LLADYBIRD

Well I’ll Be Damned – It’s A Sleeve!

Well, what ya look at that?

My sweater has a sleeve!

Sleeves are awesome!

I think it’s safe to say I’ve got a pretty good handle on knitting in the round. I still have some areas I would like to improve – namely, pulling the yarn between the needles (I’m still getting little gaps occasionally), but I feel pretty good about my progress. And hey, a sleeve came out of it! Short rows, knitting in the round, lacework… and all!

It is a little tight, but not uncomfortably tight (I can still easily fit my hand between my arm & the sleeve). I’m not one to wear long sleeves (other than sweaters and hoodies), so I’m not too concerned about layers. And I haven’t blocked it yet, obviously, so I may be able to squeeze a little more room out of it.

I love the lacework & the decreasing at the elbow.

There are some boo-boos, though 😦

But you know what? I think it’s pretty good for a first try! I’m trying not to think about the fact that now I have to knit the OTHER sleeve lol. At least I can get more practice out of it, I guess 😉

SLEEVE.

As a side note, here is my next sewing project:

It doesn’t look like much, but there are actually 10 darts in that thing… and I haven’t even started the skirt yet. Eep.

Tags: Agatha sweater, hot damn this is my jam, knit-along, knitting, work in progress

Comments 31 Comments
Categories crafty things that are not sewing, work in progress

Completed: Colette Parfait

27 Mar

Damn, y’all. I know I was all pumped about getting my Spring & Summer wardrobe‘s ass whipped into shape, but I didn’t realize I was going to rip through it so fast. WOE IS ME, WHAT IF I RUN OUT OF FABRIC.

Anyway, I made a Parfait! And this fabric… it might even be more delicious than it’s namesake (I know!). I bought 2 yards of this stuff… 4 years ago, I think? I had plans for some shitty sundress, but thankfully went into hoarder mode & it’s sat on my shelf since. It is the most amazing, soft, silky cotton voile I have EVER put my hands on… seriously wish I could cut a little swatch to mail to all of you. It feels sooooo good! And I’m not even a “purple” person (although, for some reason, everyone else seems to think I am. Must be my dark hair?), but I just love the purples & greys in this fabric. Love love love.

I’ve actually made this pattern up before – here’s the Craftster link. This time ’round, I size down to a 2 and omitted the pockets and facings. The top & midriff are lined with a lovely white batiste. I was afraid the skirt was going to be too sheer to wear without a slip (or underlining), but guess what – I have on TURQUOISE underwear in these pictures and ho ho ho I don’t see them at all! I will, however, approach direct sunlight with many precautions.

I don’t have much else to say about this pattern except pay attention to that cutting layout! The majority of those pieces are cut on the fold. I think the fabric requirements are pretty generous, though – I still have nearly 3/4 yard of this voile left. Although I didn’t cut the facings, I don’t think they really take up that much fabric, you know? 🙂

Check out this picture of me – I look pissed lololololol. Honestly, I was just testing the camera to make sure everything was centered and the light was good. But I crack up every time I look at it so I’m going to share my mean mug with the rest of the world. THERE YA GO.

If the left side of my back looks weird, it’s because I photoshopped my (turquoise)bra strap out. Photoshop is so magical, y’all.

I love the button straps, but now I’m wondering if I should have sewn the buttons on with black thread instead.

The under-buttons are clear – why waste a pretty button that won’t be seen??

Bastiste lining 🙂

On a side note, does anyone know how to determine if a fabric is lining fabric or not?

I bought this stuff at an antique mall over the weekend – dots! So fun! But this fabric is totally stumping me! It’s not super slippery like traditional lining fabric, although the sheerness makes me pause (seems too sheer to be apparel fabric). The part that confuses me is that it’s textured. Does lining fabric ever have texture?
FWIW, the fabric is 100% poly. I bought it because it was $1 and, eh, I can use it either or. I guess it doesn’t really matter, but I just think it looks really obvious and kind of tacky when people use lining fabric as apparel fabric. So I don’t want to make that mistake! Thoughts?

Anyway, enough of that blabber. Summmmmmmmer!

Tags: completed, dress, parfait, spring/summer 2012

Comments 62 Comments
Categories completed projects - new

Completed: Embroidered Silk Shell Top

22 Mar

And another one down!

I don’t remember if I mentioned this or not, but I picked up this silk turquoise skirt at my favorite thrift store about a month ago – at half off, it was $2. And it was plus size, and long, which meant lots of fabric for me to play with. Silk for $2? I’ll take it! I was able to salvage some giant pieces of fabric, plus the lining. And the zipper, for about 5 minutes (until I forgot that there wasn’t a zipper stop and I immediately pulled the zipper off the teeth. DERP.). I know the tag says ‘dry clean only,’ but I washed a little swatch of the fabric in the sink & it didn’t seem to be an issue at all – no water spotting, no weird shrinkage. Anyway, I had enough fabric to make the little top in Simplicity 4400 (which, I might point out, is the very first vintage pattern I ever bought – at the same thrift store, no less!). I was even able to finagle the pieces so that I kept the original skirt hem intact. Yeah!

A word about this pattern (and every other vintage pattern I’ve ever sewn up) – there is still ease in vintage patterns. Lot and lots of ease. Notice the size on that pattern is for a 32″ bust? My bust is actually 36″ – and the top fits me perfectly. I have noticed this a lot with vintage patterns, so do what you will & make a muslin (or tissue fit, like lazy me :3).

To keep this top from being *too* simple, I embroidered a rose by the right shoulder:

I got the design from Hoop Love Vintage Transfers on Flickr – a GREAT embroidery pattern resource! To transfer the design, I laid it over a sheet of wax transfer paper and traced with a pencil. The stitches here are split stitch (on the rose) and back stitch (on the leaves & stems). Oh, and if you are apt to try this – make sure you staystitch those curved seams before you start! It’ll keep them from stretching out with all that extra handling 🙂 I probably should have serged my edges too, since this silk frays like nobodies business, but you know me… livin’ on the edge & shit.

As a side note, can we discuss these wtf directions?

I’ve never seen this before – it’s a dart, but without the dart legs. I have to make my own dart legs. How intriguing!

Ok, anyway, back to my top.

Construction was fairly simple & straight forward. I opted to hand-pick a center zipper (instead of the machine-stitched lapped zip in the directions) and did not topstitch the facings, as I wanted the top to be simple so the focus would be on that embroidery. The top sewn as-is ended up being too billowy for my tastes, so I added vertical darts below the bust for a little shape. I originally planned to wear it tucked but I think I prefer it untucked now! Unfortunately, the arm holes are a little on the tight side but, eh, I think I can deal.

(huh, I really need to re-press those dart tips!)

BONUS: Tucked!

Hand picked zipper – I got a little obsessive & tried to match the stitches up on both sides hahaha

Remember when I said I broke the zipper that came with the skirt? Well I found this one in my stash – and it matches perfectly! Talk about a happy accident!

Pretty pleased with this little top – I think I’ll get a lot of wear out of it this summer. The silk is so deliciously soft, and I just love the color!

Tags: completed, embroidery, reconstructions, silkkk, simplicity, top

Comments 52 Comments
Categories completed projects - reconstructed

Completed: Simplicity 8345; the Daisy Sundress

20 Mar

Hi everyone! Apologies for my bout of silence all week – I found myself feeling ill early in the week, and regulated myself to crafts that involved sitting on the couch with little to no concentration (paint-by-numbers, if you’re curious. HOLY SHIT I love those things!). Despite my best efforts, I spent the entire weekend sick 😦 I did drag myself out of bed long enough to catch as estate sale on the other side of town:

$5.50 for the whole box! There’s about 2 yards of fabric in there (it’s very sheer – almost like cheesecloth – so it’ll need to be underlined), plus the book has lots of sewing-related newspaper clippings 🙂 The house was totally awesome – unchanged since 1961. Beautiful pink bathroom, original kitchen appliances, knotty pine dining room, and orange & green shag carpet!

Anyway, THAT took all my energy – seriously! I got home, crawled into bed, and slept for the rest of the weekend. Being sick sucks, yo.

Then I woke up on Monday morning with a migraine. LOVELY. So I called out of work, slept the migraine off, and tried to make some use of my day later in the afternoon.

So here’s my meager project after a weekend of sick – the daisy sundress!

Also totally approps for the first day of spring, amirite? 🙂

I used Simplicity 8345, a simple sundress with princess seams & a scalloped neckline. This dress was seriously easy to sew up, albeit with a strange order of assembly – you put in the zipper first, then sew the shoulder seams, then insert the neckline facing, then sew the side seams together, then put the sleeves on the side seams, then sew that whole mess to the front/back mess. Kind of interesting!

I did make a few small changes – my first princess-seamed FBA, which was sort of a disaster. Oops. Blame it on poor ol’ sick me 😦 Everything fits fine, but I should have divided my addition of width to both the front & side front panels, not just the side front. My seams are WAY too front & center, and I feel this dress now has the magical ability to make me look both flat-chested & wide on top. Oh well, live & learn I guess. lol.

I also sewed my sleeves up a little differently – they are supposed to be faced. LOLWUT. Who faces sleeves in a sundress? Well, I’m sure people do, but not me! I just hemmed them as normal and omitted the facings. Boring facings! The sleeves are a little tight, I might add. Not a lot of room for movement there, oh well.

I also cut like 6″ off the hem. Knee-length, my ass!

I do like the scalloped neckline. So pretty!

Wanna know the best part about this dress?

The fabric was a BEDSHEET! trololololol

I didn’t have a matching zipper, so I used dark green. Again – stash-bustin’ 😀

I guess there’s not much else to say about this. It’s a sundress. I’ll wear it in the sun. Or something.

And look – spring is already making an early start here in Tennessee 🙂 SO GREEN. SO BLOOMY.

Happy first day of spring, y’all!

Tags: completed, daisy sundress, dress, simplicity

Comments 31 Comments
Categories completed projects - new

Completed: Cheetah (mock)Wrap Dress

13 Mar

TIME FOR A CONFESSION.

The Leopard Wrap Dress? Well, first of all – it’s cheetah, not leopard. Oops! I still like the fabric, though! 🙂 Secondly, it would appear that my wrap dress is actually a mock wrap dress – double oops! And wouldn’t you know, I didn’t even realize it until I got about halfway through the directions and saw that there was a zipper in there. Yep, even with cutting the pattern, I did not figure out that this wasn’t a true wrap dress! Oh well, I find wrap dresses kind of hard to keep closed, especially with slinky fabric like this – so let’s consider this a blessing in disguise 🙂

That being said, check out my cheetah print mock wrap dress, guys!

I used Simplicity 6268, which I can’t seem to find anywhere on the internet, sry2say. I picked this up a couple of years ago at the flea market – in a bag full of sewing supplies for something like $5. The fabric was given to me by my best friend – her grandmother was cleaning out her sewing room so I ended up with a LOT of this fabric (5 1/4 yards, if you’re curious. And yes, I have leftovers! Lots of leftovers!). It’s not something I would typically buy for myself, as it’s some class of poly and pretty drapey, but I LOVE how the finished dress turned out and it seriously does not wrinkle at ALL. I think this dress would be great for traveling – very wash & wear!

Since my pattern is for a 33.5″ bust, I was afraid I’d have to do some adjusting, but a quick tissue fit showed that everything fit fairly well. I’ve noticed a lot of patterns put extra (excess) ease in their garments – which is awesome for me, because that means I get to snap up all those cute little 32″ bust patterns and they fit fine! HA HA! Like I said, this one fit with no alterations, other than the length. See how short the skirt is? This is after I added 1.5″ to the hem & I used a 5/8″ hem (instead of the suggested 1.5″ hem). This baby was supposed to be SHORT! I don’t mind short, usually, but not with a flowy dress. Especially not a dress I plan on wearing to work. So, if you get this pattern, consider the length.

On a side note, I just have to share this because I felt pretty freaking brilliant:

I ran out of tape, so I sewed the tissue pieces together! I got the idea from Liz haha. And no, I still haven’t bought more tape. Need to get on that.

The tie belt is actually supposed to be sewn to the sides & tie at the back – I ended up sewing my pieces together to make a long belt, and it is not attached to the dress. I think tying it in the front makes it look more like a wrap dress, plus now I can wear different belts if I feel so inclined 🙂 I think cheetah (and leopard!) go with all kinds of colors, so it makes the dress much more versatile.

And can I just point out that I took these pictures after I got home from work – at 5:30! Daylight Savings, I looove you! Plz to stay with me forever, thnx.

I just love the shape… I think it is super flattering. I want to make more of these!

See? The zipper 🙂

The zipper also came from my stash – I think I ripped it out of something I used for the fabric. So basically, this dress was free. Yay free dresses!

I love the little tulip sleeves.

I did end up putting a small snap at the overlap on the bodice, for a little extra modesty. The dress is not immodest by any means – I don’t think the lack of snap would cause a wardrobe malfunction or anything – but the extra security is nice. You know, so I can splay myself across the couch & eat Italian Ice & not worry about the girls getting a sneak peak. Not that I was doing that last night or anything.

Also, it was WINDY outside yesterday! See? WINDY!

So happy with my new dress, even if it’s not really cheetah or a wrap 🙂

Tags: cheetah dress, completed, dress, simplicity

Comments 53 Comments
Categories completed projects - new

Completed: Colette Pastille

12 Mar

Well you guys, I defeated the Pastille pattern! Wheeeee me!

I actually feel pretty good about this dress – I wasn’t totally crazy about it when I saw the pictures in the book (I think the coral color of the fabric – while lovely, just looks waay too much like the model’s skin. It would have been better suited for a lady with a darker complexion), but I think that the overall shape, if properly fitted, is actually quite flattering. And while it really lends itself well to a print, I think it would make a sweet little basic black dress, since the shape is unique enough in itself 🙂

Fitting… fitting this thing was weird. I already glossed over the process in my last Pastille post, but to summarize – while I pretty much *always* need a FBA, this pattern did not require one (didn’t figure that out until after I’d cut & taped all over the tissue though, arhghhghh!!). Actually, the finished measurements were just wrong – I cut a size 2 and the bust measurement was much closer to 36″, not the 34.5″ the book says. Consider yourselves warned!
The next fitting problem I had was with that damn back… I didn’t take any pictures of my muslin, but it billowed out all over the place across the upper back. I mean, it plain made me look like I had a hunchback. I eventually concluded that the upper back was longer than the front, so I did a 3/4″ swayback adjustment at the lengthen line that tapered to nothing at the side seams. That pretty much fixed it!

The rest of the dress fit fine with no other adjustments.

I actually tried to make this dress without the facings for my first go-round, but those sleeves are way too curved to handle bias tape. So back to facings (although mine are interfaced with cotton muslin, not fusible interfacing). I tacked them down as best I could since they like to pop out; sewing the trim at the neckline also helped. Rather than do fancy finishing work on the inside, I opted to finish the raw edges with a simple serged seam. I wanted the making of this dress to be quick & painless!

There *are* pleats at the bottom of the dress… I think doing those took the longest! I followed the handbook directions & thread traced all the lines, using different colors of thread for the various fold lines. It worked beautifully, but pulling out aaaaaall those threads was a pain in the ASS. No tips for making it go smoother (I don’t regret thread-tracing; it really did make lining up those pleats a breeze), just be prepared to spend some quality time with your seam ripper 🙂

You can’t tell due to my super duper busy printed fabric, but all the darts & seams actually line up perfectly. Just trust me on this one 🙂

I also would like to point out that my hair needs a dye job something fierce (I actually had a hairstylist examine my roots the other day & declare that I’m naturally dishwater blonde – which blew my fucking mind. I’ve always been a brunette, wtf?!). If you’re thinking, “Whatever, your roots don’t look bad!” that’s because I ‘shopped the shit out of them teehee 🙂

The dress looks best with a belt, in my opinion. Wish I had a yellow belt, but the one I have on hand is too neon yellow for this print & the thrift gods have been ignoring me lately in the belt department.

The hem ended up being way too long for me, and I’d already sewn in the pleats, so I just flipped up the bottom of the hem & sewed it to the inside. This is why my pleats are at the very bottom of my dress. I think it worked out fine!

I am really proud of how my zipper turned out! Basically perfect!

This whole dress was a great/cheap stash bust. Feels good to cull that shit down! I didn’t have *quite* a long enough zipper (I think mine was 20″ instead of 24″ or something), so I have to pull the dress over my head to get it on hahaha. Oh well!

So what do you think? Pastille – yay or nay?

Tags: colette sewing handbook, completed, dress, Pastille

Comments 76 Comments
Categories completed projects - new

Planning Ahead: Spring/Summer 2012

9 Mar

I actually was not planning on making one of these posts – considering I have a sweet swatch/planning board – but I’ve been admiring all the pretty planning posts across the web (I’m looking at you specifically, Sallieoh!) and what can I say, I got inspired.

I’ve already started pushing out some Spring/Summer pieces – here’s a collage I made for visual demonstration:

(lol like those jeans are gonna be worn at ALL come the heat/humidity. I can pretend!)

I need more, though!

So I scored my fabric and patterns – and may I point out here that it is lovely to have all this stuff uploaded into one place! – and spent an embarrassingly long time putting together pretty little collages. Because Sallieoh can’t have all the pretty, dammit.

Fancy dresses:

I bought the course, I have (most of) the materials – I need a Bombshell dress! I’m thinking birthday dress 🙂 I originally planned on making this with that beautiful silk Shantung you see in the corner, but I am also really inspired at the idea of it in this pretty tropical cotton.
Side question: my local fabric store doesn’t carry spiral steel boning 😦 Where do y’all source yours? Specifically, where can I buy this stuff and NOT pay $6+ shipping? Shipping ripper-offers! BLECH.

Don’t look at her arm; I know it’s creepy but I didn’t know what else to do with it.

Bottoms:

Plaid high-waisted capris – I think I have enough of this plaid (I hope!). Mine will be shorter, more like pedal pushers. I want to put welt pockets in the back as well.

Plaid shorts! Mine will be shorter than this, I just liked the pose of the leg-person-thing.

Tops:

I plan on making quite a few of these! I love this pattern, it uses very little fabric & it’s so flattering on 🙂

Sundresses:

(this one will need to be underlined; it is pretty sheer)

A shirtdress in southwestern cotton (everyone I’ve shown this fabric to thinks it is fug. Too bad!)

I got caught up in the spirit of the post & made a little image for my upcoming Pastille too 🙂
Oh, and speaking of the Pastille – I got the zipper in last night, and the fit is surprisingly awesome. I think it looks pretty flattering (so far – I still need to hem it!) and would translate nicely as a simple black dress. Something to ponder. Hopefully I will have pictures to share soon!

Looking at these pictures really makes me pumped for my next season of sewing! I know this is a lot to take on, and I’m not going to worry if they aren’t all completed by the time the weather turns cool again. This is also going to kill most of my stash – which is awesome, because I need to cull it down a lot 🙂

What do y’all have planned for your upcoming seasonal sewing?

Tags: Pastille, planning, spring/summer 2012

Comments 34 Comments
Categories work in progress

Creative Mush

8 Mar

It would seem that I am not the only one in the massive sewing blogosphere who has had a serious drop in sewing mojo recently. This happens to me from time to time, and I can’t help but get angry when I realize I’ve spent the past 3 nights vegging out on my couch instead of working on awesome crafty things. Not even knitting! MEH!

Part of what caused this standstill is my current work on the Pastille dress from the Colette Sewing Handbook. I swear this stupid dress has given me nothing but a headache (and thinning hair from where I pulled the rest of it out in total frustration). For starters, I cut my pattern out in a size 2 and added my normal FBA since the bust size for the 2 is only 34.5″, and my measurements are a couple inches bigger than that. Lo & behind, when I made up my first muslin… the bust was too big. I ended up not needing a FBA at all! WTF? I actually did recheck my measurements, and indeed my bust has not shrank down to a 34.5″ so I’m assuming there is a misprint with the finished measurements. By the way, do you know how hard it is to correct a FBA back to flat when you’ve already hacked & taped the pattern pieces (no, I don’t trace – but maybe I should start! It’s a SIGN)? I mean, assuming you’re one of those weirdos (aka: me) who would rather pull the tape off & try to smush everything back together instead of just putting the scissors to it again.

Anyway, muslin #2 revealed that this pattern gives me a swayback. WTF v2.0? I don’t have a swayback and I feel like I would have noticed this prior – especially considering the Quasimodo-proportions I got in my muslin. Unfgh. Upon lurking the site forum, this is not unusual for this pattern (before anyone gets terrified & swears off sewing the Pastille, let me point out that I’ve seen many of these dresses made up and most people did not seem to experience the weird swayback – I think it’s just the way some women’s bodies are shaped. Boo that it had to be mine!). My adjustment was very simple – I cut horizontal line through the back piece, at the ‘lengthen or shorten here’ line, and overlapped the pieces at an angle so they were 3/4″ at the center back, tapering to nothing at the side seams. I made one more muslin and the problem appears to be fixed. Fingers crossed.

I am making the dress up in this sweet little printed fabric – it’s a lovely cotton/rayon blend, and the print reminds me of a feedsack. Not entirely my style, but hey, I’m open to branching out! I like the tiny yellow flowers. I’m really into yellow right now, if you can’t tell.

I made a big mess of self-bias tape and initially planned on finishing the sleeves & neckline with that instead of facings. Folks… I don’t think this pattern can be faced with bias tape. There are too many curvy lines for the tape to lay properly flat. Believe me, I tried. But hey, on the bright side – I have lots of pretty bias tape for some other project! Haha!

So now we’re at the point where I haven’t touched the damn thing since Monday. To be frank, I haven’t even walked into my sewing room since Monday. When I get too frustrated, it’s better for me to dump everything in a pile & just ignore it for a few days until the steam lets off. That, or hide it in the UFO box 🙂 I kid, I kid!

On the knitting front, I had a bit of turmoil when I finally started my sweater sleeves. I think this is the part of the pattern that the writer was referring to when she called this an intermediate to advanced knit – that shit is hard! Talk about total concentration! Not only am I knitting in the round (which, despite a few cozies, is still a relatively new skill for me), I have to follow a lace pattern *and* I’m working a bunch of short rows. And then the instructions dropped and just told me to “continue working short rows until you reach the marker,” meaning I have to either count or actually recognize what a short row looks like. Nope, no ma’am!

It’s times like these when I’m glad I have Mika to save my desperate ass every time I reach a confusing point in the pattern & suddenly turn stupid. Poor girl has gotten a lot of frantic emails from me, but she’s been super super helpful & I definitely would not have made it past the swatch stage without her guidance.

Anyway, sewing & knitting frustrations aside, I made an apple cozy over the weekend:

It is completely unnecessary & ridiculous, so obviously I love it a lot.

Who else is having a bummer of a week? Alternatively, who is having a GREAT week & would like to rub it in?

Tags: Agatha sweater, apple cozy, colette sewing handbook, knitting, lost my mojo, Pastille

Comments 46 Comments
Categories work in progress

Completed: Colette Clovers – The Denim Version

2 Mar

Ok, ok – ONE more jab at this pattern! Who is sick of looking at my butt in Clovers yet? 🙂 Technically, I guess, these are the finished version of my polyester wearable muslin, so do they really count?

I bought this denim right before I swore off new fabric purchases until further notice. It’s a great denim – a nice dark wash, a good sturdy weight, and it has a slight stretch factor which makes them perfect for these jeans. I originally intended on make another pair of wide legged trousers with this fabric, but after lurking the shit out of Sallieoh’s Clover makeover, I decided to go with Clover jeans, with little flare legs. Hence, the polyester muslin.

So here’s the real deal!
(I’m sorry these pictures are bad – we are expecting lots of tornadoes today & it was straight up HAILING last night so I’m actually surprised I was able to catch enough sunlight to shoot these this morning)

I’m not going to hash out every single change I made to the pattern – you can check out my other version if you are just dying for the nitty-gritty, but I will share some additional changes I made with this pair. Here’s a list.
– I cut extra seam allowances on all the pieces since my denim wasn’t as stretchy as my poly. This was a MISTAKE. The pants ended up being way too big & I had to cut out all my seam allowances (and then some!) to get a nice fit. Whoops.
– I wanted to try out flat fell seams on the inside legs, but I cut too much SA off (this was after taking out something insane like 1″ of excess, see above), so I didn’t have enough denim to fold over. What you see are mock flat fell seams. Sorry!
– I stabilized the pockets with this awesome trim I found at the flea market – it’s measuring tape! Eeeheheee! I thought they might need some help to keep from stretching out, plus, it looks fun on the inside! The front pocket piece is red cotton, just to keep things from getting too bulky.
– I’m not terribly happy with the waistband – it digs kind of weird, there is some strange twisting going on on one side, and it was kind of tight so the button was pushed way over to the side (instead of in the center, where it belongs). And there is some kind of weird gap thing over the center back – does anyone know what that’s all about? I guess I needed to taper the waistband with a seam, idk. I don’t get plumber’s crack when I bend over, but I think it looks pretty bad. I may end up ripping out the waistband and starting over.
– There is a lot of topstitching on these pants! I used jeans topstitching thread with a more lightweight blue denim thread in the bobbin. My sewing machine was PISSED during some of those layers, gawd. I was able to struggle through, but now I’m wondering how some people with those little cheap hobby machines manage to churn out jeans. My machine is pretty heavy-duty and even with a denim needle it had some trouble, especially on the belt loops. Lots of cranking the handwheel on my end.
– I like how my belt loops turned out. I do not like that they aren’t evenly spaced at all! Haha! Oh well!

I think that’s it. Let’s look at some pictures instead!

Sorry you can’t see the hem in these!

I decided against doing the traditional topstitching in the back since I was not adding back pockets or a yoke. I know jeans are supposed to have the crotch seam flat felled & topstitched, but the idea of having a line of gold stitching running straight up the middle of my butt (with no other stitching going on back there) weirded me out way too much. So they’re simple from the behind!

See what I mean about the button? Haha I’m so embarrassed! I really should re-do that waistband… but honestly, I probably won’t. I mean, let’s keep it real here.

Pockets!

All that topstiching paid off – I think they look good!

Oh, and I finished my coffee cozy last night! It ended up being a really easy/quick knit, so I stayed up a little later than I should have, just so I could put it on my to-go cup this morning 🙂

(before you say anything… yep, that’s a Hello Kitty toaster. I got it for Christmas like 10 years ago hahah)
If you want to see the pattern/details, it’s all on my Ravelry page!

Ughff I think I’m finally done with this pattern. Seven Clovers (including a few failed muslins) is enough for anyone, I’d say!

Still… I made jeans!

Tags: clover, completed, cozies for everything, denim, knitting, pants

Comments 41 Comments
Categories completed projects - new, crafty things that are not sewing

We’ve Officially Reached Sweater Vest Territory!

1 Mar

First of all, I want to thank y’all for all your amazing comments on my gingham Peony post. I basically spent the entire day (and the next day, and the next day), blushing like a little kid. I also got pinned all over Pinterest which was kind of exciting all on it’s own. You are all so sweet! Way to make a girl feel like a sewing champion lol 🙂

Today, we are going to discuss knitting. I have sweater progress to share! This is a big deal~

SERIOUSLY OMG EXCITING

I am SO EXCITED that this little shit actually fits me! I mean, obviously it should – I made soo many gauge swatches haha. But I was still pretty apprehensive – there is about 2″-3″ of negative ease, so pre-blocked (this is still pre-blocked, fyi), it’s pretty tiny. I was afraid to try and pull it on while it was still on the needles (and too scared to pull it off the needles onto scrap yarn), so I waited until I finished the ribbing. It fits! It fits!

Look at how cool the side decreasing is!

The back looks good too! I could have bound off a little more loosely, but oh well!

I hope my excitement is just radiating out of this post.

One more sweater picture! All that is left is the sleeves & the ribbing around the neck and where the buttons go. And then blocking, of course.

The sleeves are knit in the round. For those of you who are newbies to my corner of the internet, I only learned how to knit over Thanksgiving… and upon starting this sweater, hadn’t quite mastered knitting in the round (or even attempted it, to be honest). I made an executive decision that I would finish the sweater up to the sleeves, and then figure out this multiple needle shit (I know, I know, “magic loop” or whatever, but I want to try double pointed needles first!). I bought some bamboo needles & sat down with my knittin’ buddy on Tuesday night to try it out. I’m not gonna lie – joining those stitches in the round was hard. It took me something stupid like 15 minutes to join 2 stitches. At one point – I shit you not – I actually forgot how to knit. HAHA. But once I got started, it was surprisingly easy. I made a little tube that I later discovered fits my iPod perfectly…

(It’s the correct size, I just wanted to show you that an iPod is in there!)
So that’s my first knitting in the round project! I want to make one more thing, because I still need a little more practice – there are a couple of holes where I didn’t pull the yarn tight enough between needles. Ooops! But I think it’s pretty good for a first attempt, yeah? 🙂

My next project is going to be a coffee cozy, and I’m going to make it out of this ugly-ass yarn 🙂 I love knitting in the round! COZIES FOR EVERYTHING.

On a COMPLETELY unrelated note – I biked to work this morning! First commute-to-work bike ride since winter started 😀

This is my halfway point – the Shelby Street Bridge! Isn’t it lovely? It’s a pedestrian bridge, so there’s always a lot of foot/bike traffic going on. I love how pretty the city looks from here! See that weird red thing in the right hand corner? Unfortunately, it’s not a roller coaster – it’s a completely useless sculpture called Ghost Ballet and it’s ugly as shit. I don’t know any Nashvillians who actually think this thing wasn’t a waste of taxpayer money. Blech.