Boxy

I started Boxy by Joji Locatelli as my first ever sweater back in September last year.  I love the look of it, it's perfect for my wardrobe and I decided the simple construction would be good for a first - it's not fitted, a simple neckband, really basic sleeves and lots of simple knitting in the round.  What's that you say? Lots of simple knitting in the round?  Wow, was that an understatement!!

What my inexperience didn't alert me to was that this is knit from fingering weight yarn and that the box part of Boxy was a rectangle of gigantic proportions.  Yes the pattern included schematics clearly showing a 34" x 21" rectangle, I guess I just didn't think what that meant in terms of the number of stitches.  Or knowing me I just jumped into a challenging project head first and worried about my actually ability later.  Where's the fun otherwise?

Don't let me lead you into thinking I wish I hadn't started this or didn't enjoy knitting it because I did and I know full well I will go back for more fingering weight sweaters in the future :)

Step 1 took me 6 months, although a lot of that time was spent languishing while I favoured other projects. Step 2 involved purl rows.  I've changed from English to continental knitting and purling is giving me a hard time.  Generally my continental purl stitches are too loose and erratic, especially in lighter weight yarns so I've been changing hands and going back to English for any purl rows.  This sweater is a pretty loose gauge anyway so I made myself stick to purling.  There are certainly sections that leave a lot to be desired but I figure it's loose and flowy so hopefully won't be noticed too much.

The yarn is Madeline Tosh Merino Light in Georgia O'Keefe.  It has beautiful variegation of greens from a bright green to a bottle green and bits of brown thrown in too.  It has a gorgeous depth to it like so many Tosh colours.  I didn't alternate my skeins and I should have.  When it's laid flat it's really obvious where each skeins is as the middle section has a lot more brown in it.  Again, I'll be relying on the loose, flowy aspect to disguise this.  

The pattern is written with 3/4 length sleeves but I always get cold in 3/4 so I decided to do mine full length.  For me the key to this sweater is that the sleeves have to be fitted.  If they're not then it looks like a tent.  I only picked up 44 stitches on the sleeve to keep them tight on my arms and did the decreases as per the pattern.  I knit the sleeves on the longish side and just did some garter stitch rows on a smaller needle at the end so the curl back like the neckline does.

Blocking was really challenging.  It's the first time I've blocked something that needs to be a certain size.  With shawls I can take the attitude that it's the size it is and a bit bigger doesn't matter.  I was really surprised at how heavy this sweater is too.  After soaking it I lay it out on the towel to block and it was massive!  I spent about 20 mins trying to massage it all into place and it just wasn't happening.  So…into the dryer!  No messing about here.  After about fish minutes it was much more manageable and I was able to lay it out at the size it should be.  There were still some puckered sections so then I resorted to the iron on full steam and miraculously it worked!  The puckered sections shrunk back into place.  Phew, the whole process took me over an hour.

So, do I love it?  I really don't know.  I think it's too big?  I know it's meant to be big and well…boxy, but it's really big on me.  It feels wonderful and is so gorgeous and soft.  I can't help but think if I were taller and thinner…I know, I know!



Ravelled here.

Elm

I definitely have second sock syndrome. Take the green sock debacle - not only do I not enjoy knitting the second sock, apparently I can be rubbish at it too!  

Meet Amber...I follow her on instagram and she has the best sock eye candy and is a great inspiration. She knits her socks two at a time and was really helpful and gave me some direction of where to start. I learn new knitting techniques by video and find this much easier than diagrams in books so I bought a Knitfreedom online course.  At $30 it wasn't cheap but it includes magic loop techniques, two at a time toe up and cuff down socks. It comes with a massive course book and more importantly for me includes videos of all of the steps. It was totally worth the money for me as I know I'll go back to it time and time again. 

What can I say?  Two at a time is absolute GENIUS!!!!

I've been wanting to try a Cookie A sock pattern for a while and decided this one didn't look too tricky. It's from the most wonderful book The Knitter's Book of Socks by Clara Parkes. After borrowing this book from the library five times I decided I really should buy my own.

The yarn is Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock in ultraviolet (colour now discontinued). It has more of a nylon, shiny feel to it than the other wool/nylon sock yarns I've used. Hopefully this will wash out over time. The pattern is called Elm.  There's 3 different charts that you follow at different times and move the socks around to start each new chart. Needless to say i followed the directions exactly!  The cuff of the sock is really long, mine look much longer than the picture in the book. I'm not sure if that's the photography or my row gauge. The pattern is also a lot chunkier than I imagined so these are more lounging around at home socks than going into shoes socks.

Ravelled here.

Knitting needle roll

For my birthday last year I received a roll for my knitting needles and I absolutely love it!  It's so great to have everything in the one spot. I thought it would great to make one to gift.  I chose 2 co-ordinating Umbrella Prints from Treehouse Textiles and Emma found me a matching neutral.

I found this great website with links to lots of different tutorials. I went through them all and considered sizes and pockets and also used  my pouch to determine a template.  I made this one larger than mine as the recipient uses straights as well as circulars.

  

I used the natural fabric so that you could easily see the needles sitting against it and I sewed a variety of different width pockets. The top pockets are hidden under the fold over flap - these are for the straight needles. The very bottom pockets are angled for different bits and bobs like scissors or a needle gauge.  A tip if you ever make one - don't forget the fold over flap at the top to hold everything in!  A couple of times I've rolled mine up without the flap folded in and it's a disaster if you pick it up as everything falls out!!

I used iron on wadding/batting to give the needle roll structure and ironed creases for the folds to make it roll up easier.

first...

Wow, I knit a jumper!!!  Or a sweater depending on what you call it!  Either way I am so excited and proud of myself!

The pattern is Chambord by Thea Coleman aka babycocktails and it was a great first timer pattern.  It's knit top down in the round with raglan sleeves, so that means you don't have to join any seams.  This method was really satisfying as a first timer because I could try it on as I went to make sure it fit and see it taking shape which encouraged me to knit faster!  

The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in the colour way Cookie's Deep Dark Secret (I got mine from Jimmy Beans).  It has beautiful tonal variegation which adds a wonderful depth. This yarn is also beautifully soft and squishy.  

I originally bought this yarn for an Effortless Cardigan but when it arrived I decided it might look a bit frumpy - all that blue without a lot of movement.  This pattern was perfect as the fit, cowl, cables and rib allow the variegation of the yarn to shine and it is absolutely beautiful.  I was a bit worried as the Shepherd worsted doesn't have a halo like the yarn Thea used - but it is soft with a lovely drape and this combined with the colour variegation worked out perfect.

I even alternated my skeins like a grown up knitter.  I used 1 skein for the cowl neck then introduced a 2nd skein and alternated every row for the body.  When skein 1 finished I started skein 3 (so now alternating skeins 2 and 3 every row).  When skein 2 finished I continued on using only skein 3 and had about 7 yards left when I'd finished the rib.  I did my sleeves 2 at a time using magic loop.  I had no idea how much each sleeve would need so I started 2 new skeins (skeins 4 and 5) one for each sleeve.  I had about 48 grams (approx 455 yards) left on each skein when the sleeves were finished.  

My notes are on my Ravelry project page here.

Bloglovin

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Since google are trying to keep us on our toes and discontinuing reader I'm going to give Bloglovin a try. It certainly looks prettier! If the functionality and ease of use are there too then I'm sold!

Summer sewing round up

In Australia we are coming to the end of our warm weather so here's a round up of some tops and dresses I made over our summer.  The tops have been a great success and became staples of my summer wardrobe while the dresses…well, the dresses sewed up beautifully but just don't seem to work on me…

Yes, another Wiksten tank :) This time in the most gorgeous Nani Iro double gauze.  After I first saw these spots at Treehouse I spent the next week constantly daydreaming about them and fortunately there was some left next time I went!  I only made this one this week so I haven't worn it yet, although I know it will become a favourite.  Other tanks I've made can be found here and my favourite worn to death one here (you'll need to scroll down a bit to see it).

The next two tops I made to wear for work and they have been fantastic!  I generally wear suits to work - easy to grab and throw on in the morning without much deciding and more time for pre work knitting!

They are both Simplicity 2599 - a simple top with different ruffle variations and made in Art Gallery fabrics.  Art Gallery fabrics are amazing quality - 100% cotton yet they have a lovely drape and almost lawn or voile like feel to them.

The first one I did with 3 ruffles…

The 2nd one I left plain and also cut out the back pattern piece as one on the fold as it goes over my head without needing the little slit opening.  I added some more fullness to the sleeves.

I have worn these pretty much every week and they wash and iron beautifully.  The quality and comfort of the fabric is perfect!

Now on to the dresses…  Last year I made this dress (sorry you'll have to scroll down again to see it) and it been one of the best things I've ever made - it looks great, it's comfortable and I always get compliments whenever I wear it.

This dress is Simplicity 2147.  I took a lot of care to line it and add pockets and on the hanger I LOVE it!  Unfortunately it doesn't really look that flattering on…No I'm not fat or anything, but I'm not tall either and it does tend to accentuate the bottom…  I've put it on a couple of times but never actually left the house in it.

I love the AMH feathers though and am thinking of chopping it up for a tank…yes another one…

This last dress is Victory Patterns Anouk.  I can't remember which blog I saw it on but I fell hard and bought it straight away.  It is one of those print-out-and-tape-together-fifty-million-pieces-of-paper-patterns.  Yes they are instant and cheaper without the postage, but boy is all that taping a pain in the proverbial!!

This dress is pretty much a total fail.  The pattern has a cut out in the front but after a lot of um-ming and ah-ing I decided that part of my cleavage isn't exactly the greatest anymore and these days I'm really not partial to showing it off so I didn't include it.  Really bad decision as now it looks like a dress for a 12 year old.  I'm not even tempted to put this one on let alone wear it out of the house.  I love the light weight denim and the Dear Stella Ikat print and the denim will probably become a much more useful and lovely zippered pouch or two or three…

So a successful and satisfying summer for tops.  Not so for dresses...

Weekender

Ahh the infamous Amy Butler Weekender!

I have had the pattern and supplies for this bag for well over a year, although this isn't the original fabric I bought for it.  When Bekko by Trenna Travis showed up on the Hawthorne Threads coming soon pages I was smitten.

Weekenders always pop up pre Sewing Summit and the latest round of beauties were inspired by Elizabeth Hartman's patchwork version using cotton duck instead of peltex.  I had already stocked up on the peltex and shape flex so I stuck with the more traditional version (although I still covet a patchwork one too!)

The lining for the Weekender is hand sewn in and I've read quite a few posts saying this is tricky and there's too much fabric and generally that it's a real pain in the tush!  While I can happily hand stitch an entire quilt, the thought of hand sewing all that lining in falls into the "mending" category for me!  I hate mending!  So much that I pay a shop to shorten jeans and trousers.  This in turn led to further mods because I had to sew the end panels in a way that meant the zips ends were covered and secure.  I was also restricted by the length of zip I could find which meant a change to the end panels anyway. 

The zip is sewn in so that the fabric is designed to cover it.  I wanted the look of a zip pouch where the zip shows and is a feature so I decided to make my Weekender like a pouch.  This solved the look I wanted for the zip as well as being able to then machine sew the lining in.  

This seemed genius while I was sewing the bag and I couldn't understand why I haven't seen more of these around.  Even sewing the main panels onto the zip and bottom panels was ok and didn't require any unpicking!  I did stitch a 3.5 basting stitch first with my normal presser foot and then went around again with the zip foot close to the piping.  The challenge came when I was machine sewing the lining in!  It was tricky to sew given I was having to handle the whole bag after the 3-layered peltex bottom was in.  Then having to turn the whole bag inside out through the lining opening - let's just say there was some huffing and puffing from me and the opening grew somewhat!

I added some inside pockets.  A zippered one on one side which I made rectangular because I didn't want to be rummaging around in the whole side panel.  This pocket is great and I'd do this one again.  On the other side I made a pocket the same as the external ones.  I thought this would be good for a book or magazine, but it's really gapey and fairly useless (see pic below).  I wouldn't do this again.

The lining is quite baggy inside.  The false bottom insert is great and totally necessary.  I'm tempted to try and secure the inside lining so it sits flush in the top section - under where the piping is.  Currently there's nothing to hold this in place.  Maybe it was in the pattern - but I'd diverted so much by this stage I only skimmed the last parts. 

Here's a summary of my mods:

• Zip sewn in like a pouch, so I sewed the external panel piece, the zip and the lining panel piece in the one go.  This meant my seam allowances etc were different to the original pattern so after it was sewn I re-cut around the pattern piece to get it to the correct size
• Zip not as long as the pattern required so I didn't make end pockets and had to redraft pattern pieces for the end panels - this was very straight forward using the original pattern piece and making it taller
• My external fabric has a directional print so I had to put a seam in the top panel instead of cutting on the fold
• Machine sewed my lining in as the final step which was challenging given I was trying to move the whole bag around to stitch.  Also trying to turn the whole bag, peltex and all back inside out was quite tricky
• Machine sewed the lining hole (left to be able to turn the bag inside out) closed - I had this along the bottom so it's covered by the false bottom that you pop in last
• Inside pockets - put a zippered pocket on one side and a pocket the same as external pockets on the other side.  This meant cutting extra pattern pieces to line the pockets so you'll need enough fabric for all of this.  The pocket the same as the external ones is really baggy though and fairly useless - I wouldn't do this again.  I thought about stitching a centre line to make it 2 pockets but I wanted it so slip a book in.  I would definitely do a zippered pocket again.
• Added some nickel feet