Purl and Seam

Fruit pastille socks

July 10, 2016

If you’re the lady we met on the train to Birmingham, and you’re here to check in on the socks I started, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed today.

Sock knitting has been slowed down by the siren song of an aran weight cardigan for Button, that now only needs….you guessed it….buttons!

And swatching to find a yarn to make up a pattern that calls for Quince & Co…which would need importing and is also way beyond my budget.

But…I do have another, different pair of socks to share with you.

These have been done for a while and the husband is keen for me to get them photographed so he can have them back to wear.

I swear I don’t believe the weather will ever be anything else but grey here. The sun broke through for about 30 seconds, but by the time I’d set up the socks and the camera the heavens had opened again. So I’m sucking it up and sharing somewhat gloomy photos.

But even gloomy photos of socks can be cheery on the greyest of days. Especially when they bring to mind a roll of fruit pastille sweeties.

And now I’ve shared I can go back to knitting the anticipated, and very, very jolly socks that I started on the train to Birmingham.

Project details

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Realto Sock

Colour: 2 – Roskilde

Purchased from: Fabrix, Lancaster

Cost: £9.95

Needles: 2.75mm

Size: 64 stitch cast on

Flamingo geranium top

July 5, 2016

The majority of things I’ve made this year (and my productivity isn’t high at the moment) have been woolly socks for my lovely husband. However I’ve also been sewing for Miss Button, but getting her to pose for pictures has been a whole other ballgame. 8 is the new 14! Small girls are so stroppy!

However, en route to a friend’s party at the weekend, she was in a good enough mood for a quick 5 minutes of photos, despite the overcast and gloomy weather.

She’s mad for flamingos at the moment so I couldn’t resist this cute and colourful retro Hawaiian flamingo print. This is yet another geranium top (my fourth time with this fabulous pattern, I think).

Oh she looks so very, very tired. Summer holidays can’t come quickly enough!

I’ll be honest that I made no attempt at pattern matching. And because of this I managed to squeeze this top out of a metre of fabric. I had to skimp a bit on the gathering of the skirt. We’ve reached a tipping point where I need to start buying a bit extra fabric for her. She’s growing so quickly these days.

Ah….that’s my girl!

As always the Geranium was a quick and simple make that gives great results. The simple lines really show off the fabric at it’s best. This is a sweet pattern for little girls and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Project Summary

Pattern: Geranium from Made By Rae

Pattern Cost: $10

Fabric: Hawaiian-style flamingo print cotton

Fabric Source: Fabrix, Lancaster

Fabric Cost: £5.95/mtr

The socks of incredible gaudiness

June 26, 2016

As the weather isn’t playing ball for pictures of Miss Button in her new mummy-made garments, I took advantage of the grey skies to tone down the incredible gaudiness of these socks.

It worked! In this picture they look positively subdued!

This is what they really look like.

That pink makes your eyes water in bright light!

We recently had an interesting conversation with Anne at our LYS, & Sew What, about men and colourful socks. Her experience is that younger men prefer a more sober sock, sticking with plain or only slightly variegated yarns, whilst more mature men love the more colourful, wildly striped yarns.

The husband bucks this trend as he’s hardly an older chap but the more bold the colour combination of the yarn, the more it appeals to him.

Hence, these sunglasses-inducing lovelies.

There is a small part of me that’s convinced he chooses such combinations as he knows I’ll be knitting as fast as my fingers allow, just to get them off the needles and onto his feet. But he’s such a sweetheart, so that couldn’t possible be the case.

Could it?

Lemongrass

May 24, 2016

I LOVE this sweater.

I love the colour. I love the yarn. I love the pattern. I love the fit. I love every. single. thing. about it.

The pattern is Lemongrass by Joji Locatelli and it is a complete joy to knit. It’s a beautifully written pattern and I can’t recommend it enough. I had no project fatigue with this at all. I’d happily knit it again tomorrow!

That cable! Looks complex…is easy enough to knit in front of the TV!

I couldn’t find buttons to match this yarn. It’s not quite blue and not quite purple. So I stitched up the buttonholes and the sides together. Problem solved.

The yarn is Malabrigo Merino Worsted in the colourway Azul Bolita and the pictures do not do it justice at all. It’s deeply saturated and gently variegated. It’s soft and squishy and has beautiful drape. It’s a truly joyous yarn.

Be warned…it leaks colour like a mad thing whilst you’re knitting it. I had blue hands every night I knitted this.

But it’s worth it.

If only we weren’t heading into summer. I can’t wait for cooler weather so I can wear this all the time.

Burda Scarf Sweater

May 20, 2016

Do you remember this monstrosity?

This was BurdaStyle 123 – 11 /2014 before I set to work on it.

That’s better!

To be honest, though, this sweater has been a disaster from start to finish.

First up, I bought the PDF version of this pattern and it was simply awful to tape together. It had been printed in a batch of other patterns that all seem to be ok, so I’m laying the blame for that firmly at Burda’s door. It was all over the place and nigh on impossible to get two pages to line up properly.

Having compared my measurement to Burda’s measurement chart, I did a 4cm FBA. That was fine. But I ended up having to fiddle with the bust darts to make them point remotely in the right direction. They’re still a bit hinky. And I chopped inches off both the sleeves and the hem. They were crazy long!

Most importantly I hand-stitched the scarf to the neckline. It looks so much better this way and resolved the issue I had with the neckline being a bit too wide.

The fabric was bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show last November. When I opened it at home I was really disappointed to find these circular marks all over it. They look like faded grease stains and don’t follow the grain of the fabric. Another disaster! It’s so disappointing because this fabric is so soft and cosy and just the most amazing colour.

In real life they’re less noticeable than in the photos, but it means that this sweater is probably relegated to chill out wear for home.

My adorable photobombers!

I’m confident that I won’t be making this pattern again in a hurry. Not only is it fabric hungry because of the scarf, but the way the front pleats adds bulk where I need it least. I also prefer the scarf as an integral part of the sweater, so all in all this is just too much faff.

However, I’m glad this fabric is out of the stash and in the wardrobe. And whilst the weather is finally warming up here, this will be waiting for me on chilly nights.

Burda 6985 – a very wearable muslin

May 15, 2016

I’ve made a start on the first of my planned TNT patterns, which is this BurdaStyle slim legged trouser.

The fabric I used is a 100% polyester crepe from Abakhan. I’m slowly edging away from polyester, but I’d booked myself onto a Sewing for Fun day at Stitchscape with Celia Banks, and new this was one of the patterns I wanted to work on.

I’d already cut them in a cotton drill but when I’d tacked them together for fitting it was really obvious there was a problem. It turns out the fabric was completely twisted on the grain. So I needed a replacement fabric. And fast.

It had to be navy and this was it!

Whilst it was a bugger to sew, it drapes really nicely and worked well in a pinch for the sewing class.

For the purposes of fitting, I cut without pockets or fly zip and did an invisible zip in the back seam. This isn’t my favourite style of trouser but I believe it’s a great way to simplify the pattern and work on the fit.

Ah…the obligatory derriere shot!

This clearly shows how flat I am at the back. I’m straight up and down with no waist or hips to speak of. This is one of the reasons I have such issues with RTW.

But I’m really happy with the fit at the back. I’m not sure I could get it much better than that.

The front is pretty good too.

All in all I’m quite pleased with these.

I think with a couple of tweaks they’ll be spot on. I definitely need to take the waist in at least 1/2″, maybe as much as 1″.

I also think that I need to drop the waistline by about 1/4 – 1/2″.

And I may scoop that front curve just a smidge too.

Finally, I’d like the leg to be slightly slimmer, as the next pair I make will be the 7/8ths length shown on the pattern and I like a more slender leg for that style of trouser.

But…these are a great pair of smart trousers and a very wearable toile! I’d definitely wear them for formal meetings (although those are few and far between) or, more likely, with a pretty top and my wedding heels (as here) for dinner out with the husband.

Now if only he’d book the table…..

Remembering

May 5, 2016

Tomorrow it will be 7 years since Pa passed and Button came into our lives.

So much has happened since then. We now have Boy too. Hubby and I have been together for 10 years and married for 5. Both Button and Boy are succeeding against all the odds. They are doing well at school and with their dancing. They are kind and joyful and healthy. We have wonderful family and friends. We have our own business. We will soon (hopefully) move to a beautiful new house. I have a degree and am retraining for a new career.

We have so very much to be grateful for and proud of.

And I know Pa would be very proud of us too.

Today I’ve bunked off all the things I should be doing to escape, quite literally, to the hills. Pa always called Lancashire ‘God’s Country’. He had a point. I need to take a breath, reflect, regroup, make lists.

Tomorrow Ma and I will have lunch and remember.

And it turns out that I was right 7 years ago. I still miss you, Pa. We all do.

Pairfect socks

April 26, 2016

You might think that the title of this post slipped by the spellchecker, but no! These latest socks are knitted in Regia Pairfect yarn, which was a Christmas gift from my lovely friend Linda.

She knows what I like!

After the travesty that was the poor Herriot Socks, these were an absolute joy to knit. The yarn is robust but not harsh and a good stripe always makes me knit faster.

“Just one more stripe!”

The yarn is actually designed to give perfectly matched stripes on toe up sock patterns, but these are my trusty Regia sock pattern, which is top down. I just knitted some blue for the cuff, pulled the yarn through until I hit the stripes, rejoined and knit until I came back to the blue. There were a couple of more ends to stitch in at the end, but I’m happy to do that.

You could of course knit these top down and have striped feet, but The Hubby’s preference was for stripy legs and I was happy to oblige.

Although I have another pair of socks on the needles at the moment (of course), I promise the next finished project will be something different.

Stylish party dresses – book review

April 18, 2016

I am so late to the party with this review (see what I did there?). But if you missed other folks thoughts on the matter, then stick with me, because I think this is a super book.

I have a really big soft spot for Japanese sewing books and have to contain myself and not buy all of them just because they are so pretty. I do have a problem with them, namely a) I have to grade every single pattern if I want to maintain the proportions, and b) oftentimes the shapes are designed to flatter a more boyish figure. One thing I’ve never been accused of is having a boyish figure.

Stylish Party Dresses has some gorgeous patterns that not only do I want to make but which would fit my lifestyle and, I think, my figure.

So here are my best picks:

This is my absolute favourite from this book. I can see this in a navy silk, with matching cigarette pants and heels for a date night with hubby. Gorgeous. But it would also be lovely in linen over shorts for those hot summer days that we’re hoping to get.

A girl can hope, no?

I don’t know where the urge to wear a jumpsuit is coming from. I haven’t worn one of those since about 1994! But this is lovely. I’d make it in a plain solid with lace or sheer for the yoke/bow. And, of course, several more inches on the trouser legs!

This is just gorgeous. Again I think the hem could drop a couple of inches, but other than that, everything is perfect. Wouldn’t this be charming for warm summer evenings and dinner on the patio with friends?

I love this dress for dinner dates with The Husband. I’m not loving this colour, but change that and I think this has just the right mix of comfort, style and little details. I’m particularly fond of the shaped hem and the gorgeous sleeves. You could, of course, give it a straight hem…that would then make it quite a timeless piece.

Last, but by no means least, is this cute swing dress. Whilst I wouldn’t really consider this a party dress, I’d love it in linen with flats for the summer. It would also be cute if you shortened it a bit and wore with leggings in colder weather.

The pattern sheets will be familiar to anyone who has ever traced a Burda pattern.

When you consider the cost of a Vogue pattern, or some of the Indie offerings (£12.50 for an elastic waisted skirt!), this book is really quite modestly priced at £12 on Amazon UK.

Whilst I’m very much focussed on sewing basics for myself at the moment, I’m hoping to slip one or two of these into the mix too.

A girl can never have too many pretty dresses. Wouldn’t you agree?

The disclaimer:

I received a free copy of this book from the kind folks at Tuttle Publishing in return for my review. As always all thoughts are my own…and you know I call a spade a spade. For what it’s worth I’d happily pay £12 for this book.

Good socks gone bad!

April 13, 2016

So! I recently finished two pairs of socks for the Hubby knitted from blue and plum coloured Juniper Moon Herriot Fine. I don’t mind admitting that I’ve never been so glad to see the back of a project as I was these.

The yarn, as you’d guess from the name, is a lightweight fingering. It’s also fluffy. And I didn’t like the plum colour at all! It’s fair to say that I didn’t enjoy one single stitch of these socks.

Except perhaps for the last stitch of the grafting of the toes. I definitely enjoyed that one!

But he was happy and that’s why I knit him socks. And to be fair to the yarn, the problems I had with it were down to personal preference. It’s beautifully spun, the colours are soft and heathery, and, I’m told, they are supremely comfortable to wear. The skeins are generous at 461 yards/100g.

It’s also a hand wash alpaca blend.

You know what’s coming don’t you.

Yep….hand wash alpaca blends do not take kindly to the hand wash programme in your washing machine.

Ooooops!

Which isn’t exactly what I said when I took them out of said machine!

I’m not entirely sure why the plum shrank more than the blue. Possibly to do with the dye?!

Total user error. Thankfully they are just about still wearable! And there are more pairs to come. Just not in the Herriot yarn 😉

The disclaimer:

I received a free copy of this book from the kind folks at Tuttle Publishing in return for my review. As always all thoughts are my own…and you know I call a spade a spade. For what it’s worth I’d happily pay £12 for this book.

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