Snazzy: first ripe tomatoes from my garden! They’re stripey!
Snazzy: Almost done one Traveler’s stocking. Soooo pretty. I’m using my own hand-dyed sock yarn and Knitpicks circs (fabulous for all those twists):
Snazzy: New Lantern Moon ebony circ, now available at Lettuce Knit! Oooooohhhhh.
Not so snazzy:
I’m sick. Blegh.
Finally, here is my first successful dress (I’ve attempted before, but that didn’t get too far). Photo taken in my sister’s room, which we painted this week. Did the trim today, so it’s still drying.
(very difficult to get a decent photo of this, on my own anyway. looks better, and slimmer, in person.)
Pattern is Butterick 4443, view C (the yellow) without the bow, obviously. Size 14. Fabric was cotton/linen blend from Fabricland for $5 a metre! Quite a nice fabric.
The pattern was…well, challenging for me, queen of skirts and bags. I liked the princess shaping rather than darts, and once I figured out where to clip, they were easy to put together. I didn’t understitch the lining, which was good, because I ran out of thread…not till after I finished, but then there were alterations to be made.
The pattern really was fairly straightforward, though. The skirt is a really nice shape. I bought this pattern awhile back, so I’d gotten the 8-14 size – I made the 14, but it’s a bit snug in the waist despite reducing the seam allowances on the sides to less than 3/8″. Wearable, though.
Once I finished slip-stitching in the bodice lining (very tedious), I put it on, zipped it up, and….it was too big in the bodice. The back was gaping madly. So I had to make some modifications:
Two back darts.
Plus, I had to go and wreck my nice lined bodice by taking it in at the shoulder – with a different colour thread, too! Ah, well. I wore it out to SnB on Wednesday and got quite a few compliments.
And since the sewing bug’s got me, I finished another dress today! Okay, it’s not totally totally done, but it will be tomorrow. I even cut yet another dress tonight, and it should be fairly easy to sew up tomorrow.
Quick knitting update: Unfortunately, I had to rip what I’d done of the Blueberry Greek Pullover that I showed the other day! I went to count the stitches to figure out how many more increases to do, and realized I’d just cast on the wrong number of stitches. Not the smaller size or anything, just kind of a random number inbetween. I think I’m finally, finally back on track.
No sewing FO today – it’s done, and I even wore it out, but was too lazy to get dressed today and take a photo. Soon. And while I’m on the sewing thing, can I just say – ain’t nothing like sewing to make you feel fat. Or at least like you have the hugest waist in the world. I made a pair of pants the other day, the largest size it came in (Betsy Ross “Fancy Pants”) and they were wayyyy too small in the waist.
Of course, I’ve finally realized that since I don’t wear pants at my natural waist, I need to pick even bigger sizes. Like 20. Or 22. And what is up with sewing patterns? There’s design ease built in, but they don’t tell you how much – just to “fit” a magical 16 which is a 36″ bust (which I have) and a 26.5″ waist (which I most definitely don’t have). Arghhhhhhh.
Anyway, enough whining. Must exercise more. Eat less sugar.
Onto the knitting, which isn’t so hot today either:
Whoops. I should’ve paid more attention to the modifications I made in the raglan on the body. Riiiiip. Well, at least it’s going pretty quickly and I just have this raglan to redo and the other sleeve.
I bought some Knitpicks Main Line while it was on sale ($1.97 USD, how can you beat that?!) in blueberry and cocoa, and I’m working up a sweater in the blueberry. It’s based on the “Greek Pullover” from…the Interweave with the Union Square Market Pullover on it. I actually wanted to follow the pattern, but of course I’m changing it quite a bit. Can’t seem to get away from that.
The yarn is nice, but it really is quite heavy! Much thicker than I was anticipating. It’ll be a quick knit, I think – I already had to rip out 3″ that I’d knit yesterday, but am back on track after some quality TNG time.
I’m in a mood tonight. A cranky one, can you tell? I’m working on sewing up a dress out of that brown paisley, and I chose to do the size 8 based on a recommendation – the bust is very oversized (44″!) and I didn’t want to be swimming in fabric, so I emailed Erin of a dress a day, who has made the same one, and asked her. Turns out we have about the same measurements (including the thick waist) and she said the 8 was good. But I’m worried. Oh well, if it’s too small I can either a) run more often and lose some damn weight (would also help in the fitting into the clothes I have department) or b) give it to someone smaller.
Enough rambling for tonight.