Have I mentioned that it’s too hot to knit? Or the humidity? Knitting mojo is low, so I busted out the ancient Kenmore 8 for some fun sewing time. Where fun involves lots of tension issues and ill fitting clothing.

A skirt! Not without a fight, but still, it’s wearable and I’m wearing it! I got the Sew What! Skirts book for a gift last year, and I finally busted it open and attempted, wait for it, a skirt!

I had all sorts of issues with using this book to create a skirt that fit well. My main complaint is that the book oversimplifies things a ton. There’s a spread of two pages that tells you how to draft a skirt pattern to your own measurements, and the rest of the book is devoted to example skirts that use the basic formula. I feel that the drafting portion could use more details. For example, the book tells you to add 2 to 4 inches of ease to your measurements for the pattern. Well, which is it, two or four inches? I ended up sewing a muslin that was too small, then I made this skirt too large, cutting it down until it fit.

I realized that this skirt was too large after I inserted the zipper. Speaking of the zipper – looking for instructions on inserting an invisible zipper? Don’t look in Sew What! Skirts for the answer, as they don’t cover it. The sew? i knit blog has an awesome tutorial on invisibly zippering, and I finally figured out how to use my plastic invisible zipper foot!

Back to the cutting down part. I really didn’t want to rip out my wonderfully invisible zipper, so I started cutting down the other side of the skirt, a half-inch at a time, until the skirt fit. Back at step one, I painstakingly lined up the fabric pattern so that it would be perfectly centered. However, cutting down the size of the skirt on one side made the pattern off center. It’s not terribly noticeable in these photos, but I cut enough to make it look like a big, two inch mistake.

Trimming fabric from the edge of the skirt wasn’t enough – the waist was too large and the zipper stuck out, making me look larger in the hips than I already am. So I ended up adding darts to the back of the skirt, which mostly fixed the fit issues. I also dropped the front of the waistband about an inch more than the pattern called for.

For the waistband, I followed the book’s directions for the facing and understitching. The facing instructions are great, but I didn’t feel that the understitching was enough to hold the facing down. I think that understitching would work perfectly if you had the weight of a full lining to keep things in place. Speaking of linings, you better look elsewhere on instructions on lining your skirt, the book doesn’t even mention it. I can’t remember when was last time I purchased a non-denim skirt that wasn’t lined.

I wouldn’t say that this is the most flattering skirt that I own, but it’s definitely wearable. If I were starting from scratch, I would just buy a skirt pattern, make a muslin, and modify the pattern for my short waisted torso.

Jumping for joy that this skirt is done!

It pleases me. I’ve been following around the poor kittehs all weekend, and they are clearly tired of the camera already.

I realized that I’ve got a number of photos uploaded to flickr that I never blogged about. I’ve got a big finished project that I’m too tired to coherently post about right now, so here’s some sewing miscellany to tide you over.

I finally stitched the diamonds together, and boy, that was No Fun. The paper mockup was helpful, but I still had difficulties lining up the rows of diamonds. There’s a couple of corners where you can see a jog but hopefully it won’t be too noticeable! I’m thinking that a 1/8" shift isn’t terribly glaring. If I were to sew these again, I’d mark some darts along the diamond edges to help with lining them up. Small cutting errors really throw the alignment off in this project.

The diamond strip is destined for a pillow. The front will just be this panel and some linen, and the back will be patterned with a hidden zipper down the center. I’m also planning on sewing piping around the edge in a contrast fabric.

I’m still trying to decide what pillow #2 will be. I was originally going to simplify the diamond idea by cutting longer parallelograms (so a diagonal stripe of diamonds would be one piece), but then I saw this:

The small clipping is a pillow from a recentish Domino magazine. Rather than using striped fabric, I thought it would be a great idea to piece the stripes together myself with all the leftover linen and blue+orange fabrics. The jury’s still out on this one because it does look like a ton of work. Although it will undoubtedly be easier to figure out than the diamonds!

Why hello! It’s been two weeks since we’ve hung out, mano-a-blogo. Mr. Roboto certainly enjoyed having the spotlight during that time, but I think it’s time to push him a little further down on the page, lest we inflate his ego even more. He would like you to know that he’s flying high these days, happy that he finally found his one true love.

In the meantime, I’ve been obsessing about things a bit.

This is the beginnings of the Phyllo Yoked Pullover from Knitting Nature. This is the fourth project that I’ve knit from the book, and it won’t be the last. I’m making this as a mini-knitalong with Lolly and Jody, and a couple of weeks ago Lolly went ahead and started hers. That spurred me to finally swatch, then I blinked and had a completed yoke. Whoa!

I’m very, very loosely following the pattern – I’m knitting the yoke according to the phyllo chart and the rest of the sweater is from my own numbers. I wanted to use a thinner yarn to shrink the yoke pattern vertically so that I could wear this sweater without having to layer a shirt underneath. I do live in Texas, after all, and layering season is quickly drawing to a close. The Rowan 4 ply Cotton is working perfectly so far. I extended the lace chart by one diamond, and the patterning is the perfect length. Perhaps the color isn’t the best color to show off the yoke pattern, but I want this sweater in black, so black it is.

I knit the fun part first (similar to my Tangled Yoke construction (you should click on that link if you like kittens. gah, they were so cute!)) and now I need to think and do math, which means that this sweater has already been cast aside for something else fun. Norah did some interesting shaping in the front of the sweater to make the front neckline fall lower than the back, which I’m going to try to mimic with short rows. Then it’s all stockinette till the cows come home.

Obsession number two comes in fabric form. I’ve been very good at my yarn diet. The only thing I’ve purchased so far this year was a wee bit of sock yarn. However! All that saved money has funded my brand new fiber stash. And my fabric stash. Not good.

I’ve been thinking, dreaming, pondering about blue and orange lately, hence the sudden expansion. We have a bluish-grey couch and a light greenish-blue chair, and I’ve been planning on making pillows for them forever. Have you noticed that all of the good fabrics contain brown? They do! This greenish-blue and orange combo will be perfect accents.

I’ve had diamonds on the mind lately, too, and I’m finally getting around to figuring out a patchworky pillowy pattern. You would not believe how difficult it is to line up diamonds until you cut them out for some coasters and then try to piece them together as you watch your machine devour all of the tiny little diamond shapes. Or maybe that’s just me. Drafting pattern pieces ahead of time is a much smarter way to go.

The scraps (ha! the pillows will only use wee amounts) might go to a baby quilt. Or maybe I’ll just line them up and take more photos of them.

Here’s a look back at ‘07 in kelp! knits land, thanks to Knitlit Kate’s idea. Almost a week late, but that’s the way things roll around here.

(2007 finished knits – I feel that there should be more, given all the knitting I do!
1. Scarves, 2. Utopia Hat, 3. Stockinette Socks, 4. Nephew hat and mittens, 5. Endpaper Mitts, 6. Ironwork Sock, 7. Mad Color Weave, 8. Ol’ Stripey, 9. Ironwork Socks, 10 and 11. Garnstudio Baby Jacket and Saartje’s booties, 12. Spring Things shawl, 13. Airy Wrap Around Lace Sweater, 14. Dotty Cat Bed, 15. Sarcelle detail, 16. Asymmetrical Cardigan)

1. Your best FO of the year

Is it totally self-centered to say the Ironwork Socks? I still heart them and I’d really love to knit a pair for myself some day.

2. Best FO of the year made by a blog you link to

I’m a sucker for the cute, so I’ll say Pam’s froggy hat. Awwww!

3. Best yarn you tried

Nature’s Palette sock yarn. I adore the colors so much, I’ll definitely buy it again. I also really love the fiber composition of Brooks Farm Four Play, although I’m not as in love with the variegated colorways.

4. Best new book/mag/pattern of 2007

I recently rediscovered the Natural Knitter book on my shelf. I don’t love it so much for the patterns, but the book itself is absolutely beautiful, and I really enjoy reading the yarn company profiles.

I must say that 2007 is the year that I’ve learned not to buy knitting books sight-unseen. I feel extremely meh about both Fitted Knits and Lace Style, and I’ll be destashing them this year.

5. Best new knitting technique or gadget you tried in 2007

I finally figured out how to do a provisional cast on using a crochet hook. It saves so much time and twisting when you’re casting on a large number of stitches (Tangled Yoke’s yoke had 300+ stitches, the Stag hat below was almost 200).

(2007 in stitches – lots of straight lines and gifts, but it was great to dust off the old Kenmore 8 after years of nonuse. I’m too lazy to list these individually, so you can clicky on the pic to see what’s what.)

6. Top 5 inspirations–what five things inspired you the most over the past year?

One of my fave things about the big R is finding people’s innovative variations of patterns. A few quick examples from my faves list: Emilee’s fitted Glasgow Pullover (which is definitely in my queue), a Venezia knit with Noro sock yarn (love that idea!), a not-so-Little Smocked Cardigan, a fitted Sand Dollar pullover, and a Sunflower Hat.

7. Designer who most amazed & inspired you throughout the year

Norah Gaughan, hands down. She’s so creative, and I love so many of her designs. I’ll be knitting a few more things from Knitting Nature this coming year.

8. Knitting resolutions for 2008–what’s next for you and your blog?

First up, finishing all the UFO’s.

The orange thing hasn’t even been blogged yet – it’s the last of the FO fury projects, a hat for Rob’s dad. And yikes, the clutch and robot were on last year’s list! I get easily stalled at mistakes and finishing details, which is something I need to work on.

After that, 2008 is going to be the year of the sweater. I have so much sweater yarn, and I need to start knitting through it. I’m also planning on more sewing, hopefully a quilt is in my future!

Finally, the fury continues. I decided to make my friend a set of sewn things, since she’s not so into the knits. Starting with…

(see the coaster backs here)

The coaster redo! These are similar to the other coasters, but better sewn and better fabric composition. They also feature an elephant butt, as promised.

The pattern is from the Simple Coasters tutorial, with two small mods. First, I clipped the batting corners before sewing the layers together, which makes the batting trimming step easier and lowers the bulk in the corners. I also didn’t hand-stitch the opening part shut, I topstitched around the coasters instead.

The pattern for these potholders is from the Amy Butler In Stitches book. I absolutely heart that book – all of the instructions are crystal clear. As a novice sewer, I sit around, thinking questions like, “do I backstitch at the ends or not?” and the book answers them every time.

The potholder fronts clearly match the coasters, but I followed the pattern to the letter in potholder assembly. These coasters are like little quilts with handles in the back. I’m especially impressed with the binding step – binding attachment is so clever! This pattern is the perfect thing to make if you’re interested in dipping your toe into the quilting pond. I have to say I’m eager to make a larger, quilty project!

I do need one thing before taking that leap into quilting – a walking foot. I don’t have one, and contents definitely shifted as I quilted the layers together. My top and bottom layers shifted by about a half inch, which is pretty significant when the binding is only a half-inch wide. If you look closely at these, you can see that the patterned blocks aren’t all the same size, especially the elephant – he’s larger than the rest due to shifting. There’s also a few puckers that were introduced during the quilting step. I think these are the most handmade looking item in the bunch, which I’m sort of bummed about.

A couple of other, small changes: I skipped the grommet, because I didn’t want to slice and dice the finished potholders to add one. There’s no way that I was redoing these if I screwed that up! I also selected some heat-resistant batting instead of the high-loft stuff that was recommended. The batting looks metally-shiny, and makes a distinct crunching sound when you bend the potholders. I didn’t realize how noticeable the sound would be, and I’d definitely pick a different batting next time.

Ooh, one last thing that I almost forgot – to bias or not to bias-cut your bias tape? Thanks for all the recommendations when I asked this question – the consensus is that bias-cut tape drapes better and is more flexible than the alternatives. For these potholders, I cut the polka-dot binding perpendicular to the selvedge, and the scallopy one on the bias. For this small project, the difference was negligible. The polka-dot binding looks worse, but I think that’s because I constructed it first.

Placemats! These are constructed exactly the same as the coasters, just bigger. I had originally cut them to be 15 by 20 inches (the same dimensions as the placemats in the In Stitches book), but that seemed huge to me. I trimmed an inch off each side to make them 14 by 19 inches. The one inch trimming worked out well, since each color block is 2 inches (plus seam allowance) wide.

Staggering the color blocks was a very smart idea, as accuracy wasn’t my strong suit here. I’ve been using this cheapo rotary cutter, and the blade dulls extremely quickly. Would investing in a nicer cutter be worthwhile? The cutter itself is fine, it’s the cheapo blades that make me bonkers.

I used my two food fabrics for backings, then picked the others based on color. I want to run away and marry that number fabric, I keep trying to devise projects that need the number treatment!

All in all, these projects were a great way to use up some of my ever growing fabric stash. I’ve been buying lots of fat quarters and 1/8 yards of fabrics, and many are down to scraps after finishing these projects. If I were to make these again, I would cut the largest items first – I was struggling to find large enough pieces of fabric for the placemat backs, and just barely ran out of the brown cotton with one placemat front to go. Now to go and replenish that stash – have you seen the Echino Woodland Damask print? And the Full Moon Forest collection? Want!

I’ve been hunkering down, crafting away in preparation for the holidays. I have a scarf, a hat, a pair of socks, and some sewing done, and I have 1.5 scarves, a colorwork hat, and more sewing to go. I’m going to make next week FO Frenzy Week, in high hopes that everything will be complete before we fly to far off lands!

Here’s quickie project to start off the FO frenzy – Coasters!

In keeping with my sew-straight-lines theme, I’m making a friend of mine a set of sewn square items. Coasters are first up, and can I just say that these are super fast to put together? I followed this Simple Coasters tutorial (which I found on the Sew, Mama, Sew handmade holidays list, which is full of good stuff) and had zero problems putting these together. I made one modification to the pattern – I didn’t stitch the turning hole closed, but instead folded it inward and topstitched the whole coaster. I picked up that idea from the Bend-the-Rules Sewing book. I’ll do anything to avoid hand-sewing!

The elephant is my favorite!

Despite the inherent cuteness of these little things, I’m making a new set. The anal-retentive part of me just can’t look past the non-centered squares and the sloppy topstitching. I’m almost done with version 2.0, and I can confirm that it will contain an elephant butt square. Because I am twelve.

A question to all you sewers out there – is it necessary to cut bias tape on the bias? Will my small project self-destruct if I cut it with the grain?

Meet Floppy, Wonky, and Passable:

Last Friday, I set out to make a box bag for a gift and somehow ended up with three! I really wanted to mail it out on Saturday, and it was a very long, frustrating evening.

The first bag is Floppy, my attempt at constructing the box bag correctly (unlike the previous attempt). The construction was successful, but I didn’t use strong enough interfacing and the bag wound up being extremely flimsy. It does make a perfect beanbag for Igor.

I’m using the bag now – a skein of Malabrigo gives the bag a bit more structure, but I didn’t think it was good enough to gift. I do love the fabric – cute little peas from Superbuzzy. Eat your veggies!

The center bag is Wonky, king of the uneven seams. At the end of the tutorial, you pinch out some triangles for the end seams, and I could not get the seams to be parallel. This bag has pretty heavy sewn-in interfacing, and I blame the interfacing for all of my issues. Bah!

The blue and green bag is Passable, the best of the bunch. I used slightly lighter interfacing, fused to the lining fabric. The seams are still a bit crooked, but it’s the best of the lot. I did add an extra step to the box bag assembly – concealed seams, to contain the raw edges so that strings don’t fly away and embed themselves in your yarn.

Next time I make one of these, I’m going to create pattern pieces that have the triangle parts cut out ahead of time. I think that this will help me line up the handle, too – it’s really difficult to align it without any straight edge as a reference point. There will definitely be more box bags in my future – I went to the Quilt Festival last weekend, and my fabric stash was considerably enhanced!

Knitting? Yawn. Let’s talk about something different, like sewing! I busted out Old Cranky and made something that’s actually usable, with some fancy fabric that I’ve been saving for when I’m a stitching pro. Ha! I finally stopped holding my breath on that one and dove in.

Pattern: Clutch Handbag with Fabric Flower, from In Stitches by Amy Butler
Fabric: Etsuko Furuya Echino exterior, Denyse Schmidt Flea Market Fancy interior

It could use a trip to the ironing board (that fold on the left is a wrinkle, not a pucker), but it’s not bad for my first successful bag! I obviously skipped the fabric flower, and now I’m thinking that the bag needs something…. maybe, say, a flower? What do you think?

I’m especially proud of the top flap – the topstitching is so much better than any of my previous attempts.

Nice!

The pattern instructions were extremely clear, I have no complaints. This allowed me to make a slew of little modifications:

• The pattern calls for 4 layers of batting for the bag interior, two attached to each side of the outer fabric. I cut out two layers and thought that they would be poofy enough. The batting is less three dimensional once you baste it to the fabric, but still, I was going for more sleek, less marshmallow. I ended up fusing medium-weight interfacing to the exterior fabric, then attaching a single layer of batting.
• The pattern creates a massive clutch, so I shrunk the pattern by about 12%. I took an inch off the height, then scaled down all of the other measurements accordingly.
• The pattern called for a velcro closure. Um, no. I used a magnetic purse snap instead. I’m still a bit shocked that it worked out so well given that I fiddled the size of the bag, but the snap is in the perfect location.
• I omitted the interior divider, instead adding an interior pocket from this crafster tutorial. I skimmed the tutorial before starting the pocket and ended up doing step 1 wrong. It’s not very noticeable, but you can see the interfacing on the inner side of the pocket and the zipper isn’t tucked neatly between the layers.

If I were to make this again, I would round off the bottom corners a bit more – they’re pointier than I had expected from the pattern photo. I would also use the main fabric for the top 1-2 inches of the interior, so you don’t see the interior fabric peeking out from the inside. Lining up the fabric pattern on the outer flap and front exterior would be nice, too.

Oh, yeah, I also would be careful not to fuse interfacing to the right side of my fabric. And no topstitching after midnight, since the results will inevitably have to be ripped out the next day!

It’s Houston in summer. It’s too hot to play outside. Icky sticky ew. And so, I huddled inside on Sunday, put on my npr podcasts, and got my stitch on.

The Simple Bib from Behind-the-Rules Sewing, photographed on the bias to disguise the wonky topstitching. Very, very simple – I think it took me more time to enlarge the pattern at my local photocopy place than it took to sew this. All it needs is a snap.

Next up, a box bag, tutorial here. I figured this should be easy peasy, given that it’s all straight seams. Surely this should be easier than the bunny, right?

Yes, I proceeded to sew it together the wrong way. You cut a rectangle and install a zipper, and I made pretty much the only mistake that’s possible with this pattern. I also used an invisible zipper, which looks just plain silly. I didn’t even consider that I could be putting this together incorrectly until I was completely done.

Compared to a real box bag:

Yeah. I’ve got a fabulous pencil case.

Or the perfect sock yarn cozy. Insert your favorite cylindrical object here.

Pattern: Big Footed Bunny, available here.
Fabric: The pants fabric is from Superbuzzy, the rest is misc cotton purchased locally

I like to think that my knitting is somewhat solid, execution-wise. Unfortunately I’m lacking in any sort of sewing skills, so we won’t be showing any closeups of bunny details. Take, for example, his club foot. Was it a sewing mishap or a poor stuffing job by yours truly? Who knows! And we won’t speak of the frankenstein-esque scar on his ass where I hand-stitched him shut. Good thing this bunny has pants.

When Mr. bunny isn’t propped up against our porch, you can see that his ears are floppy. Too floppy. The pattern said to stuff lightly, but I way understuffed. The ears back makes the bunny looks like our cat Joe when he’s up to something mischievous.

I cut the pieces out a few months ago and gradually pieced the bunny together over the past few weeks. I learned to really use my iron for this little guy, and that definitely made things a lot easier. Ironing is fun! The pattern is clearly written and easy to follow, but I’d say that it’s somewhat challenging to execute. I followed it to a T, only making minor modifications in embellishment – the eyes are embroidered rather than using buttons, and I left the suspenders off of the pants (they didn’t need them to stay up). I definitely did a bit of fudging to get things to work, including hand-stitching his widow’s peak to make it neat looking. My fabric frayed like crazy, and there were little wisps and threads that were itching to escape around the bunny’s face.

If you’re going to sew this pattern, you should seam the inner ears and topstitch the hands first – they look best using thread that matches the lighter fabric. Following the instructions in order leads to frequent machine rethreadings, which makes my old Kenmore 8 very cranky. I really need to get the machine serviced – rethreading the bobbin throws off the machine tension, and I spend forever mucking with it to get things evened out again.

Bunny butt!

Fabric wise, I chose the same pants fabric that the girl bunny in the pattern is wearing, total coincidence! The brown body fabric was a bit of a mistake – I chose it because the color was right, but it’s a cotton-poly blend and is somewhat thin and drapey. Drapiness isn’t such a good choice for softies, as every lump and bump of the stuffing is readily apparent.

Blackie wasn’t quite feeling the love. Hopefully baby-in-law (born last weekend, eep, I’m a bit late with the gifts) will heart the bunny!