Evie, Author at Purl and Seam

A blue Geranium for Button

May 26, 2014

I know I promised the red Spring Showers jacket next, but I finished this little Geranium dress the other day and the weather today was perfect for taking pictures.

Add to that a visit to the park to meet up with Amanda and Lily, and, well, I couldn’t resist.

Although Button is 6, she’s really rather petite, so I cut the size 5 and added an inch to the length.

The fabric is a fairly crisp cotton chambray that I received in the recent box of goodies from Himmelbjerget, lined with white cotton lawn…my go to lining for little dresses as it’s so soft next to the skin.

A little topstitching in white thread added a cute finish and highlights the notch at the neck.

Perfectly matched buttons.

I couldn’t be happier with this little dress. I have more of these planned for this summer.

As an aside, everyone thinks my two are total cherubs…yeah, right! Here they are with Lily taking selfies for Instagram.

I despair!

Anyhoo, the weather is forecast to change tomorrow, so I’m hoping to get shots of the red jacket sooner rather than later.

Until then I do hope you’re enjoying your Monday/Bank Holiday/Memorial Day.

Simple socks

May 19, 2014

I’ve been intending to get The Husband to model these socks but the weekend got away from us, so I’ve photographed these socks sans feet. It might be for the best 😉 !

From top to bottom the yarn is:

Arauncania Ranco Multy 322

Drops Fabel Uni Colour in Red

Arauncania Ranco Solid 2065

The Drops socks are super soft and the red really is that vibrant. He loves them. The Arauncania socks are a more tightly spun yarn and, I suspect, will be more hardwearing.

I used my usual Regia pattern…the one that they give away for free. It’s a really good, simple, straightforward sock pattern that fit’s himself perfectly.

I’ve also got the heel turning completely cracked. It’s a thing of beauty:

The Multy yarn comes up with a lovely spiral stripe:

It could be considered quite a bold colour choice for a chap’s sock…but he’s happy and that’s good enough for me.

Amazingly I’m down to one lot of sock yarn in the stash…worryingly it’s for Argyle socks. I’m plucking up the courage to make a start on them.

In the meantime the needles are occupied with my Aislinn cardigan. Yep! I’ve finally cast that on. I’ll review Amy Herzog’s Custom Fit very soon.

A Geranium with Cattitude

April 28, 2014

I must be the last person in the sewingverse to make one of Rae’s delightful Geranium dresses.

Our little friend Vicky turned 2 last week, so it seemed the perfect opportunity to finally bite the bullet on this pattern. It’s available in 2 size ranges, 0-5 and 6-12, and I bought the bundle with both sizes as I suspected that a certain Ms Button would have her beady and stylish eye on this once she saw it made up.

The fabric is Cattitude in Cream by Lizzie House, purchased from M is for Make (where it’s listed as Purrfectly Happy). Look at those little faces! And their cheeks! Totally adorable.

I was super impressed with M is for Make. Not only do they have a delightful selection of fabrics, but I placed my order on Tuesday morning and the fabric was in my hot little hands the very next day. That’s the kind of fabric service we all love, no?

This is a great pattern too. The Husband passed comment at how quickly I had made this dress. It comes together perfectly and very quickly. The dress is lined in white cotton lawn, which you can just see peeping out of the neckline here, and I added a lining to the skirt and hand stitched the bodice lining in place as I didn’t want a line of stitches showing on the bodice. Even so it was done and dusted in an afternoon.

The hard bit was the buttons. I really wanted to pick out the orange on the cat’s cheeks. They do say the Devil is in the details. Thankfully the button stall on Chorley market is something of a marvel and has a good range of colours.

I think they’re a really good match.

I really enjoyed sewing this little dress. As anticipated Ms Button was dropping hints so big they could break your toes, so expect to see some more iterations of this in the very near future.

But first I’ve got her Spring Showers Jacket cut out and ready to sew.

PS…top photographic tip. Don’t photograph a cream dress against a cream cupboard in bright sunlight as you’re dashing out of the door, already late, and with a small boy throwing the screaming ab-dabs because….well I still don’t know what that was all about. Anyway, if you do, you’ll get super-washed out photos that even PhotoShop won’t be able to rescue. See Exhibit A above! Sigh!

Like riding a bike!

April 16, 2014

It’s time for a certain little miss to lose the stabilisers on her bike.

Initial wobbles….

….followed by lots of concentration and encouragement…

…resulted in triumph.

She’s nearly as proud of herself as we are.

We have lots of practice ahead of us, but she’ll soon be flying solo.

And obviously the best outfit for learning to ride a bike is a tutu and hot pink accessories!

ps…we’ve promised her a new bike when she’s mastered it. When did she get so tall?

Devon

April 15, 2014

It being half term, and the house being ripped apart in the name of safe electrics, the kids and I took the opportunity to visit Alice-who-isn’t-a-cat in her new home in Devon.

Be warned…this is a picture heavy post.

Alice & the adorable Huggie

Travelling in style in Gertie. Absolutely the highlight of their trip.

and so to bed!

This is the kind of holiday childhood memories are made of.

A wonderful compliment

December 22, 2010

I was recently contacted by the lovely Annabel over at Love My Dress who wanted to feature our wedding on her site.

Obviously I said “yes” and today she has featured us….you can see it here if you’ve not already seen all the pictures. The link above takes you to her site where you can feast your eyes on lots of beautiful, elegant and stylish weddings.

I’m so flattered that Annabel thought our wedding was worthy to by amongst them, and totally amazed but absolutely thrilled that people find our wedding as wonderful as we did.

Ribbit!

December 22, 2010

Just before the wedding I cast on Ingenue from Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard.

I’m knitting it in Artesano Aran in the colourway Dawn purchased from the fabulous Brownberry Yarns, and I cast off yesterday.

And that’s when I realised that Huston, I have a problem.

Whilst the neck, sleeves and body are all lovely

the sweater itself is too short and the hem is decidedly hinky

This is the point where I should be lying on the floor crying, wailing and beating my breast at the cruel humour of the knitting gods.

Not so.

This sweater is knit in the round, from the neck down.

All I have to do is frog back to the beginning of the hem border, pick up the stitches, knit the extra length I need and redo the hem. Properly.

Simples. I love knitting top down sweaters!

Made by Ma – wedding shrugs

December 7, 2010

You’ll no doubt have noticed that AWIAC and the baby girls sported beautiful handknit shrugs at the wedding.

I can’t claim them. They are the handiwork of Ma. Clever girl.

First up is Eleonora by Dawn Matkovic.

image courtesy of http://knittingnonstop.blogspot.com/

Ma knitted the 4ply version (more about the yarn later) and even though she was unfamiliar with knitting on circular needles and the American knitting terminology, she whipped this up in no time. Kudos to Dawn for such a well drafted pattern.

The babies wore Cotton & Cloud’s Snowdrop Flower Girl Bolero

image courtesy of http://cottonandcloud.com

knitted in dk with long sleeves thanks to additional instructions supplied by the wonderfully helpful Kyoko at C&C. I found them such lovely people to buy from.

So that’s the patterns, what about the yarn.

Well, don’t hate me, but I do have some super talented friends. I can’t decide whether “super talented” should or shouldn’t be hyphenated. I do believe that in the case of my friends, both versions apply.

I digress.

I’m lucky to count Gemma of Krafty Koala among this group. And she very kindly custom dyed some super-wash merino in both dk and 4ply specially for these shrugs.

Just how cool is that?

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PS – If you’re wondering why I’m still banging on about TBW…well it’s because since we came back from honeymoon we’ve all been sick in various guises and the most creative thing I’ve done is clean out the sewing room ready for the next project. Even though I have no idea what the next project is going to be.

There’s been some sporadic knitting and embroidery, just nothing much to show for it at the moment.

It seems that my mojo packed up and is lying on a beach somewhere drinking dirty Martinis and reading trashy novels. I hope it’s wearing sunscreen and a hat!

Anyway, as soon as it gets back I’ll confiscate it’s passport and crack on.

Comments

December 1, 2010

I love getting comments from you guys. I really do. It’s so kind of you to take time out of your busy days to read my ramblings and hearing from you simply makes my day.

I’ve had lots of comments and emails about the wedding, so would you all forgive me if, just this once, I do a very tardy but very heartfelt thank you to you all here. I feel very blessed to have such wonderful and thoughtful friends.

I shall, of course, revert back to individual replies going forward. And for those very generous people who ignored all my instructions and sent gifts….official thank you’s are to follow very shortly.

The Dress – The Details

December 1, 2010

Just in case you’re interested, here are some details about the dress.

The pattern is Vintage Vogue 2903. The pattern is very easy to put together but doesn’t include a pattern for a petticoat or a lining, which I think is remiss. You need the petticoat to complete the line of the dress and frankly, I wouldn’t make an occasion dress like this without a lining, so I drafted my own by removing the pleat sections and the facings from the main pattern pieces. In my opinion the Big 4 patterns are really lazy about details like this and need to sort their act out. Just my opinion.

The fabric is a polyester duchesse satin from John Lewis (where else!). I was going to use silk duchesse from James Hare, but baulked at the cost for a dress I will only wear once. Oh, and this satin totally matches the colour of my engagement and eternity rings, so it was a no-brainer.

The dress is interlined with cotton lawn purchased from Fabric Imports Direct on eBay. I would definitely buy from them again.

I also used dress net to interline the dress. This and the lining (a simple poly lining) were both bought from my local sewing shop, The Buttonhole in Chorley.

If I were making this dress again I wouldn’t interline the sleeves as this adds a bit too much bulk for easing the sleeves into the bodice. I would also perhaps change the armhole to give myself a little more hugging room around the armsyce. But the restriction enabled me to be very ladylike for the day…most unusual!

Oh, and I wouldn’t scorch my dress two days before the wedding either! We weren’t sure whether it was a scorch or a smudge so the dress went to the cleaners, which accounts for slight puckering where the cotton lawn has slightly shrunk! Thankfully we could hide it in the side pleat.

I’m going with the adage that only God creates perfection!

But I do love this dress and when you compare it to the Pastel Outfit of Shame, it just goes to show what a difference careful fabric choices and taking your time over the construction makes.

The shoes are this season’s LK Bennett. The stockings are from Touchable….I would buy a size smaller next time.

The garter (you can see it in the wedding photos…I’m not doing an action shot!) is from Rigby and Peller, a gift from my extravagant and naughty friends Alice-who-isn’t-a-cat and Kelly (who has just the chicest bob ever!)

The pearls are vintage….they were my maternal grandmother’s.

The earrings were borrowed from Black Purl (she of the spectacular feathered hat)

The hat is John Lewis too, although everyone was amazed that it too wasn’t vintage.

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