Featherweight Cardigan

So after an extended hiatus, I've finally returned to this blog. I didn't manage to get much knitting (or crafting in general) while I was away at school, but I did finish this cardi up in the few weeks after finals were over.

Quite happy with the way this turned out. Very simple, but very wearable. Also, there is something to be said for a simple stockinette stitch piece when one is trying to jump back into knitting ;)

Ravelry Project Page

Yarn: Elann Lustrado

I enjoyed working with this yarn. I would reccomend knitting it at a large gauge though (this was perfect). My first attempt with this yarn was for Arisag, and at that smaller gauge I felt the fabric was too stiff.

The pattern: Featherweight Cardigan by Hannah Fettig

Just as fun to knit as the first time :)

I did make a few mods to the pattern. Namely, lengthening the cardi and opting for 2x2 rib instead of a stockinette collar.

For the lengthening, I definitely should've added waist shaping, it drapes kind of oddly in the front at the moment.

For the collar, the 2x2 rib is currently ruffling up, which could be due to the cast off, or because I picked up too many stitches. Either way, I'll need to figure out a fix, because sadly blocking didn't improve matters.

Also recently, Celeste and I hit up Shepherd's Harvest again this year (goodness, it's already been several weeks since then!). Super fun as usual, though this year I refrained from buying anything. Oddly enough, I was super lazy this year and didn't get any pictures, so check out Celeste's post for those :)

Not sure when I'll be posting at this space next (hopefully more often!), but thank you for visiting! :)

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Autumn is just around the corner (yay, I love autumn!) and with it my schedule is changing up as well. The world of academia is calling me into a season of prolonged busyness, which means less time to craft and participate in the crafty blog realm. :(

I'm pretty sure I'll be able to keep up with most of my favorite blogs, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have to write posts. Hopefully some random words or photos every once in awhile, but not much beyond that.

Oh, I really wanted to post about the McCall's 5523 pencil skirt, but I never got to hem it! Hemming a skirt is a lot more time consuming than I expected! But I really loved the pattern, very easy to sew and really cute. My skirt is just a little big on me (the wool I sewed it with had more stretch than the muslin I used to test the pattern) but it fits my sister quite well, so that worked out nicely. Will definitely be sewing another one of these soon, I love all options for the back panel, it'll be a lot fun to try them out!

Refrigerator Pickles

Thanks everyone for your sweet comments on my last few posts. I love reading your thoughts :)

I've been working away on the pencil skirt pattern from the last post, and am nearly ready to photograph. I'm pretty happy with the way it's turning out, though I may consider going one size smaller next time. Can"t wait to share with you!

Over the weekend I made some refrigerator pickles to preserve a boatload of cucumbers that were given to me. I used my grandmother's recipe for these, and it was quite easy to make. Vinegar, sugar, celery seed, and onions. Simple simple.

I cut my cucumbers into 1/4" slices (or roughly around there) and that seemed to work quite well. Make sure to pack these tightly. Oh, and it'll work a lot better if your cucumbers are smaller in diameter. Mine were a bit oversized and it made it harder to pack them in

Patterns, patterns!

My mom and I got to spend some time antiquing this previous week and we opted to scope out some new (to us) shops. We were disappointed to find that several smaller shops had closed, but we still really enjoyed the few we were able to visit. I, of course, was on the lookout for vintage fabrics and my new favorite, vintage patterns (1950's being the decade of choice).

I managed to find some large pieces of this vintage fabric (not sure how old, the print looks a bit 1930's to me, but I'm not sure how to tell for sure)

Other than the fabric, I didn't find anything too spectacular, but this 1965 blouse pattern did catch my eye (view 1 in the yellow/orange is my favorite). There were several sizes and I was lucky enough to find my size in the pile. It was only $1 so I wasn't too worried about whether or not I'd actually sew the blouse, but now after looking at it a bit, I'm fairly certain I will be sewing this at some point (though I may be editing the collar). It'll be great with a pencil skirt.

A pencil skirt?

Perhaps this model from McCall's would do?

Yep, I picked this up several days later from the 99c sale at Hancock's without thinking too much about it. Now I realize, these two will be great together.

When I bought this skirt pattern I was quite a distance from home, meeting a friend. I thought I had a Hancock's close by my house so I figured I'd be able to stop in later if there was anything I really wanted. Not so, unfortunately. Apparently that was my closest Hancocks. Wah :( Now I wish I'd spent more time checking out the fabric.

I also grabbed this tank pattern:

I love the ruffles here. Now I just need to find fabric and trim that match as nicely as the sample pictured!

My last purchase from Hancock's some simple muslin fabric. I have to say, even though this is just "practice cloth" (basically you cut and sew your pattern in this, make any changes and then cut your official cloth using the muslin pieces) I'm super excited. This should definitely save me some headaches! I'm hoping to make a muslin this week for the skirt so I can purchase some good fabric for it, but I have some other projects going as well so we'll see if it happens!

Fiber Dyeing: The Process

Here's the promised fiber dyeing process photos! :)

Celeste removing excess vinegar from fiber braids (the vinegar allows the dye to absorb into the fiber)

Mixing up new colors: The most popular color of the day was light blue. I think we each used about two to three bottles over the day. What can I say, it was a great base!

Working on my samples:

Celeste working a few of her braids:

As I worked on my two braids, I realized I used much of the same color combination. The main thing I changed was the amount of each color used/blended. My first braid was predominately pink, with minimal blending and fairly saturated (though still pastel-like) colors.

I also added brown to my first braid:

Finished product:

With my next braid I chose to color nearly all the fiber with the light blue dye and then add in medium blue, light green, and light pink, being careful to really blend them into the blue. Not all of the colors got wholly mixed, but I love the way it looks now.

After I braided my fiber up I was even happier with the way the colors looked. There's just something about braiding that makes the colors so pretty.

This was such a fun experiment. There's one thing I definitely learned, I LOVE colorful fiber. I came home very excited to spin, when previously I'd been a little "meh" about it, even though I have many beautiful (but neutral colored) fibers in my stash. I think in the end I'd probably prefer the neutral yarns for knitting, but during the spinning process I much prefer the colors! Conundrum? Probably :)

Make sure to check out Celeste's finished braids too, so so gorgeous!

Fiber Dyeing

Celeste was dyeing more fiber this past Saturday and invited me to have a try as well. We had quite a bit of fun playing around with the dyes.

Celeste started me off with a a few ounces of fiber separated into four chunks to give me a chance to experiment. I quickly learned several things I didn't like in the finished product, so I'm really glad I started off with samples!

(four samples from far left: 1. pink, brown, white; 2. green, blue, yellow, white; 3. yellow, pink; 4. brown, blue, white)

I learned that white areas, while cool, don't necessarily look great with most color combinations.

My pink and brown sample (far left) actually has a white tip and I like that one, but the white with darker colors didn't look as nice. Actually, most of the white spots are hidden in this photo!

I also learned the yellow dye was quite bright! We dubbed it "highlighter yellow". However, after Celeste played around with a bit, we ended up with a nice banana tone. Much better.

Oh, and blue and brown? It could work in the right context, but somehow as I look at this fiber now, all I can see is a bruise colorway. ;P

After the samples, it was time for a larger braid. I was a little nervous, but took my time deciding how I wanted to dye the skein and I'm really happy with the way it came out.

I started with pink, then added a bit of brown and green and finished up with blue. I love how the blue blended with the pink looks (the purple areas in the above photo).

Next up, I dyed this braid.

By this time, I was ready to hit my home base, so this fiber predominately my favorite color, blue. :)

I decided to start with a light blue base and blend pink, light green, and dark blue into it. I love this one. I wish the photos were more accurate, but my camera isn't photographing blue and green very well lately so this is the best I could do!

It's a bit lighter than this photo, but here you can see the color variations better than in the top photo:

While we were dyeing, I took quite a few process photos, so those will probably be making an appearance on one of our blogs soon! :)

A new haunt of mine

BurdaStyle

I recently started reading The Selfish Seamstress blog (check it out if you have a bit of time, her sewing is just fantastic; here's a link directly to her finished objects category) and since she sews using a lot of Burda patterns I became quite curious about Burda. After a bit of googling I found the pattern magazines and the BurdaStyle community website. After a bit of looking around last night I made an account. My username is The Moebius Sock if you want to look at my (currently empty) page.

Basically this is a sewing site that appears to me to have similarities to Ravelry and even a bit of Facebook. It's a Burda site however, so it doesn't have a pattern library like Ravelry (just Burda and user patterns it appears) and it isn't purely a community sewing site. It also has some annoying ads. I'm still learning the format, but so far I've discovered a lot of things that appeal to me. I've already added several projects to my favorites and a few tutorials to my "toolkit" to try out in the future.

I'm still keeping up with knitting of course, but for now I've hit the point where I really want to improve my sewing skills (and production levels for that matter!) so I'll probably be focusing on that for a little while.

Have fun looking around :)