A new skirt

I'm going through one of those phases when I hate all my clothes and want everything new. I'm not a big shopper, and I generally like my clothes, so this is a pretty rare thing. Maybe once every eight years or so? And I'm caught in its throes now. So here is the first of several planned summer skirts. The fabric is April Johnson from Jo-Ann, a surprisingly good quality cotton with decent body. I'm very hit or miss with Jo-Ann, usually more miss than hit, but this fabric is a good one.

I won't tell you the pattern number because the pattern was awful. It was one of those multisize patterns, but they failed to include the yoked waistband pieces for all sizes. So I had to tinker with that waistband quite a lot to make it work, not an easy feat without a hip curve or French curve to re-draw the pattern pieces. (I used to own these shapely rulers, but snapped one during a move and can't locate the other. It might be in a storage box somewhere.)

So the fit at the waist isn't quite right, but it's good enough that I can wear the skirt as long as I don't tuck in my shirt. The only other pattern modification was to use a solid black bias binding instead of a regular hem. Basically, what happened there was I decided to bind the hem edge because the fabric is a little ravel-prone. So I sewed on the bias binding, and before I turned and marked the hem, decided it looked cool and left it as it is.

Finished it a week ago, have already laundered it twice and worn it three times. I think this one will get a lot of wear. Very comfy in this blistering heat, so much cooler than pants or shorts.

Knitting Update

It's not all fabric and thread here right now.  I've also nearly finished the gusset on a second sock, have started balls 9 & 10 of a double-stranded bed-sized blanket (which will take 12 balls total), and have knit more than a few rounds of a stranded mitten. But none of these are finished, and the sock and blanket are boring projects -- I'll post when they're done, though.

A cozy cardi

I finally finished this one.

This is the Mendocino cardigan designed by St*rmore. I have to cheat on her name because she's notorious about complaining when people alter her patterns, even if for personal use, and this one was modified. Some of the modifications were accidental, and some were deliberate.

Accidental Modifications --

There are side vents at the lower hem edged in seed stitch. Only I managed to knit them onto the wrong side of the cardigan fronts, and I didn't catch this until the pieces were blocking, so I had to either re-knit or live with it. I chose to live with it. I added 9-stitch-wide panels of seed stitch under the back side vent, stitched to the fronts, so that the side vents have mini-plackets now. And for the fronts, where the extra seed stitch can be seen near the bottom button, I have decided to call this a design feature. It doesn't bother me that much, to be honest, even if I never would have done this on purpose.

Deliberate Modifications --

The collar. Oh, the collar. This collar is loose and low, hitting somewhere between normal scoop neck and crew neck lines. That's one of the things I like most about this sweater, actually. It won't ever bind around the neck.

But as designed, the collar is bigger than mine, and it's knit on before the button bands are added. This would have resulted in a gap of almost two inches at the top of the button band which would be just band, no collar. I didn't want that. To my eyes, that gap was too wide. So I added the button bands first and knit the collar onto the full neck circumference.

I made two other modifications. First, I wanted a shirt-point collar style, so at the front on either side, I added one short row just above the right and left button bands. If you look closely, you will see that the collar is slightly wider at the collar points than at the rest of the collar.

Second, I wanted to build in some extra ease in the collar fall. Collars are composed of two parts, the stand and the fall. The stand is the part that rises up from the neckline and is closest to the neck. Then there's a fold or roll line, and the fall is the outer part of the collar that is on top of the outer garment and hides the stand from view. A stand should be slightly smaller than a fall in order for the collar to lay properly, so I added a few extra stitches to the stand after the roll line right around the shoulder seams. I probably added too many because I ended up with a slight point at the tops of the shoulders (not really visible in this picture), but I kind of like the way it looks. So I'm leaving it. I could use the iron to shape the wool there and reduce that point, but I'm not going to bother. The collar rolls beautifully as it is, and I don't feel like monkeying with it.

So that's it! I'm pleased with the finished product, and I have to say that the Sublime yarn is well named. It really is Sublime. This cardigan is as soft and warm as a favorite old bathrobe, the kind of thing I'll be tempted to wear every day this winter.