Week Sixty Five

No blog update this week. But I'll be back next week with some finished projects (I hope!)

It's now the first week of school holidays and I'm spring cleaning and sorting the stash in order to relocate about 50% of it back into the city closer to where I am during the week.

The challenge is to decide which moves and which stays.

Week Sixty Four

I worked on my Twigs and Willows cardigan. I finished the first front and am half way up the second.
I'm hoping the leaf motifs will spread and even up after blocking.

My skeins aren't very well matched, but at least they're not as different as the Madelinetosh pashmina skeins from Flo. I'm knitting and alternating with three strands to get the piece as blended as I can.


Speaking of mismatched skeins, I am thrilled that my order from Eat Sleep Knit arrived.
They sent me the lightest skein of "Ink" from the batch they had in stock and I am very optimistic that it will be fine.
I hope to finish my Flo cardigan over the forthcoming school holidays.

Here is the new skein (at back) with original leftovers and the hand wound dark skein. Apologies for the iphone picture)

I pulled Rincleau from my wip basket. The cowl is 8 1/2" of seed stitch. I'm still going but it is very pretty in this Sundara Aran Silky Merino. The colour is called The Great Pacific.

My DyakCraft interchangeable needles arrived today! I ordered them last June so it has been a long wait. Hand made in 'Vermont Apple'. I love the personal touch of the handwritten sizing on the needle roll and the set number signature too.

I will switch the needles from Rincleau. I'm keen to try these out as soon as I can.
They are so pretty, I'm such a sucker for nice accessories.

I bought some plain black wool Ponti knit fabric and some silk crepe de chine from Tessuti this week.
We will be going on an overseas holiday in a few months and I have a travel wardrobe to prepare for!

Finally, since I had to online shop for a single madtosh skein, it was entirely practical to buy a cardigan quantity while I was online.
I chose this fingering Dream in Color Starry in the colour Tokyo Creme. It has sparkles!

I'm planning a very plain short cardigan copied from a store bought one.

And finally, a cross stitch kit entered the house. I had a gift voucher from Morris and Sons and I bought this cushion kit for my daughters bedroom.

Two weeks of school holidays start on Friday. I will be leaving the city and am hoping for lots and lots of crafting.

Week Sixty Three

No sewing this week, just a lot of knitting.

Since I was stalled on Flo with the dark blue mismatched yarn, I cast on Twigs and Willows (Ravelry link). It is a cardigan from her new book Botanical Knits.

Here is the published cardigan.

I am knitting my cardigan with Swans Island Worsted in Vintage Lilac.
Its the yarn I photographed as a skein against my purple tweed dress two weeks ago.

Having the dress (which I haven't worn yet) is a great motivation to finish the cardigan. So far I have knitted both sleeves, part of the back and up to one of the yokes on a front.

I knit alternating from two skeins for the sleeves and they blended well.  The back piece I needed to start another skein and its not a great match for the earlier yarn. Its possible to see the slight striping on the photograph.

The front piece (folded under the ribbed back piece) I knit from three skeins and its much better blended.

This is why I left the back partly finished to start the fronts. I wanted to maximise the yarn for the fronts.

I haven't decided if I'm going to rip the back down to the ribbing and reknit. It depends on what skeins I have left over from the fronts. And also... it looks more 'stripey' in the photograph than in real life.

I hope by next week's post I will have some finished pieces to show. Maybe not the full assembly.
I'll also be shopping for buttons later this week.

Week Sixty Two

I have a new dress to report.

I went back into the stash as I'm still trying to sew though my older fabrics and found this wool tweed, bought a year or more ago from Tessuti Fabrics. 

Its very loosely woven. Flushed with the success of last week's purple dress, I thought it would sew well.

I cut the same sleeveless shift. It came together really well, although it frayed if I so much as looked at it sideways. I overlocked every raw edge to stabilise it.

I had so much fabric.. but a jacket (assuming I was game to make something tailored with this fraying weave) seemed too much texture.

So I drew out threads and made a tie scarf with fringed edges.

Its not lined. I have to get a production line of linings going!


Then I completed a project that has been waiting a long time.
Back during summer holidays my young daughter did some tie-dyeing. We made a turquoise tee shirt which was only now assembled.

She would have preferred pink, of course. But added bling to the neckline courtesy of an iron on transfer bought at Lincraft is almost as good.

Finally some disappointing knitting news.
I made good progress on my Flo cardigan up until a few days ago. I wound my fifth skein ready to complete and found that the skein (Madelinetosh Pashmina in Ink) is significantly different from the previous Ink skeins.
So much darker as to be usable.

Here is the wound skein shown side by side with my remaining yarn.

I did two rows jut to see. Not that I needed convincing.

I am desperately looking for another skein in a lighter variation of Ink. I have a few leads but even assuming something comes up, it seems my project is going to be significantly delayed. And so close to the finish line!

Not sure what project to work on now. There are quite a few options in progress and for the last couple of days I've been doing a little on each to see which will 'take'.


Easter Weekend is almost upon us. We will be several days out of the city and I have hopes of crafting now power and water have resumed to the crafting house.

My posts have been a little later each week lately as I've been so busy. Next week's post will be delayed with the holiday excuse. I'll be back in town on Tuesday.

Week Sixty One

Unfortunately this week has a photograph-free post. 
I've been knitting on Flo, it still looks the same as previous weeks.... just more deep blue knitted fabric.

My craft room was closed up as we had some building repairs. No power meant no sewing machine. I'm looking forward to catching up next weekend.

Week Sixty

I am still knitting Flo and only about half way up the second sleeve. There is a long way still to go before I can start the the ruffles for the front.

But this weekend I sewed a dress.

This wool tweed has been in the stash for at least two years. In the spirit of stash-reduction I pulled it out and looked at what i could make.
I bought it originally from Tessuti for a skirt. I think might have been a remnant, because its longer than I would have bought for a skirt but not enough for a sleeved dress. Also I wouldn't normally buy purple for myself, I don't have shoes or much in the wardrobe to wear with it.

I was able to squeeze a sleeveless shift dress out with careful cutting using my current favourite, Vogue V8319.

Its not (yet) lined. I have some lightweight purple silk I can use.
It has turned out to be the nicest shift dress I've made. As i said, its just a pity its purple as there isn't anything in my wardrobe that could go as a cardigan coverup for cooler autumn days.

I suppose I could knit something.

This Swans Island Worsted merino is in the stash. Its a very pretty companion if I can find a pattern which works with my gauge and yarn quantity.

Whilst digging in the stash I got the last of the white cotton knit. I cut and broadly assembled one dress for my daughter. Its white today but over the next few days I'm going to use up the last of the dye in the tie-dye kit.

I also made myself a quick white t-shirt. Apologies for the picture.. a quick iphone snap as I didn't have my camera with me this weekend.

The next couple of weeks will have less opportunities for sewing. There is more building and maintenance works scheduled. So everything will be put away until Easter.

But less sewing means more knitting and I want to do a few embroidery trials for the Fendi bag too.

Week Fifty Nine

Knitting on Flo continues. I have finished the first sleeve, which looks like a longer piece of knitting to last week and I'm starting the second sleeve. It will be at least another couple of weeks before I have anything new to photograph on that project.

No sewing this weekend.


Yesterday I collected my two cross stitch projects from Morris & Sons.
They took my canvases and assembled them into cushions.

Love Tattoo is done!
And the red velvet piping (and backing) looks fantastic.

The zip closure is hidden in the lower edge.

Here is a close up of the edge.

The cross stitch kit came from Emily Peacock Designs and is called Love Tattoo. I can recommend it. The design is printed on a chart and is easy to follow. I prefer stitching on a blanck canvas using a separate chart over stitching on a printed canvas (as my butterfly framed project is). There is no need for judgement when print lines don't exactly line up with the canvas intersections.


My daughter now has another cushion for her room too.

I chose a powder pink velvet piping and backing for her cushion.

I bought this cross stitch kid from a wide selection at Morris & Sons. It was a preprinted canvas, although in this case it wasn't inconvenient to stitch as the stitch gauge was quite large. Overall this was a quick project.