The ‘fruit salad’ shawl finished

It's got a bit cooler (thank goodness), but it's still not really the weather for standing in the sun wearing something woolly! But I have finished my Dandelion Air shawl, so it must be recorded.

Yes, I was a bit warm!

There's not a lot to say that I haven't said already. The pattern is a simple six-row repeat, and I just kept going until I judged that I should stop.

Yarn Chicken time, had I left enough?

The pattern has an i-cord bind off, but I chose to do picots instead. I did insert a lifeline a couple of rows before the bind off, so I could rip it all back if necessary.

Phew, yes I had

It blocked larger than I was expecting; the overall area is a fair bit more than my Close to You shawl, which is made from the same yarn.

Showing the full size

When I first started knitting, I knew very little about yarn choice beyond weight. It was pure luck that I chose to knit my Dahlia shawl in a yarn with a very subtle colour variation, which allowed the lace design to be the star of the show.

The Dahlia yarn - mostly blue, a little black

This yarn is far more variegated however, and definitely needed quite a plain design to show off the colours. The Dandelion Air pattern was perfect for the job.

Reds and yellows and pinks, oh my!

The pattern lets the colours shine

It must be said that it's not my neatest work. In particular the tension in the centre spine stitches varies hugely.

That's a lot of different stitch sizes

It gets better further down

It's not surprising, really. A lot of this was knitted while I was visiting Mum, either in hospital or the nursing home, so it regularly got put down mid-row as I attended to something. But for all that, I do associate knitting it with the laughter and happy conversations we had over those last months rather than the more fraught times. I'm certainly glad that I chose to use up such a cheery yarn from my stash at that point in our lives.

Family ties

A scurry (yes, that is the collective noun)

Regular readers of this blog (thank you) will know that the choice of animal in the picture above can mean only one thing; I'm considering a new project.

Actually, it's not entirely new. The cylindrical things are lace bobbins, and I used to make bobbin lace.

The bobbins in full

It was a long time ago, well before I started the blog. My lace has only appeared on here once, when I used some pieces which I had made years before to trim my Armistice Blouse.

The lace was made specifically to fit the blouse pieces

Close-up of the lace in situ

Because it was so long ago, I don't have any pictures of me making lace or work in progress, so I'm using a book cover to show what is involved. A very simple explanation is that thread is wound around the bobbins, which are then passed over and under each other to weave or plait the threads to form the lace.

Lacemaking in progress

Bobbins were traditionally made from wood or bone. They can be plain, but also carved, turned, or painted. The beads at the bottom provide weight to tension the thread, and also stop the bobbins from rolling on the pillow - the working surface. They are usually used in pairs.

A selection of my bobbins, from different makers

Mum also made lace for many years; in fact, I can't remember which one of us started it first. We had a lot of hobbies in common, and regularly swapped supplies and other items as we each needed them. She gave me her bobbins years ago, when arthritis started to make lacemaking too difficult for her, but I must admit that they just sat in the box she stored them in. Then this week, on a whim, I took out both her bobbins and mine. So many memories came back - of swapping notes and patterns, and of going to lace fairs together and buying the bobbins.

From talking to friends after Mum died I've become aware that not all of them have/had good relationships with their mothers, and some have been very strained indeed. I was so lucky that not only did we get on well, but we had so many shared interests which brought us even closer. Which is why, despite not being short of things to do, I'm considering taking up lacemaking again. With my own bobbins and with Mum's.

Comfort at Home

Another Historical Sew Monthly challenge completed! This time it's the March challenge, Comfort at Home, and I chose to make my 1911 corset (something which would only be seen in the home) more comfortable.

This was my very first attempt at historical sewing, way back in 2012. It was made as part of a sewalong to create the 1911 corset from Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines. I remember that Jo, who ran the sewalong, provided lots of information and was very generous with her time and expertise to answer any queries as we went along. But I realise now that there were a lot of beginner's fit issues with my completed corset, mainly because I didn't know what questions I should be asking.

If I were the same shape as this dressform, all would be well - but I'm not

I tackled the problems with the corset top in 2020, and this made it more comfortable to wear - so long as I was standing up. If I sat down though, it wedged itself uncomfortably under my ribs. Through reading this post by The Dreamstress and the associated comments, I discovered that the cause was actually the lacing bones extending too far down the back of the corset: they were pushed up when I sat on something, and took the waist stay with them. The bones either side were also too long, which didn't help. I bought some new flat steels and set about dismantling parts of the corset. Again.

I unpicked the bottom binding, very carefully because it was satin and snagged easily, took out the original bones, replaced them and redid the flossing. I also had to take out an eyelet at the point where I wanted to cut off the excess.

It really was much too long

The original plan was to remove 2½" all round the bottom. But I had seen some teens era corsets where the bottom edge goes up at the centre front, and wondered about trying that. However, I couldn't end up a raw edge longer than the original binding, as I have no more of the pink satin.

Testing out the intended bottom edge

The coutil I had used for the corset is quite soft and feels oddly loosely-woven for a coutil, and I was concerned about eyelet hole being so close to the new edge of the corset. The coutil I had used for the boning channels is far more rigid, so I used one of the cut-off scraps of it to patch the hole from inside the lacing panel.

I machined over it, and cut off the excess

I had also noticed that because of the length of the corset, the fronts pull apart quite a lot at the bottom of the busk. There was already some damage to the soft coutil, and it seemed inevitable that eventually the busk would tear a hole in it. I had some larger offcuts of the stiffer coutil, so I unpicked the lower stitching both sides, slipped a folded piece around the bottom of the busk, and machined everything back in place.

Reinforcement around the bottom of the busk

Then I reattached the binding and the suspenders. I did worry that the front ones might not be long enough, given the new shape, but fortunately I had allowed plenty extra when I originally made them.

Thank goodness for foresight

Then came the acid test. It passed with flying colours!

#sewnshownseated with a difference!

The small print:
The Challenge: March, Comfort at Home
What the item is: Removed excess length from my 1911 corset
How it fits the challenge: A corset would only have been seen inside the home, and being able to sit down in it definitely makes it more comfortable!
Material: Coutil for the corset, synthetic satin for the bias trim
Pattern: 1911 corset from Norah Waugh’s Corsets and Crinolines, slightly modified
Year: c 1911
Notions: Cotton eyelet lace for trimming, flat steels, steel busk
How historically accurate is it? The pattern is from an actual corset albeit subsequently modified, and the materials are accurate apart from the synthetic satin, so I would say 70%
Hours to complete: About 10, a fair amount of which was unpicking stitching and removing two eyelets. This had to be done carefully to minimise damage to the garment and make sure that the materials could be re-used
First worn: Just for photos
Total cost: £7.20 for the new, shorter, steels, everything else was reused

The corset is now wearable, but it still has some fit issues. I'm not sure how many of these are down to my inexperience when I made it, and how many are due to the passage of time. My body has changed a lot in 14 years, not least through menopause. The lacing gap is now wider than is ideal for any corset. But the waist stay doesn't actually fit to my waist all the way round: there is a definite gap at the sides where the corset goes straight from ribcage to hip while my waist curves in. My original plan was to make this corset wearable so that it could form part of my 1915 ensemble, and it would still work for that. As The Dreamstress pointed out in the post referenced above, historically, plenty of women would have got by in corsets which were a less than perfect fit. But ideally, I think I need a new corset. I have the Rilla pattern from Scroop, and one of the other Historical Sew Monthly challenges is 'Bones' - watch this space!