ive started making a dress! its vogue vintage V2902. my friend who is a dress-sewing master is helping me with it. i’ve made my muslin and it fits, so its on to cutting it out with my real fabric! hella yeah circle skirt!
v2902.
Author: emilyWools
https://www.emilywools.com
growing, growing
a Cladonia.
i finished my cladonia! I started it right before Christmas so I would have some “home for christmas knitting.” i finished almost all of the striped portion when i was home, and finished the lace through mid january. since i used heavier yarn than the pattern specified, i adjusted the edging to be just garter stitch and i used the suspended bind off (not tight, but not terribly stretchy. its truly perfect!). i love it and its very warm and big.
pre blocking (with napping Boyfriend):
blocking:
wearing!
on a slightly different note, i got some organizers for christmas, the roll-up, zippered kind. i took this as a sign that i needed to organize all my sewing supplies that had been all shoved haphazardly in a big box. it was really bad. as i was going through all my sewing stuff, i came upon my WIPs from years past. i decided to finish a dress that i had cut out but not sewn. i spent the rest of the weekend working on it, but i was pretty disappointed with the finished product. it doesn’t fit right, which is very annoying.
next up: i am finishing my shadow sweater (only have the two arms left!! they are ¾ sleeves! come on!)
festive us.
our house is getting festive. we have some minimal lights so far, along with fake wreaths on the railings, and a “real” wreath i doctored up from bare to ribbon-ed and beaded.
and then one day at work i found some garlands in the trash room. 3 lighted 10ish foot strands, and one unlit one. i cant tell you how excited i was when i found them! i wrapped the banister to the second floor with the lighted garland, and then created my own little ditty with the unlit one for over the dining room fireplace.
and here is our tree! post lights, pre ornaments:
… and then the final tree!
pre-december buzz.
i meant to make curtains for our entryway to the living room last year, but i didn’t get around to it in time, so this year i made it a priority to keep out the drafts before winter arrived. the entrance to our living room is right by our front door, so it gets really drafty when its cold out. i’ve had a bolt of “vintagey” marines fabric from the thrift store sitting around for years. i got the whole thing for $10, i couldn’t pass it up. a few weeks ago it occurred to me that they would make really neat curtains. i got some red backing fabric and corner weights at joanns. i totally recommend getting weights, i LOVE the results, they hang so nicely. we finally installed the hold-backs this weekend, so its picture time!
my fiddlehead mittens are almost half-done. i got some orange yarn to line them, so they will be extra warm! i love love love the blue sky alpacas yarns, they are so soft and nice to knit with. im getting pretty speedy with two-stranded knitting– i started the second mitten last night. i want to do the colorwork first, then block them, and then knit in the liner.
i planted the paperwhite bulbs i bought in california. i cant believe how easy they are to “plant” and how wonderful the payoff is of watching them grow and bloom! all you do is stick the bulb in a container with rocks and fill the water to cover half the bulb, and watch the magic.
also, christmas is getting into full swing here, i started christmas cookies. jacob’s special request were buckeyes, he’s already put a big dent in them, so i think ill have to make more before our christmas party.
here’s our tree! we haven’t decorated yet, so heres the raw thing:
twirl.
i finished my hat on the plane to california. it was pretty funny because i wanted to finish it night before but couldn’t, and when we got to the gate we immediately boarded, so i feverishly did the final decreases on the takeoff, and pretty soon into the flight i completed it and attached the tassels. it was an early morning flight, so most people were sleeping or groggy, but i was doing a little dance of happiness in my plane seat.
UPDATE: here’s a pic of the finished hat:
california was so beautiful, but the most fiber-related part of the trip happened in a yarn store in Petaluma. Knitterly was the most wonderful little place. i took a walk around, noticing and petting all the pretty skeins, and then i came back to the front of the store, almost about to walk out without purchasing anything, and then i found the most breathtaking (seriously..) display of yarn i had ever happened upon.
handspun, pre-center pulled balls of yarn nestled in white tissue in wide, shallow blueberry boxes were stacked on (i think) a picnic table with bench “shelves.” i lost all interest in anything but this, and touched every single ball of yarn. some of the yarn was undyed and ranged from a very dark dark gray black to a light brown mocha to a wonderful light smoke. the dyed colors were reds, purples, blues and greens. i must have picked up almost every ball to consider purchasing it.
one of the employees saw my enchantment and explained to me that the yarn was made by a woman in Napa who lives on a farm with all of the animals who provide their wool to make the yarn. she shears, cleans, spins and dyes all the yarn herself! on the labels she includes the names of each animal who contributed to the finished product. the kind employee also told me that this wonderful fiber artist started out not using dyes, but once she made some herself, she couldn’t resist the amazing colors she could achieve. the yarn is only sold in two stores, knitterly and another store in downtown san francisco, and sells out very, very quickly. it is also ridiculously reasonably priced.
i deliberated about what yarns to get for a very long time. i settled on two bright grass green balls, and two medium heathery gray ones. i plan to make a cladonia striped shawl with these beauties.
bravo, california.
FO’s to report.
theres a lot in progress here in the emilyWools craft room. this weekend i made:
1. a lace collar from a thrift store shirt (total cost: $3).
i looked for a peter-pan collar necklace at several stores, but all i found were low-quality, overpriced styles that weren’t quite right. frustrated, i went to goodwill and i happened to find a woven shirt with a lace collar. i cut it off from the shirt and then sewed a ribbon over the cut edge. im not quite sure how much i love it yet, but im excited to try it this weekend with the pictured polka-dot dress.
2. peacock costume tail. i sewed hot glued the felt “feathers” together, and then i also hot-glued them to the tulle. i originally attached the feathers to ribbons and they dangled down by themselves, but they kept falling to the back of the tulle and you couldn’t see them, so i resorted to gluing them to the tulle. i also started out sewing the felt pieces together with metallic gold thread, which looked awesome, but was just way too time intensive for a halloween costume. im happy with how this has turned out!!!
3. im also THISCLOSE to finishing my norby hat. i love love love the yarn for this project. pics when its finished! i am pretty sure ill finish before i leave for my trip, so i have some colorwork mittens lined up, as well as the sleeves to my sweater for travelling knitting.
(OH! by the way i seamed the front + back of the sweater. i also did the inner collar knitting/tackdown, but im really dissapointed with it. i think i need to use a more sturdy yarn, and do some decreases on the first row. so i will have to redo that, but i want to finish the arms first. im proud of my progress with it, though!!)
progress!
i am making progress on my sweater: the front is over half done. i am planning to block/seam/finish the collar and pockets before starting on the sleeves, we’ll see, maybe that’s cheating. i see a lot of people on ravelry complain about seaming, but i kind of love it. its the most motivating part for me, because im on the verge of finishing! i can go for a much longer time doing seaming/finishing than straight knitting. anyway, here’s where i am. you can see the blue melange yarn peeking out as stitch holders, but that’s what i plan to use for the pocket and collar linings. i am much further along than in this photo.
i also have my halloween costume started! im going to be a peacock! more info to come as i get further along!
baby blanket.
i finished the baby blanket! i used a multi-color cotton batik and a polka-dot flannel. i spent a while in the fabric store trying to find two flannels that looked good together, but as i was unsurely carrying around several bolts i happened upon the batik and thought it was so pretty. i like the pink bias tape for the color pop, too.
the tutorial was easy to follow, but im a little disappointed in my sewing skills… you wouldn’t think it would be so difficult to sew three rectangles into a little quilt, but whoa was i wrong. it took a lot of patience to cut out each piece correctly, and then to sew the bias tape on to the blanket. i can only hope mom-to-be and baby Gemma enjoy it. it took about 3 1 hour sessions to complete, and it cost about $25 to make. i considered making my own bias tape, but i think i will save that undertaking for a future project.
you know she’s beachin’ it.
wow, what a lovely beach vacation. we did so much stuff! and also so much relaxing on the beach. we had mostly great weather, but a couple bad-weather days, but we had a triple-feature-90s-movies day where we watched Point Break, 10 Things I hate about You, and Jurassic Park.
we biked to the cape may/lewes ferry and rode to the dogfish head brewery, which was DELICIOUS. we passed this sign.
we visited the cape may brewery for a tasting and tour. they are very new, but still had 4 beers: a saison, porter, and two IPAs.
my parents and sister came down for the weekend, and we spent some serious time on the beach.
during the drive down, we passed philadelphia and had the marvelous idea to stop and see the barnes collection on the return trip. my friend mike (who was with us) told us about art of the steal, an extremely gripping documentary about the barnes and how the city of philadelphia "stole" it and moved it downtown. although i am not sure i can pick a right side on the matter, i wanted to see this magnificent art collection regardless of its location. in short, it was ABSOLUTELY PHENOMENAL. i went through the rooms and gasped constantly, the breadth of the collection is outstanding. if you are ever in the area, it is so worth a stop. i would like to go back another time, though, it was very draining and i found myself going through the 2nd floor rooms too quickly because i was burned out.
i was able to get some serious knitting time in this week! now that i see the pictures i took, it doesn’t look like i spent much time on it, but i used a lot of time to decipher the chart instead of reading the written directions (as i had been doing), and the pattern is going much, much faster now– i am almost memorizing it. i had to rip out several rows at first, but im back on track and almost ready to start decreasing for the neck! my goal is to have this finished for our san francisco trip next month (its a lofty goal, we’ll see).
emilyWools 