WIP Wednesday: Little Sperry Sweater

I love a fast knit.  This is another basic raglan sweater, but I actually bought the pattern for it.  Mostly, because it was perfect already and cheap, but sometimes it's just fun to support other crafters.  (Go Team Craft!)

Anyway, it's the Little Sperry from Amy Miller (get it from Ravelry here).  I love Amy's sweater designs, but this one is just perfect for what I wanted, a lightweight summery sweater for the boy to throw on on chilly evenings.  And my friend Laura (of Little and Lots) recently knitted this up for her daughter and it was just adorable.  She didn't post about it, but trust me, it was killer.

I got this great variegated cotton yarn on sale at Joann's, because I can't get a solid answer from the boy about his favorite color.  After years of blue, now it's green, but I didn't want to risk an all green sweater that never gets worn, so he gets both, plus yellow!  I'm skipping the stripes on this one, but I'm definitely going to do them on the next sweater.

Another fun tidbit, I actually knitted a swatch for guage.  Weird.  I ended up going down two needle sizes to get it right, apparently I'm a very relaxed knitter.

I couldn't get a good picture of the girl in it.  It's way too big, but the boy was unavailable for modelling.  This sweater is obviously too big, but I really liked the length on her with the shirttail hem.  I might make one as a sweater dress for her next.

Linking up with Lee for Work in Progress Wednesday!

Selfishly Sewing Skirts!

Yesterday was skirt day!  And it turned out pretty successful.  My big job for the day was to pattern test the Alder skirt, which meant printing, taping, and cutting out the pattern.  Probably my least favorite part of pattern sewing, but I like it way better than getting the pattern then having to pull out the tracing paper.

I was supposed to be testing a specific size, but it turned out too big on me.  Ego boost, but it meant that I would have to print, tape, and cut the next size down to see if that one fit me better, or if I would just have to alter the one I had made.   (I'll probably end up doing some alterations anyway, since this fabric needs to be a well-fitting skirt that I wear all the time.)

But while I worked up the energy to do all that cutting, I took the scraps from the first skirt and made a Simple Skirt for my girl.

And then I made another one, but with a bias tape hem!

Unfortunately, she's off at a sleepover, so I'll have to wait to get super cute pictures of her wearing these.

And then, I got back to it.  This time with piping!

Linking up with Kelly for Needle and Thread Thursday and Sew Fresh Quilts!

WIP Wednesday: Selfish Sewing Week Edition!

I was so excited to have a full day of sewing.  The kids are gone, and it's just me, the dog, and my sewing machine.  But it's just been dreary the last couple days, and it's hard to get excited about sewing cute summer skirts.  (And awful for taking pictures inside, even with all the shades up)

But, I'm going to power through!  I've got two piles of fabric ready to be turned into Alder skirts.  I'm really excited to be pattern testing for Rachael at imagine gnats.  For some reason I thought this pattern had already been released and I'm trying to curb my sewing spending, but she put the call out for testers, so free pattern for a skirt I wanted to make anyway.  Win win!

These are going to be my skirts by the end of the day.  The Alder skirt has an optional contrast waistband and pocket linings, so the flowery Cloud 9 fabric will get green, and the blue Juliana Horner fabric will get orchid.  The blue is a bit brighter than I would normally pick, but I just loved the fabric so much and summer clothes should be bright and cheerful!

The rest of my fabric pile will be clothes for the little girl.  These two will be super fast Simple Skirts from Dana's awesome tutorial.  The corduroy might end up a skirt too, or maybe some parsley pants, and the knit was just too cute to leave (especially at $3/yd, love a JoAnn's sale!!)

Now let's see how far down the list I get!

Linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday!

 

Kids Clothes Week: A Sally Dress for Easter!

My big goal for Kids Clothes Week was to make Dell this little Easter dress.  Everything else was just gravy, but this had to be cute since her brother has already gotten a little suit from his Nona.  And she definitely needed something with big pockets to hide Easter treasures.

Luckily, I had everything on hand and ready to go once I realized that this was the thing to do.  The fabric was bought, washed and pressed for last summer's Kids Clothes Week, but then found it's way to the back of the drawer once I failed at time management.  And the pattern is the Sally Dress by Very Shannon, another from Pattern Anthology, bought and printed ages ago.

I made the 4t size based on her chest measurement which ended up fitting her perfectly without changing anything, though it's a bit tight getting on and off.  I'll just pray that she makes it through the Easter festivities without spilling anything on herself and maybe see about adding a button placket to the back to make it last a little longer.

I also went with the longer sleeve, since we've still got snow hanging around.  And I added some bright yellow piping along the collar and waist.  I'm pretty excited to add piping to everything, especially since I've bought all the colors on super discount at Marden's.

The neckline was a bit tough to pipe, because you have to pipe the front and back pieces separately, then line them, then sew them together at the shoulders.  It worked, but the seams are a little bulky.  Good thing she's got plenty of hair to distract!

But the whole thing was super easy to make.  I think she'll need a couple more of these big pocket dresses for twirling and stashing this summer.

Linking up with Kids Clothes Week and Crazy Mom Quilts!

Kids Clothes Week: Vintage V-Neck Tee Wonkiness

Last night I finally went through all the drawers and pulled out the old t-shirts that hubs and I don't like anymore so that I can make them into tees for the little man.  I was going to just do the old standby and use a shirt that fits him now to cut new ones, but then I remembered that I had the Vintage V-neck Tee pattern from last fall's Pattern Anthology.

But for the life of me, I can't get the "V" to sit nicely!  I carefully pinned and stretched, but still ended up taking out the stitches twice.  And after the last sew, it still didn't look nice, but if I took them out again I'd end up shredding the gray fabric.

The "V" looks so cool, but I might just recut the pattern to a crew neck, because I just can't stand patterns that are too fiddly.  And I want to make at least two more t-shirts because the kid has almost none to wear this summer.

But, on a happier note, I finally busted out the non-straight-stitch-only sewing machine and got to do fun things like zig zag stitches and sewing with my double needle!  But now there's two sewing machines on the dining room table and absolutely no room for actually eating dinner.

Linking up with Kids Clothes Week and My Quilt Infatuation!

Kids Clothes Week: Purple People Eater Sweater Dress

I try to keep things even among the kids.  So after I made Isaac his green sweater, I bought some more yarn and decided to make the same sweater for Dell.  I was only going to change the front panel, but then I got a bit carried away.

The pattern is a top down raglan, so I started with the neck collar.  I didn't like how the first sweater had a K1P1 rib, so I switched that out for a K2P2 rib and twisted my stitches so that the rib would look neater.   Now it pulls together much nicer and sits right up against her neck.

The next bit to knit is the chest, arms, and back.  I've been wanting to play with more textures, so I just started scrolling through stitch libraries until I found on that would work well with my increases.  This honeycomb pattern is worked over four stitches, so I was able to just add half and full honeycombs when I had enough new stitches on the sides.

Then I put the arm stitches on to waste yarn and had to decide how much of the honeycomb I wanted.  I thought of just continuing the pattern to the hem, and finishing it like a regular sweater, but I got a lot of votes for a sweater dress from friends.  So I continued the pattern to just above the waist and then increased every few stitches so that it would flair out a bit.  I have no clue how many I eventually added, but it was enough.

Then I realized that I only had one ball of yarn to finish the sleeves (still on the waste yarn) and the bottom of the dress.  I'd already cleaned out the store and had to buy a different dye lot, so I didn't want to have to go back and add a third dye lot to the pile.  The solution was short sleeves!  Which is perfect since the weather turned warm, and long sleeves would have been too hot to wear in the spring.

In the end, I love how it turned out.  It's so different from the first sweater, but I love that I'm getting comfortable enough with my knitting to start doing crazy things like this.

Linking up with Kids Clothes Week!

Friday Finish: The Fastest Raglan Sweater

This sweater is proof that I can't let my hands rest for even a minute.  I was supposed to be knitting up a baby blanket for a friend.  It was going well until I realized the pattern was off an entire ball of yarn on it's supplies list.  So while I waited for my order to arrive (of course, the one time I order yarn online) I made this sweater.

I let the boy pick the yarn and I love the color he chose.  It's Jade Heather from Patons.  It looks green from afar, but close up it has specks of yellow and blue.  And knitting with it was really nice.  It has the right combination of slips off the needles so you can knit fast, but doesn't just slip off the needles and you drop stitches.  Makes sense?  Who knows, but I liked it.

The pattern is an oldie.  I went to ask my knitting partner-in-crime for her Elizabeth Zimmerman books, and she busted out this crazy raglan sweater chart where you just measure the person you're knitting for and follow the column of numbers for your cast on stitches, increases, length of stockinette, etc.  It's kind of amazing.  I've already bought more yarn to use the pattern again, but this time with a few variations.

The one bummer with the sweater is that the sleeves aren't really long enough for him to grow into next winter, so this is probably just going to be worn for a few months before getting sent to his sister's drawer.  I swear I measured and then had him try it on before I added the ribbing, so he must have had a growth spurt overnight.  It's the only explanation.

But he loves it, so I don't care about anything else.  Also, he's a goober who just wanted to eat snow the entire time I was trying to take his photo.  At least he wasn't cold!

Catnap Bolero... Ole!

Is there anything better than making something and having your kid absolutely love it?  It does get a bit complicated when you weren't making it for your kid.  Oh well, she's too cute and I can't take it away.

This is really an adult bolero.  My crafty partner in crime wanted to enter the Lizzy House Catnap Dress Contest (now closed, but check out all the entries on the Flickr page!)  She made an adorable Washi Dress (the best dress pattern!) but thought she needed a little something extra.  So she bought this Lamb's Pride yarn in Roasted Coffee, and handed it off to me.  I love how this yarn is chunky and fuzzy, but still shows all the stitch detail.  I wish it had a little less debris, but it adds character.  

I used the Bazan pattern from Jane Richmond available on Ravelry.  It knitted up really fast.  I think I spent one week of evenings getting this done.  The method Jane came up with is pretty genius.  You knit the whole thing (minus the ribbing along the edge) as a single panel, then seam the arms.  Then you pick up stitches along the edges and knit the ribbing in the round.  It made it pretty fast with few opportunities for failure, which is what I look for in a pattern.  

And just in case you don't believe that toddler cardigan is really a bolero, here it is on my friend Jess.  All that mesh on the back lets it really stretch.  Also, check out that cute dress!  I might have to make one for myself in the print behind her, and the little girl should get a Geranium to wear with her newly stolen cardigan.

  

Linking up with Blossom Heart Quilts for Sew Cute Tuesday!

Adventures in Sock Knitting

Behold, the most exciting pair of socks I've knit.  I've been going by patterns and doing as I was told, but these were the first that I felt confident enough to go off book.

I really set out to make those bigger socks.  They're a Christmas gift for my grandmother, but because Christmas is such a crunch time for handmade presents I didn't have time to knit them.  Instead, I gave her the yarn, then asked for it back so I could immediately cast on some socks.  I made them with a really great pattern from On The Needles.  It's the best pattern for just learning how to do it.  And when you use the sock number method, the socks really do fit without any guesswork.

When I finished with Grammy's socks I had leftover yarn that I figured would be enough to make a second pair for Isaac.  And since I had a finite amount of yarn, I did a toe-up sock.  I've had a pair of socks in the works from the book Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oakes, but that meant my super-long circular needle was in use, and all I had was my double points.

So I just combined the toe-up method in the book, with the sock number method of the On The Needles pattern, and voila!

The other bit of excitement was with the rib knit.  I've never been able to get it to look nice.  See that gaping knitting on the right sock?  That's how it always looks, but I learned the secret to nice ribbing... twisting and untwisting your purl stitches!  The left sock turned out much nicer, and is so much stretchier.

So that's my last Christmas present crossed off the to-do list!  I might start working on some generic handmade presents just to have them on hand for next Christmas.

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday!