Tag Archives: KTFOs

KTFO-2016.20 : Simple house slippers

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FO: Simple House Slippers

Kathy’s been here this week working with me on the holiday photo shoot for Fringe Supply Co. (can’t wait to show you!) and while we were at it, she was kind enough to take these pictures of my latest finished object: a quickly knitted pair of slippers. I needed to be wearing slippers in one of the photos and mine are all a shabby mess — with my big toe having just recently broken through the end of my favorite pair. I’ll come up with a good patch for that when I have a minute to think about it, but since I also needed a break from the endless stockinette of my knitalong sweater, I thought these little quickies seemed like a good idea on multiple levels.

They are the Simple House Slippers from Temple of Knit, which are sort of a relative of the Tootsie Toasters, but much cuter. Going back through those Tootsie Toasters posts (from five years ago!) I was amused to see myself noting that Meg had cleverly converted the vintage flat pattern to in-the-round, and here I am now — as noted last week — converting Simone’s in-the-round rendition back to flat! In addition to that little mod, I also knitted the garter rows to 4.5″ instead of 32 rows, since at my row gauge that reached about to my ankles instead of the front of my foot. I wish I knew what Simone’s gauge is, or what dimension her 32 rows amounts to, in order to know how my version compares in that regard. (Note to self: then knitted to a total length of 8″ before toe shaping.) And on the last row of garter, I increased one stitch at each end to give myself selvage stitches. Since I was really just thinking of these as photo shoot props, I did the seaming pretty hastily and also had knitted them in Shelter, because I had it handy, which is not really a suitable yarn for a slipper. But I really like these little guys, so I’ll either wear them as socks inside my boiled wool scuffs, or maybe put leather slipper bottoms on them. And I’ll definitely be knitting more. Really fun, quick, satisfying and useful.

Pattern: Simple House Slippers by Simone A
Yarn: Shelter by Brooklyn Tweed, in Soot
Cost: Free pattern + one skein of Shelter = $13.25

(Nitty-gritty details on Ravelry)

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PREVIOUSLY in 2016 FOs: Black linen-wool cardigan of my dreams

 

Is it more expensive to make your own clothes?

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Is it more expensive to make your own clothes?

We talk about all the many reasons there are for making our own clothing (chief among them being the joy and learning and pride), and “saving money” is rarely cited as one of them — even though historically that was the case. You might have noticed as I’ve been documenting my finished objects this year, I’ve stated the cost for each one,* which I’ve done as a form of research and so we could talk about it here in Slow Fashion October. It seems to me the general consensus is that it’s more expensive these days to make clothes than to buy them (feeding into the frequent refrain that only “privileged” people can make that choice), but that depends on about a million things. First and foremost: more expensive as compared to what? In a world where fast-fashion chains will sell you a “cashmere” sweater or tailored blazer for $19.95, we’ve lost all baselines and benchmarks, and all sense of perspective. There are, of course, costs beyond what’s on a price tag — from the human and environmental cost of fast fashion to the value of the time we put into a homemade garment. And there’s also plain old subjectivity. I used to wander into an Anthropologie once in awhile and marvel at the fact that there are apparently quite a lot of people who’ll pay $200 for a poorly made polyester dress. But if you’re accustomed to shopping at Target or Old Navy, you’ll think Imogene+Willie $195 jeans (made in LA of North Carolina or Japanese denim) or a $160 Lauren Winter top is “expensive,” when in reality those prices reflect the cost of quality materials and construction and workers making at least our minimum wage, etc. And then there are Designer prices, which are obviously much higher, even though quality and materials and transparency often aren’t better. So what do we compare our homemade garments to?

I honestly don’t know, in a broad sense, but what’s amazed me as I’ve tallied up my homemade clothing costs this year is how truly inexpensive it’s been, by and large. Here’s the breakdown:

SEWN
$15.00 : Wool gauze pullover
30.00 : Blue striped dress
15.00 : Muumuu
7.00 : Black sleeveless top
6.00 : Striped sleeveless top
29.00 : Striped skirt
26.00 : Black sleeveless t-shirt
9.00 : Linen box top
7.50 : Striped box top
18.00 : Indigo camisole top
13.50 : Ikat camisole top
14.00 : Green camisole top
—–
$190 — average price of $15.83 per garment

KNITTED
$27.50 : Black lopi raglan
140.00 : Bulky blue pullover
122.00 : Black vest
75.00 : Black cardigan
—–
$364.50 – average price of $91.25 per sweater

For me personally, the best comparison is J.Crew, since that’s who got 90% of my clothes money in my store-bought wardrobe days. (And also: I could have bought that many garments in a couple of orders from the J.Crew clearance section back in the day. Cost aside, this represents a huge reduction in the number of garments acquired within any 10 months of my life.) Obviously, every one of those sewn garment numbers is substantially lower than even 40%-off-the-clearance-price prices at J.Crew. (Compare my cotton camisoles to this, for example.) The sweaters are a different story. Even with that $27.50 lopi sweater in the mix, the average sweater price might be higher than I would traditionally pay for a J.Crew sweater. It’s hard to say, having never tracked and averaged it, but I would guess between the mostly sale purchases and the occasional splurge, I probably spent an average of more like $65-70. Some of which I’ve worn for ages and still cherish; others of which looked like crap in no time. Regardless, I think ninety bucks is a very fair average price for a well-made, natural-fiber sweater.

So yes, between the reduced cost of these items and the fact of homemade clothes necessarily appearing in my closet at a slower rate (I can’t make things nearly as quickly as I could buy them), I am definitely spending way less money on clothes than I used to. That works out to $55 a month! (Or less, in reality — since Purl Soho gave me the yarn I used for the cardigan.) Even if you factor in the handful of store-bought items I’ve acquired during these 10 months, it’s way less than I used to spend.

I should note that the sweaters currently on my needles will have skewed that average by year’s end. One of them is lopi, so another $30-ish dollar line item. My striped Pebble sweater is probably about a $200 sweater when all is said and done (although Shibui gave me yarn). But I also made a very conscious decision to spend about $300 on my Channel Cardigan in progress, and it will be by far the most expensive garment I’ve ever owned. If I saw that sweater at J.Crew for that price (in 100% undyed baby-camel yarn) I would snatch it up in a heartbeat and consider it a worthy investment piece. But in reality, they’d be charging 2-3 times that much for it, and I wouldn’t be able to have it.

There is also the question of start-up costs to consider. For a new knitter or sewer, tools costs real money. And sewing requires space. I don’t know how to factor for that, but it does have to be said. And again what this doesn’t take into account is my time, but I wouldn’t put a price on that — those are my pleasure hours. If anything, I’d credit the learning and enjoyment I get against the cost! How much are those many hours of enjoyment worth to me? And aren’t those the same hours most Americans spend wandering malls or surfing shopping sites? I think choosing homemade over store-bought is a way of buying the time to do it, if you see what I mean.

Anyway, this is the first time I’ve stopped to add up the year’s costs like this and there’s a huge grin on my face right now. But I also want to say these numbers will go up in the future. I’ve been lucky that almost all of the sewn garments up there are in fabric I bought as remnants from local fashion companies. I feel really good about being able to both save money on the yardage and put those remnants to good use, and those aren’t the only fabrics I own that I feel good about. But during the course of this month’s discussion I’ve decided I only want to buy known-origins fabrics and I’m willing to pay for it. So beyond what’s already in my stash, I’ll be trying to stick to good traceable linens and wools, or fabric from my friend Allison’s mill or that’s been woven from the organic cotton of farmers like Sally Fox who are trying to survive. I want to support these farmers and businesses and to know the fabrics have clean origins, which means the yardage will cost me much more than I’ve spent in the past, which will put the garments back in J.Crew full-price range. That alone with keep my stash in check and my new clothes infrequent, and I’m ok with all of that.

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*Except things made as gifts. That seemed gauche.

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PREVIOUSLY in Slow Fashion October: How much can we know about where clothes come from?

KTFO-2016.19 : Black linen-wool cardigan of my dreams

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FO : The linen-wool cardigan of my dreams

This is a plain-as-can-be Improv top-down raglan, knitted with two strands of Purl Soho’s Linen Quill (50% fine highland wool, 35% alpaca, and 15% linen), and it is pretty much the simple black cardigan of my dreams. Purl had sent me five skeins of this yarn, unbidden, and I was determined to get the whole cardigan out of it. There is a LOT of yardage on those skeins! I was holding it double and made it nearly from the cast-on to the waistband before I needed to join a new pair of strands. I completed the sweater with 26 yards left of the second pair of skeins and only had to break into the fifth skein to knit the button band. So it turns out I could have made it a bit longer and still had plenty of yarn! But I was modeling this after a beloved blue cashmere J.Crew sweater, which hit just a couple of inches below my natural waist like this, and I wore that thing to bits. So I have no doubt about how much wear I’ll get out of this. And the fabric is utterly amazing — I wish you could pet this sweater through your screen.

It took me months to knit this one only because I kept setting it aside for other projects, although I did feel slightly apathetic about it along the way. I had a pervasive dread that I’d made the back neck too wide, which to me is the death blow of a sweater. It’s all about the back neck width, in my view. Once I blocked it and put it on, I was even more concerned. I did basically the same thing as I had with my black lopi pullover — starting with a higher percentage of sleeve stitches and shaping the raglans. But the result of all those sleeve stitches was that they draped over my shoulders and left the back neck sitting perilously low. All I could do at that point was hope it all worked out when I picked up stitches for the band.

This sweater is the first where I was constantly thinking of sewing tricks and wishing for knitting equivalents. The fabric is quite drapey by my standards (thanks to the alpaca content) and I also didn’t knit it as tightly as I normally knit stockinette. I actually felt scared to put it on before I did the finishing — like I could feel the neckline stretching, and wished I could stay-stitch it. I was SO GLAD I had done basting stitches in the raglans, and amazed at how different it felt putting it on before and after seaming those up. And then I did treat the neckband a little like a bias strip, “pulling gently” around the curve of the back neck (by which I mean picking up 2 out of 3 sts across the back instead of 1:1) to slightly cinch it up. And it worked like magic! The neck sits beautifully. For the band, I wound up doing picked-up garter stitch, mostly because I’d never done garter for a button band before, and I adore it. The only challenge was the bind-off: I wanted it to be firm enough to prevent the band from stretching any, but not so tight that it pulled the sweater up in the front. I think I got it a hair too tight, but will wear it awhile and see how it does. Redoing that bind-off wound be the easiest tweak in the world.

I’m including all of my numbers below for anyone who wants to do this top-down Improv-style themselves, but if you prefer a proper pattern for a super-basic cardigan like this, see Carrie Hoge’s Uniform. I don’t know how all of my measurements and shaping compare to her pattern, but they’re obviously very similar sweaters!

Pattern: Improv
Yarn: Linen Quill from Purl Soho
Cost: no pattern + $10 horn buttons from Fringe Supply Co. + comlimentary yarn = $10
(yarn would have been about $65 had I paid for it, for total cost of $75)

[favorite it on Ravelry]

FO : The linen-wool cardigan of my dreams

GAUGE

4.5 sts and 6 rows = 1 inch (measured over 4″ = 18/24) knitted on US8

TARGET MEASUREMENTS

42″ chest = 189 sts
14″ upper arm circumference = 64 sts (more like 12″ after seaming and blocking)
7″ cuff circumference
20″ total length
9″ yoke/armhole depth (54 rows)
11″ body length (2″ hem ribbing)
17″ sleeve length (3″ cuff ribbing)

DETAILS

— Co 83 sts divided thusly: 1 | 3 | 20 | 3 | 29 | 3 | 20 | 3 | 1 — worked center raglan st as basting stitch

— Planned for 14 sts cast on at each underarm, and divided the raglan stitches evenly between sections when separating sleeves from body

— Worked raglan increases as kfb on either side of the raglan stitches, varying increases roughly same as black lopi raglan

— Increased at front neck every 4th row until front sts added up to back sts minus about 1.5″ to account for width of button band — pretty sure it worked out that my last neck increase row was the same as my sleeve/body separation row

— Worked center stitch at each side as a basting stitch

— BO/CO sts for one inset pocket at 6.5″ from separation row (4.5″ before end of body)

— When body was complete, picked up along upper pocket edge on US5 needles and worked a few rows in garter stitch for pocket edging, seamed to adjacent sts from body along both sides; put live sts for pocket lining back on needle and worked in stockinette for 2.5″ (bottom of pocket lines up with first row of waist ribbing); whipstitched to reverse of sweater body after blocking

— Worked sleeves flat, decreasing on 20th row then every 8th row 8 times for 47 sts; knit till 15.75″; switched to US6 and decreased evenly to 42 sts while working first row of cuff ribbing

— All ribbing is k3/p2

— Blocked finished sweater and picked up sts for button band on US6: 42 sts along fronts (2/3), 32 sts along slopes, 15 sts along sleeve tops (2/3), 20 sts along back neck (2/3); worked in garter stitch for 1/5″ with double-YO buttonholes on middle row; BO from WS on US8 needles

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PREVIOUSLY in 2016 FOs: 3 Lakesides + 2 Fens = 1 new wardrobe

3 Lakesides + 2 Fens = 1 new wardrobe [2016 FOs No.14-18]

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3 Lakesides + 2 Fens = 1 new wardrobe

If you’re thinking it’s late for me to be getting serious about summer clothes, I would just like to let you know it’s approaching 7pm as I’m typing this and the heat index is still 100°. Summer here has decided to get much worse before it gets better. And besides, I’ve realized these are great summer-into-fall pieces! They’re two of the five items from my master summer sewing plan, plus clones thereof: 3 modified Lakeside Pajamas camisole tops and 2 Fen tops. And between them, I feel like I have a whole new wardrobe!

I sewed the first of the camisoles — the light indigo one — on the last Saturday of July, and for the next week all I could think about was making a whole pile of them. One in every fabric on my shelf! Not only are they quick and simple and fun to make, but it dawned on me how great they’ll be hanging out from under all my sweaters this winter. It was a one-week addiction, seriously. I would find myself, late at night before heading for bed, bent over my worktable cutting out another one. I started calling them “my bonbons.” It was true love. By the end of the week there were three, and I decided that might be enough for the moment.

Regarding my major modification on this, I replaced the crescent criss-cross pajama back (which is darling) with a regular back. Jen mentioned to me that, on that pattern piece, the grainline marking is at the center back, so I used that as the fold line and fudged the bottom and side lines based on the front piece (with the dart folded closed). Thankfully it occurred to me that most of the width of this top is in that swingy back — if I were making it as per the original pattern, I’d probably make a 6. But with my mod removing that back panel and its swinginess, I started from the size 10 in tracing/making my pattern pieces. And it worked out perfectly.

The other thing I did is to vary the side and hem treatment on each one. Indigo has a split hem and slightly lower back. Ikat has a longer, curved hem which I just freehanded and wish I had traced to repeat! And greenie has a plain hem because I was sewing in public and forgot to leave the split at the sides. And the fabric is too fussy for ripping and redoing anything. For ikat and greenie, I also cut the back with the pattern piece an inch or two from the fold line, adding inches of width to the back, which I then gathered back down to size. I completely adore all three of them.

. . . . .

Then last weekend I wanted to make the intended blue-striped Fen but felt really unsure about the size and fit, given the shape of this pattern versus my shoulders. So I cut a straight 8 out of a hunk of natural linen I had left over from my dress. Now, the thing about my sewing a Fen (or two) is it was me having a whole big discussion with myself about how it’s ok for there to be some clothes that only work in summer — that aren’t suitable for layering over or under, due to their width and length — and that it’s a good thing. Not wearing the same clothes all year means having some variety to look forward to! But it turns out I love it layered over the Lakesides!  The 8 is really cute on me but pulls a little across the shoulders. So I went up to a 12 for the blue stripe, and also modified the hemline — I lowered the front and raised the back so the difference between them is not quite so severe. I love them both, but I think the 10 is probably the ideal size for me. And it will be no hardship to make another.

The only other mod I made on the Fens is the neck. I freehanded a round neck and then finished it with bias instead of the prescribed neckband. I love the band from Fen (and have used it repeatedly on other garments since first trying it) but felt like if I was going to do it here, I’d want to give it the full double-needle treatment, which I wasn’t in the mood for on the linen one! When it came to the blue one, I didn’t want to use any of my remaining yardage cutting bands on the bias, so I used a strip of bias left from my striped sleeveless top and turned it to the inside, so it’s a tiny bit of hidden contrast.

Fen has proven to be the perfect shape for wearing with the Seneca skirt, so I’m more eager than ever to make the black ikat version of that — along with the rest of my summer list.

3 Lakesides + 2 Fens = 1 new wardrobe

LAKESIDE CAMISOLES
Pattern: Lakeside Pajamas by Grainline Studio (used less than 1 yard fabric)

1. Indigo
Fabric: Hand-dyed linen-hemp given to me by a friend
Cost: $18 pattern + gift fabric = $18

2. Ikat
Fabric: Black and white ikat purchased from Fancy Tiger Crafts for $13.50/yard
Cost: reuse pattern + $13.50 fabric = $13.50

3. Greenie
Fabric: “Seedlings” India-loomed cotton by my friend Anna Maria Horner, purchased at Craft South for $14/yard
Cost: reuse pattern + $14 fabric = $14

FEN TOPS
Pattern: Fen by Fancy Tiger Crafts (used approx 1.5 yards fabric)

1. Linen
Fabric: Bought half-price last year at JoAnn, I’m guessing about $6/yard
Cost: reuse pattern + $9 fabric = $9

2. Blue stripe
Fabric: Unknown Japanese cotton remnant bought for $5/yard
Cost: reuse pattern + $7.50 fabric = $7.50

So that’s a grand total of $62 these five tops cost me! (Including one new pattern I’ll get lots more use out of.) The natural denim jeans are Willies from Nashville’s Imogene+Willie (made in LA from Japanese denim), bought on clearance. The Salma sandals were the deal of the century from Jane Sews. Feeling pretty good about all of this!

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PREVIOUSLY in 2016 FOs: Adventure Tank and Seneca Skirt

KTFO-2016.12 and 13: Adventure Tank and Seneca Skirt

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FOs: Adventure Tank and Seneca Skirt

Having sworn to document all Finished Objects on the blog this year, as well as elaborating on how they fit into my overall wardrobe, I’m posting about these two aforementioned finishes today—

No.12: My first me-made t-shirt — and the first of many Adventure Tanks to come. As I mentioned in my summer sewing plan, this is a Medium and I love it but will make the next one (striped!) in size Small. This looks great with jeans and such on its own, but you can see above it’s a little big to be worn with the skirt and would look better scaled down in comparison, which would also be better for layering under other things. The only change I made was to lengthen it by 1.5″, and then I didn’t hem it (I’m liking it raw) so it wound up 2.5″ longer than the pattern calls for. I couldn’t love this hemp jersey any more than I do — it’s amazing.

No.13: My test sew of Seamwork’s Seneca skirt (designed for jersey), using the leftovers from my blue striped top to see if I would like it in a woven. The verdict: Eh, almost. I don’t think it’s outstanding in this particular fabric (I’ll like it better in something darker) and as previously noted, my plan for the next pass at it is to go up a size for the skirt front/back and gather them to fit the Medium waistband. This one is a straight Medium — only modification I made was to omit the side-seam insert panels and just seam the front and back together.

As with most every garment on earth, I like the skirt best with layers and boots. The question still remains whether I’ll ever really be a skirt person, but becoming a summer-clothes person seems beyond my capacities.

FOs : Adventure Tank and Seneca Skirt

TEE
Pattern: Adventure Tank (view B) from Fancy Tiger Crafts
Fabric: Black hemp jersey from Fancy Tiger Crafts bought for $20/yard
Cost: Free download from my CreativeBug account + $6 to print + $20 fabric = $26

SKIRT
Pattern: Seneca from Seamwork Magazine
Fabric: Unknown Japanese cotton remnant bought for $5/yard
Cost: $12 pattern + $7 to print + $7 fabric + $2 elastic + $1 grommets = $29

Also pictured:  black lopi raglan and off-black chunky turtleneck

NOTE: For those of you who were wishing for a pattern for my striped top, above, and its black precursor, I had mentioned that Amber’s Adventure Tank (muscle tank variation, view B) looked like it might prove to be the thing. And I think it’s safe to say it is — just look at the top two photos up there to see how similar they are! To make Adventure in a woven, you might need to go up a size — definitely make sure the neckhole goes over your head — and cut your bands on the bias. For the hi/low split hem, just straighten out the lower sides and hemline, making the front and back panels as long as you want them, and leave a split in the side seam to your liking. Add pockets if you want. Let me know if you try it!

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PREVIOUSLY in 2016 FOs: Gathered Skirt, take two

KTFO-2016.11 : Gathered Skirt, take two

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FO: Purl Soho Gathered Skirt, take two

Remember that black skirt I sewed last spring that was a bit of a fail? It was Purl Soho’s Gathered Skirt for All Ages pattern, and it was a perfectly cute skirt — I just didn’t like it on me. However, I continue to think it’s an adorable pattern for a little girl, so I offered to make one for my niece. We picked out the fabric when she was here last summer — this sweet cotton double-gauze, don’t know who makes it — and I just finally got around to sewing it up! (Bad aunt. Very bad aunt.)

Of course, there were mods:

– Niece was at camp at the time, but my sister measured the waist of a skirt in her closet which matched the largest of the pattern sizes (“12 years”, 25-inch elastic), but given that I still think it’s too much fabric, I cut the “8 to 9-year” size, with a 30″ waistband, to go with the 25″ elastic from the larger one.

– Still felt like those main panels were alarmingly wide, and remembered I had wanted to lengthen it (oops), so I turned the main panels on their sides, and the original height became the width — a drastic reduction in the measurement there, from 26 wide to 16 wide for each, or a total of 20″ of circumference removed. Then I cut them to about 18″ long.

– Since I wasn’t doing anything contrasty with the pockets, I just cut the side panels as one long piece and folded for the pocket, rather than seaming two pieces together.

– To reinforce the top (folded) edge of the pockets, I pressed a strip of fusible interfacing between the layers, and top-stitched across it.

– I remembered last time, in the end, my elastic didn’t fit into the casing. So this time I cut it 3.5″ wide instead of 3″ — worked out perfectly.

– And I also French seamed everything (and top-stitched it down) so it looks as nice on the inside as the outside.

It’s super cute, although I think I may have slightly overdone it on volume elimination — we’ll see whether she can walk in it! But seeing this one makes me want to try it again in my size, with the volume somewhere between this and the original.

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PREVIOUSLY in 2016 FOs: Sleeveless top redux, this time with pockets!

KTFO-2016.10 : Sleeveless top redux, this time with pockets!

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FO : Blue stripe sleeveless, this time with pockets!

Monday’s Idea Log post was written last week before I left for DC for the weekend, for the trade show, and in the meantime I finished sewing the second version of my sleeveless top, which I alluded to in that post. This one uses the same pattern pieces I had drafted for the black top, but with three key differences:

1.) I fixed the back neck to the way it was originally meant to be — just a crewneck, thank you. Several people have asked, with regard to this and its predecessor and the sketch of the dress version — whether this neck hole goes over my head. As you can see, it does!

2.) I added pockets! As noted in Monday’s post, they’re based on my beloved linen tunic’s pockets. I’m mad about these, and also pretty damn pleased with my pattern matching.

3.) This has the same split hem as the black one, but because I’m lazy and this fabric is a bit shreddy, I French seamed the shoulders and side seams, having done the same thing on my linen Gallery dress. What happens if you try to combine French seams and a side slit is you have to clip the seam allowance right at the bottom of the French seam in order to be able to turn it under to finish the remaining edges. I like how it gives a sort of lapped side seam.

So this one is a major winner. It’s more of the $5/yard Japanese cotton remnant fabric I got from Imogene+Willie last summer (the one on top in this photo), and it’s divinely soft and wonderful to work with and to wear. Factoring in the bias tape, I’m guessing I might have used just over a yard.

These pics were taken at the end of the day on Saturday after hours of trade show meandering and back-to-back meetings and walking and walking and walking. It was inhumanly hot in downtown DC, so right after this, I changed into my aforementioned Earthen Slip with this top over it, and that’s officially my new favorite outfit — but alas I have no photos of that! Suffice to say, it’s a versatile little dream of a garment.

Next up: the dress version!

Pattern: self-drafted*
Fabric: Unknown Japanese cotton remnant bought for $5/yard
Cost: no pattern + $6 fabric = $6

FO : Blue stripe sleeveless, this time with pockets!

*Fancy Tiger has a muscle tank pattern publishing very, very soon with which you could no doubt sew a facsimile of this