Sunny!

Hello, it’s me again! Once more with two garments for the price of one, which makes a total of five garments in a week, gasp!

It’s been so long since I completed this skirt and top that I don’t even remember which came first… The only thing I remember is finishing them a few days apart and realising how perfect they went together.

The skirt is my second iteration of Tilly’s Picnic Blanket Skirt. I can’t get enough gathered skirts; with or without buttons, I need them all. You wouldn’t believe how many pieces of fabric I have bought with a simple gathered skirt in mind (I think Mimolette is going to club me to death if she ever hears me answering ever again “Oh I don’t know, I was thinking a simple gathered skirt maybe?” to her asking me what I want to make with a fabric I like!).

So when looking for something to sew with the remnants of the skirt I sewed for my friend’s birthday (am I the best friend ever or what, sewing her a skirt only two years after her birthday?!), I didn’t dither and went for, well, a gathered skirt. With buttons, because I had spotted these cute ones at Tissus Passion and I was so happy to have found an excuse to buy them.

While we’re on the subject of buttons, I got the impression that, after a couple of months of wearing and subsequent washing, they had started to fade a little bit. I compared them with a spare one to be sure I wasn’t seeing things, and indeed, as you can see in the picture above, they are a shade clearer. Fortunately, the fabric (which I bought in Paris about four years ago) seems to stand up better to repeated washing.

I like the skirt a lot, but it’s the knitted top I’m most proud of, because it is my own pattern (details on Ravelry)! I had a clear idea of what I wanted it to look like and I made the pattern up as I went. The only radical difference between the finished top and what I had in mind is that I initially intended for the Swiss dot stitch to run on the whole sweater. But when I reached the part where I knit in the round, I realised this stitch couldn’t really be knit in the round. So I had to make a choice between seaming up the top afterwards, or knitting in the round with another stitch. I thought these garter stitch stripes looked cute with the dots, so I chose to go on knitting in the round with this stitch.

The yarn is Catania and I loved knitting with it. I did freak out when steam blocking the sweater though: with the heat, the yarn changed in texture and got very stiff and started feeling sort of brittle. Luckily, the change was only temporary and everything got back to normal as soon as the yarn cooled down.

I have worn this skirt and top a lot since I finished them four months ago, together and separately. The skirt is especially versatile: with its colourful flowers on a black background, it lends itself to being worn with or without tights, both in summer and winter appropriate outfits!

Les vacances de Mademoiselle Hulot

Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday is one of my favourite movies, and every time I watch it I fall in love again with the costumes (among so many other things!). I had been meaning to knit myself a summer sweater worthy of the holidaymakers of the movie for a few years, so in July, when I was trying to decide on my next knitting project, I settled on a striped cropped sweater that I thought would fulfill this need.

I knew I wanted navy and cream stripes on a cropped sweater with a fitted waist; I also wanted to try Drops Muskat, but I didn’t know what pattern to use. I hadn’t even thought about that option, but Mimolette convinced me that the kind of sweater I wanted would be pretty easy to design myself…

And she was right! After all, the effect I was looking for didn’t need a lot of shaping; all it required were two rectangles, one for the front and one for the back, a few increases at the neckline and a lot of decreases at the waist, and that’s it!

I knit this sweater Andi Satterlund style, i.e. seamless and from the top down, knitting the top of the back, picking up the front shoulder stitches and knitting the top of the front then joining front and back and knitting in the round (see Ravelry notes for more details).

As for the distribution of the stripes, I made it up as I went along. When I realised I wouldn’t have enough navy yarn to go on with my four navy rows, four cream rows design, I simply started knitting wider cream stripes. I was afraid until the end that I wouldn’t have enough yarn to finish the sweater, but I did (with less than a metre of either yarn left after I cast off)!

This sweater was knit in less than two weeks, so I could take it to Spain with me and I wore it a lot there both with the red Chardon you see in the pictures and my polka dot skirt. And I’ve already worn it here in Belgium, too, in the week I’ve been back!

Now if only my last sewing projects could be as successful as my last knitting projects: I couldn’t finish either of the two summer dresses I’d started before my departure (a Centaurée and the Juni dress from this book that was my final choice for the Outfit Along), and I haven’t had enough energy to get back to sewing since my return. Sooo much easier to knit in the couch than to get up and sew!

New York Hoodie

Proudest sewing moment ever: I not only finished a gift on time (which reminds me, a friend of mine is still waiting for the skirt I promised to sew for her birthday in May… 2013!) but I also drafted the pattern myself!

I had planned on simply tracing my boyfriend’s old hoodie (without taking it apart), but this proved to be such a hassle on a stretchy fabric that I quickly gave up on that idea and found myself drafting my own pattern. I just used the old hoodie and this pattern I own to check whether the length and width of my pattern were correct, then I drew everything myself with a certain amount of guesswork.

By the way, you read it right: I own a hoodie pattern, yet I found it more appealing to draft my own instead of using that one. I really must hate tracing patterns even more than I thought!

Anyway, the result not only looks like what I had in mind, but it also fits the recipient! Luck of the beginner I guess. There’s only one thing I would change in future occurrences of this pattern, and two more the recipient would have me change.What I would change is I would make the hood longer and deeper so that it fits more comfortably over his head. What he would have me change in addition to that is making the whole body and sleeves wider so that he could wear it over several layers (even more than what he’s wearing in the pictures apparently, which is a tank top, a long-sleeved tee and a sweater – and you can see the hoodie doesn’t even look tight over all those layers!) and above all widening the sleeve bands a bit: I swear they aren’t tight at all, you can sort of see it in the pictures, but feeling something touching his wrists is a pet peeve of his so he usually wears clothes that have much more ease than what I personally think he would need (that’s why such a thin – yet very tall – guy wears size XL clothing!). He also feels suffocated when something touches his neck, which is why he didn’t close the zipper all the way up – never will! Ah, Mr Picky, you’re lucky I love you! 😉

Despite his (constructive) criticism, he still said he was happy with the hoodie and he took it with him to New York and I know he’ll be wearing it a lot, so this is actually at least as rewarding a sewing project as those destined for myself.

As regards the technical details, I lined the hood and made the cuff and body bands with self fabric: I initially wanted to use some ribbing for the bands, but I didn’t want to bother with finding (or dyeing) the right colour, and mostly I knew Mr Picky would HATE the snug fit of ribbing! I was a little bit afraid the result wouldn’t look as professional as with ribbing, but I was pleasantly surprised!

I used an assorted purple separating metal zipper which I bought in a great local shop where they specialise in zippers of all colours, types and sizes. They even cut this one to the exact length I needed and it looks like it has always been this length: you can’t see where they cut it or moved a tooth even if you try! Unfortunately, this great shop that has been there for as long as I can remember is moving outside of Brussels in June. 😦

I realised on Sunday that I needed some metal eyelets for the hood lace before I could tackle the next step. Since I didn’t want to wait until the next day for the shop to be open, I delved into my stash in search for a replacement… and found out that I not only had an eyelet plier, but also two whole bags of eyelets in two colours: gold and silver. I had completely forgotten that my mother had bought me those some time ago!

Now that I (know that I) have all those eyelets, it shouldn’t be too long before I replace my own ratty hoodies! Though I don’t think I’ll bother drafting the pattern myself this time, seeing as one of them is so ratty I’ll have no qualms just taking it apart and using the pieces as a pattern!

Sketchbook: Selfless Hoodie

No, your eyes are not playing you tricks, I’m not the recipient of my latest sewing project!

My boyfriend, who hates shopping like you wouldn’t believe, had been making hints that he would appreciate it very much if I helped him avoid that chore by sewing him some of the clothes he needed to replace. I wasn’t overjoyed at that prospect because, you know, sewing for someone else, ugh. Plus he is very picky about the comfort of his clothes, and I didn’t want to waste some of my precious sewing time making something that wouldn’t get worn! I knit him a cardigan four years ago, and instead of falling at my feet in eternal gratitude as any normal person would do (a cardigan, for Pete’s sake! Size XL!!!), he pointed out that the sleeve ribbing was too tight for his taste.

But then again, after I fixed it with some astute blocking, he’s been wearing the cardigan all winter long every year. Just as he has been wearing that fleece headband that took me about five minutes to sew. And he was in desperate need of a new hoodie for an upcoming trip to New York. And I had bought an impressive amount of sweatshirt fabric that was taking an impressive amount of space in my stash. And Thread&Needles had just announced their “Un vêtement masculin” (men’s wear) sewing contest.

So I set to work and made him a (self-drafted!) hoodie. And I have to say I’m really proud with the outcome, which I should show you very soon since he accepted to pose for some pictures before he and the hoodie left for New York yesterday!