this color is nearly as intense as it shows up in photos. In reality it's more of a red-purple, and the flecks of navy, bright red and white are so much fun. Brooklyn Tweed's yarns are really interesting. They are 100% wool and have a very 'heritage' feel to them. When you're knitting them up they're kind of scratchy and stiff, but after wet blocking them they really soften up and come alive. I haven't knitted with a ton of different yarns, but I really am partial to this stuff. They're insanely warm. The other sweater I knit is with Shelter and it is the absolute warmest thing I own.  I'll admit that I don't like wearing these sweaters directly next to my skin, but I don't really like wearing any wool right next to my skin.  

Loft is BT's fingering weight yarn, so it's much lighter weight and makes for a thinner, slightly drapey-er material. You guys. I will give pause before I knit another sweater with fingering weight yarn. This sucker took me FOR . EV . ER! I think I cast on in the beginning of September? It's so long ago now I can't really remember! But let's go with September. And when I knit, I get pretty obsessive, so I was devoting a good amount of my free time to this baby. So six month. SIX MONTHS!! Egads! I blame it on the fingering weight yarn and size 4 needles. The fact that I'm a painfully slow knitter didn't help.

Sorry this photo is a bit out of focus. It was getting dark while I was shooting these, so my shutter speed was very slow. But anyway, The sleeves and hem are finished with a 1x1 twisted knit ribbing.  I learned a thing or two while knitting this sweater - I mean, you're bound to learn a thing or two about anything if you do it for a straight six months! But one thing I learned is that I really prefer knitting in the round with 5 DPNs (double pointed needles). I had always used 4 (3 holding the stitches in a triangle shape, one used for knitting) in the past and could never figure out why I got such ugly laddering on the stitches where the needles joined, but then I read somewhere that if you switch to 5 DPNs those joining stitches have much less strain placed on them. It made sense to me, and it definitely made a difference in my sleeves! 

The neckline is finished with an i-cord bind off. This was also new to me! For the first couple of stitches I kept thinking that I was just making a big messy knot, and then slowly it started to reveal itself and I got pretty psyched! It's a really pretty way to finish a neckline, and a nice alternative to ribbing.

As I was nearing the finish line with this sweater I began to suspect that I would run out of yarn. I guess that extra length I added really ate up a lot of my yarn! I just had 1 inch left of cuff ribbing and the i-cord bind off to go and I was down to a marble sized blob of yarn. I started to freak out a bit because the thought of buying a whole new skein just for that little bit of knitting seemed insane.  When I lamented about this on Instagram (see, IG gets all the good knitting stuff) Samantha, of A Gathering of Stitches, suggested I try Ravelry to see if anyone was selling a leftover skein, which was a brilliant idea! Unfortunately I didn't have much luck - it seems that Thistle is not a very popular color! Who'd a thunk...? But I'm passing that little nugget of wisdom on to you guys, should you ever find yourself in a similar situation. Anyway I eventually had the thunderclap realization that I still had my two gauge squares stashed away somewhere. So I unraveled those and ended up with more than enough yarn to finish my sweater! I ran out of my original ball of yarn while I was binding off the cuff edge, which was super inconvenient, but it did force me to learn how to do a spit join (or spit splice), which is magic! Why have I not been doing that all along?!? I could have been saving myself from so much tedious tail weaving-in! Again... the things you learn...

Well, I absolutely adore my new sweater! And I better after all the time it took away from other projects! Nick isn't too keen for me to jump into a new knitting project too quickly. He thinks I love my knitting more than him, but I think a bit of jealousy is healthy for a relationship. Keeps the sparks alive, ya know? So on that note, what do you think I should knit next?? 

Since I tend to really love Brooklyn Tweed's (and company's) aesthetic I had originally planned on moving on to Seacoast from Wool People 7. I love the elegant, wide, neckline and the clean lines, but after all the stockinette on this sweater started to bore me I thought maybe I should try something more challenging and Jared Flood's Backbay from the Fall 14 collection caught my eye.  I definitely think Ondawa is the star of that collection, but the cute little bobbles, moss stitch, and overall classic look of Backbay really won me over. But then the Winter 15 collection came out and I became intrigued by Kusama! Although I can't tell yet if it's the pattern, or the styling of the model that I'm really into here... Obviously I need your help! 

What are you guys knitting? And can someone please tell me if six months is an insane amount of time to spend knitting this sweater?

xx