Category Archives: Projects

The sweatshirt vest (2018 FO-13)

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The sweatshirt vest (2018 FO-13)

This little sweater vest — or sweatshirt vest, as I’ve been calling it — turned out so incredibly cute. It bored me to tears while I was knitting it, but I’m completely in love with the finished garment and will be wearing it to death. And best of all, it was a clever use of great yarn sitting idly in my stash: the grey Balance from my abandoned cardigan, held together with ivory Pebble left over from my striped raglan. I actually still have enough of both yarns to make another one just like it. And you know what? I might!

I knitted it on US8s, at 4.25 sts/in, and the fabric is an absolute dream. The Balance is 50/50 organic cotton/wool, and the Pebble is recycled silk, merino and cashmere — just a whisper of that blend wrapped around the cotton/wool. I highly recommend you try it sometime!

I did not take good notes while doing this, I think due to the apathy at the time, so don’t expect there to be a pattern. But you really don’t need one! You could take any plain sweater vest pattern — like this one, for instance — and simply leave off the waistband, work three or four inches at each side in reverse stockinette, and add the little V detail at the neck. I’ll post The Details tomorrow about that bit.

I’m actually not 100% sure I’m done. I’ve tested assorted waistband/hem treatment possibilities, but I like it like this — the slight roll of the stockinette reminds me of a cutoff sweatshirt, which is a common feature of my closet — and I love the length, especially when worn over a camisole as seen here. (This is the spring equivalent of my favorite winter outfit this past season.) So for now, at least, I’m leaving it. And as noted, there’s ample yarn if I ever want to add on!

• Pattern: No pattern / Like it at Ravelry
• Yarn: Balance in Talc and Pebble in Ivory, held together throughout
• Worn with: Natural canvas pants and ikat camisole

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PREVIOUSLY in FOs: Hipster painter pants

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Subtropical swatching

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Subtropical swatching

Hi, friends! As you may know from Instagram, I’m in Florida at the moment (with my trusty waxed camo Field Bag), and I decided to take an actual vacation for a few days rather than blogging during family time. (This is the first time my sister has ever left her kids alone with us overnight — the pressure!) The tiny swatch above is all the knitting that’s happened so far, and I can’t even talk about it, as it’s for a pattern I’m working on for someone. But I’ll be back on Weds or Thurs with the details on that hotly anticipated sweater vest of mine! ;)

Also, I’m away but DG is at his shipping post, ready to send you whatever your heart desires, so Fringe Supply Co. is, as always, open for business! And thank you for the flurry of Mini Porter orders over the weekend, by the way — whoever may have inspired it.

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Hipster painter pants (2018 FO-12)

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Hipster painter pants (2018 FO-12)

If you feel like you’ve seen these pants before, you have and you haven’t. These are the replacements for the previous natural pair that sadly shrank in the wash.* I’d been sorely missing having them to lean on all spring, and am thrilled to have a version back in my closet! They are both better and worse than the originals, in various ways. There’s no match for the incredible Huston Textile Union Cloth the originals were made of: Woven in California on a smaller loom, that cloth is chunkier and airier at the same time, and the fiber was CA-grown, climate-beneficial wool and organic cotton. Exquisite stuff. The ones above, on the other hand, are in some generic undyed canvas I bought at Elizabeth Suzann’s garage sale last summer for $2/pound (meaning these pants cost me about a buck), and it wears and hangs completely differently than the Huston cloth did. I feel great about the fact they’re 100% cotton remnant fabric, and even better about how genuinely not precious these are. I had said that I was not going to treat the originals as precious, and I’m saying the same about this pair, but it’s easier to feel that way when the fabric is, in fact, not precious! What I love about these pants in natural canvas is they’re like stylish painter’s pants, so that’s how I’ll be treating them.

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about how I modified and sewed my waistbands on all of these “toddler pants” of mine, since I don’t use the Robbie waistband (or pockets). So I’ll do a write-up on my waistband method for The Details. After which, I’ll show you this sweater, as soon as I can get it written up! Details on the ikat tank are here.

By the way, happy #memademay! Are you participating in any way? I’m at a point where every month is me-made month, in a sense, so I’ll probably be pretty loose about how I chime in. Definitely, absolutely not taking 30 selfies. ;)

• Pattern: Robbie Pant by Tessuti (reuse No. 5)
• Modifications: self-drafted pockets, assorted tweaks, modified 2″ waistband
• Fabric: remnant/unknown, 100% cotton natural/undyed canvas

*The fabric had been washed in hot water before it was given to me; I did not re-prewash, and I paid the price. And yes, I washed the finished pants on cool/delicates and air dried, despite their prewash. They shrank anyway — these things happen sometimes! The world carries on.

Belated FOs: The plaid tee and black puff sleeve

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Belated FOs: The plaid tee and black puff sleeve

Someday soon I’ll be ready to do some spring-into-summer wardrobe planning, and am imagining once again including this little plaid top in my closet inventory with the words “never blogged,” followed by all the natural questions about it. So instead I thought Gee, Karen, what if you blogged it! And actually there are two of them from the same pattern, neither one ever properly recorded, so I’m here today to correct the record.

Both of these tops were sewn from a now out-of-print Cynthia Rowley for Simplicity pattern #2472. I can be that specific because I have this 6-year-old blog that has a much better memory than I do. Having just tripped back through a search, I can report that when I got the urge to take up sewing again after learning to knit, the first thing I sewed was this crosshatchy quilting cotton version after seeing this one on Make Something. I’ve made several of them over the years, always tampering with this simplest of patterns, but the two above are the ones that have stuck around and been worn.

The black one (from early 2014, just before I left Berkeley) is in a chambray I had left over from another project, just barely enough to squeak out a cropped version, which I love. With those gathered sleeves, it’s probably the girliest thing in my closet! But it looks great with wide-leg pants, and can be worn in just about any setting, so even though I wouldn’t want you to see the inside of it, it’s a keeper.

The plaid one is sewn from a translucently thin cotton plaid I bought from Drygoods Design in early 2015. All I did with this one is adjust the length, shorten the sleeves and hem them — no gathers. It was the last thing I ever sewed on my old machine, after the *#@!er acted up while I was topstitching the neck on this beloved and delicate fabric. It’s also wonky because the fabric has biased considerably over time. So it’s another case of something that might not pass muster with any scrutinizing sewers, and the fit is not quite as intended, but it has nonetheless proved to be a useful member of my closet for three years now.

I had some of the plaid fabric left over, and bought a couple more yards from Fancy Tiger not long after, and have been hoarding it. Despite the biasing, I absolutely adore this plaid. It’s hard to see in a photo but it’s black and grey and golden-tan, and the grey reads almost as lilac or pale blue depending what you put it up against. It’s just lovely. But given how thin it is and how it behaves, I have yet to figure out the ideal use for the yardage that remains.

RE the pattern, though, you can easily replicate this with the Fen top or Shirt No. 1. Just tinker with the length as you like, make the sleeve flaps elbow length, then gather them to your liking and finish with bias trim.

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PREVIOUSLY in FOs: My first sweatshirt

Queue Check — April 2018

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Queue Check — April 2018

My little sweatshirt-style sweater vest is coming along, as you can see. Between the stockinette doldrums of it, and working too many late nights the past few weeks, it’s taking longer than it rightly should. But it’s currently drying on the blocking board (and surely sleeveless weather is just around the corner), so I need to make some decisions about the edge treatments! I think what I’m going to do is pick and knit 2×2 ribbed bands around the neck and armholes, then see how it hangs. Depending where it hits at the hip, I might pick up stitches and knit a waistband — ribbed? folded and hemmed stockinette? not sure yet! Or, if the length is good as is, I might just do some kind of attached I-cord edge to persuade it to lie flat. Either way, let’s hope I’m wearing it soon. (No pattern; yarn details here.)

The only other thing I have in progress at the moment is the latest in my series of Log Cabin Mitts. They’ve been waiting for their thumbs since around the time I cast on this sweater. When I do get a little knitting time, it feels wrong not to work on that, and so these have languished. Also, this particular pair is not as conducive to being picked up and advanced a little in the gaps here and there, as the blue is natural indigo. In other words, knitting them in the passenger seat on the way to somewhere would mean arriving with blue fingers. That sort of thing! But I’m quite eager to finish them off and further the next pair.

Next up are two accessory projects I can’t talk about, which leaves me pondering what the next garment will be. At the same time, I’m plotting my Summer of Basics plans and other considerations. So for the moment, I’ll just get those secret accessories underway …

• Blocking mats and stitch markers at Fringe Supply Co.

PREVIOUSLY in Queue Check: March 2018

My first Linden sweatshirt (2018 FO-11)

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My first Linden sweatshirt (2018 FO-11)

I was trying to figure out how this could be the first garment I’ve made this year, when it’s mid-April already, and then I remembered: blue Bellows. Anyway, here I am crossing the first thing off my Spring Make List, item 3b. This was a bit of a trial run with me and the Linden Sweatshirt pattern, and I promise it’s much less sad and droopy looking on me than it is on the dress form. I’m also still pretty new at sewing knits, and this fabric posed an extra challenge, so I went into the whole thing with a decidedly que sera attitude. It was very quick to make and I’ll get plenty of use out of it, but it’s not my best work.

The fabric is a super gushy, thick pile terry, with a little bit of a surface pattern to it. So there was no chance of finding matching ribbing, but I wasn’t sure how well it would work to use itself either. I also had a pretty small piece of it, all of which is why I opted to use it for view B of the pattern, which has a folded hem at the waist and short sleeves, and only the neckband to worry about, ribbing-wise. My other concern was the neckline itself. Jen Beeman and I have become great friends over the past few years, and agree on just about everything, but necklines are not one of them! I can’t stand a gaping neckhole, and Jen can’t stand anything up around her neck, so I expected that this neck would be larger than I would have drafted it myself. Rather than worrying about it (since I wasn’t sure this was even going to work) I opted to trace off the pattern as is, sew it up, and see how much I might want to adjust the neck on the next one. Sure enough, when I sewed the front, back and sleeves together — this is a straight size 8 — the neck was on the big side for me, but fortunately I had just enough fabric to cut a wider neckband and make up for some of that.

My first Linden sweatshirt (2018 FO-11)

Attaching the band was a job, thanks to the fabric. There was absolutely no chance I was going to get three layers of this fluff under the foot of my serger, so I basted it together on my regular machine — then unpicked the parts where the layers shifted and redid it, congratulating myself that I hadn’t tried that on the serger. Sewing the three layers together caused the top one to fold back on itself at the stitching line. So next I carefully zigzagged all three layers of the seam allowance together, again on my regular machine, and by then they were compressed enough that I could get the whole thing under the serger and finish the edge properly. I still have one spot where the outer layer wasn’t quite caught enough, right at the top of the raglan seen in the photo, and then I did a shoddy job topstitching it. But these are the sorts of things that the average person who sees it on me will never notice!

Then came the hemming. Even with the presser foot pressure off and using a long stitch, sewing the two layers together caused the whole thing to splay a bit, so it’s a little bell-shaped, which is fine with me, honestly. (I added two inches to the length when cutting it, and sewed a wider hem than called for.) But I didn’t want the same splaying to happen at the sleeves, so I just serged the edges and will wear them rolled.

This top has a lot in common with the wool knit version made from Jen’s other pattern — my whole modified Hemlock tee thing. But I’ll try to get pics of me wearing them both for comparison. Apart from one being boiled wool and one cotton jersey, meaning they’re useful at different times of the year, it’s a good demonstration of how much better I look in a raglan than drop-shouldered garment.

Having now sewn this wonderfully quick and simple pattern (just like everyone always told me), I’m excited to make my proper heather grey sweatshirt version.

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PREVIOUSLY in FOs: ScandinAndean earflap hat

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Spring ’18: The make list!

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Spring ’18: The make list!

Following on last week’s assessments of my wants and my needs, I sat down this weekend with my notebooks and favorite pencil and stack of recent sketches. The simple fact is there are at least a half-dozen things I’m eager to knit and sew right now, all of which are more interesting than the projects pictured here, but I’m putting the needs first — especially since they’re fairly simple things to knock out:

1.) Finish the little grey marl sweater already on my needles.

2.) Fix the navy canvas pre-sleeves Clyde Jacket I got at Elizabeth Suzann’s sample sale in December. Meaning: trim out deep vest armholes (along the lines of one of my State Smocks) and finish the edges.

3.) How many times have I said this? Sew myself a heather grey Linden Sweatshirt. I’m actually thinking I’ll make two: One exactly that, and the second the short-sleeved version in a thicker bouclé knit I also have on hand. (While I have the pattern out …)

4.) Replace my natural toddler pants with an identical pair, this time in undyed cotton canvas. (Fabric picked up for $2/yard as remnant at ES’s garage sale last summer. What did I ever do before I lived near Elizabeth Suzann?)

5.) Make another pair of toddlers in my light blue, recycled-denim canvas, this time tinkering even more with the leg shape and rise. (If you’re confused, I am currently in possession of two fabrics made of recycled denim: one lightweight and drapey, the other one a sturdy denim/canvas.)

6.) Replace the white linen shell.

These are all projects where I already have the pattern (in most cases already traced and tweaked) and also have the fabric ready to go, apart from needing to find good ribbing for the two sweatshirts. So all I need is the time and head space to get going. And then there’s one other near-term thing:

7.) I recently freed myself of the need to carry a laptop back and forth with me every day — hallelujah!! — so I can have any everyday bag I want for the first time in awhile. I’m thinking for spring/summer, I’ll make myself a big ol’ Stowe Bag! (There have been so many inspiring ones posted to the #stowebag feed lately!) I have a blank linen one in progress, just waiting for it’s bias bindings, but I have some ideas about some very specific pockets for this scenario, so may be starting a new one.

That’s more projects than the number of months since I last sewed, I think, but it seems really doable. And then with these necessities (back) in place, I can start to scheme about some more adventurous stuff for … Summer of Basics! More on that to come.

• Fashionary sketch panels, Fashionary sketchbook and spiral notebook from Fringe Supply Co.

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PREVIOUSLY in Wardrobe Planning: Spring ’18 Haves and Have-nots