Me Made May 2021: Week 2

me made may

May 14

heya knitted tank (rav link… i thought i blogged about this but i guess not!)

May 13

wiksten tank dress

May 12

wiksten tank

May 11

brand-new Dawn jeans (blogging about them soon!)

May 10

Archer button-up

May 9

Brumby skirt

May 8

Blaire Shirt and Dawn jeans

Olya Dress

sewing

Oh, this dress. What a mess it was to make. I like the idea of the pattern, the Olya Dress by Paper Theory. The main problem I had with the pattern was very small seam allowances for tricky parts of the garment. Had I not paired this pattern with unravel-y linen from Merchant and Mills, it may have turned out better. I still love the style lines, but this linen was a very poor choice for this pattern. The fabric began to fray after I cut it, and it affected the chest, button-band and collar seams pretty badly.

a woman wearing a striped dress, standing in the trees. The pattern is the Olya dress from Paper theory.

After I finished it two years, ago, it tore at the button band during its first wear. I was so disappointed that I put it away and didn’t consider looking at it for a year. This spring, I dug it out of the “to fix” pile as it had languished for long enough. I ripped apart the button band, reinforce the edging with zigzag, and re-sewed it together. It had some other problems with the collar attachment that I addressed, too.

a woman wearing a striped dress, standing on a path in the trees. The pattern is the Olya dress from Paper theory.

This dress has serious “battle scars” and I am disappointed with it, but at least its out of the mending pile! I will consider giving this pattern another try with a more densely-woven fabric.

a woman wearing a striped dress, standing in the trees. The pattern is the Olya dress from Paper theory.
a woman wearing a striped dress, spinning around in the trees. The pattern is the Olya dress from Paper theory.

Window Seat Cushion

finished objects, sewing, upholstry

One of the most exciting things in our new apartment is a window seat with a great view. The previous owner of the apartment had a cozy-looking cushion on it, and I knew making one would be a fun, productive project.

a ticking-stripe window seat with a city view.

Supplies

I found an online foam supplier with straightforward custom ordering, FoamSource. I went for the high-density, medium foam. When the foam arrived, I held my breath as I tested it on the seat… it fit perfectly! I am not a foam expert, but it feels pretty medium to me when I sit on it.

For the fabric, I wanted a pattern that wasn’t too trendy and is easy to pattern mix. I thought ticking would look nice, but I didn’t want it to look too “country.” I also decided that I wanted to go the extra mile to find a yarn dye vs screenprint ticking. After searching through some options, I settled on a teal version. I mocked up the cushion dimensions with seam allowances in Figma, which helped me figure out how much fabric I needed. When I ordered, I forgot about feet vs. yards and got 7 yards of fabric instead of 7 feet (!!). This ended up being a very fortunate mistake because I was able to make self-piping and matching pillows. I originally envisioned a contrast color piping, but my over-order was serendipitous because I can’t imagine a contrast color now, the bias ticking looks perfect to me.

If I make another cushion for this seat, I will use a zipper closure. With this project, I used a 2-yard length of velcro from Pacific Trimming. It works just fine but I think a zipper would look and close better, believe it or not. One thing I’m really glad about is the entire back of the cushion opens up because this long piece of foam is very unwieldy.

a blue ticking-stripe pillow and seat cushion.
I had enough fabric for a bonus THIRD pillow cover. its propped in front of the repurposed bed pillow.

The base pillows are unused bed pillows. They were the Wirecutter best pillow recommendation, but after sleeping on them for 1 night, we realized they were not for us. they were sitting in the closet and i decided to try ’em out.

Construction Notes

I searched to see at how other people created their cushions, and settled on following this tutorial with piping and a velcro closure. One key part of this technique is that it was, ahem… SEWN. I wanted to create a durable cushion, and at first I found a tutorial that instructs you to secure the fabric to the foam with SAFETY PINS. Uhh, that’s gonna look good for about 5 minutes and then turn into a big mess.

a closeup of a blue ticking-stripe window seat with matching pillows.

The cushion dimensions are 82″x17″, so I had to make a LOT of piping for this project. Surprisingly, this was easy and meditative to do in batches as I needed it. This video was pretty helpful to learn a fast way to do it. I cut 2″ wide bias strips and folded it around a length of cotton twine from my stash, and as I came to the end of a strip, I added a new one that I folded under. It was very easy to create the piping as I needed it with each pillow and the cushion, and just left it in a half-finished state until I picked it back up to create more as needed.

an in-progress photo of twine turning into piping.
piping-in-progress.

For the pillows, I created simple piped envelope covers. I have made so many of these that I didn’t use a tutorial, but this is a good one if you haven’t done it before. Note, this tutorial does not show you how to add piping.

Cline I

finished objects, knitting

We moved! And now that we’re settled and my camera’s unpacked, I’m ready to get back to documenting things I’ve made.

a woman looks to her right while wearing a black sweater.

Before moving day, the walls of boxes surrounding us did not put me at ease, so I channeled my anxieties into finishing my Cline sweater. The second I finished it, I knew it would become a staple. What a great pattern. I read some comments on Rav that said this is so “wearable.” I didn’t exactly get what they meant until I put it on. This does not fit or feel like a handmade sweater. It feels like a comfy sweatshirt. I love it.

a woman shows off a black hand-knitted sweater she made.
a back view of a hand-knitted black sweater.

I knitted it exactly as written, with no modifications. Seaming the sleeves and sides was rather tedious, but the final product is worth the fuss. Nightshades is a perfect match for this pattern.

a sleeve view of a black hand-knitted sweater.

I don’t think I’ve ever done this before, but the second I finished this sweater, I knew I had to make another. I frogged my Niska because I never ever wear it, and am going to use this beautiful red yarn to make a second Cline. Details soon!

Man Cardigan

finished objects, knitting

After years of watching me knit sweaters for myself, my patient husband quietly asked me to make him a sweater. He doesn’t wear sweaters very often, but it was time, and the final product is lovely.

There aren’t too many man cardigan patterns on Ravelry, but I spent hours looking, trying to find what I had in mind. I finally settled on Wardie from Ysolda. This pattern has two important attributes: its pieced so it will keep its shape and stand up to wear, and it has kangaroo pockets that echo the key style feature of Jacob’s beloved zip-up hoodies.

I’ve eyed Purl Soho’s Linen Quill for years, and this sweater was the perfect match for it. Its very soft, a Jacob requirement for this sweater. I used some stash buttons, I think they are the horn buttons from Fringe Supply Co (RIP). I love the fully fashioned shoulder decreases, and the edging for the pocket and neckband. This was not fast to knit, and it was nearly impossible to gauge the fit before knitting the sleeves, but I’m very happy with the finished product.

This is originally a womens’ pattern, so I made quite a few adjustments:

  1. I removed the waist shaping, and added several inches to the upper back and upper fronts to accommodate Jacob’s broad shoulders.
  2. I swapped the button placement from wearer’s left to wearer’s right
  3. I started the v-neck decreases when I started the armhole bind off

Farrow Dress II

finished objects, sewing

I made a second Farrow dress. It surprised me that I chose this pattern again because I was so disappointed in my first one. For that one, I underlined the bodice and used hot pink bias tape to finish the seams, so it felt really wacky to wear even though no one else could see it. For my latest version. I used a much more subdued petal pink for the facings which makes it much more cohesive and professional-looking.

This pattern is labeled easy, but I think matching the diagonal seams on the front and back is rather challenging, ESPECIALLY if you use a plaid. This flannel is an unusual fabric match for this dress. Its a strange mix of Puritan fabric and modern style lines. BUT, its very cozy and I’ve worn it nonstop since I finished it.

The pattern specifies faced sleeve hems, which inspired me to add a facing to the dress hem. I also extended the neckline facing to the shoulders so it wouldn’t flop around (pet peeve). I spent a long time lining up the plaids on the four front and four back pieces, and it took forever. Once I got to the sleeves, I lost pattern-matching steam and didn’t do as nice of a job. I have a tiny head so I didn’t need to do the back neck slit, although, to be honest I forgot about that design element until after I sewed on the neck facing. I realized what I had done right after I topstitched, then quickly tried it on over my head to check whether I had some serious unpicking to do.

here are the guts of the dress.

Nothing like perfectly placed pockets, I notice I am constantly resting my hands in them. The joys we find in 2020.

Rose Plank in Cormo Cross

finished objects, knitting
a woman wears a hand-knit grey shawl.

I finished this shawl shortly after the Pando lockdown started, but it was both too scary and too warm for outside pics, so it went away in a sweater bag for the summer. We had a fabulous chilly Saturday today, so I decided it was time to get some photos. This is Rhinebeck weekend, and I am still so sad that its virtual. I am getting together with my knitting group for a socially-distant outdoor knitting session in Prospect Park instead (and I am making apple cider donuts!). As a small consolation, I attended a Zoom lecture by the lovely ladies at Solitude Wool. They covered the basics on how to categorize sheep breeds into 5 distinct groups. Armed with the basics, I’m so excited to explore the world of breed-specific yarn. Before this lecture, I knew there was more out there than Merino (a fine wool), but now I feel like I have a good base understanding to explore Down, Medium, Longwool and Primitive!

A woman wears a hand-knit grey shawl.

Speaking of fine wool, I knitted this Rose Plank shawl with some incredible Cormo Cross from Foxhill Farm (they do not have a website, this is their Rav page). I missed my chance to get this yarn at my first Rhinebeck in 2018, so the first thing I did in 2019 was go straight to their booth. This yarn is SO sumptuous, so I wanted to pick a pattern that would do it justice. After looking for a bit, I settled on Rose Plank by Monika Sirna. I went back and forth on whether or not to do the 2×2 ribbing edging, or the garter edging. I finally landed on the garter and I love the result.

a woman holds up a gray fancy cable knit shawl.

I cannot wait to wear this with my winter coat!

A Pendleton Wool Jacket

finished objects, sewing
a woman stands, showing off her Pendleton wool jacket.

Here’s what I made with the Pendleton fabric I bought in Portland last year. This pricey wool was intimidating to cut into. After mulling it over for a year, I went for it with the Tessuti Tokyo Jacket. I did not have a lot of wiggle room with yardage, so I had to be picky about where I pattern-matched.

I added some length to the jacket so I could add a more generous hem (2″), and omitted the pockets. I hand-sewed the hem and the inner neckband. Because the fabric is so thick and dense, it was easy to hide the stitches on the right side–I can’t see them at all!

a woman shows the inside of a handmade wool jacket.

I used a bit of this fabric to make my belt bag last year. While sewing it, I noticed this material is prone to unraveling. To ensure the integrity of these jacket seams, I used a combination of french seams and Hong Kong seams. When I sewed this pattern in the past, it was very challenging to sew the french underarm seam’s sharp curve. Knowing this fabric is much thicker than silk, I used Hong Kong seams instead. I thought it would be a fun color pop to use the same finish on the center back seam. I went Bold with the bias tape, because 1. that’s what I had and 2. I think the unexpected pop of sea foam green brightens up the dark print.

the back view of a woman wearing a Pendleton wool jacket.