Sew Distracted

Cardigan Back Done and first up on the UFO pile

I finished the back of the cardigan Saturday night.  I didn't manage to get any knitting done on Sunday, except for the cast on row for the left front.  Tonight is supposed to be movie night if I get my act together and get a few things done and dinner on the table early enough.

I love knitting this cardigan.  I want to plow on ahead and finish as soon as possible.  However, since the pile of unfinished projects is ginormous, and I also want to be able to wear all of those sweaters, I need to do some finishing. 

Now that I have finished the back of this sweater I also have to finish one of the sweaters in the  UFO piles.  The idea is that I will do the finishing before I finish the next piece of this sweater, using the  cardigan as a kind of carrot to encourage me to get something actually finished.

After I finish both of the front pieces, I will once again force myself to finish something else before moving on to the sleeves.  I am not going to be absolutely strict.  I can start knitting the front of Lilac Serenade before  I finish the UFO, for example (did I say tonight was movie night?!?) but I have to finish the UFO before I finish knitting the left front.

It is all about motivation.

The first finishing project will be this pullover I started in February.  I called it dreaming of spring, although at the time it was in anticipation of spring-to-come and now it is in memory of spring-past.  The yarns are colinette and, for those who did not read the sewing blog, I will update all the details when I finish the sweater, which I intend to get started on tonight.

Organizing the Pressing Tools

OK, I sewed napkins last week.  And I spent some time avoiding sewing.  I really need to break this habit.

I also spent some time moving piles of things around the sewing room so I can work.  I really can't work like this, that much I know.  I want to finish the sewing room.  I got it 3/4 done a few years ago, life took a couple of sharp turns and I never finished.  I did let things pile up waiting until I finished.

I have been working on the piles though.  They have been greatly reduced and moved out of the way and sorted in ways that I can work on them a little bit each day and finish, probably even before fall (yeah!!)

I also needed some shelves.  I had planed to put a narrow shelf above the ironing board, and above the window for little used items, but never did.  The shelves I originally wanted don't seem to be available anymore, and I didn't want to spend time dealing with making something just right. So I found something that worked and they arrived Friday.

The high shelves are for a few pressing tools that I don't use every day, but still need to have around for those times when they are needed.  I also have a few other things used for specific tasks that aren't regular day-to-day projects.

I wanted shelves that had invisible mounts because I don't  really have room to put brackets up on the top and still room to put things on the shelves due to the window frames.  To get the length I had to put up a series of short shelves.  Someday, when I am feeling ambitious and have nothing better to do, I might make a custom sized shelf and just drill the holes to use these brackets, now that I have them.

On the far right the white roll on the top, way up by the beam is a piece of PVC plumbing pipe that I use when felting.  Below it, on the shelf is a roll of  "soil separator paper" that I got once for trying pattern alterations and muslins.  I learned that I prefer actual muslin because I can't see the marks on this stuff, but there are times, when I am making multiple copies of something to work out a detail, that it is convenient, so I am keeping it around.

Here's the south wall showing the shelves above and below the window.  The blurry white thing on top is my flash reflecting off the soil separator paper.  The shelf above the ironing board is narrow (4 inches) and just perfect for holding the things I use all the time.  The sleeve board is hidden in a slot right behind the cutting table next to the iron, easily reachable but out of sight..

Now all my sewing tools are off the floor, where I was always tripping over them, and some things that were piled up on a bookshelf are properly stowed so I can get the books off the shelf.  I am running out of excuses for not sewing.  This is good. 

But to make sure I do something I am going to have to give a regular accounting.  If I feel I have to write, I will also feel I have to have something to write about, rather than just the random musings in my head.

Artful Yarns meets Filatura di Crosa

Although my last project may have been exercise in frustration, I am certainly back on track now.  My current sweater is one of the items I really wanted to be starting when I started working with the Shanghai yarn, and now that I am actually knitting, I am loving this project more and more.

It all started with some Arftul Yarns Serenade in color 6003, Sunrise, Sunset.  I just fell in love with the color of this yarn and bought up all they had at my LYS.  Then I had to find a pattern.  I had an idea in my head, and for once I knew exactly where to look:

Obviously I had the right idea, and I have no idea how I did it because I usually am terrible at remembering where I saw a particular pattern. 

But I was enamored of this cardigan:

Was it the similarity in the colors?  Yes, it does look that way, but as soon as I saw the yarn, I knew I wanted a fitted cardigan with 3/4 sleeves.  This just happened to be the right cardigan. And when I knitted the swatch and got perfect gauge, I knew it was meant to be.

I love, love, love knitting with this yarn.  And I think I will love the sweater as well.  The angora keeps the cotton light and drapey and it just looks beautiful knitted up, light and spongy.

Since I started knitting I have checked Ravelry and have found that quite a few people complain of shedding and piling and I hope that is not the case.  I am getting a bit of fuzz while I knit, but no more than any other wool/alpaca/ blend yarn that is not really tightly spun.  I have other angora sweaters that shed only lightly although I know it is a common complaint.  Well I will see.  Perhaps it doesn't wear well, I won't know until I actually wear it, and just looking at my swatch and the sweater I am knitting I have trouble seeing it.

But then again, I like angora.

I am about half way through the back of the sweater:

If this works out well, and I don't see why it shouldn't, I am already thinking ahead to future versions of this sweater in other yarns/fibers/colors.  The pattern itself is such a classically lovely, simple, elegant shape.  How could I not want a few of them?  But then again,  I may once again be counting my sweaters before they are knit.

I am not one of these knitters that knits something only once.  That would be truly difficult because I am the kind of person who, when I find something I really love, wears it over and over and over and wants it in all available colors.

Sewing Time

I've been suffering from Restless Mind Syndrome of late and so the sewing got put on hold for a bit.  Everything  is still on the queue but the schedule has been shifted around. The external bits of my life have been a bit chaotic of late, and although I don't think of myself as being particularly regulated in my interior life, I cannot really settle down into a more creative mindset with too much is out of order.

I realize of course that any kind of creative activity needs to be practiced regularly, and I think that has been my goal. I don't want to run into the sewing room, lock the door, and finish a bunch of stuff in a rush then have to walk away for an extended period of time.  I want to make regular sewing time.  And I have come to accept that I am the kind of person who cannot really shut the door on the external part of my life and ignore it completely.  There has to a certain orderliness to the structure of life so that I can feel free to explore the inner creative instinct.  I am constantly trying to regulate that outer need for structure, with that inner more intuitive bit that my sewing taps into. 

So I am trying to expand the time devoted to creative pursuits.   I am knitting regularly, every day, and have been petty productive, even though some projects have been ripped.  But it wasn't really until the latter half of last week that I began finding daily time in the sewing room and it frankly has not been enough.  Still, the fact that I am there is good, and eventually this slow trickle will expand into a bigger stream.

What I have been doing has not been particularly blog-worthy, however.  I need clothes to wear now.  And so I have been involved in some of the more boring chores that sometimes fall on those of us who can wield a needle and thread, namely mending and alterations.  I have taken in several things that were too large to wear. If I were reconfiguring or refashioning something interesting, like a Chanel Jacket or a beautiful garment, I would share the process. But taking in tees so they don't hang, taking up baggy summer pants and other uninspiring tasks do not make for thrilling reading. And I suppose none of this is creative, but it is practical experience, and it is a joy just to make something work.

Of course there was the day I spent my daily hour cursing under my breath at a stack of J Crew tees that had all come undone where the neck band joins the body of the shirt.  They had not been worn that heavily, it was purely sloppy workmanship, and it really annoyed me.  Each top took less than a minute to serge back together.  But it took substantially longer than that to re-thread the serger with different colors of thread between shirts.  I should have known better.  I have complained about this company's merchandise before so I should have known better.  But I fell in love with certain colors in a flattering style that is long enough that my tummy doesn't show above the tops of my Jeans.

It might be easy to buy tees, but not so easy, apparently, to by perfect tees.  All the more reason to spend more time in that sewing room.

Call It a Learning Experience

Well, Shanghai is a bust. 

I finished the body, and it fit beautifully, but I somehow did not like it on.  I like the knitted fabric and I knew the colors weren't my best but thought I could make it work, but somehow, when I put it on it was worse than blah, it was just plain old "yuck". 

Not the shape, mind you.  If I could just look at the sweater without the added bonus of the complexion of the person wearing it, the sweater was quite nice.  And no, I am not going to show it to you.  It is destined for ripping. 

I kind of fudged the armhole shaping, decreasing more in front and less in back, then increasing a bit back out to the shoulder at the neckline.  I also added vertical bust darts and some bust shaping using short rows and the fit was really really nice.  Luckily I did make notes.  So I can think about this sweater much like I would think of a muslin if I were sewing something.  But a knitted muslin takes longer.  Bummer.

My first reaction was to ditch the whole thing, but I do still like the yarn.  Tonight, while I was working on my new project (which I love by the way) I had another idea, which might actually work quite nicely.  It will be a little further down the queue.  Shanghai and I need to take a little break from each other's company for a while.

Finally, increases ahaead!

Well, I am done with the mindlessly boring section above the decreases.  Even though it was only a few inches, it seemed like endless rounds of k3 p2.  No distraction was enough to end the tedium.

Truthfully I hid in a corner and read over the weekend, when I could find a spare minute that is.  Nothing like escaping into a little historical fiction to avoid the stresses of life and calm the overactive brain.  I have been reading World Without End by Ken Follet and it has been easy enough to lose myself in it.  The book is far more gripping escapism than Shanghai has been of late.  But although I have a weakness for historical fiction, especially if it is set in the British Isles prior to 1800, and although I am loving this, it is not as dear to my heart as Pillars of the Earth was.

But back to Shanghai.  It is looking good.  And I have finally measured and calculated the increases, so we are getting back into fun knitting territory again.  From the photo, 6 more inches to the armhole shaping, with increases...fun.

Coat, the Second

Although I have hopes for making more than one coat this year, there are, in fact, only two coats in the queue for this summer. 

The second coat belongs to the collection of taupe fabrics that will be used for the JCC.  This collection was always bigger than just four garments, and it has continued to evolve.  But one of the original fabrics, in fact the core fabric about which I built this entire collection is a taupe colored lightweight Italian rainwear fabric.

As soon as I saw this coat in the December Patrones, I knew I had to make it and I knew I had the perfect fabric.  Actually, I think the photo of this coat is not inspiring and does not show the coat off to advantage:

Here is the line drawing:

The fabric is a silk/polyester/nylon blend and I will be lining it with taupe silk to match. 

I probably will not get started on this before July, which is the same time as the coat sew along, but I consider it to be rather in addition to the coat sew along.  Even with two coats to work on, I hope to have this done before the fall rainy season.

No More Knitting

I have reopened my knitting blog, PurlsandMurmurs.  This combination of knitting and sewing just isn't working for me.  Somehow I feel like I can't babble on as much as I would like with everything in one place. 

Despite the fact that I have just been reading in the new Atlantic Monthly about how the Internet has shortened our attention span so that no one will read more than a couple of paragraphs, I still feel the need to go on an on.  I read a lot.  I love reading long thoughtful blog posts when other people, who actually write well, post them.  I still enjoy throwing out bucket loads full of mindless twaddle.  And so I shall.  Like my library and my books are an extension of my memory, and external hard drive of sorts, so too are these blogs. And I need them to make some sense of the jumble of my thoughts; they accomplish that best when they are separate.

Tee Progress

The Shaghai tee is progressing nicely.  I am making this a good 25 inches long or so, so I am not quite at the waist (it looks longer and narrower here than it does on me).  So far I have gotten the decreases just right.  I need to decrease another 12 stitches in the next 3 inches (18 rows) and then run evenly a little bit before beginning to increase again.  I'll do another try-on before I get to that point just to make sure everything is going smoothly.

Otherwise I like the color combinations that I have chosen as they are appearing in the knitted fabric.  Once again, I don't have a plan here, I am just knitting.  So everything is looking good.

Given the amount of yarn I have used so far, and how much is left, I am thinking that this sweater is going to have sleeves, probably 3/4 length, but I could be wrong.  The sleeves will be another experiment. I've never just winged sleeves without a plan before. But then again I am going to wing the armhole shaping too, just trying the sweater on and knitting to fit. 

I am considering knitting the sleeves from the sleeve cap down.  This is something else I haven't done before, although I have read about it.  This might make it easier to make sure any striping across the shoulders matches perfectly at the sleeve. I am about to end the striping on the body, at least until I get above the bust and into the shoulder area, and the sleeves will also be mostly plain.   If yarn quantity is an issue, knitting the sleeves from the top down will also give me a much better idea of  how much sleeve I can get from the available yarn.

Coat, the First

I actually have reached a state where I need a couple of coats, not just desire, covet or dream of a couple of coats.  So when Marji suggested a coat sew along, I joined. And I am glad I did because it is now closed and I think having the push for a deadline will be good for me.

Here is the basic time line that Marji proposed:

May - Gather materials
June - muslin for fit and style
July - begin cutting/mounting/interfacing
mid-July - pockets and buttonholes
August - finish construction of shell, sleeves
mid to late August - construct lining
Sept - lining into coat
Goal - finish by end of September!

Now there is no shortage of coat fabric in my collection.  And I had intended to make at least one coat last year, but we all know that didn't happen.  And I intend to make more than one coat this year.  But as soon as Marji suggested a coat sew along, I **knew** what I was making.  There has been this one coating fabric that has been in my stash a l.o.n.g. time, and I have been saying I am going to make it up next year for almost as long.  It takes up a lot of space on my shelves, and it is well past time I just make the coat and wear it.

The fabric for the coat is one of those fabrics created by fusing or felting a bunch of yarns into a fabric.  I said this is an old fabric.  It was purchased many years ago, before one began to see these fabrics often, the same year that these coats appeared on the Paris Runways.  I got the fabric at B&J fabrics in New York, in their old location.

With the fabric I have a gray silk charmeuse for the lining, and a beautiful gray flannel, which is intended to be used for the front collar, although I also have enough to make a pair of pants as well.

I have had an image of the coat I intended to make with this fabric in my mind for years.  I have the materials.  There really is no excuse.

 I went through my patterns to some extent last night, the more current ones, not the old ones in boxes.  I was certain I had pulled out the pattern I wanted to use, an old coat pattern from the 80's but I didn't find it.  It must still be in storage.  It is not exactly what I want but is the closest thing to the shape of the actual coat I want.  I also have another very old pattern, either Style or New Look dating back to when they were independent that has the full length shawl collar, complete with a separate under-collar pattern (not always the case in shawl collar patterns these days), although that pattern is a little fuller through the body than the Vogue pattern.  The plan is to morph the two patterns together. That depends, of course, on whether or not the patterns are as I remember them.  This drawing gives a very crude idea of what I am going for, with the long flannel shawl collar and the purple-blue coat.  I am planning set in sleeves, and probably two-piece shaped sleeves, as I might not be able to ease much in at the sleeve head.  A lot of this is going to depend on a bit of experimentation.  It looks like there will be a fair bit of muslin work going on as well.

I did briefly consider changing the design I planned for this fabric.  There is an interesting Issey Miyake coat that uses felted fabric, but this fabric does not have enough drape to look flattering on me in that design. 

I also considered the "Armani Coat" pattern that Vogue came out with a year or two ago, Vogue 8307:

Now I think this coat would look stunning with the the combination of colors in the felted wool with the gray collar.But when I look at the fabric more critically, and consider the body that will be wearing this coat I realize that it really is not going to work for me.  If I were planning a short coat, it would work, but I have enough fabric for a long coat, and I really want a long coat out of this fabric.  Although the coating is not stiff, it does not have the drape I believe this style of coat would require, especially on my middle-aged, not so slender figure.

But then again, after I thought about the dramatic collar option, and as I was typing this, I also recalled this Neue Mode pattern (also currently residing in the pattern boxes)  This pattern could be extended into a long coat, or morphed with a long fairly straight coat pattern.  The shape would work better with this fabric, although I do have to think about the thickness of the double-breasted front, and might also be quite nice, if I decide that I don't like the original plan. If I opt for this pattern I will have to reconsider closures, as the original coat design has hidden hooks behind the shawl collar.

So at the moment, I am aiming for my original design, and that seems like the most likely at this point, but I am always one who likes to keep my options open.  The modified Neue Mode idea somehow seems a little more "modern" to me.  I suspect that I will end up making a muslin of both and only then, after looking at muslins and my fabric, will I make my final decision.