Dusting off the cobwebs with a whole new outfit

Hello! Is anyone still out there? It's been a while! To make up for that, today I have both a cardigan and a dress to show you. Let's get on with it, shall we?

First up, the cardigan! I used a James C Brett pattern (JB108), which was an impulse purchase with a Deramores order at some point last year. It was one of those occasions where I had almost enough in my basket to qualify for free postage, and buying an extra pattern and getting free postage seemed like the only sensible thing to do. I really like the deep V neck and relatively short length - perfect for wearing with dresses.

The cardigan is all stocking stitch (with rib at the cuffs/waist/neckline) so was a nice mindless knitting project. I worked on it quite a lot when I was staying with my family over Christmas/New Year and it was the perfect thing to keep my hands busy without me needing to concentrate too much so I could still be sociable.

The yarn I used is West Yorkshire Spinners Aire Valley DK in purple and, as it says on the website, it definitely is excellent value and to me seems to be really great quality for the price. It was good to work with and, having now worn the cardigan a few times, I'm happy to report that it's wooly enough to keep me warm without being all scratchy.

I didn't make any changes to the pattern, but I did knit a size smaller than recommended. I'm glad that I did - it's still got a bit of positive ease which I think is probably needed with this style or the neckline might stretch out a bit too much, but if I'd knit the recommended size it would have probably been too baggy.

I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I'd definitely consider knitting the same pattern again in a different colour at some point.

Now on to the dress! I realised after I'd taken these photos that I'd forgotten to take any of the dress on its own, so I'm afraid we'll just have to appreciate what we can see under the cardi. It's another Emery dress to add to my growing collection, so it's not exactly revolutionary, but I love it all the same. After all, you can't beat a favourite pattern combined with a pretty print!

It's possibly hard to see, but the fabric is a dark purple covered in hundreds of tiny lighter purple and white starts (bought on ebay), and happily the lighter purple stars are a perfect match for my cardigan. Hurrah!

I think that's about all I have to say about these two. Both nice simple projects, and both already in regular wardrobe circulation. It's nice to dust the cobwebs off my blog with two successful creations. I've got a couple of other projects finished and waiting to be photographed, so hopefully it won't be so long before I'm back here again. See you soon!

Crochet poncho

Hello everyone! I thought I'd use the last afternoon of the year to write a quick post to share my final completed project of 2015, and some particularly windswept photos of me wearing it.

The pattern for this snuggly poncho came from issue 71 of Inside Crochet, and I managed to hook it up pretty quickly alongside all the Christmas-related making over the last few weeks. I love how speedy projects using chunky yarn are to make!

Strangely for me, I actually used not only the recommended yarn (James C Brett Amazon Super Chunky), but also the exact colour used in the magazine (teal) - usually I'll like a pattern but think it would suit me better in a different colour, but this time the pattern and colour both seemed right up my street. Although it must be said that the colour in the magazine looks much more turquoise than the yarn does in real life, and I'm not sure I would describe it as teal either, maybe more sea green. It's nice though -  that's the main thing!

The pattern was easy and perfect for those times when you need something to keep you busy without requiring too much brain power. You just crochet a large rectangle, and then the asymmetric shape is produced by the way it's sewn together - it's really simple. The only change I made was to go up a hook size, which is fairly common for me because I have a tendency to take any stress out on my crochet and everything ends up really tight.

Possibly my favourite thing about this poncho is the fact that it's finally given me an opportunity to use what may be some of the best buttons ever...

I bought this set from Miss Beatrix on Etsy ages ago and have been waiting for the perfect occasion to use them, so I'm glad they've finally found their purpose in life! And it amuses me that I have tea running down my side in button form, as you can see here...

I'm mostly pretty pleased with the poncho. The only thing I don't like is that the asymmetric shape doesn't hang that well on me and I have to spend a bit of time adjusting it to make it look right when I put it on, but that's not a big thing. And actually, I originally made the poncho for wearing at my desk when I'm working from home (which might seem extreme, but it's in the coldest spot in my flat and for some reason my upper back always gets particularly cold) so it doesn't really matter if it hangs a bit weirdly when nobody apart from me and maybe the postman will see it. With the unseasonably mild weather we've had so far this winter though, there hasn't been a need for it at my desk yet. I'm not complaining about that though!

Overall, this was a fun project to make and I'm pleased with the end result - what more can you ask for? I'm now off to prepare for tonight's celebrations. I hope you have a Happy New Year and I'll see you again in 2016!

Vintage Pledge - McCall's 5863 dress

Do you like vintage sewing patterns? I certainly love all the pretty envelope illustrations, but I try to be picky when it comes to actually buying them (they have to be in my size and a style that I can imagine myself making) - even when they are crazily cheap in charity shops! Even so, I now have a small-but-growing collection of vintage patterns, so this year I decided to join in with #vintagepledge. I pledged to make just one item because I didn't want to put any pressure on myself (sewing is meant to be fun after all!), but somehow it's still taken me to the end of the year to actually follow through on my pledge. Here's my dress...

This is made using McCall's 5863 from 1961 - a shirtwaist dress with a deep oval neckline, Peter Pan style collar and straight or full skirt options. It will probably surprise nobody who has been reading my blog for any length of time that I went with the full skirted option!

The pattern was just right for my bust size, but the waist was slightly on the small side. Thankfully enlarging it was easy - I just took 1 cm out of the two centre front pleats (they're still plenty big enough) and added 1 cm to the centre back of the skirt. Rather than having waist darts, the bodice gathers into the skirt to create a bloused effect, so to account for the extra width I'd added into the skirt, I just gathered the bodice waistline slightly less. This reduces the blousing in the bodice somewhat, but that's fine by me.

Other than that, I made my standard adjustment of adding length to the bodice (an inch in this case), and I also massively shortened the skirt. Straight out of the envelope, the skirt would have been hitting well past my mid-calf so I removed 6 inches, and also made the hem slightly deeper than called for.

I deliberated about what fabric to use for the dress, and was ultimately swayed by the envelope illustration (I told you I love them!) and decided to go with a plain blue dress with a contrast collar, but switch the white collar for pink. The navy is a poplin from Minerva Crafts, and the pink is a quilting cotton with a slightly mottled effect that I found in a local shop.

I love the way the colours look together, and I love the idea of the dress, but unfortunately I just feel a bit underwhelmed with the dress itself (as indicated by the fact it's taken me about a fortnight since taking these photos to actually write this post!). I don't hate it, but usually when I put a new dress on I feel all excited about wearing it and this time I just felt a bit 'meh'.

I think a large part of that is probably because it's quite a plain dress, and I'm used to fun and pretty prints, but I think some of it may also be the collar. I love the way contrast collars look on other people, but when I wear them myself I feel like I've got some odd kind of bib on or something!

I wouldn't go as far as saying this is a failure - I'm definitely going to try wearing the dress, and hopefully I'll grow to like it a bit more as I do - but it's not quite as great as I'd hoped it would be. That's OK though, the sewing process was still fun, and not every dress can be your favourite dress, can it?

Knitting: vintage cardigan

Earlier this year, my Uncle passed down all my Granny's old knitting patterns to me. There are some that are definitely very dated (part of me is very tempted to knit a particularly ugly "helmet" to embarrass my nephew when he's older, but realistically I think it would be a waste of both time and wool), but there are also plenty that are very wearable still. The first one I decided to knit was actually one of the plainest, this round neck cardigan...

It's from a Patons & Baldwins raglan twin sets pattern booklet. I'm not interested in the full twin set with the jumper, but a waist-length cardigan is something that is always going to get a lot of use in my wardrobe, so I set to work.

Unsurprisingly, the yarn used in the pattern has long-since been discontinued, but I rarely use the precise recommended yarn for a pattern anyway so that didn't bother me. I chose to use West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply in Blueberry Bonbon from the Sweet Shop range. It was a lovely yarn to work with and, now that I've worn the cardigan a couple of times, I'm pleased to report that it's nice and warm without being at all scratchy or irritating to my skin.

This is the cardigan knit exactly according to the pattern. I did originally intend to borrow a stitch pattern from one of my Granny's other patterns to make it slightly more interesting than a load of stocking stitch, but there's dart shaping coming up from the waist in the front and back panels and keeping the pattern correct across the darts was going to cause me a headache so I abandoned that plan. Keeping it simple made this a really good mindless knitting project for working on in front of the TV, and I think plainer cardigans are totally fine because most of the time I'm wearing them with a highly patterned dress!

You may have noticed that I haven't done the buttons the whole way up the cardigan in any of these photos. That's partly because of the collar of my dress getting in the way, but even more than that, it's because doing all the buttons up would involve strangling myself! The neck does look high on the pattern photo, but it turned out even higher and tighter than that on me. It doesn't really bother me because the cardigan works fine with only the lower buttons done up anyway.

Neck aside, I'm pretty happy with the fit of the cardigan. When I first put the cardigan on, I thought the sleeves might be a touch short, but having worn it now I think they're actually fine. It's a great length for wearing with all my full-skirted dresses, and I think the amount of ease is just right - it's nicely fitted without being too tight and putting strain on the buttonband.

Speaking of buttons, finding them was a bit of a saga! I wanted to get coordinating buttons because, as there are a lot of them, I thought contrasting buttons would dominate the cardigan a bit too much. Unfortunately, much though I love the colour of the yarn, it appears that button manufacturers don't agree with me because I couldn't find any that matched. In the end, I opted for these little clear ones that have just a hint of greeny blue in them, so work well with the yarn colour without taking over.

All in all, I really like how this cardigan turned out and I think it'll do a good job of keeping me cosy. I'd definitely be tempted to use this pattern and yarn again (I love pretty much all of the Sweet Shop shades), but now I have some Christmas-related knitting I need to get on with first. Are you making any presents this year?

Mortmain + Stripes

You know those times when fabric is such a bargain that you just HAVE to buy it? This dress is entirely down to one of those occasions.

I'd seen this fabric online ages ago - I really liked it, but it didn't fit in with my plans at the time and it wasn't the cheapest in the world so, after a bit of dithering, I decided to be good and leave it behind. Fast-forward several months, and I saw a link to a fabric sale where it was reduced to half price. I was sold, and instantly snapped up enough for a dress.

I was very tempted to make yet another Emery, but the fabric kept telling me that it would prefer to become a Gather Mortmain dress instead. As you can see, in the end I had to agree because I thought that it would be good to have the option of playing with the stripe direction on the waistband.

It had also been a while since I made a Mortmain (previous versions here and here) and, much though I love the Emery, it's also always nice to have a little bit of variety.

So the fabric...we already know it was a bargain, but what else do I have to say about it? I picked it up from Patch Fabrics; they don't seem to have this exact one anymore but they do have the green colourway. It's a peppered cotton, the stripes are woven and there's a slightly irridescent effect from the different coloured warp and weft threads, which you can maybe see a bit better in this close-up...

Excuse the slightly crumpled look (this was mid-sewing) and let's focus instead on the fabric -isn't it lovely? And I hope you'll excuse me if I pat myself on the back for that stripe matching. I love striped and check fabric, but I always hate it slightly when I'm cutting it out and giving myself a headache trying to get the pattern matching right. The extra effort is always worth it in the end though!

Thinking about pattern matching in sewing has made me really critical of print placement and matching in RTW clothing. I don't buy much RTW anymore (mainly because it's more fun to sew my own), but whenever I am in shops I find myself picking things to pieces! Does anyone else do the same?

Anyway, back to the dress...I'm pretty sure that it does fit me through the back in spite of what it looks like in the photo above. I'm going to blame those extra wrinkles on moving about pretending to be climbing the rocks and on the fact that, while it is lovely, the fabric does crease really easily.

Once I'd got past the hurdle of cutting it all out, the dress was a nice and simple sewing project. In addition to the fitting changes I'd made before (adding an inch to the bodice), for this version I also added two inches to the skirt. Although my first two Mortmains are an OK length, I do find that they've ended up slightly shorter than my other dresses. It's a small difference, but it's one that I do notice so I decided to do something about it.

I also omitted the sleeve cuffs for this version. This may at least partially have been to avoid more stripe matching! I just did a simple hem on the sleeves instead, but added a couple of inches to them first so that I didn't lose any length.

I'm pretty happy with this dress. I don't think I love it as much as some others, but I do like it and I can see it being worn regularly. I definitely prefer it when I'm wearing it with a cardigan like this to pick out one of the colours - I think it helps the fabric come to life a bit more. And I love it with this cute little bow brooch I found in a charity shop recently! From the 50% off fabric and charity shop jewellery, can anyone tell that I love a bargain?!