Knitting up the ravelled sleeve of care

Floral

Sadie — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:16:29 +0000

I’m pleased to report that despite the label saying ‘dry clean only’ my rose-print Boden dress came out perfectly unscathed after being dunked in a basin of cool water and Soak wash and having the water squeezed out of it in a towel. I suspect the main danger of washing is that the raw edges of the pleated frill at the neck will fray, but I’m not completely sold on the frill anyway and am definitely open to the possibility of removing it at some point.

Dress – Boden
Necklace – made by Helen
Cardigan – charity shop
Tights – M&S
Boots – Duo

A new way to wear a shawl

Sadie — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:36:13 +0000

I wanted to look smart today, as there was a possibility I might have to go to an important meeting (as it turned out I didn’t, I just had to put some figures together beforehand), so I went for my short purple dress and green jacket and then thought that the colours would look good with my Citron. I don’t really think my normal way of wearing shawls round my shoulders works with a jacket, though; they don’t sit nicely on top of collars and structured shoulders. On a whim I tried scrunching the shawl round my neck and wearing it as a scarf, which I think worked quite well; Citron is big and drapy enough that it looked like a proper scarf and not a Boy Scout-style neckerchief, and I pinned it together with a shawl pin which kept it in place just fine.

Shawl – Citron
Jacket – Jigsaw
Dress – Gap
Tights – M&S
Boots – Gabor

Shedfest 2012

Sadie — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:49:57 +0000

The last weekend of January is the annual gathering of members of the Yarn Yard group on Ravelry in the Bar Convent in York. Because the general chat thread in the group is called ‘The Garden Shed’, members of the group started referring to themselves as Sheddites and the gathering has been dubbed ‘Shedfest’. We got to York quite late on Friday evening and headed home first thing this morning, so I only had yesterday to knit and chat and see a bit of York (in an ideal world I would also have had Friday afternoon, but sadly Life intervened and we ended up coming via my grandmother’s funeral in Basingstoke; it’s only fortunate that I checked the car on Thursday evening and discovered that it wouldn’t start at a point where I had time to get the RAC to come and replace the battery because if I hadn’t found out until Friday morning it would have been a mad dash to the station and no York at all, I think), but even though it was something of a flying visit it was a lovely break; it’s good to do something fun and different at such a gloomy time of year.

I ended up being surprisingly minimalist in terms of yarn acquisition; I took lots of skeins of sock yarn, most of which were club yarns that just hadn’t been quite my colour, and ended up coming home with this lots:

Clockwise from top left: two skeins of Yarn Yard sock yarn (the variegated one is Natalie’s special York 2012 colourway, the other just went so well with it I had to have it!), three tiny balls of laceweight which were in my swap package along with tea and chocolate and a very nifty little needle gauge/ruler/craft knife combo, ten balls of Debbie Bliss Stella from the p/hop swap which will make a nice summer cardigan, and some 4-ply silk, also from the p/hop swap, which I think will be a pretty shawl.

As well as the p/hop swap we had a surprise swap. I made a couple of little things for my recipient’s parcel, which I didn’t blog at the time. First, a pair of Cranford Mitts (I managed to completely miss that there were supposed to be purl stitches in the lace pattern, though, but hopefully they will have been stretchy enough!):

And second, a little bag using this pattern and some of the Yarn Yard handdyed fabric I got in Glasgow:

It was a fairly easy sewing project, though my machine did struggle a bit with sewing through the six layers of fabric you end up with where the handles join the bag, and my stitching ended up a little wonky there. I have one of these bags which Laura made for me, and it’s actually a really good knitting bag; I can put the handle through the loop and then hang it from my wrist while I’m knitting on the bus, and not have to worry about things falling out or dropping it on the floor, and it’s much easier to feed the yarn out of the top while it’s closed than it is with a drawstring bag. I hope my swap partner finds it as useful!

Orange crush

Sadie — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:22:29 +0000

I wish I liked this jacket more than I do. It’s a gorgeous colour, and the boiled wool is a nice compromise between smart and cosy, but I think the combination of the unstructured shoulders and the boxy fit everywhere else just makes it not quite work for me. An orange cardi would probably be better…

Jacket – East
Necklace – Oxfam Trading
Brooch – handmade
Dress – M&S via eBay
Vest – M&S
Boots – Duo

Midweek

Sadie — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:29:57 +0000

I haven’t worn this top for a long time, but I wanted to wear the skirt and couldn’t think what else to wear it with. I think the top will be going in the charity shop/clothes swap bag, though, as it’s one of the few acrylic jumpers I have left and really isn’t terribly nice to wear.

Necklace – made by Helen
Boots – Duo
Everything else – M&S

The colour of cheerfulness

Sadie — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:35:05 +0000

It’s not terribly obvious from the photos, but today I continued my strategy of Wearing Cheerful Clothes by opting for a camisole and tights the exact shade of purple of a Dairy Milk wrapper.

Jacket – M&S
Brooch – Susan Sharpe on etsy
Necklace – made by Helen
Dress – East
Camisole and tights – M&S
Boots – Duo

Coming up roses

Sadie — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:44:38 +0000

This dress is my other Boden sale purchase. I love the print, it makes me feel like a vintage armchair, and the fit isn’t too bad although it does illustrate why I want to learn to do pattern adjustments; the fit is pretty good through the waist and hips (and the empire waist is a good position for me), but while the bust isn’t too bad it feels a little tight at the armholes, and there’s definitely too much fabric across the bust. Still, it’s not too bad and the roses were definitely cheering on a January Monday when I’ve spent all day feeling like I’m coming down with a cold.

Cardigan – clothes swap
Dress – Boden
Tights – M&S
Shoes – Shuropody

Sunday sewing

Sadie — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:41:56 +0000

Sunday afternoons, from about the middle of the Food Programme to the end of the Classic Serial, seem to have become my sewing times; T is generally watching rugby and I retreat upstairs to my craft room.

This afternoon I made a first muslin of the bodice of the Colette Pastille dress.

I cut a size 10 at the top of the bodice, based on my 38″ high bust measurement, and a size 14 at the waist (because my waist and hip measurements mean I definitely need the size 14 skirt), and then attempted a 1″ full bust adjustment.

It’s definitely an improvement on my Sorbetto attempts; the bust darts turned out pretty well (I ignored the original placing and redrew them level with the apex of my bust, following this tutorial) but I didn’t take account of the fact that this put the bust darts more or less level with the points of the waist darts, which I should have shortened. Having tried the muslin on, I think I should probably have actually cut a size 8 with a bigger bust adjustment, as I clearly didn’t add enough length in the centre front, and I think I also need to shorten the back so the back waist seam sits above the point where my bum begins. Also, next time I’m going to sew up the back (where the zip should go) and leave one of the side seams open as that will make it much easier to pin myself into it!

It’s definitely getting there, though it’s hard work and I’ve still got a long way to go. Of course, part of the problem is that until I started thinking about how to make things fit properly and took lots of measurements I was convinced I was top-heavy with narrowish hips and not much in the way of curves apart from my chest, whereas in fact my waist and hips are a good two sizes bigger than my top half would be with the ‘standard’ B/C cup and the only reason I have to buy tops the same size as skirts (or even slightly bigger) is because I’m so very definitely not a standard B/C cup. And of course, fitting issues aren’t exactly helped by the fact that I’m a completely different shape to my mental image of myself!

Shocking pink

Sadie — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:54:06 +0000

After resisting for several weeks I finally succumbed to the Boden sale last week and ordered two dresses. This one arrived on Wednesday, and although it’s a bit shorter than I expected it to be I’m very pleased with it. And as today I had to give a ’60 second update’ on my team’s work at our monthly staff meeting, I thought that maybe a dress with a shocking pink print and shocking pink tights would serve to distract people from the possibility that I was talking complete twaddle.

Necklace – made by Helen
Cardigan – handed down by friend
Dress – Boden
Tights – M&S
Boots – Gabor

I don’t think I talked complete twaddle, but someone did say to me afterwards that she couldn’t take her eyes off my dress, so I think the distraction strategy worked!

Flapperesque

Sadie — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:18:14 +0000

We went to see The Artist last night (fantastic film, I can’t recommend it highly enough; funny, touching, beautiful and with some stunning hats and frocks, to say nothing of the adorable little dog) and I think I still had it in my mind this morning when I was getting dressed, because I was going to wear boots but then decided, on a whim, to wear my purple patent t-bar shoes because I thought their effect with the short dress was a little bit Twenties.

Necklace – made by Helen
Jacket – Jigsaw
Dress – charity shop
Vest top and tights – M&S
Shoes – Clarks

The shoes continue to be, basically, the wrong shape for my feet, but they are lovely. Someone even stopped me as I was heading out at lunchtime to ask where they were from, and was very disappointed when I said they were a couple of years old!