Star and Brick Stitch Jumper

This project has been in the making for a long long time now.

About 2 years ago (September 2016 is the exact date according to my old emails)  my mother in law told me that her favourite woolen mill - Bendigo Woolen Mills -  was having a sale and asked if I wanted any yarn as a Christmas gift.  Oh course I said yes and I chose 2 balls of  of the Chestnut Collaboration and 1 ball of the Peacock Blue Collaboration (these are no longer in production but they are basic worsted weight 100% wool).  When the wool arrived the chestnut colour wasn't exactly what I had been expecting, but I figured I had it now I may as well use it and got to work.

I decided that I would really like a jumper with a lot of texture.  In my Ravely browsing I had come across the Tundra Jumper which I loved   The combination of the star stitch and  the brick stitch patterns were really cool.

The Tundra jumper was going to take way more yarn than I had so I decided to just draft a basic jumper from scratch.  After some swatching to determine gauge I got started.  Starting with the chestnut colour I made the back piece, the front piece and started one sleeve before realising that I  wasn't going to have enough yarn.  I switched to the peacock colour to finish the sleeves, but that just used up all the peacock yarn too and I had nothing left to finish the collar and the bottom band.  OK back to the drawing board.  I shoved my half made jumper into the corner and basically forgot about it for a year or so.

Then this March my Mother in Law told me she was ordering some more wool from Bendio Woolen Mills and asked if I wanted anything.  I asked if she could get me some more of the yarn and she was able to - saviour!  I then just had to wait for her next trip to the US to get it off her.

In the mean time I realised that that small mistake that I had made half way up the front piece - that I had told myself at the time wasn't too noticeable - was in fact too noticeable, so the first thing I did when the new wool arrived was to start the front piece again from scratch.  I thought about just trying to rip out to the mistake but then trying to figure out what row I was on and decipher my hand written pattern was too hard so I just started it over again.

I then went and ripped out the sleeves back to where I had finished the chestnut colour and re knit those - so basically this jumper was almost entirely knit twice!  The only piece I didn't do twice was the back.

At the bottom of the sleeves and the front and back pieces I added a cuff in the brick stitch using the chestnut colour as the mortar and the peacock blue as the brick.  It just adds a pop of colour to an otherwise plain top,

I sewed up all the seams. Up until now I've hated sewing up knitting, it has never ended up looking good.  But after watching a few youtube tutorials I think I did a pretty good job with this one.  Some of the seams are barely noticeable.

The final step was the collar - to keep in line with the rest of the jumper I ended up doing this twice.  The first time I decreased too much and the neckline ended up being more rounded than I wanted and too tight so I ripped it out and did it again.  This time it's ended up a smidge too loose, but I can live with it for the time being.

The only other thing I wanted to mention was the shaping I did through the front piece.  The back I just added shaping in at the side seams, but for the front I tried adding in darts at the bust line and I was really quite happy with the way this turned out.  It gives a really good fit to the jumper.

When I finished off my jumper I realised that I still had quite a bit of yarn left over so I decided I would make a matching beanie rather than just stashing the small piece of yarn.

I thought about using the brick stitch again but then decided to see what else I could find.  After extensive Ravelry searching I found the Uljan Beanie.  For a change I just followed the pattern exactly as written. I really like the way this turned out.

I STILL had yarn left over so I figured I may as well have a pair of mittens too.  I decided I would use the same stitch pattern as the beanie and just made it up as I went along.  These ended up a smidge tight - I think I pulled the floats a lot tighter knitting these than I did the beanie.  But they still fit.

While there is still (amazingly) a bit of wool left over I've decided to skip the cowl for now!  maybe once I'm no longer totally bored of working with the same color combination I'll go back to it but for now I'll just enjoy my matching jumper beanie and mittens.

Finally a new Bathrobe

The last time I got a new bathrobe was just before my youngest was born.  He's now 9 years old so I think we can safely say that it's about time I had a new one.  I've been planning on making myself one for the last couple of years but never get around to it.

During out first cold snap of the year I decided it was time to stop procrastinating and get on with it.  I had a piece of black fluffy material in my stash that I had mentally assigned to bathrobe  but when I pulled it out I knew at once that there wasn't going to be enough material.

Oh darn now I had to take a trip to the fabric store.   I was hoping that there would be more of the black material but no such luck - so instead I bought 4.5 (or was it 5) yards of red and black buffalo plaid fleece.

 

The pattern that I used for the bathrobe was one I had in stash - Simplicity 1562.  I bought this a while ago and made my Mum a bathrobe for the birthday.  As I found at the time the sizing on this rob is VERY generous. According to my measurements I should have made a size L.  However I made a size S for my Mum and even this was huge, so for my bathrobe I cut the shoulders/neckline/arm hole to a XS extending out to a M under the arms.
It's still huge on me - Whilst I want my bathrobes to be big and fluffy this is just excessive.  3  sizes below where my measurements put me and I still feel like it's swimming on me!

I cut the sleeves to a size M and added about 3 or 4 inches to the length.  When sewing it all together  I turned the end of the sleeve under 4" and then turned back 2" to form a big cuff.  I thought about adding some elastic to the cuffs to keep them snug after reading a review of this pattern where they did this and liking the idea, but for now I'll stick with the cuffs.  I love that these are extra long and my hands can stay warm tucked up inside the sleeves at all times.

When I sewed the bathrobe together I did a mock flat fell on all seams.  sewing the seam with right sides together, trimming down one side of the seam and turning the remaining side over the cut side and stitching down again.  I then trimmed any excess off that seam making a nice neat finish inside.

I also stitched down the facing in the same way.

I cut the bathrobe to the pattern length and then didn't hem it to try and keep as much length as possible for extra snuggliness I like the full ankle length of the final robe.

I also didn't add the tie loops to the side seams as I hate ties that can be removed.  Instead I stitched the tie to the robe at the center back.

The bathrobe has huge patch pockets on the front which I love.  I didn't bother trying to plaid match or anything just popped them on with a double row of stitching.

I'm loving wearing this bathrobe around.  It's so warm and snuggly.  Now I just need a new pair of Ugg boots to go with it.  These one's are over 10 years old and getting a bit threadbare!

Red and Black checked winter dress

OK so this is way over due - I made this back in October last year, but I just wanted to catch up with my blogging.

This dress was created in my quest for that ultimate winter dress.  Something that's warm comfortable and easy to wear.  Did I succeed?  Well.... no.... this dress definitely didn't live up to my expectations, plus I made a really stupid sewing mistake which is really annoying when wearing this.  I'll see if you can notice it!

I started from the point that I wanted a long dress with long sleeves.  I contemplated making another Kielo but decided I wanted something with a fuller skirt.  After sketching out a couple of designs I decided to go with a full length shirt dress with a button band right down the front.  I used the bodice and waistband that I drafted for this interview dress, added the sleeves from my plaid shirt pattern and used whatever fabric I had left over for the skirt.

The bodice and waistband pieces I fully self lined for extra warmth, since I was running low of fabric and wanted enough for a big skirt I went with a black poly fleecy material to underline the sleeves.  I played around with adding a fleece underskirt as well but that was going too far and I ended up taking it out.  I will just have to wear it with leggings to keep the bottom half warm.

The bodice ended up being a bit too big so I  put an extra seam down the center back through both layers of bodice and waistband which is a bit bulky but the best I could come up with without taking the whole thing apart.

Of course I added pockets into the skirt - I had to piece together lots of little pieces to make them but who is ever going to see.

I played around with a number of different skirt styles pleats vs gathers, small pleats vs large pleats and decided on two pleats in front and two in back lined up with the darts in the bodice.

I finished the dress and tried it on for a day and felt - well - frumpy!  everything is just so covered.  It needs a deeper neckline - or a shorter skirt, but either would defeat the purpose I was going for.

I've played around with adding a couple of gathers up the front of the skirt which gives the whole dress a bit of a steampunk vibe which I quite like, but the gathers keep coming out in the wash.

So has anyone spotted the mistake?  Yep somehow I managed to put the placket in the front on one of my sleeves rather than the back.  Still not sure about how I managed that - but oh well.  and since the sleeve is underlined it would be an absolute pain to try and fix - I would have to go out and buy more fabric and start the sleeve again - and I'm just not sure I love this enough to do it!

As it is this dress has been sitting on the end of my bed for a couple of months now.  I don't want to waste precious wardrobe space on it, but I'm not quite ready to toss it either.  I keep thinking maybe I'll chop off the skirt...Maybe one day I'll actually get around to it.  In the mean time maybe I should just start using it for what my husband reckons it is - a bathrobe!

Boot Failure

This is a project that has been stewing in the back of my mind for quite some time, but the Refashioners contest pushed me to try doing it using all refashioned materials. Unfortunately it didn't work out quite as I had hoped but I figured I may as well blog them anyway so that I know what I did for next time.

So my plan was to make a pair of warm snuggly knee high boots - I have a couple of pairs of knee high boots that I love, but generally to get boots to fit around my huge calves they tend to be very wide around the knee - I wanted to try and make a pair of fitted boots that zipped up.

I was browsing my favourite shoe brand the other day Socofy.  I love their shoes but have never bought a pair - the problem being that when I look at their size chart I need a size 5 in length but a 9 in width so I just don't know what to buy.  But anyway I was browsing one day and found this pair of boots that I loved.  So of course I decided I needed to try and made myself something similar.

The black material in these reminded me of a pair of pants that has been sitting in my "to be refashioned" bin for a while.

These black and white paisley corduroy pants.  I loved these pants but the material did not stand up to the everyday wear that they were subjected to and I ended up with a great big hole in the seat of the pants.  I tried patching it, but once it ripped a second time I gave up......  But now I could see them being reborn as a pair of knee high boots!

I would have loved to been able to find some red leather to really emulate my inspiration pair, but that was not to be, so instead - for the leather portions - I used leather (or fake leather as the case may be) reclaimed from a pair of  old knee high boots, these were cheap and after a couple of wears the heel collapsed and they were so uncomfortable to wear.

A couple of years ago I took one of them apart with the plan to remake them but never got around to it.  So the good news is I was finally able to put them to good use.

I used the studded portion from the knee as the front part of my boot and the "leather" from the leg as the heel.  I was then able to get the little bits I wanted for the top of the boot out of the scraps I had left over.

The zippers for the boots I salvaged off an old suitcase that I was throwing out.

To make the boots really cozy and warm I lined the insides with some black fuzzy material that I had left over from making myself a cardigan.

I used a small piece of the leather as the undersole but I'm not sure it this was the best idea as when I went to glue on the actual sole I had a big problem getting the bottom of the shoe to sit flat against the sole and as such I've ended up with some big unsightly gaps around the sole where you can see the glue which I'm really not happy with,

I also find that despite making the ankle as tight as I could I still get sagging and rumpling around the ankle.  I'm still not sure what I can do about that.

I'm not totally in love with these boots.  There's something about the way the front of the boot sits that just isn't quite right - and I'm still not convinced that I didn't use the left front piece on the right boot and vice versa - it would explain a lot.

So I'm going to wear these for a while and see how they go and then I may have to try again.  I'm a bit sad that I've wasted this beautiful material but maybe I can salvage it if I can ever get the pattern to work properly.

The Refashioners 2018 - Inspired By Part 2

As I alluded to in my last post I have made a second entry into the The Refashioners - Inspired By contest .  Whilst browsing through the local thrift shop I found this beautiful purple plaid shirt.

If it had been just a smidge larger I could have worn it as is, but unfortunately no - or maybe fortunately because I love this shirts second lease on life.

Once I ruled out using the purple plaid with the green plaid in my previous refashion (I still think that could have been a great pairing)  I knew that I wanted to use this fabric to make myself a new bra.   Something like this!

Inspiration photo

But I wanted to make it 100% out of upcycled clothes.  To that end I needed a some bras to cannibilise.

Luckily I have lots of those.

This old sports bra had been consigned to the recycle bin as it didn't provide anywhere near enough support for actual exercise and it would never get worn day to day is it gives me a serious monoboob.  So I took it apart and reused the black elastic around the bottom and the hook and eyes.

This is a totally unworn bra - I bought it cheap but it just didn't fit so never got worn. I've used bits and pieces of it before.  For this project I used the underwire channeling, the pink lace off the cups, the power mesh from the back band and the pink elastic  from the sides, plus the little bow.

Finally an old swimsuit bottom.  I bought this because I loved the fabric at the front, but the bottoms were always too big and the tops too small so I never got to wear them.  I finally decided I never will, so I  used the plain white spandex from the back of the bottoms to make the back band portion of the bra.

I also had to use another hook and eye from my stash taken off old bras as two hooks (from the first bra) doesn't provide enough support for me.  I prefer 3 but since they are hard to come by in cheap bras I usually just use two twos together.

I used the same pattern that I've been working on here, lining the cups with the purple plaid as well.  I didn't bother with underwires as they just aren't comfortable.  The straps have no elastic in them as I find that this makes them more supportive.  I did however use a small piece on interfacing in the straps to give them more structure - the only new materials in the whole thing.

Once the bra was made I knew I wanted to make a matching set of undies.  I wasn't quite sure how the non stretch flannel would work for undies, but it turns out they're surprisingly comfortable.

I had to add in extra panels in the side to account for the lack of stretch - and added some length to the pattern for the same reason.  As I was working from scraps I needed to put a seam down the center of the entire thing.  I used some more of the white spandex from the bikini bottoms to line the crotch but I didn't have enough reclaimed elastic so all the elastic and the black knit fabric used for the waist and leg bands are from stash.

 I'm really quite happy with my new bra and pants set.  Probably not something to wear in the middle of summer but I'm looking forward to wearing them through winter!.

The Refashioners 2018 - Inspired By

Once again it's time for the Refashioner's Contest, hosted by Portia Lawrie over on Makery.co.uk.  This years theme is "Inspired By".  From the blog the idea is:

Start with an image that inspires you. An outfit or garment that you covet. A style icon that you admire. A look that you want to recreate.  Find your inspiration….Then we want you to go ahead and recreate it!! The only caveat is…..you can ONLY use existing, unloved garments to do so. These can be from charity shops, from your own wardrobe, or even your old me mades that you don’t wear anymore. The key here, is to demonstrate, that whatever your heart desires, there is a way to achieve that by reusing unwanted garments IF you get creative.

Of course the first thing I did was spend hours in the internet browsing for inspiration.  I'm not the sort of person who gets inspired by designers or fashion - mainly because I never really see it.  So I had to go looking to see what is out there.  I found a number of different inspirations, things that I thought I could do with the right fabric, but then when I finally got out to the thrift shops it was only to find that there was nothing useful there - nothing that I could use to make these pieces.  

In the end I came home from my shopping expedition with just three items.  

1..  A green plaid women's jacket, Size 2 which then shrunk when I washed it (no way am I using anything from a thrift shop without washing it first) so not a lot of fabric to work with there.  The fabric is 100% wool and feels beautiful - I just wish there was more of it!

2..  A blue and black wool checkered womens jacket - A size 6 this time so again not a lot of fabric, but it is 100% wool.'

Showing the texture of the blue/black jacket

And 3..  a purple plaid flannel womens shirt.

The next thing to do was find inspiration for what these articles could become.  I started searching with just the word plaid.  Because I had so little fabric I latched onto the idea of making a plaid corset.  I knew it was unlikely I'd ever wear it but it would still be cool - and then I ran across these images.  

A plaid motorcycle jacket.  I loved it and I figured if I combined both of my jackets I should have enough material to do something similar to this with the side panels and under arm panels in a contrasting colour like this.

Since I had such a small amount of fabric to work with I wanted to salvage as much as possible so I got my unpicker out and spent a good couple of hours taking everything apart at the seams.  

For a pattern I went back to the Burda Larissa.  I used this pattern last winter to make this wearable muslin and then modified it to make this jacket.

The back piece I was able to cut directly out of the back of the original plaid jacket (extending into some of the front piece to get the width required).   The main sleeve piece took up the entire sleeve of the plaid jacket and then I used the blue/black sleeve to cut out the back/under side of the new sleeve.  

The side panels were cut out of the back/sides of the blue/black fabric.  

The right side front piece was able to fit on the remaining front of the plaid jacket but to get the material I needed for the left front piece I had to open out the facing of the original jacket.  Unfortunately when they made the jacket they didn't bother to plaid match the facing piece so there is now some terrible plaid matching right down the front of my new coat.  I'm a bit sad about that but I didn't really have any other choice - there was no remaining fabric to re-cut it and even if there was getting it to line up would have been highly unlikely.  As it was I had to take out the existing pockets and sew the original cuts closed - it's not the most beautiful finish but it's not TOO noticeable.

The remainder of the sleeve and the front pieces of the blue/black jacket were used to piece together the underlap and facing for the front of the new jacket.

I took all the shoulder pads and sleeve heads out of the original jackets.  I reused one set of sleeve heads when I installed the new sleeve, but chucked both sets of huge shoulder pads!

The only place where I used some new materials in this coat was my thread and some interfacing when inserting the two main pocket zippers as seen above.

I looked at making a collar out of the blue/black fabric but couldn't find any pieces big enough - then I picked up the button band from the plaid jacket and figured that I could use that as a mandarin collar.  I really like the way this turned out!

I also used the original back facing piece from the plaid jacket  as I didn't change the back neck curve.  I suppose I should take out the original label at some stage.

As for the lining - I used the green lining  from the plaid jacket for the back, sides and some of the front -wrapped it around as far as it would go and cut out the new arm hole. I then just filled in the remaining sections between the green lining and the facing with some of the black lining from the blue/black jacket.  

The sleeves were done as per the main coat - green for the main section with black on the back/under side.  

The lining was bagged and almost the same length as the coat - The coat is very short and I didn't want to lose any length turning the hem so the the lining goes right to the bottom of the coat.

In the end all the remained of the two coats was a bunch of tiny little scraps.

I knew from the start that I wanted a number of zippers in this coat as per my inspiration photo.  I went through my stash of reclaimed zippers and found one that was a great colour match - I beautiful green that almost matches the green in the plaid.  It was pretty short since it came off a hoodie that my daughter wore at about age 4.  But it was long enough for the main zip as far as I was concerned.  

However I couldn't find anything that would work for the pocket zippers.  So headed to the local charity shop, they don't sell any clothes, but they did have a couple of purses.  I found one that had two great bright silver zippers on the front plus two other black zippers and figured that that would be perfect. 

I took the bag apart entirely - I'll keep that cool sparkly fabric - I'm thinking that'd make great shoes at some stage.  But for now I just needed the zippers.

I put the two sparkly silver zips in at an angle for pockets.

The angle on these zippers is not the best for comfortably resting your hands, but it was the best look visually and they are functional.

The other two zippers from the bag were installed at the same angle over the left side of my chest.  There is only one pocket bag for the two chest zippers - but both zippers do work - they just both open onto the same pocket bag.

All the pocket bags were made using left over lining fabric.

The buckle and the magnetic snap at the top of the main zipper were salvaged from an old handbag that my best friend was throwing out.

The magnetic snap was added at the end when I realised I needed some sort of closure at the top of zipper.  I'd already enclosed all seams at that point so to install the snap I cut a round piece of leather with the snap still attached and sewed the whole circle onto my coat - I'm quite happy with how this looks.

I made the shoulder tabs and the lower band tab out of scraps of the plaid fabric backed with some of the black lining material.

The sleeves were too short at their original length so I used the pocket flap pieces all unpicked to extend the length of the sleeve.  I then took the original mandarin collar from the plaid jacket and used it to gather the extra width at the bottom of the sleeve.

I really like my finished jacket.  It's not the most beautifully finished of garments, but's it's amazing what you can do with a couple of left overs.

Not a bad match to my inspiration!

Stay tuned to find out what I do with the purple plaid - I have a plan - just need to see if I can make it work!