Me Made May week 3

Another week over!

Weather was up and down, as was my mood.

Mother’s Day was this week, so feeling blecch. Even though I made sure it was a lovely day—breakfast in bed, group bike ride—I want someone else to do the legwork for once. Waah waah.

Polka dot nighty 

Sundress with yellow roses

This was the year that I finally bought shoes a size large for the sake of handknit socks, just in time for it to be too warm (mostly) for handknit socks. 

Socks 

The uppy-downy weather made it good for a wardrobe staple for me: the sleeveless shirt, perfect for layering for changing temps. Also another pair of handknit socks, and the jeans that are my bellwether of fitness (bit on the snug side, but we’re getting there.

Sleeveless polka dot shirt, straight leg jeans, wool socks

This is my Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief cosplay. Linen sweater, linen pants. Still working on my Grace Kelly. 

Striped linen sweater, grey linen trousers 

Getting even warmer, a cotton knit top (with a really interesting construction) and cotton twill skirt (just tailored enough to make the very casual top feel work worthy).

Cotton striped knit top, cotton twill skirt

And finally, long weekend, more sleeping in.

Pyjamas 

to catch a thief: the plot thickens!

well, hooray for the toothpick protocol, because it made me aware of a very nearly fatal error.

i decided to mark out the paisles going down the front of the sweater, just to make sure i am getting them properly symmetrical (although, if you look at the original, it is a bit wonky - i just can't be that authentic. if you zoom in, you can see how hastily those paisles were stitched on, too). this ledt me to realise that, at some point the pullover as knit is about 24 rows longer than what i had charted! oh the fun of making things up as you go, sometimes you miss writing down a step or two.

anyway, back to the drawing board.

this is the joy of charting in exel - easy to cut and paste a few paisles into different locations, then tweak and augment them as necessary. i also noticed a shape or two at the side that i'd missed entirely, so there you go.

then i picked out the centre paisles with toothpicks again, to be doubly certain i'm getting it right for once.

it works!

also thinking - maybe i shouldn't chain around the outside of the paisley-shapes? looking at what i've done so far, i kind of prefer the un-chained ones. am i crazy? or just lazy?

i think i will decide that at the end. in any case, here is what the revised chart looks like:

it's only half a chart, since the pullover is symmetrical, with just the central column of paisles straddling both sides in an asymmetrical way.

to catch a thief, very slowly

remember this?

well, i'm back on it.

saturday i was feeling under the weather, so i sent the family off to parapan am goalball medal tournaments while i stayed home to rest, and futz around with this very non-portable project.

step one: finish the excel spreadsheet of the chart. print out. scribble on it.

step two: run in ends. why so many? seems not fair.

step three: duplicate stitch the individual shapes, or "paisles" as we called them when i was a kid. here's a finished one!

then i realised that if i do the chain-stitching around the edge, it is harder to count how many stitches away to start the next one. so, for now i am just doing the duplicate stitch, and leaving a long tail to chain later.

it's really slow-going. newest strategy is to "mark out" the perimeter of a given paisle with toothpicks, so i spend less time counting stitches, forgetting where i am, and then counting again.

such a tedious project! but i think i'll wear it a fair amount. wondering if i'll have the energy to do the back as well, or be lazy and just do the front. i kind of hate when designers get lazy about the backs of things though. maybe after i get through a few more, i'll get a knack for it and think it is easy?

my go-to source for dupe-stitch tips and tricks - watermellish - seems to have gone into permament hibernation. what other websites are good for duplicate-stitch?

to catch a thief: the pursuit continues

okay, i am a bit blah on the summer knitting, what with it getting cold again.

but, as a relief from the horrors of endless navy blue linen stockinette, i am tackling the charts for the to catch a thief top.

i started from a photo of the top - the biggest, most hi-res one i could find - blown up and printed out. notice that the pattern is basically symmetrical, so i'm just working with half of it.

i've gone over the outlines of the individual paisley motifs (or "paisles" as my sister and i called them when we were kids) in pencil, and then drew a rough graph over the printout to guide placement.

then i printed out a chart of the basic shell, and sketched the paisles on it roughly. once i had them in approximately the right place, i started converting the outline to "stitches" following the chart lines.

you'll notice some of those are half-wide stitches: you can do that with duplicate stitch! you get a slightly "higher resolution" pattern that way. next step is transferring it back to the chart file.

i will need to tweak the placement of a few of the paisles i think, but that's easy enough to do by simply copy-pasting. the whole process does feel like it will last well into next summer though!

is it really summer? almost?

it certainly feels like summer all of a sudden!

yesterday i sat on a patio, drinking gin and grapefruit juice, wearing linen, and knitting with cotton. perfect way to spend an afternoon.

and, i got a good amount of work done on the to catch a thief pullover. i had the shell finished, but didn't like the neckline - too wide. so i ripped it back and re-knit. think it will be better this time.

and, i found some cotton voile in the right shade of yellow to go with! it has been washed and pressed, will get that skirt made soon i hope.

i actually got more sewing done, too! i started with a simple four-gore skirt, because it was already cut and pinned, and had been for a good year. i did iron it, but apparently after being folded up and squished in the bottom of my fabric stash for a year, those creases don't want to leave. hoping some time hanging and a wash will help with that.

i likely won't wear it until fall, anyway. then i moved on to things i will wear sooner: the navy capris and jacket (mccall's 7938) here's a shot of the jacket bodice with collar interfacing:

maybe i will finish it today? the capris are basically done. i had them almost done on friday, before realizing i didn't have a zipper! boo. this morning i installed the zip and tacked the hem up so i could wear them today. and then we were unaccountably detained, so i actually would have had time to do it properly... sigh. tried to take a photo of them on - photographing dark colours is hard! here's the least blurry pic:

feeling very betty draper in my get-up. the top is one i made a couple of summers ago. for the capris, i used the same pattern (simplicity 8869) as for these grey linen trousers, which now have buttons! i wore them yesterday, and i love them. they have a very 1930s feel - not quite beach pyjamas, which i am slightly obsessed with, but a close enough shape.

finally, here's a shot of the bird dress i altered last week - the original midriff piece was more of a waistband, not even two inches wide. i found more of the fabric and cut a new piece. had to take out a bunch of seams, and the zipper (grr) and put it back together. but now i can wear it, after it gets a wash and a good pressing!

we've still three weeks to go before risk of last frost has officially passed, but i'm really starting to feel like summer is actually finally here!

dreaming of summer with grace kelly

well, the weather was so beautiful and warm - i even got a sunburn on a hike last weekend! - that i couldn't bring myself to keep working on the hat for mrs. brown.

so, i decided to start something summery - something i've had in the back of my mind for ages.

there's a scene in to catch a thief where grace kelly scares the living daylights out of cary grant by racing her convertible along a winding mountain road.

she's wearing a gorgeous two-piece dress. it's one i've often thought of recreating.

it's simple; feminine yet sporty.

i'm reimagining the top as a pullover. i can easily imagine wearing both of these pieces a lot - together or seperately. the pullover would go great with the navy jacket and capris i'm planning. or the grey linen trousers i made last week.

and you can never have too many summer skirts!

i'm not much of a pink gal myself, though. so i've cast on in yellow. i'm sick (what, again?) so i got a fair amount done today, while watching ball of fire (a little-known classic!).

plan is to knit the shell, then add the paisley detail in duplicate stitch (i decided it would be a lot less painful than intarsia for so many little things). now i just need to be on the look out for a cotton voile in a coordinating yellow to make a skirt and scarf.

window seat: turtle-style

i finally did up the cushion properly for the window seat!

previously, i had cut the foam to size, wrapped it in some batting, and laid an afghan over it to hide the unupholstered truth. that was... probably longer ago than i care to admit.

anyway!

i decided to use my holiday monday to get it done. i had the fabric, piping, zipper, and thread all bundled together, and no excuses! so at last the cushion is done. the millwork to finish the front is still stacked under the bed, but there you are. baby steps, as they say.

the intended effect is something like this, but with less musical ability:

or to be honest, something more like this:

with me in jimmy stewart's role, casting a suspicious eye over the neighbours, and inventing apocryphal fictions about their sordid lives. i've already started with that - i guess it is the one part of the window seat that i actually have finished!

could someone lend me $30000?

please and thanks!

the trouble with... my life

when did i post last? i forget. but certainly it was before i got braces (last monday) and broke my foot (last friday). i had set everything aside to work on xmas presents and such, but after the foot incident i decided "i wasn to do things for me me me" and went back to my yellow sweater, which i was sufficiently unhappy with that i frogged it entirely. have started from scratch improvising based on a memory of what i want it to look like. so far so good - body is almost done (i'm past the waist and shaping). whee.

also, i really like beatnik and when i was looking at my stash to see if i somehow already had enough yarn for it, i realised i could do that and the 1930s 3-hour sweater that i'm keen on, if i frogged the stripey dress i cast on and instantly got bored with. so, while i haven't frogged yet (hedging) i've almost done the back of the sweater (and yes, it does take more than 3 hours) while watching the trouble with harry, one of hitchcock's more light-hearted films, featuring a quite young shirley maclaine, and edmund gwenn (aka kris kringle from miracle on 34th street and (as tg pointed out) charlie from charlie's angels. very weird to hear that voice coming from a person instead of an intercom box (and it's sad that although john forsythe has done so much other stuff, that intercom box is how i remember him).

how awesome is this?

psycho shower curtain: