big stack of entries for the fair!

a few ends to run in, a few photos to mount, but still... a pretty decent collection of fair entries! there will be baking this week as well!

piping and flat-felled seams tutorial!

following the tradition of getting xmas presents underway early enough to enter them in the fair, i just finished a pair of xmas pyjamas for the kiddo. just need to find some buttons and they're done. also did a pair of pyjama pants for myself, top to come later! both were made from cotton flannelette from fabricland. i may be slightly addicted to flannelette.

i have made a zillion pairs of tailored pyjamas, i love them so. kiddo won't wear anything else. the thing that makes them look so smart is the piping and the flat-felled seams. they also make the pyjamas more durable. it's a bit futzy, but i've got my technique down to a science, so i thought i'd do a tutorial.

some of the piping is obvious - the collar for example. sandwich piping between layers of fabric, and sew. but it's the sleeve cuffs that this tutorial focusses on.

note: this tutorial assumes a standrad 5/8" seam allowance. also, to use this technique, you will be applying the piping and cuff before you sew the sleeve/underarm seam.

first, how much hem allowance does your pattern allow? unless you want your sleeves extra-long, trim it off, plus an additional 3/4". for example, if the pattern allows 1 1/4" for the hem, shorten your sleeves by 2".

tear a strip about 2 1/2" or 3" wide along the selvedge edge of your fabric. using the selvedge edge is key: it means one less raw edge to worry about. cut a length of strip the same length as the sleeve hem to use as the cuff. then, cut a length of piping the same length as the sleeve cuff.

sandwich the piping between the sleeve fabric and the cuff strip, lining up the raw edge (not selvedge) of the cuff with the edge of the sleeve, and sew together as you normally would.

then press flat.

next, trim back the excess cord inside the piping pull out about 3/4" of the cord, and snip it off.

pull the fabric smooth so the ends of the cord disappear back into the tube. this will make sewing the seam easier - no lumpy cord to sew through - and the seam will be more neat.

next, pin your sleeve/underarm seam as you normally would, right down to the edge of the cuff. make sure you line up the piping as precisely as possible. sew right to selvedge edge of cuff, leaving a 5/8" seam allowance, and press flat.

snip the seam allowance along the edge of the piping, right up to the seam. then trim the seam allowance on one side of the sleeve to 1/4". leave the other seam allowance, and the seam allowances on the cuff, untrimmed.

press the seam allowances on the cuff open, and the sleeve seam allowances to one side.

fold the wider seam allowance around the trimmed seam allowance, and pin down. all the raw edges of the sleeve seam should be neatly enclosed.

sew this folded edge down against the sleeve. on the right side, this will appear as top-stitching.

almost there!

next, fold the cuff up, just overlapping the sewing line for the piping with the selvedge edge. make sure to line them up well.

on the right side, edge stitch along the piping, going through both layers of the cuff to secure it in place.

now, the selvedge edge of the cuff neatly covers all of the raw edges on the inside...

... while you have a neatly trimmed cuff on the outside!

it's not difficult once you get the hang of it, and in addition to giving a tailored finish, it finishes all raw edges using the machine - no hand-finishing required. i use this method to cuff the legs on pyjama bottoms, too.

humble beginnings

the designed in canada group in ravelry is having a knit-a-long (details here), so i am finally casting on something i was going to start years ago: a red cotton cardigan.

i have a sad scrap of twisty mesh that i had started working on, before the entire thing was abandoned a million years ago. seriously i think i bought this yarn almost fifteen years ago. it was one of early trips to romni wools not too long after i moved to toronto. the idea was to make a feminine, maybe even lacy but not grandmother-lacy red cardigan, like something amélie would wear. it was that long ago.

anyway, i goofed around with thinking i was going to improvise something but i could never quite settle on what it was i wanted, so when this kal came up i thought it was a good opportunity to search through the canadian designers on ravelry and see if any of them had the answer.

and laura chau did! the cardigan is markdale.

so now, after more than six months of not buying yarn, and working on old yarn and old projects, i'm digging into another oldie from the stash. about time, too. i also managed to get two prize-winners from previous years at the fair sent off to deserving recipients. o happy day! maybe i am not a hoarder after all.

summer cherry picking & picnic mini pies!

summertime! everything is so lush and lovely right now, including the fruit trees. it's hard to get excited about buying groceries when there is fresh fruit all around for the taking, if you have access to a tree.

fortunately, we have a local organisation called not far from the tree which connects tree owners with fruit pickers. the spoils get dividing between the owners, the pickers, and various charities.

i had been "wait-listed" for a bunch of picks, but finally got a chance to pick some cherries the other day. woohoo! it wasn't a giant haul - you never know what you're going to get, harvest might be anywhere from 5 to 50 pounds - but it was enough to make something. and with a planned picnic on the island with some friends, i wanted something portable.

and so: mini pies!

the great thing about these is that since i baked them in a muffin tin, they fit perfectly into a cupcake carrier for taking to the beach.

i used smitten kitchen's all-butter flaky pastry, and mixed the cherries with a bit of sugar and cornstarch.

the key to making this a weensy bit easier: waxed paper. strips of waxed paper (along with buttering and flouring the muffin tin) allowed me to lift the tarts out easily. and it was also the easy way to transport the woven lattice tops onto the top of the fruit.

once again, i overfilled them. sigh. a lesson i will never learn.

they look a little messy, but wow, do they taste of summer!

pyjama party

boy, long while since i updated, work, sick kid, sick me, on and on. anyway.

all of a sudden, summer is almost here! and that means the kid's first time at sleepaway camp! he is pretty excited, and i am pretty anxious about getting him ready - remembering to take the batteries out of his hearing aids, mainly. and i have to label all of his clothes. and of course he needs new pyjamas, to celebrate.

a friend of mine told me about this campfire fabric after she saw it in california, and i knew i had to hunt it down. campfires! roasting marshmallows! what could be better for camp! kiddo is so excited to have new pyjamas, and doubly so because of the campfires and marshmallows. all that's left is to find the perfect buttons.

i've also cut & pinned the fabric for his xmas pyjamas. after the one horrible xmas when i was up till 4 o'clock in the morning sewing frantically, i make a point about getting them done early. also, the fenelon fair will be here soon!

prince george's sweater - a knitting chart!

oh procrastination!

i ought to be getting the kiddo ready for school, but instead i did a quick alphabet chart for knitting prince george's sweater. i just love the way he is looking at the dog lupo in this picture!

here's a closer look at the sweater:

and here's a simple chart of his name:

if i get my real work done, i'll chart the rest of the alphabet later.

more progress

feeling pretty good about this!

after the interminable picking-up of stitches and short-row shaping, i am finally on the straightaway for the first sleeve on the maple leaf forever cardigan.

but before i even got there, i had to re-think the shoulder seam. i was going to do something similar to what i did for the argylette cardigan - fronts & backs the same, three-needle bind-off to join. but! because the shape of the fronts was dictated by the width of the maple leaf pattern, that wouldn't work. so i had to rip out some of the back, and re-do it in a style often seen in commercial machine knits, where all the shoulder decreases are worked on the back, and the front piece wraps around to the back.

i've done that on top-down sweaters before, but not on a bottom-up. so this was a first for me, and involved seaming (which is annoying, but whatever), but it worked!

can't wait to get this done and blocked. goal is to get this done by the end of march. i don't think i've ever knit a full-size sweater in fingering in such a short time - well, maybe the kid's cobain sweater? i got that done in three weeks... would be hard-pressed to beat that record. anyway, i'm feeling pretty good about how quickly this is going. just hope i haven't jinxed myself by being too cocky.