Sienna Archives - Page 4 of 32 - Handmade by Carolyn

all Aussie adventures

16/09/2015 12:54 pm \ 68 Comments \ Carolyn

MY OUTFIT IS FINISHED!!!
And I am showing it all together here for the first time. Can I just say right here; wooooohooooot!
The challenge, as laid out by Nicki of this is moonlight, should you choose to accept it, and I did! was to make for yourself an entire outfit using ONLY locally sourced materials. Sounds simple, right? It has been anything but!
I’m very grateful to Nicki for conceiving this brilliant and very thought-provoking challenge, and for inviting me to take part. This has been one exceedingly amazing ride, has blown my mind more than any other dressmaking challenge I’ve ever done, and really pushed my creativity to the limit. At the beginning of the year I seriously did not think I would be taking my outfit to the levels I did…. I thought for sure I would be giving myself a pass on some things, for example; thread, and allowing myself to use regular Gutermann’s thread. As time went on though I toughened up, embraced the idea of going the whole hog; and I’m very pleased that I did manage to rise to the challenge and make the maximum possible from locally sourced products!
In fact, I’m quite proud and extremely happy! :))
For the challenge, I made:
a knitted alpaca cardigan/jacket
a merino felt dress
merino felt and pine shoes
a merino fleece bag
merino fleece undies and bra
In a nutshell, every single blinking thing I have on here is made by myself, using pretty close to 100% south-west Australian sourced materials

Those of us in Western Australia; Sue, Megan, Nicki and myself, have had to be quite innovative in our approach, I think. I mean, forget zips, thread, elastic… there is not even any freaking fabric made in WA! This was our single biggest hurdle, I think!
However, we are extremely fortunate in that we have wool available to us; lots and lots of wool! Australia has the world’s biggest wool economy… did you know that 80% of the world’s apparel wool is from Australia? and Australian merino is the world’s best quality woollen fibre. 22% of the country’s wool production is here in Western Australia (source)

Hardly surprising then that all four of us have used wool as the majority component in our outfits.
My dress, bag, underwear and shoe tops are made from Western Australian merino fleece. I made my wool felt fabric from the fleece as outlined in this post. My dress is made from natural undyed merino fleece felt, and I hand-embroidered the fleece all over with locally handspun, undyed merino yarn.

Anigozanthos manglesii

The embroidery design is my own; a random arrangement of of kangaroo paw motif, for our Western Australian state floral emblem.

My underwear features the only “colour” in my entire outfit; I dyed the decorative yellow edging and ties using sour grass picked from my own garden, as posted here.
All the other fleece, yarn and wood in my outfit I left in its naturally coloured state.

My cardigan is alpaca yarn, from the Fibre of the Gods, a tiny mill operating on a farm in Toodyay. This establishment produces alpaca yarn on their own property, from the fleece of their very own alpaca herd. I bought some of their yarn directly from off the farm and knitted my cardigan, as posted here.

My wooden shoe soles are hand carved by me, using Western Australian pine. The pine is grown by Bunnings on their own pine plantations down south and milled by Bunnings in Manjimup. I made my shoes and my bag from my merino fleece as outlined here My bag and shoe tops are also merino fleece, with a grid pattern made of naturally black sheep yarn.

And that’s it, in a nutshell!
Well, typing it all out like this has kinda brought it home to me for the first time; I am wearing a pretty-close-to 100% homegrown outfit, top to toe, for maybe the first time in my life! I’m kinda amazed, even at myself. It’s a little mind-blowing to me.
Final thoughts: I’ve learnt a tonne doing this challenge. Firstly, our local industries are precious and need our support. That goes for everywhere, not just here in WA! I personally am going to put more effort into supporting our local products regularly. I mean, I’m definitely not giving up my more “regular” sewing, but I am going to do this challenge again.
Secondly, that if you really put your mind towards doing something, keep yourself focused on getting a project done, to overcoming obstacles, then you probably can do it. Sometimes you need to sleep on it, think outside the box a bit. I learnt a lot as I was going along, and several times had to improvise a solution to a problem. There were moments when I questioned my sanity in doing this, when I wondered if my ideas were even going to work… a felt dress? unlined? felt underwear? sounds like the vision of a lunatic, or at least a recipe for disaster, for sure… well OK even I can admit that felt underwear is not really a practical nor a workable thing! … do NOT recommend. 😉
Also, I had lots of fun!! I LOVE a challenge and this challenge really stretched my capabilities; which is the very best sort of challenge, in my opinion! I thought hard and long about each aspect of my outfut and tried very hard to honour the materials, to minimise my waste and to make something truly Western Australian in feel and flavour as well as provenance.
There were also moments when I realised I had to accept a small defeat; in the case of this outfit; the glue holding pieces of wood together in my shoes (from NSW, Australia), the nails holding the felt to the soles of my shoes (China) and the cotton jersey liner for my undies (China). They are very tiny elements so I’m not going to beat myself up over them too much.
I guess the important thing is that I gave everything careful consideration, and really thought about provenance and the possibility of substituting local products in as many instances as I was able. As well, I wanted to produce something stylish and lovely, that I knew I would love wearing and feel proud and happy in. I genuinely love my outfit, and feel pretty pleased with my efforts!
Lastly; maybe I’m on a bit of a post-challenge high, but I’m quite excited about attempting this again next year… in fact I already have ideas and plans!
Mad? maybe, but quite happy to be so!

Details:
Cardigan; the Caramel cardigan, in Fibre of the Gods natural alpaca, grown, shorn, washed, carded and spun in Toodyay, Western Australia and hand-knitted by me, details here
Dress; my own design based upon Burda 8511, made from merino felt made by me and hand embroidered with locally handspun merino yarn from Bilby Yarns, details here
Shoes; my own design, pine soles from Bunnings hand carved by me, felt tops made by me from merino fleece bought at Bilby Yarns, details here
Bag; my own design, in felt made by me from merino fleece bought at Bilby Yarns, details here
Underwear; my own design, knickers derived from the Tried & True knickers pattern by the Makers Journal, in felt made from merino fleece bought at Bilby Yarns, details here

Posted in: fashion, knitting, sewing, shoes \ Tagged: accessories, bag, Burda 8511, caramel, cardigan, dress, felting, knitting, one year one outfit, own design, shoes, Sienna

Midnight Miette

12/09/2015 7:16 am \ 31 Comments \ Carolyn

What: I’ve finished knitting a new cardigan; another Miette, yes, that fantastically popular cardigan design and it’s super easy to see why, too. Such a quick and easy thing to make, top-down, seamless, cute with nicely subtle zig-zag lace design at all borders, free to download here. LOVE THIS SO MUCH! I’m just stuck on it and maybe I can never move on. A bad case of “fools never differ” happening here 😉
This is my third Miette, my previous two are dark green and mustard, all of them in Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed Aran. Green, yellow and now blue. Slightly embarrassing fact; I already have red wool purchased and earmarked for this design! The same yarn too … I could happily have the full colour range because they’re all pretty yummy 🙂

Why: Well, I have felt like a navy blue cardigan would be a very handy little colour to have on hand for aaaaaaages, and this is just me finally making it happen. Navy blue is a great neutral, I reckon it looks fab with everything, and even though it’s not officially one of “my” colours I think it’s rather lovely against the browns, yellows, oranges and reds that I tend to favour. I have a nice navy blue silk blazer which was/is terrific but I wanted a woolly cardigan. I think I’m more of a cardigan person than a blazer person.
Problemmos: Actually I anticipated a quick project out of this one since it is super easy and not my first go at it, but I had surprising rough trot this time. Mostly because this yarn is so dark dark dark navy, and I usually knit in front of the telly in terrible low light; and so half the time I literally could not tell whether a stitch was a knit or a purl. Seriously! Several times I had to frustratingly pull out a whole bunch of rows and re-do it because one wrong stitch had gone unnoticed… I ended up having a torch on standby to illuminate and assess the situ-bar as required. grrrrrr! This cardigan has taken me nearly all winter to finish!
Changeroonies: I made a small but vital change to the design this time; I transferred the bust dart shaping to the underarm side seam each side. I think this is a much better shaping pozzie for a small busted person like myself.

later edit; as requested, the details of moving the bust dart shaping to the underarms goes as follows:

To move the bust dart shaping to the underarm… row 56 is where the bust dart shaping starts; you follow the same shaping (reducing two stitches on each of the “fronts”) EXCEPT you are moving that shaping to the underarm stitch marker, instead of in the middle of the “fronts” of the cardigan.
So, instead of doing the ssk, k1, k2 tog in the middle of each front section of the cardigan, instead do this same shaping at the underarm marker. Do the same for rows 58,60,62,64,66

Details:
Cardigan; the Miette by Andi Satterlund, in Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tween Aran, col. 360039 (Midnight) from Calico and Ivy (6 balls)
Jeans; the Ginger jeans by Closet Case patterns, navy blue cotton denim, details here
Tshirt; Vogue 8879, ivory cotton jersey, details here

The following is some technical blahdy-blah notes to myself, ‘cos I always forget this and have to re-knit tension squares, which I do not enjoy:
I’ve knitted the main using three different needle sizes for the three cardigans, because the tension of the design does not match the tension of my chosen yarn exactly. The Miette recommends 16st x 22rows per 10cm square, while the DBliss Aran tension is 18st x 24rows per 10cm square. So, my first, green Miette was knitted on size 9 (UK) or 3 3/4mm needles, giving a tension midway between that recommended for the yarn and the design and is a slightly relaxed fit. The second, mustard Miette was knitted on size 10 or 3 1/2mm needles, giving the correct tension for the yarn but a tighter tension than the design; and was a closer fit. This cardigan is knitted on size 8 or 4mm needles, giving me the correct tension for the design and a slightly loose tension for the yarn, and is a more relaxed fit. I like all of them, the differences do not feel massive.
I definitely prefer moving the bust shaping to the underarm.

Also, each version, I’ve extended the length by 2 pattern repeats, this requires picking up 79 stitches for the front button bands. Each version I’ve selected size 42, which is technically a size up for me, but I remember from my first go at this pattern that “my” size would be a tad too tight for my tastes… I had to unravel and start over! It might work to go down a size in the looser tension; would be a risk but maaaaaybe? I might just try it for my red version… we’ll see.
I need 6 balls of the Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tween Aran, and with the two extra pattern repeats 10 buttons. These 1.5cm, navy blue ones are from Fabulous Fabrics

Posted in: knitting \ Tagged: cardigan, daily outfit, Knitted, knitting, Miette, Sienna

an all Western Australian dress

30/08/2015 9:24 am \ 101 Comments \ Carolyn

OK; it’s done, the second and arguably the most time consuming component of my one year one outfit project!
Can I just interject right here… WOOOOHOOOOO!

Phew! so, just saying, but I’m tentatively predicting that this one piece could well be my piece de resistance for the year. I made the dress, and not only did I make the dress but I made the fabric too! previously post about making my fabric from Western Australian Merino fleece here.
And I hand-embroidered it, with a motif of my own design. Also the dress is of my own design. Is this a little insane? probably.
Ok, YES.

So, the dress. As mentioned, it is fully embroidered with kangaroo paws. Why kangaroo paws, you may ask? Well, the kangaroo paw is our state floral emblem and my project is an all-Western Australian deal, so it seemed like a pretty appropriate choice. I sketched a stylised kangaroo paw design based upon one from one of my own photographs. I drew a few in different sizes and then for each section of the dress drew up separate, big all-over patterns. Some of the paws wrap around the side seams from front to back, which was planned since I wanted to kinda tie the design together as well as I could.

my muse; Anigozanthos manglesii

This style of all-over embroidery is obviously inspired by the Alabama Chanin style, but the design is all mine. I chose to incorporate embroidery for a few reasons; firstly to give some added strength to my felt, since the felt seemed just a touch fragile on its own.
Secondly, for decorative impact too, of course! My felt is quite textured already, but I really liked the idea of something more, and a white-on-white design. I embroidered the under-dress, below, in a regularly spaced and repeating pattern of identical kangaroo paws, while the overdress, above, has a more random appearance, with different sized kangaroo paws, placed non-regularly and more artfully; as if someone had taken a bouquet of kangaroo paws and scattered it across the piece.

For the embroidery: I used natural, undyed Western Australian Merino yarn, handspun here in Perth by a lady named Beverly. I bought this from Bilby Yarns.
The side seams are hand-stitched and hand-fellstitched in a thinner version of the same yarn. I left the lower edge of the dress with its naturally wobbly self-edge, just as how it came out from the felting.

As per the one year one outfit strict criteria, I could not use anything in my dress that was not locally sourced; meaning no thread or zips. So, I could have used buttons, since I still have some lovely ones made by my Dad using wood from my parent’s block… but I decided to go with a dress that I could just pull on over my head and with no closure required. I used my standby plainy-plain dress pattern, Burda 8511 and drew up a wide, midi-length, loose, A-line dress pattern; two layered and with slanting asymmetrical hemlines. The under layer is a full length dress; and the over layer is a shorter and briefer one, one-shouldered with a diagonal top edge disappearing into the side edge/armpit. I cut out “facings” for the top edge, and these are fused/felted to the inside of the dress, underneath the single layer part of the under-dress. Meaning, the dress has two layers of fabric all over, which I fused together by felting nearly all over after embroidering. The front has felted-together layers to waist level, while the back has the layers felted together to below bum level. The remaining lower portion of the overdress float free, and the only parts that are a completely single layer are the lower portion of the underdress.
Clear as mud? Yep, I thought so!

Also: it may superficially look like the dress has not a skerrick of shaping, with no visible darts or piecing, but actually that is not the case! It is shaped… with invisible darts!!! yes, really invisible 🙂 The shaping is not drastic since I needed some looseness to enable me to get the thing over my shoulders ok… but the shaping is there. I cut out the bust darts and back waist shaping darts, and closed them together by hand-felting the layers together with a felting needle. This is a clever little needle, long and with tiny serrated point. You jab it in through the layers of your felt and its serrations enable the wool fibres to meld and mesh together thanks to their own naturally barbed nature, albeit microscopic. This is how felting is even possible, of course! Thanks to this wonderful property exclusive to wool, my dress has a nice subtle shape but with no visible evidence of such shaping, such as darts or seams. It’s also how I felted together the two layers of the dress, all over.
It’s like magic, I’m telling you.

running stitch edging, and invisible bust dart

Once I had completed all my wool embroidery, I went over and painstakingly hand-felted those upper and underdresses together as described above. Then the very final step was to run a simple running stitch around the neckline and armholes. I wanted a nice subtle edging to these areas, not only for some strength, as the running stitch is almost like stay-stitching if you like, and stabilises these vulnerable areas that might otherwise get stretched out every time I pull the dress over my head and push my arms through those armholes. The edging also provide a nice visual border that that does not compete with my embroidery… and obviously I want my embroidery to have the biggest visual impact.

So! This is merely part two of my one year one outfit project, part numero uno was my knitted alpaca jacket/cardigan, posted here, and I have a couple more components still going in the works. What will they be? we shall see, we shall see… 🙂
I may have a few surprises still up my sleeve, mwahaha!

Details:
Dress; my own design based upon Burda 8511, of self-made wool felt with wool embroidery of my own design
Ugg boots; from some ugg boot shop, forgotten which one

Ahhh, the uggies. I know they’re pretty awful but I just could not resist! Seemed only fitting. I’m gahn the full Strine here, mate. 🙂

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Burda 8511, dress, embroidery, one year one outfit, own design, Sienna

forest green twist top

29/08/2015 12:34 pm \ 28 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made a new top.

This is, as my title oh-so subtly suggests, the twist top from Pattern
Magic; and is my fourth iteration of this top. First three are here, here and here.

Clearly I love this design. And I’ve often pondered upon how much I would
like to have one in every colour. Except
that would be excessive and wasteful. Bad me, for even thinking it. Bad, extravagant, greedy, covetous me. I guess one good thing about making everything
yourself is that you are constrained from having an overly huge
wardrobe by your own free time, or lack of it; by having to physically make each and every darn
thing yourself. I like to pretend to
myself that this factor introduces some carefully considered introspection into
the matter.

Ha! We can but hope!

I bought this length of stable, slightly stretchy, thin-but-warm, forest
green ponte from Potters Textiles, from the $2 remnant bin. Hmmm, don’t you just HATE when someone brags about how cheap their fabric/pattern/clothing/whatever was? Yeah, me too.
Loathe it.

Anyway, it’s the kind of project that you can start and have ready to wear in
about half an hour, flat; even including weaving those bitsy overlocker ends back
in. Fabric out, pattern down, cut, vroom
through the machines by turn, a few minutes of weaving and neckline-hemming. Done!

Believe me, I needed something fast and brainlessly easy, as a little bit
of light relief from my 1year1outfit project.
Honestly, that’s been a far bigger endeavor that I originally
anticipated. But the good news is that the
second component of my outfit is actually and finally finished!!! WOOOOOT!
To be appearing here very soon. Very
very soon.

In the meantime, this.

So, in a nutshell…

One of my favourite designs; check.

One of “my” colours; check.

Is it seasonally appropriate… oh bum.
No.

Winter’s practically over and it’s actually getting comfortably warm
around about these here parts. Oh well!
There’s always next year! As if I have
any reason at all to complain about the return of warmer weather, no sirree,
not I most definitely do not. Summer, oo
yeah baby, bring it. I am so ready!!!

OK I got nothing else! Tootles!

Details:

Top; the twist top from Pattern Magic, forest green ponte
Jeans; Burda 7863, brown stretch bengaline, details here and my review ofthis pattern here

Socks; handknit by me, details here

Shoes; Francesco Morichetti, from Zomp shoes

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, Pattern Magic, Sienna, top

a bit of re-colouration

11/08/2015 7:20 am \ 27 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve just been updating a few bits and bobs in my wardrobe…
when I get bored or dissatisfied with a particular item but it’s still in perfectly good nick or I still kinda like it because of a good shape/style or I put a dangload of effort into finishing it off particularly well or whatever; I will not toss it out. Instead I ‘avvago at re-vamping it somehow.
And this often includes dragging out ye olde dyepot and potions, aka dyes, eeeeeeeEEE heheheheheheheeeeee!! That was an evil witch’s cackle there, just in case my written word did not adequately translate to the spoken word, ahem.

So, revamp-eroonie; DONE.

Exhibit A; my little yellow cotton corduroy skirt. Absolutely nothing wrong with it, but I was just getting meh about it. Plus the clear yellow colour was a bit sharp and not one of “mine”. Since my khaki dress I have been thinking more about “my” colours and having more of them in my wardrobe. Sorta de-wintering my wardrobe and autumn-ifying it some more, if you will.
I used iDye in Brown and a tiny touch of the True Red, and got this rather wonderful deep caramel colour, in the top picture. Hehe, it’s funny; because actually I was aiming for mustard! important moral of the story; you should never ever never dye something that you are so much in love with that you couldn’t bear an unexpected outcome. Potential dyers, engrave that on your dye pots as it is one of the Commandments of Dyeing.
Anyway, I could not be happier with this super yummy, albeit unexpected, colour.
Unsurprisingly, the poly satin I used for the lining and bias binding did not take up the dye one tiny little bit.

woa, crack out the sunnies!

Exhibit B; while in the mood for dyeing, I also got out my pale blue, supposedly silk shirt (all original construction details here) and gave it a facelift. Supposedly? well it was sold as silk, but its mild lack of enthusiasm for taking up the dye speaks to some synthetic content, ahem. Not that I mind! it’s been a wonderful blouse and I love the shape unconditionally. Just that it has faded drastically and its colour was now palling on me; or should that more accurately read, appalling on me? Yeah, probably.
Anyway, it got treated to iDye in True Red.

Much better!
Now; compare the new colour of the previously same coloured cotton bias binding … that strong red was what I was aiming for, although I like this warm tangerine colour just fine. I’m just going to enjoy it as this colour for a while; and if I still want the deep true red colour I’ll pick up some red dye suitable for synthetics and give another whirl. See how we go.

Exhibit C; not a biggie, but I switched the yellow buttons on my forest green Miette cardigan for new deep green ones.

I think it’s going to be a tonne more mix ‘n’ matchable like this, since previously it pretty much went ONLY with my mustard dress below, or with all-white ensembles. The yellow buttons were a distraction, I can see that now. My mistake. Also, I think the lacework shines a little more than it did before.

So, that’s it!
In my current sewing news; I’m still struggling away with embroidering my felted wool, for my 1 year 1 outfit ensemble. Every now and again I have to lay it aside and do something else. It’s wearing me down a bit but I am certain I am going to love the finished piece and am quite excited to see it all come together. Ever onward and upwards!

my tutorial on basic dyeing here

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Burda 8218, Burdastyle magazine 10-2010-102, cardigan, daily outfit, dyeing, Miette, shirt, Sienna, skirt, Vogue 1247

alpaca cardigan; a 100% local product

13/07/2015 7:13 am \ 47 Comments \ Carolyn

So, at the beginning of the year I mentioned that I was taking part in one year one outfit, the brain child of Nicki of this is moonlight; the challenge being that we participants have one year in which to make an outfit for ourselves that is 100% locally grown or sourced.
And this cardigan is my first thing! the first component of my outfit finally finished. Phew!

Earlier in the year, Nicki drove Sue of fadanista and me to Toodyay, where the three of us visited the Fibre of the Gods, the alpaca farm owned and run by Hazel and Michael McKone. The farm is also home to a tiny and thriving wool mill; processing fleece into yarn for anyone who has some and wants it done; AND very importantly for the purpose of our project, also processes and spins its own alpaca yarn, shorn from their very own animals! The lovely Hazel took us into the girls’ paddock and introduced us … below are some of the hembras. That’s the term for a female alpaca, fyi. Also did you know that a male alpaca is known as a macho?! We saw one macho, out on his lonely lonesome in a separate paddock, all manly-like and aloof, looking down on us girls.

No, they’re not checking out the macho… they’re giving the evil eye to the farm’s cat! Alpacas are very wary of cats; and dogs too, according to my friend J, who has a small herd of her own. They will protect your sheep from vermin like foxes, and are likely to turn on a dog and kick him out of a paddock if they don’t know him well.

Hazel kindly showed us the mill equipment and explained how the entire operation is run entirely on their farm; from the animal right through to the finished yarn. And then we obviously shopped in their tiny store, cleaning out a, erm, sizeably large chunk of their eponymous stock, eep! They do stock some lovely coloured yarns and a few knitted and felted products for sale, however we were all of us after their own natural, un-dyed yarns for the purposes of our 100% homegrown project 🙂

Sue and Nicki also have written about our day out on their individual blogs too.

Anyway; my cardigan!

I used natural or undyed alpaca yarn from “white” alpacas, which when viewed objectively and ex situ is actually not even vaguely white at all really! but this lovely, very pale caramel colour. So how apt that I should choose a pattern called “Caramel”!
The Caramel blanket-style cardigan or jacket is designed by Isabell Kraemer, and is freeeee! available to download here on Ravelry. Basically; I put the search words “free” “cardigan” “8ply” into the Ravelry search engine and this came up… I thought it a rather nice and elegant shape. Well, “shape”; of course “blanket style” is basically another way of saying “giant rectangle with sleeves”… anyway I love how it looks loose with the fronts gently draping upon themselves, the points hanging down longer than the back.
My Caramel is knitted pretty much to the pattern; with just a few minor variations. Obviously mine has no real stripes. My sleeves and body are much longer. Also, I left off the the decorative? purl side seam stitching and the ribbing off the sleeves and lower edge. In the process of knitting I decided I really preferred the streamlined look with slight curl-up of the ends that you get with no ribbing. I had initially finished a sleeve lower edge with ribbing, to trial it; but then I unravelled that bit and redid the edges sans ribbing.
Plus; and herein is a huge advantage of a top-down knitted design, I just kept on knitting knitting knitting until I had used up all my wool, then cast off that lower edge. It’s a lot easier to do that if you know you don’t have to allow for ribbing.
Result; barely no leftovers! Win!

One thing about the Fibre of the Gods yarn that I really really LOVE! is how Hazel and Michael have labelled the balls with the name of the animal along with a little picture of them. So I know that my alpaca yarn came from Bandit, Coral and Pearl.
Hey, guys! Thanks so much for the shirts off your backs… figuratively speaking. 😉

I did notice some slight variation in the shade of the yarn, due to the slight variations in the three alpacas’ different natural colourings. I find these subtle “stripes” quite charming.

subtle stripes are very subtle

I also made a little wooden “pin” to hold the cardigan closed if it’s cold; by sanding down a nice and straight, little stick, found on my morning walk. It’s local obviously, so it too fits in with my one year one outfit challenge!

I can’t decide if I prefer my cardigan open or closed; I think I like it both ways equally!

Details:
Cardigan; hand-knitted by me, the Caramel pattern by Isabell Kraemer, natural alpaca yarn from Fibre of the Gods mill in Toodyay.
Tshirt; own pattern, blue jersey over dyed black, details here
Skirt; own pattern, charcoal ponte, details here
Tights; own pattern, black stretch poly, details here
Socks; not seen, hand-knit by me from Noro wool yarn, details here

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: caramel, cardigan, daily outfit, jacket, Knitted, knitting, one year one outfit, Sienna

not quite so baggy, blue pants

11/07/2015 6:18 am \ 20 Comments \ Carolyn

Remember these trousers below? well, they’ve had a little makeover!

before…

These are the tapered trousers from “she has a mannish style” a Japanese pattern book by Yuko Takada. Renamed “She Wears the Pants” for the English version of the book, in spite of the fact that there are very few patterns for pants in there. Bad re-name, imo. Very misleading.
Anyway, this wasn’t a drastic re-vamp, but to my mind they look waaaay better now. I removed a tonne of dropped-crotchedness from these trousers; and I realise that’s not an actual word… and now things are a lot more streamlined and far less, er, nappy-like, perish the thought.
Pre the re-do, I was all happy and “how cool are these?”, and then the second time I reached for them… well an “o my gawwwwd” lightning bolt struck. It was like; I’d had a fun first day, wearing something new and cool and funky and out-there, but now I just wanted some nice pants, thank you very much.
I had to Do Something and just grabbed my unpicker… *inner screaming* JUST DO IT!!!!!!

Capricious is my middle name, don’t you know. Anyway, I capriciously ripped open the crotch and almost the entire of each inside leg seam. Followed by some non-capricous, actually quite careful experiments; pinning/trialling new crotch curves within the constraints of the existing curve. Luckily the legs had enough cloth area that I could get a nice new curve that I decided was reasonably flattering to my be-hind, ahem. I ended up cutting away a big wedge off of each inner leg edge: 5.5cm from each of the front inner leg top edges, and a whopping 8.5cm from each of the back inner leg top edges; in each case tapering all the way down to nothing at the lower hem. And re-sewed it all up again.

that taper goes nearly all the way down to the lower hem

Everything else is still the same, including this back belt that I really love. It’s a nice feature to the back, and cinching in the waist to define it is a good idea in an otherwise rather loose and baggy style.

And now? I’m satisfied 🙂

Details:
Trousers; tapered trousers 13 from the Japanese pattern book “she has a mannish style” (also known as She wears the Pants) by Yuko Takada, modified, blue cotton corduroy
Top; Nettie bodysuit by Closet Case patterns; burnt orange stretch, details and my review of this pattern here
Scarf; a kit from Ivy and Maude (now Calico and Ivy), knitted by me, details here

Sorry for the slightly blurry side and back view photographs… only upon setting up did I discover that the battery was flat in my remote, meaning I had to set the self timer and sprint out in front of my camera! I think it didn’t know what to focus on! However, consequently I was far more economical in my picture taking; these three are literally the only ones I took. Probably a good thing, and maybe it’s what I should always do!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, She Has a Mannish Style, She Wears the Pants, Sienna, trousers

I’m a cow

02/07/2015 5:23 am \ 46 Comments \ Carolyn

… a Friesian cow!
And here I am, out standing in the field.
Ha! whenever I hear about someone, some highly accomplished person gaining recognition for being outstanding in the field of whatever, I cannot help it but that old joke just pops into my head; you know the one…
How did the cow win a Nobel prize? Because it was out standing in its field.
And I will have a little inner laugh. With cavalier lack of regard for the importance or gravity of the accomplishment. I know, it’s not even that funny. Clearly, I am very easily amused.
So, yes, I am wearing a new skirt, while I’m out standing in my field, here.
*muffled giggle*.

The fabric is a ivory/black fake fur from Spotlight, plush but with a low pile and not very thick. I used black silk dupion for the waistband, as the plush was too thick to make a nice clean flat waistband, and I lined my skirt with ivory polyacetate lining fabric.

I used Vogue 1247 with the pieces spliced together so as to make a plain little skirt with no pockets. I know, Vogue 1247 again! sorry to be boring! it’s just that the silhouette of Vogue 1247 suits my current winter wardrobe right down to the ground so it’s very much the golden child of my pattern family. It may or may not fall out of my favour at some point but y’know, when you’re enamoured of a pattern and it seems perfect for every occasion so you keep reaching for it over and over and over again. To the exclusion of all the other, perfectly good, skirt patterns.
Probably all my other patterns hate it, and when the cupboard door is shut and the light goes out and I leave the room, they studiously ignore it and exclude it from their whispered conversations with a disdainful curl to their lips.
She’s so full of herself.
Oh, like totally.
(I’m telling you, it’s like high school in there…)
Hey guys! I just got made up; again! In cow fabric!!
Did she just say what I thought she did?
Mmmm. Just pretend you didn’t hear…
Guys, look!
Omigod, seriously.
And she lined me! I’m not even supposed to be lined!
Oh please. Like half of us don’t have lining already. You don’t hear us bragging.
I know right? Just keep walking.

Vogue 1247 sadly walks away, to eat her lunch. Alone.
Trying to bravely rise above it.
Their turn will come. Oh, their turn will come.

Hmmm, goodness knows how that happened, but somehow I seem to have segued right into the screenplay for a new high school soapie, starring a cast of dressmaking patterns.
Stay tuned for the next exciting episode! Will Vogue 1247 be forgiven her teacher’s pet status? Or will a new pattern topple her from her pedestal? Will there be hair-pulling? Or will someone steal someone else’s boyfriend?!

Hehe, thought about deleting all that nonsense, but nah; left it.

Adios! or should I say; MOOOOOO!