Progress

I´m on the front bands of my Olympic sweater with the neck band and a sleeve to go! I had to rip out the left front band again due to serious miscalculation on my part... see for yourself:


The body of the sweater is blocked already, some of the ends are woven in and I should be able to finish this till Sunday!

Pants galore

Here you see 6 of the original 8 fabrics. 2 have been used. The first pair of pants is a bit too small (no biggie, I´m losing weight anyways) but also a bit too high in the waist for my taste! Here are some pictures:




The second one is almost finished. I barely had enough fabric, because it wasn´t very wide. I only need to sew the waistband to the pants, finish the crotch seam and hem the pants. These brown pants are made from the same pattern as the grey ones, I just shortened the waist, hopefully enough.

Mass production
All 10 knits washed and dried, waiting to be ironed. I´ll try the pattern out next sunday!
I need to leave soon for a seminar lasting through saturday afternoon. So I won´t be getting much done sewing wise until Sunday. But I plan on doing lots of sewing then... finish my brown pants, start and finish the first of 10 knit tops to get the fit right and start the assembly line for the remaining 9!

Planning... and some FO´s

Again, it´s been way too long and my resolution of blogging weekly has been shot to s***! I just can´t seem to get in the swing of things. But a lot of stuff has been floating around in my head and I need an outlet for that.
I thought about joining the Knitting Olympics with a huge challenge to myself: knit a cardigan that has been in my idea book for too long and which I will design on paper before the opening ceremonies on friday. I just joined the YarnHarlot´s Knitting Olympics and will try to cast on during the opening ceremonies, which will be on tv at 3 am on saturday morning due to the time difference. Frank and I both want to watch it so we´ll set the alarm, open a nice bottle of red and cuddle up in bed.
I´m not sure I can finish it, but I´ll try. The intended yarn is elann Superwash Bamboo in dark green. I swatched a couple of days ago on 4 and on 5mm needles, washed the swatches and decided to stick with the 4mm just like the ball band suggests.
Here a some pictures of my recent sewing fo´s and knitting wip´s. I´ve sewn two knit dresses (actually three, but the last one is pretty much a wadder), a woven sheath dress and a pants muslin ready to be taken apart again to copy the pieces.

This is dress 116 from BWOF 10/2006 in a grey knit with silver flowers and stars printed on it. I made this for the 40th birthday of Frank´s former roommate. Please excuse the bad pic. They were taken at 2 am after the party with a selftimer with awful lighting.


This is a gathered knit dress I made for the New Year´s Party we went to. It´s practically selfdrafted and I love it! The fabric is the most awesome charcoal sweater knit I bought from Ann at Gorgeous Fabrics. Here is a closeup of the gathering at the side seams. I covered the seams with black satin bias tape as a little detail on an otherwise plain but curvehugging dress.




This "beauty" is the wadder. The fabric is actually a very nice viscose/wool knit but I ruined the dress... More on that once I summon up the courage to rework this one. Luckily I´ve got enough of this fabric to try some things.


This is dress 117 from BWOF 09/2007 in a poly herringbone fabric that tends to wrinkle easily, as you can see in the pictures! Sorry for that, I just took the dress out of the suitcase...


The invisible handstitched hem.

Knittingwise I´ve got my purple Rosa´s Cardigan, my lavender Apres Surf Hoodie (back and front done, sleeves more than halfway) and some other wip´s I´ve been ignoring.

I´m going to rip back the sleeves and reknit them the way they are intended in the pattern (short sleeves). The yarn is elann Highland Donegal in a nice grapey purple.

This pile of lavender pieces are front, back and two halffinished sleeves of my Apres Surf Hoodie knit out of elann (are we sensing a theme here?)baby cashmere in dusky lavender.
Here is a peek at my very first finished weaving project woven out of 2 skeins Cascade 220 Superwash Paints.

I really like this scarf and have a second one a little wider and shorter and with two different colourways of the Cascade 220 in the warp and weft on the loom. It´s almost finished, maybe I should finish this up before the Olympics start to get it out of the way!
Sewingwise I´ve been doing lots of planning. I´m in sore need of pants, so that´s what I´m tackling now. I´ve been away on business for the last couple of weeks and in the evenings, in my hotel room, I traced two pants patterns (I´d wanted to trace three, but couldn´t find the third one): a Burda Designer pattern by Bogner and Vogue 1059, the latter of which I have muslined and worked out most of the fitting issues. The third is also a Vogue A+O pattern (V2907) which I desperately want to find because I think it will be a good one for my body type. With these three patterns I want to sew a series of pants. I´ve got three wool fabrics in black/grey, two brown cotton twills (one pinstripe, one solid), a white twill, a shiny grey poly woven and a beige/brown herringbone poly blend, which comes to a total of eight pairs of pants from three patterns. These will hopefully stuff huge gaps in my wardrobe.
Another project I´ve been thinking about is this:
10 yards of cotton interlock, pretty beefy and not flowing at all, in 10 colors. I plan on making a basic raglan v-neck shirt with 3/4 sleeves. In ten colors... :-)
This is what I plan to be sewing and knitting in the next couple of weeks. I cleaned up my office today and put everything I won´t be needing for the pants + top marathon and my knitting away.
Hopefully that will help me be productive…

Out with the old, in with the new...

well maybe it´s only "in with the new". I have been buying yarn and fabric practically nonstop. I have stopped now because I have nowhere to put anymore of anything. Even after cleaning out my fibre room (which used to be called my office, but since I do more fibre related stuff in there than anything else I thought it best to rename it!) and buying more storage boxes for yarn and notions this room is overflowing.
I ordered from Webs the first time before Christmas:

Cascade 220 Paints and Superwash Paints, Cascade Heritage sock yarn, Artyarns sock yarn, Dream in Color "Smooshy" and Schafer Yarns "Anne".

Anne is for a lacy cardigan, the Artyarns for socks and the Cascade and Dream in Color yarns are all for weaving, I think. I´m really impressed with the 220. It is sooo soft and squishy and the colors are great!
I am thinking about taking my first weaving project off the loom unfinished.

There is no love for it in my heart at all and I´m too anxious to try out the Cascade 220. Still debating over whether to trash it or finish it just for the sake of it... It will doubtlessly never be worn or appreciated. I think, I just talked myself into trashing it and just warping the loom for a new and shiny project!

This is my most recent sewing project.

The variation on a sheath dress is a Burda WOF design made out of a tan/brown herringbone suiting. The skirt is lined and all of the seams are bound with bias binding because the fabric ravels a lot. To-do: sew skirt to bodice after binding the skirt side seams, insert zipper, line skirt, sew neckline facing and hem the skirt. I need to finish this because afterwards I am making my mom´s Christmas present: she has had a velvety stretch fabric for years now and was planning on making herself a dress, but she doesn´t really enjoy sewing. I made myself a dress before Christmas:
(excuse the bad lighting and my expression; it was late, I was alone and the tripod was very wobbly)
and after she saw this she wanted one. Since I didn´t have her measurements, I had to give her a "gift certificate". The fabric is washed, the pattern picked out and waiting to be traced once I get mom´s measurements.

I won´t be doing a recap of 2009 or making any resolutions for 2010. But I will try to finally be a better blogger... I hereby vow to blog once a week, let´s say fridays! Here goes!

Wardrobe Contest progress

I´m done with knit tops 1, 2 and 3 (one more to go) and the blouse (needs buttons and buttonholes). They all need hems, I´ll probably do that last! Now I´m stalled on skirt #1 of 2 (the BWOF 08-05-130). I managed to sew the lining 1" smaller than the outer fabric. This is really bad... I´ll post pictures tomorrow.
I don´t feel like ripping out the french seams of the lining just now, so I started on the second skirt (Vogue pencil skirt). I been really tired lately and it´s now 9:30 p.m. and guess who´s already in bed? I need to sleep now. Maybe I can be more enthusiastic and interesting tomorrow...

Toodles!

New toy

I treated myself to a new toy: the Canon 450D. With this lens. Been playing around with it a bit and I have to say, WOW! The difference to my old point and shoot is amazing.

This is a shot of our backyard pond with a waterfall, no post-production on the computer.

In other news, I just received the rest of my notions and fabric for the wardrobe contest. The black linen I wanted for a pair of pants was sold out but I have other options. Either a white cotton sateen or a grey suiting, I´ll have to think about it.
Here´s the load of new fabrics: click here and flip through to the end of the album.

SWAP Update

Since my exam on friday, I´ve managed to sew a bit: the three knit tops of my wardrobe are done except for the hems. I need to take the twin needle for a little test drive as I have never used it on my new (6 months old) sewing machine. I am very happy with the twist-top and the turtleneck top, but the jury is still out on the silver sparkly knit top. I took pictures today but didn´t get a chance to upload them to flickr because it was my godchild´s birthday and I didn´t have time.
I already cut out the blouse and the fashion fabric for the red pencil skirt and the pinstripe skirt. The blouse is next on my list, because I´m still missing some stuff for the rest of the garments. Two fashion fabrics (5th top and 4th bottom), lining for 2 bottoms and the topper and some zippers, buttons and the likes. They should all be arriving in the next couple of days, so I´m not going to lose any time. I also bought some new fabrics (pics to come) and I can´t seem to keep my hands and mind off them, which could be really bad for the Wardrobe Contest. I´ll do my very best to stay focused, but I would really like a new fall jacket for October 10th (wine market in our town) and I just got a great brown and cream houndstooth faux fur, for which I have big plans! I´ll just see how far I can get this week with the SWAP and then I´ll decide whether I can fit the jacket in...
OK, tired as h***, gotta go!
Toodles!

yeah yeah...

I really need to work on the regular blogging thing! Those tan pants? The wearable muslin? Not bad at all, the front part of the crotch seam is not the way it should be, need to take that in a bit. Then I need to hem it and add buttons (which I don´t have yet!)!
The third fabric in my last post (the one with the plastic dots on it)? Made a dress out of it. The pattern is McCalls 5752 and I actually like it, but I´ll have to change some things the next time. For one, the ruching over the stomach, which is really a good idea should actually cover your tummy! ;-)) The dress only needs a hem... I sense a theme here!

Aside from that, I haven´t been sewing much. I have been studying (not as much as I should have, given that my exam is September 18th) and just generally dealing with life!
As if I didn´t have enough on my plate right now, I joined the Wardrobe Contest over on PatternReview. I only did this because I noticed that I had aquired some fabrics recently that go really well with lots of stashed fabric. There were lots of different fabrics in greys, black, white and red. I tentatively started laying out a SWAP with everything (about 20 garments could be made as a corporate workwear collection) only to realize later that there was a contest running from September through November. 10 garments in 3 months, I thought, hmmm that would be possible, maybe... It´s going to be tough, especially since I will be in Australia for the last three weeks of November, which basically means that I need to finish everything the first week of November. We´ll see. If I don´t finish, I´ll finish later and have a great wardrobe to wear. Here is my storyboard for phase one:

According to the rules of the contest, every bottom has to match every top, so some of my favorite fabrics didn´t make the cut. But in phase 2 I´ll add every fabric and relax those rules so that not everything has to match, but I still have a fantastically versatile wardrobe. Here´s hoping! ;-)

Ok, I´m sleepy now, gotta go to bed!
Cheerio