July 2024 - Handmade by Carolyn

little sludgy cardigan

31/07/2024 11:54 am \ 3 Comments \ Carolyn

…once again slithering in under the wire on the last day of the month with my knit-of-the-month! For July’s effort I made a new little cardigan. This is yarn that I bought during our hiking trip to Italy 12 years ago! astounding really, I can’t believe it’s been that long! there was a tiny little craft store in Menagio, Lake Como, and that’s where I found it. I posted about that trip on my blog back here…

I’m so thrilled this yarn has finally been realised into a wearable thing, because it’s actually lovely. It is Lang Yarns Maxi Tosca, col. 5706 which is genuinely made in Italy, believe it or not! I was pretty thrilled to find homegrown produce, because souvenir shopping does not always result in such joys, sadly. I bought 6 x 50g balls, and managed to use almost the whole lot while adding one extra pattern repeat to the length. There is just a fairly small quantity leftover.

I chose an old favourite, the Miette pattern by Andy Satterlund; a pattern that since its debut was later rebranded as the Crumb and is now sadly unavailable. Actually the designer has retired all her patterns and you can’t get any of them any more, which is quite sad.

I’ve made the Miette pattern five times now, customising slightly by the time I got to the last one, and referred to my previous notes to make this one the same way. Namely this post. The main adjustment I make is to switch the bust shaping to under the arm. I did include the lacework but kinda regret it, if I’m being honest… in a variegated yarn such as this it doesn’t stand out as much as you’d like, and then when you do notice it it somehow detracts from the loveliness of the colours in the yarn. Definitely something for me to keep in mind for future lacework knitting…

Buttons! is it weird to say the buttons could be my favourite part of the whole thing? yes, pretty weird since I actually think my new cardigan is allover a very satisfying thing. The buttons feels super satisfying though since I made these too… !

so you know I’m trying to use what I have rather than buy anything new… well I hunted through my, still rather large, button stash for nine matching buttons, and even contemplated using non-matching buttons but couldn’t even make that work. I’d almost accepted that I was going to have to head out and buy new buttons but then remembered my modelling clay. Yay! I’ve used this to make buttons before, specifically for this coat here; and even to make the jewellery for my Queen Rutella cosplay, here. I thought I’d been painting them once finished… however was rather thrilled when I realised the final baked colour of them was actually perfect for my cardigan as is. Such luck! I just painted on a clear varnish finish to protect them and bob’s your uncle! SO happy with how they look on my new cardigan.

worn here with a ivory tee, sludgy skirt and tights, all made by me…

Posted in: knitting, Uncategorized \ Tagged: cardigan, Clara, daily outfit, hand knit, hand knitting, knitting, Miette

new jeans

14/07/2024 12:41 pm \ 1 Comment \ Carolyn

honestly, I don’t ever encourage T to pose with me, he just does it all on his own. 😀

I’ve made some new jeans, and the overly wide-legged-ness of them is so funky and awesome … it’s silly but I am really feeling like this sort of thing at the moment! I’ve been working on these for several weeks now … taking my time to get the fit just right and exactly how I wanted them. It was fun to work slowly on something that I really wanted. They are super comfortable and easy to wear, almost like a tracksuit, only not. Way better.

I used McCalls 8206 as a starting point. The size chart put me at about size 14, which surprised me a bit. I’m traditionally a 10 in McCalls patterns, but anyway I went ahead and cut out the size 14, keeping the extra paper pattern bits of the other sizes that got cut off just in case the size wasn’t right after all. I basted the legs together, and oh boy, indeed the size 14 was absolutely huge on me. I’m not sure why the size chart was so completely out of whack but I could literally pull them down without having to open the fly basting stitches at all! I ended up having to reduce the waist to the size 10 after all, and shaved the extra width off the leg pieces down the side seams, dwindling them down so they’re back to a size 14 by about knee level. I think I didn’t bother to reduce the size of the pockets though, so they do look a bit bigger on the jeans than they should. But that’s quite fine with me; I love oversized pockets too!

The waistband is curved, which always makes for a nice fit on jeans. However there is no fly shield… and I’d used a jeans zip so there is that slight scratchiness against your tummy skin on the inside. But the jeans are really so baggy I don’t think it’s going to be an issue.

For the waistband lining and pocket flap linings, I used a gorgeous linen gingham, leftover from this dress I made late last year… I’d bought it in Japan during our 2019 holiday and it’s so lovely. I really like how it picks up on the orange topstitching thread, only of course no one can see it but me! I splurged and put one of my eponymous labels in them too…

The topstitching thread is two slightly different shades of orange, to explain; the waistband and belt loop topstitching is a brighter orange than the remainder of the jeans. Actually, now they’re finished I realise you can hardly see the difference so I’m not sure why I was worried about it, but honestly on the spools the colour was noticeably different!

btw, a hand stitched buttonhole, haha. Seems like a weird choice for a pair of jeans but my machine-stitched version just looked a bit flimsy and wholly unsatisfactory!

The fabric is a slightly stretchy, very dark midnight-navy denim, originally from Fabulous Fabrics, and all haberdashery was also sourced from Le Stash. But I do confess to having to buy the pattern new! I searched and searched my pattern stash and decided to splurge on a new pattern when I couldn’t really find anything that ticked all the boxes of my vision ie. wide legs, small waist, lots of pockets including cargo, fitted at the waist but with a flat appearance and NO PLEATS OR DARTS, and a below the waist rise…. I’m very happy I got this one though, because I really do love it and plan to make it again someday, just the correct size next time! I would like to make this in a lighter weight cotton drill, like maybe white, for a summery sailor look… or maybe a camo print. But in the meantime I’m going to try my best to carry off the “cool” vibe of these very trendy jeans!

worn throughout with one of my white Carolyn & Cassie Pattern Co Booragoon tops

is this my signature pose? I don’t why I feel compelled to do whenever I’m taking pictures of my clothes… I feel a bit sad I didn’t get an out-in-the-wild picture yet but I’ll come back and post one when it happens… 🙂

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: daily outfit, jeans, McCalls 8206

Bali, Indonesia; a travel wardrobe

13/07/2024 9:23 am \ 3 Comments \ Carolyn

Well! it’s taken me an awfully long time to get around to this! several years in fact… I’m a little hazy now as to why I never posted this draft post before but well, I didn’t…. however, as mentioned it in my previous post I really do enjoy reflecting on my travel wardrobes so decided to finally finish this one up too…

Time away: 8 days

Where to: Bali, Indonesia

Season: May, which is early dry season. Meaning hot, and quite humid by our standards

Expected activities: attending the wedding of our friends L & L, a couple of fancy dinners, and the rest of it beachwalking, exploring and lolling about the pool

Colour scheme: not really relevant, I just went with my most lightweight and breeziest of summer dresses!

What I packed:

7 dresses (inc 1 fancy for the wedding), 2 skirt and top sets (inc 1 fancy for other dinners), 2 hats, 3 pairs sandals (inc 1 fancy for the evenings), one beach coverup and one bikini. I made everything, including my shoes! except for the turquoise sandals worn to our friends’ wedding

(see below; from top to bottom, left to right.. all are linked to the original blog post)

silk dress, turquoise sandals

white hat, polka dot dress, white sandals

blue dress, white hat, red sandals

floral dress, khaki hat, red sandals

yellow top, ‘map’ skirt, white hat, white sandals

white hat, white coverup, pink bikini (not seen)

lace top and skirt, white sandals

Marimekko dress, white hat, white sandals

turquoise dress, white hat, red sandals

(worn on plane) brown dress, red cardigan, white scarf, white sandals

I cannot post a layout of my pieces this time since a few, namely the turquoise dress, the bikini, and the yellow top, are no longer in my wardrobe and I just felt it would be unsatisfactorily incomplete. Anyway, the outfit pictures should give a good idea!

My daily outfits:

Thoughts; it seems like a lot for an 8 day holiday but it’s really not! Bali is hot and very humid and honestly, your outfit is usually a sweaty mess by the end of the day! so it’s a really good idea to plan a separate dress for each day. Each outfit I packed was very light and airy and worked perfectly for the temperatures. Hats were also an absolute necessity.

Of course I wore my bathers every day for swimming in our little private pool (pic 6 above), and got dressed properly for leaving the hotel room, even walking the beach right out front. Bali is conservative and even though you do see tourists walking around with not much on, it’s considered quite disrespectful to do this. I had my little cardigan and scarf (last picture) for the plane, because the plane is always cold! however I had no need of these items in Bali.

The last time we had been to Bali was for our own honeymoon, a looooong time ago now! and so I made the lace top and skirt (pic 7) to celebrate. I wore this to a few special dinners, and for our friends’ wedding I wore the silk dress in pic 1. It was really nice to have lots of special occasions actually! all in all, a totally lovely holiday and we had a great time, soaking up the sun and enjoying the last little bit of heat before returning to a fast approaching winter back here in Perth.

Posted in: fashion \ Tagged: travel wardrobe

Balinese sarong-style “alberthe” dress

07/07/2024 2:27 pm \ 12 Comments \ Carolyn

I made a new dress, possibly the last summer sundress before our cold winter sets in for real… I was very fortunate to have a warmish enough day recently in which I could wear it to the beach and take photos of it! although it was cold enough that I couldn’t bring myself to take off my little white Tshirt from underneath. I used a new pattern; the Fibremood Alberthe, and a sarong/piece of fabric that I bought in Indonesia back in 2018, when we went there to attend a friend’s wedding. I posted about my travel wardrobe back … whoops, and wow, I’ve just realised I never posted about that travel wardrobe at all. I wonder if I should gather together some pictures and write about it?!

The pattern can be made as either a little top or a dress… I wanted to use the border at the bottom of the dress, so the pattern pieces were laid down on the cross, and made the dress version as long as I was able to cut it. Actually, it’s supposed to be a much longer dress, like ankle length; however I was pretty happy that my pieces fitted perfectly on my fabric, albeit shorter; with almost no leftovers at all. My aim with sewing nowadays is for a few key outcomes, namely:

to use fabric already in the stash
cutting the pattern out with as few leftovers as possible
to also use all haberdashery, like buttons, zips, elastic etc etc from stash as much as possible too.

So far this year I’ve succeeded in just about all of these endeavours, which has certainly made me really happy… at least enough to assuage my occasional desires to violate outcome number 1, and indulge in buying new fabric. Yes, I still have such desires! I’m only human!

Anyway, that’s neither here not there right now… although I just wanted to mention it again to reaffirm that it’s still an ongoing thing.

The Alberthe is quite an interesting pattern, with an asymmetric long front fold providing width to the dress. It’s supposed to have a zip in the side seam, but I tested how it went over my head first and was happy to realise I could slip it on easily without the need for a zip. The back is a plainish, regular sundress style, with wide straps stitched in between the dress and a facing.

It has lovely deep pockets which is nice, although I certainly would have added them myself even if it didn’t! I didn’t hem it, which sounds lazy, but I wanted to retain the border as much as possible. After photographing it, I have second thoughts about this decision. It does look a little unfinished, to be honest. I may or may not go back before next summer and give it a narrow hem, we’ll see.