Unseasonal work

Just in time for Bonfire Night, my summer knitwear is finished! This is my second Wondrella cardigan, knitted in West Yorkshire Spinners' Elements, a DK Lyocell/wool mix in shade Cool Aloe.

I rang the changes a bit by knitting this one with a collar, rather than just the plain neck band. Reading the pattern, I couldn't remotely envisage how the row increases on ribbing would work. I decided to go for my usual approach of just following Tasha's instructions (one of the joys of knitting is that any mistakes can simply be undone without wasting the wool, unlike fabric) and, not for the first time, I discovered that they were spot on.

The collar being blocked

As a knitting newbie I'm fascinated by the way that, even though they knit to the same gauge, this yarn has produced a very different garment from the acrylic Stylecraft Highland Heathers DK which I used for my first Wondrella. One place where this was really evident was in the ribbing for the button bands - the end result was far more see-through. This was unfortunate, as I couldn't get any grosgrain backing ribbon in anything close to a suitable shade. The light brown shown was the best of a bad bunch. I did at least have the perfect buttons, and a choice of threads to use. In the end I went with light apple green, on the right, as dk eau-de-nil was slightly too blueish.

Thread and buttons match, ribbon doesn't

I solved the grosgrain problem by covering it with a satin ribbon in exactly the right shade. It was only available in a narrow width, so I needed two lengths, but this worked perfectly when I got to the buttonholes - I just sewed the two edges down separately.

Fixing the ribbon

It also had the effect of stiffening the grosgrain a little and making it more like the petersham I used for the blue Wondrella, so a win all round.

Showing the see-through nature of the buttonhole band

And here is the end result. It can be worn with the collar down, or popped up at the back for a more vintage look.

Collar down

Collar up

I'm delighted with it. It's got a lovely silky feel, and a softness and drape which will be perfect for the warmer weather. So it's going to be carefully put away for now but come the spring, I'll have a brand new cardigan to wear!

And on top of that, I can now start my next knitting project with a clear conscience!

Fabric shopping - in more ways than one

No sewing this week, because I have been concentrating on knitting a summer cardigan. Which admittedly is a slightly odd thing to be doing in late October, given that I'm not planning any trips to the Southern Hemisphere and Storm Babet has been causing havoc for the last few days and making it very clear that summer is over.

Not the most obvious project

The reason for this is that I really want to begin some winter knitting. I have both yarn and plans, but I don't want to start on the slippery slope of having knitting UFOs to add to my sewing PHDs (UnFinished Objects and Projects Half Done, for the uninitiated). So the only way I'm allowing myself to cast on my new project is to crack on and finish my current one first. Not a lot of progress had been made since I cast on the first sleeve in late July, so I've really dedicated some hours to it to get this far.

But a 90% complete cardigan is not a bloggable topic, so instead I'm looking at another area of my creative life where my enthusiasm gets the better of practicality - my fabric stash, and my latest attempt to tame it.

I am lucky enough to have a dedicated workroom, with lots of space. This means that most of my stash is neatly stored, which does lead to a certain 'out of sight, out of mind' mentality. So I am slowly documenting everything, with pictures, to create what I'm calling my Stash Shop. Crucially, rather than just keeping these plans on my laptop or online, they will be permanently visible in my workroom. The hope is that whenever I'm thinking about what to do for a new project, this will prompt me to choose something from my own 'shop' rather than going out and buying yet more supplies.

I started by photographing the fabrics for which I had definite plans. I also photographed the intended use, and put the images together in a spreadsheet. Naturally, most of the plans involve patterns.

A pattern-based section of the spreadsheet

But there are a few other sources.

Inspiration from my 1940 Vogue counter catalogue

Photograph from a 1940s costume book

Quick on-the-train-home sketch of a dress I'd seen in a shop

Once I had built up enough of these to fill a sheet of A4, I printed them off and pinned the sheet on a noticeboard in my workroom. And so it goes on.

A completed sheet

Of course, these plans are not set in stone. My original intention for this jaunty print was a Butterick reissue, but when I found some peach cotton poplin which was a perfect match, I immediately thought of a contrast section at the bust, and found a suitable picture online to illustrate the idea.

Original idea, and the current one

Admittedly, this hasn't stopped me from buying some fabric recently. But at least it wasn't an impulse buy. My self-drafted pinafore is starting to look a bit worn - hardly surprising given that it's been on heavy rotation in the six years since I made it. There was nothing suitable for a replacement in my stash, so I felt that in this case I was justified in buying new.

Just the right weight, and a subtle pinstripe to boot

It's a charcoal remnant of either wool or a wool-heavy mix. The lining will be from stash however, even if it ends up being a couple of different colours, so hopefully the overall effect will be stash reduction. And for once, I actually have a zip of the right colour and length - wonders will never cease.

But first, I really do need to finish this cardigan!

July review

This is going to be a very short post because, as expected, I had very little free time in the month.

I have discovered that one of the joys of knitting is that unlike dressmaking it lends inself to working in short bursts - you can just pick it up and do a sneaky row or two if you have a few spare moments. Thus the body of my new Wondrella cardigan is complete. I decided to do the sleeves next, rather than the collar and bands. However, I picked up the stitches in a bit of a rush, and after I had knitted the first row I realised that I had picked some of them up in the wrong place.

The two stitches to the left of the marker were picked up too far in

There were more iffy stitches than just those two, and because I am that fussy, I decided that I needed to fix them all. However, I didn't want to take the whole thing out and have to space out and pick up 118 stitches again. So I undid the row of knitting, and then tried an experiment.

I transferred all the stitches to the right of the stitch marker, plus the two that were wrong, onto a length of scrap yarn. Then I took the leftmost stitch off the yarn, and pulled out the loop for the stitch, used a crochet hook to pull it back through in the correct place, and placed it back onto the needle. I did the same with the second stitch, and then returned all the other stitches on the holding yarn back onto needle.

All now in the right place

I suspect that this is nothing new to seasoned knitters, but I was very pleased that I had worked this out for myself. I'm used to (mostly) being able to fix sewing hiccups, but knitting is a whole new world. To be honest, it probably took longer to do it this way that if I had just frogged the sleeve and started again, but learning a new skill was far more satisfying.

More new skills await with my dress. I have got as far as sewing bodice darts and shoulder seams, and the next stage is the side seams and sleeves.

Progress so far

I went for the radical approach of actually looking at the instructions, and discovered that they differ slightly from the methods I used for the peppermint batik dress. Hopefully once we are into August I'll find some time to try them out.

This and that

It's been busy week, with not much free time, so I don't have much to show for it sewing-wise. I have started a couple of projects, though.

First up, a new dress. I'm using another of my 1979-with-a-whiff-of-the-1940s Style patterns.

Style 2911 - I'm making view 1

Like so many patterns of that era, it has no waist seam.

The main pattern pieces, and the all-important pocket

The ruched sleeves have an interesting construction. Modern patterns, such as my well-used New Look 6093, achieve the effect with a strip of elastic sewn onto the sleeve - which pulls the sleeve hem up a little. This one is made from two separate, curved pieces, sewn together and then gathered up the seam.

Sleeve pieces

The fabric is a mystery item unearthed from my stash a few weeks ago. Try as I might to remember, I have no recollection of buying it. It's a strange combination of very fine, black, warp threads, and a thicker dark purple weft, with occasional weft threads of the same fine black.

Showing the fabric construction

I suspect that it will fray - a lot. The difference between right and wrong sides is hard to spot (and even harder to photograph), but great enough to make any mistakes obvious, so I will have to clearly mark the wrong sides with chalk.

The right side is more textured

Judging from the pre-wash, the finished dress will have to be laundered separately.

That's a lot of dye run!

The pattern calls for two ball buttons, but when I spotted these at the Festival of Vintage, I thought that they would be perfect with the fabric.

Purple and black - perfect

Meanwhile, my other project. The other week, I went over to Liverpool, to see all the build-up for Eurovision before the city got completely manic. I loved the Soloveiko Songbird Trail - 12 nightingales (the national bird of Ukraine) decorated with designs from 12 different regions of the country.

Songbirds and Liver Birds

Somehow, while I was out and about being cultural, I also managed to acquire yarn for a second Wondrella cardigan! It's another DK, and a mix of wool and lyocell, in a pale green. Judging from the swatch, the end result should be a more lightweight and summery cardigan. I had better get on with it for the summer, then.

All swatched up and ready to go