hello! I’ve knitted a new jumper, from that big inherited bag of scraps and leftovers that has stymied my dreams of a minimalist, streamlined stash for quite a long time now… I’m trying to make a project a month and this little number is actually October’s project.
It’s a bit late, but of course a jumper is quite an involved project and I’ve knitted two jumpers in as many months now, phew. I’m trying very hard to keep up the pace though!
Unlike my jumper from last month, I knitted this one bottom up, and have decided for once and for all that this is far less practical way of knitting something on the fly, when your purpose is to keep on knitting until the yarn is gone. It’s hard to explain without doing it for yourself.. but essentially you have to cast on for the sleeves, and then pick up those stitches again to continue on the sleeves; which is kinda awkward. Also, you have less idea about eking out your yarn to last until the neck edge. And also, I’d started knitting in stocking stitch, and then became dissatisfied with the curly up nature of the lower edge, and had to pick up stitches again to knit a final ribbed edge to the bottom edge. Of course, these are very minor concerns really; since any project in which you’re trying to eke out set-in-stone quantities of yarns and still end up with a garment that is actually wearable is ALWAYS going have some difficulties.
I didn’t take a picture of the “before” yarns, but actually this project changed shape and form several times during the making and new yarns got added in as I went along. I’m pretty happy though… because there were about 11 balls/part balls of yarn in all to start with, and now they are all GONE from Le Stash. I’m particularly pleased with the “turquoise” stripes on the sleeves, which are actually four strands of two different colours of an extremely fine mohair yarn that I had no idea what on earth I could use for anything at all. The four of them held and knitted together as one turned out to be a reasonably good thickness to actually use.
As I was finishing it and thinking about how I was going to wear it, I was suddenly hit with the certainty that I absolutely needed a long sleeve, white hoodie tee to wear with it. And since I sew, I was happily able to immediately acquire such a thing, with no need to go shopping.
I used our own Carolyn & Cassie Pinjarra pattern, the high necked top version. I cut a size bigger than my usual for a loose fit, and cut a hoodie piece to fit the neckline length. I also added a few inches of length to the bottom edge, again for that loose look. It was a pretty easy hack of our own pattern! so easy that I wondered for a little bit whether we should draft the hood up and add it to the pattern.
I’m wearing them both here; at top with my Closet Core Patterns Ginger jeans, and then with my long term favourite Closet Core Patterns Sasha trousers… I really need to make some new ones of this great pattern!
Fabric first; I used a piece of linen that was originally white, and that I dyed myself using a Japanese indigo plant brewed dyepot, from a natural dyeing workshop that I attended a few years ago. I absolutely love the natural blotchiness of the natural dye and am so pleased I finally found a really worthwhile project for this precious stuff!
I used a white topstitching thread throughout, and most of the buttons were harvested from an old, yellowed business shirt of Craig’s. It’s quite gratifying when penny-pinching proves itself to be useful! and these are really very nice little buttons. You need a lot of buttons for this pattern and I only needed to supplement with a few not-quite matching ones to make up the full complement of 18.
Now, the Mestre; this design is superficially a classic, button-front shirt, but upon closer inspection a number of small but quite distinctive features begin to make themselves known; the chest pocket is an interesting 2-pocket layered pocket, the side seams mostly consist of buttoned plackets, curving down into a gracefully rounded side edges, and the cuffs are likewise interestingly shaped with an asymmetrically curved profile.
The back is pleated into the yoke; it’s supposed to be pleated the other way but I personally like for a pleat to go inwards, like this. I really like the little hanging loop; my linen was too stiff to stitch right sides together and turn out as instructed, so I just pressed the folds in place and topstitched the loop to make it work.
I must also say that the instructions for the Mestre are absolutely excellent… the construction of the side edges, sleeve seams and armscye seams is a completely new one to me, and results in a perfect, flat-felled seam. I don’t want to give away the details, but it’s very very clever!
Likewise the construction of the sleeve/cuff placket was totally new to me, and results in a cleverly engineered placket with all raw edges enclosed. So nifty!
A very small detail that you might not notice without paying very close attention is that on the front buttonhole placket, just one lone buttonhole is situated horizontally. I find subtle and explicable details like this to be very charming.
The lower hem of the shirt is completely faced, with the same facing doing double duty for the side button/buttonhole plackets. The finishing for this area is likewise well thought through and results in a beautiful finish. You need to do a fair bit of machine basting… later removed, and I have to confess I haven’t bothered with basting in a while! but I am glad I followed the instructions to the letter because the technique outlined was the absolutely best way to finish.
In fact, I’m extremely impressed wth the thoughtfulness that went into the details of this pattern and am excited to make it again some day!
Obviously the most worn items in just about anyone’s wardrobe is bound to be underwear… and so one is obliged to often update these things, even though you don’t get the benefit of showing of your new creations to your friends, much less the general public! I’m still using up small pieces of cotton jersey in my stash that are too small for anything else, thus this is another patchwork set. Oh, pattern? the Cloth Habit Watson pattern, adapted over time to become a long term favourite of mine.
I made this very snuggly and cosy shirtdress/jacket thingummy recently, the pattern is the new Fibremood Ildri … I think it is called a shirtdress, but it can obviously be cut shorter as a shirt or jacket too. btw, while it has a second version pictured here, when I got it the pattern only had the first, long version with covered button band..
To belt or not to belt? that is the question. This is how I wore it yesterday… I think I prefer it belted mostly, but this makes the pockets practically inaccessible… !
Anyway, I decided to run up two new pairs of knickers to match the bra. Obviously I didn’t have any more of that pretty Liberty jersey, but I did have a big-enough remnant of reasonably well-matching blue jersey from which I managed to cut out two new pairs of Watson knickers. I cut out a few small flower motifs from the old Liberty knickers and hand stitched them on too, just for fun. This was a very small project, barely worth blogging really but I’m so happy with it! Sometimes small things can make you really happy.
I could have sewn new covers, however… well, why not knit up some of my wool stash instead? You might recognise this orange-y coral pink cushion cover as my 
This bright unicorn-pastel one was from a stash given to me by my daughter-in-law Lainey… anyone remember the Flurry yarn? I don’t know about outside Australia, but here there was a short-lived fashion for wearing scarves made from this type of wool. There was actually just over three balls of the same colour way in the box Lainey gave to me, which I thought could be enough for a cushion cover. I felt it looked quite nice with the other cushion too. The gods were smiling upon me, because there was the perfect amount for a second cover, with zero leftovers. I knitting in the round, then grafted with Kitchener stitch at the bottom end, I then stuffed in the old cushion insert and stitched up the top end with the leftover wool. So no, you can’t get the cushion inserts out again without undoing a seam, but I’ll probably just hand wash the cover and insert all together and I’m sure it will be fine.
The skirt is our very own Meelup pattern, which is currently my number one top favourite. It has all my desired features; deep pockets, no zip, and a streamlined, yet comfortable and roomy silhouette. I carefully lined up the pockets to match the pattern in the skirt front; Pattern Matching 101. The skirt is lined in deep green lining fabric, not a perfect match colour-wise but t’was already in the stash thus making it the perfect candidate.
I also used a khaki cotton for the pocket lining and red buttons for the same reason… I know I know; the purist in me shrieks “NO!” however the thrifty-miss in me reassures myself that it’s not like you can ever see either of these wrongly coloured things when you’re wearing the skirt! I used the same khaki cotton to make bias binding to finish the raw edge of the hem inside…
The little tee-top is kinda based on another old favourite, the epaulette top from “she has a mannish style” by Yuki Takada. I had enough tartan for the sleeves and two big patch pockets, and the body is cut from an ivory wool felt that has been such a very long-term stash resident that I cannot remember its provenance. I did not include the eponymous epaulettes, … also I lined the body fully with an ivory silk habotai (also long-term stash) because the ivory wool is really itchy.
I stabilised the neckline with a biascut strip of cream cotton, then attached the lining to this, before stitching them all down to the top around the neckline.. yes, quite complicated but gives a nice finish, imo. The armscye of the lining is also stitched to that of the outer, and the remainder of the body and side seams float freely from each other. Having a silk lining makes it quite beautiful to wear!
I finished the lower raw edge with cotton bias, just like with the skirt… You can see here how I used dark green thread in the bobbin to stitch on those patch pockets… and no that is not a mistake! I discovered that a cream coloured thread to match the wool showed up just very slightly on the outside of the pockets, not terribly but enough to bother me…so I unpicked that and re-did it with the green thread. Now the topstitching on the pockets is nicely invisible… 🙂
A few little moth holes had sprung up during its confinement to the stash, so while I could cut mostly around them, I darned the few unavoidable ones up before making my tops… The merino is so fine, I used regular stitching thread for darning… and even then it looks thicker than I’d like.
Honestly, though, it really is near invisible, unless you get up really close! and I know these two items are going to work hard in my wardrobe next winter… btw, can you see how I used a white thread and and ivory thread in that double top-stitching? No?!
