A Christmas Sweater

On New Year's Eve 2021, I spent my evening doing some knitting project planning and organizing for the coming year... in between swigs of homemade Bailey's. (Don't tell me knitters don't know how to party.) I'd picked out a pattern for my honorary niece Olivia's Christmas 2022 sweater the previous August, but when I was writing up my yarn shopping list for the coming year on New Year's Eve, I checked my stash to see if I had anything suitable.

 

This is the Sverrigsgade pattern, designed by Sanne Bjerregaard. It's a free pattern, it's quite strikingly attractive and visually interesting, and as multi-coloured striped patterns tend to be, it's an excellent stash buster. I love the colourway used in the sample pattern, and had rather hoped to replicate it, but after a look through my stash, I wound up going with the alternate palette I found there. When it came down to my paying what is for me a considerable chunk of money to buy the ideal yarn for this project, or using the suitable and attractive no-cost yarn from my stash, it was an easy call.  

I had in my storage box of DK yarn 200 grams of a tan-coloured yarn that I'd bought online from Mary Maxim and that proved not to be the right shade for my purpose when it arrived. I would have returned it, but the Mary Maxim customer service person told me it would cost me more to send it back than the refund would be, so I sighed resignedly, kept it, and simply ordered more in the right shade. I decided those two inadvertently purchased skeins would work quite well as the main colour for this design. I also had small amounts of red, wine, dark green, and kelly green DK yarn left over from other projects that I thought worked together well and went fairly well with the tan, and so would do for the contrast colours.

The completed sweater in a size six. I'm pretty pleased with it. The colourway isn't bad at all for something put together out of odds and ends while not entirely sober. It has a Christmassy look, which is a plus for a Christmas present, but not so much so that it can't be worn all winter. It will also suit Olivia's colouring of brown hair, olive eyes, and faintly olive-tinged fair skin quite well. This pattern is well-written and knitted up without any problems. I was keeping an anxious eye on the red yarn, as I feared it might run out before the sweater was done, but it went the distance. I went with neutral buttons on the shoulder, as I couldn't seem to match any of the contrast colours in the sweater to any of the buttons Fabricland carries. 

I've also purchased a dollar store suncatcher painting kit and a thrift shop copy of The Borrowers for Olivia's Christmas present, but the present isn't yet complete. I have a plan to make something else to go with it, something special that warrants its own post, so watch this space.

Not So Little Boy Blue

My grandnephew Bug turned nine in July 2022. Like a good knitter and a passable great-aunt, I began planning his birthday present sweater well in advance. Ravelry tells me I added the pattern I used for his sweater to my queue on August 26, 2021.  

The design I chose was the one you see pictured above, the imaginatively named 1208-02, by Sandnes Design. I've had my eye on this pattern since Bug was a preschooler and have always thought it had quite a bit of style. In December 2021, when Romni Wools was having its annual December sale, I bought the yarn for the project: Drops Karisma in Vert Mix (colour 50) for the main colour, and Light Pearl Gray (colour 72) for the contrast. I had to go with marbled gray buttons for the placket as the blue proved impossible to match. 

And here's the finished product, made in a size 10. The pattern wasn't the best written and I wound up having to redo the sleeve cap, armhole, and shoulder shaping a few times -- as well as recalculate and rewrite the directions -- before I got it right. But eventually the sweater was completed and I was pleased with the result. Bug received his birthday present in August, at my parents' 60th wedding anniversary party. He put it on to model it for us and then refused to take it off, despite repeated urgings from his mother, for what must have been close to an hour, even though the temperature couldn't have been much under 30 degrees Celsius. But hey, it was a brand new sweater and we all told Bug how handsome he looked in it, and I have known many a grown man more susceptible to flattery than Bug was being that day. It was a little big on him, but not unwearably so, and I consider that ideal as it means he can probably get two years of wear out of it rather than just one before he grows out of it. 

The lovely tweedy blue colour really suited Bug. He has light brown hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, and blue is very much his colour. I've made him nine sweaters in his life and seven of the nine have been blue or partly blue. I keep telling myself that I need to make Bug's sweaters in a variety of colours, that he'll get tired of wearing blue, but then I go yarn shopping and see a beautiful blue yarn that would look soooo good on him, and I just can't resist. Oh well, I have used a variety of shades of blue and different designs, and I doubt Bug feels like he's getting the same sweater from me every year.      

Besides the sweater, Bug got binoculars with a compass built into it and two Hot Wheels cars. I don't know how good the binoculars are (they were $4 at Dollarama), but they should do well enough for a toy.  

And yes, I've already picked out the design I'm going to use for his tenth birthday sweater. 

Style and Polish

My grandniece Cauliflower turned 13 in August 2022. I have, until this year, been alternately making a dress for her on her "odd" years and a sweater on her "evens", but the dress I made her for eleventh birthday was the last one I am ever likely to sew for her. She's reached the age where she needs her dresses fitted on her, and I can't do that as I so seldom see her, so it's sweaters from now on. My sister-in-law tells me this is just as well, as Cauliflower isn't currently as much into dresses as she was when she was little, and would probably prefer to get a sweater for her birthday anyway. 

This year my project plan began with my finding 100 grams of bright blue (left over from a cardigan I made for my father years ago) and 190 grams of Patons Decor in Rose Temptation (left over from a cardigan I made for me) in my stash, deciding they looked nice together, and then looking for a sweater design that would be suitable for them both, with the addition of some new yarn in a coordinating main colour. 

This year I directed my search among the adult-size designs, instead of children's patterns, as Cauliflower has recently begun to wear extra small women's sizes. It didn't take me long to settle on the Vintersol sweater, designed by Jennifer Steingass, which I would be knitting in its smallest size. I already owned a copy of it as I have used the design before to make a sweater for me, so that was a cost-efficient plus. Not that a teenaged girl would want to wear the same style of sweater as her middle-aged great aunt, but again, I seldom see her, and will just have to remember not to wear that particular sweater around her for the next few years. 

For my main colour of yarn, I went to Michaels with a yarn sampler of the two colours I already had, and selected Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Riverside, or as I'd describe it, a rich dark blue which is just a few shades shy of navy. I bought three skeins of yarn one skein at a time with Michael's coupons, which brought the total cost of this project to $16.59. 

The finished sweater. It didn't photograph all that well -- the rose colour looks a little psychedelic -- but I am quite pleased with its actual appearance, and Cauliflower liked it too. The design is so effective, and the colours work together well. She plans to pair it with navy blue leggings and wear it to her figure skating lessons.    

Along with the sweater, Cauliflower received a manicure kit I put together for her. Every year I mark her and her younger brother's progress towards maturity through their gifts, figuring out what clothing size they'll be, and weighing the age appropriateness of the other gifts I get them. Thirteen is too old for toys, but there are plenty of useful things that can be packaged in a fun and attractive way for a brand new teenaged girl. I think thirteen is still a little young for makeup -- high school is surely soon enough for girls to start wearing cosmetics -- but Cauliflower is certainly old enough to do her nails if she wants to, and I know from my own revamp of my manicure kit what a pleasure it is to have a well-organized and good-looking kit to use. So I decided to put together a manicure kit for her. I made a fabric case to hold the various items, and also ordered a book online (secondhand, but it's good as new) that will tell her everything she needs to know in order to do her nails to a professional standard.

Besides the larger case seen above, I sewed a tissue case and two smaller vanity cases to go inside the kit.  I had remnants of the red polka dot and the blue, red, and white print fabrics you see above on hand, and though they were from separate projects they work together very prettily. I had the zippers for the vanity case in my zipper box too, salvaged from worn-out items but still in good shape. I just had to buy one red zipper for the larger case.

Then I bought a manicure set, emery boards, nail polish remover, and an array of nail polish from the dollar store. My own practice is to keep just two shades of nail polish on hand, plus a bottle of clear polish. I have never in my life used an entire bottle of nail polish before it got too old and hardened to be usable, so buying only two colours keeps the wastefulness down, and besides, I know what I like: an old rose and a light, shimmery copper. Both colours are visually pleasing to me, go well with my skin tone, and are low-key enough to go with most of my clothes without clashing. But then that's me, a middle-aged woman who knows what her lane is and is content to stay in it, while Cauliflower is a young girl who needs to play and experiment and find out what she likes and what suits her. For her I bought a selection of nail polishes that I thought would suit her colouring.

As with my own manicure kit, I put cotton balls and swabs in the one case, and emery boards in the other, but Cauliflower will be able to organize her kit however she likes now that she has it. There is also room in the larger case for her to add equipment/supplies to the basics I've provided if she wishes to.

I gave Cauliflower's birthday present to her this past weekend, and she seemed very pleased with everything. The sweater and manicure set don't seem to me to be such a bad gift for a newly minted teenager, and will hopefully help Cauliflower embark on her teens in style.

Fuchsia, Turquoise, and Lime

 

My honorary niece Olivia turned six today, and two days ago I sent her birthday gift, which you are about to read all about, on its way to her.

I like to give Olivia a spring/summer dress every year for her birthday. Last year when I was buying the pattern for her fifth birthday dress, there were two patterns I liked a lot, so I decided to get both and use one for last year and one for this year. McCall's M7309, the cute, elbow-sleeved, handkerchief hem knit dress design you see above, was the one for this year. 

But I ran into a snag when it came time to trying to find fabric for it. There is surprisingly little selection in knit fabrics that are suitable for a little girl's dress -- at least in the stores I have access to. Everything was so ugly and/or elderly. This pattern called for a moderate stretch knit fabric, but when the only fabric I could find that I actually liked was a very stretchy knit... I went with it.

This fabric is a sort of fuchsia or plum colour -- not quite either purple or pink -- with fine horizontal lines of turquoise and lime. I had some difficulty finding a spool of matching thread for it, but the real challenge came when making it up. When sewn as directed, the neckline stretched out enormously -- to 30 inches in circumference! I had to recut the bodice entirely to make the neck opening smaller, and redo the neckband repeatedly to get it small enough. I didn't recut the rest of the dress, and I can only hope that it doesn't look too oversized and sloppy on Olivia. Arghhh. It's so disappointing to struggle with something as I did with this, and still not be happy with it when it's finally finished. 

As for the obligatory matching purse, I didn't want to sew it out of the jersey because the fabric was too stretchy to be suitable for a purse, and I'd have to interface and interline it, which would be a pain with such a small item. I looked through my yarn stash to see what I had in the way of coordinating yarns that might be used for a knitted purse. I had a turquoise and a lime that were very similar to the stripes on the jersey. I did not have a fuchsia yarn, and would probably have reverted to the idea of a sewn purse rather than go to the trouble and expense of having to track down and buy a skein of yarn in that shade, but happily it occurred to me to check my box of embroidery floss. It turned out that I had some embroidery floss in a very similar shade. 

When knitting the purse, I used the Squircle pattern I have used a number of times before, and went with a reversal of the dress fabric's colourway: lime, with turquoise and fuchsia stripes worked in duplicate stitch. The lime yarn is a very soft yarn, so to give the purse a little more structure, I cut a circle of very stiff interfacing the size of the bottom of the bag, knitted a second bottom, and then stitched the second bottom inside the bottom of the bag, slipping the interfacing circle in between the two bottoms mid-process.

I hope the resulting purse and dress will do well enough. They certainly aren't the success Olivia's super cute fifth birthday dress and purse were, sigh.     

As for the rest of Olivia's gift, I got her a toy tea set she can paint and decorate herself (repeatedly, if she likes, because it's washable paint), an owl sketchbook and matching pen, and a copy of The Secret World of Og by Pierre Berton. So, all in all... not a bad gift, and one Olivia will probably be happy enough with. Which is, after all, what matters. 

Tying My Own Apron Strings

I have never until recently worn an apron while working in the kitchen. My 83-year-old mother never has, despite having done more cooking, baking, and preserving than anyone else I can think of. However, while my mother never seems to get any food on her clothes when preparing food, I nearly always do, and I decided I was tired of putting on a fresh outfit on Saturday mornings (when I batch cook for the week and do laundry) only to have it acquire food splotches within the next few hours.

So, aprons. Which of course I was going to make. I decided I would sew three, as a supply of three would mean I could be reasonably confident that I'd always have at least one clean apron on hand. I found an apron tutorial online, and then I bought fabrics. I planned the apron colours with reference to both my clothes and my planned kitchen décor, which is to be cream, wood tone, and red, with touches of green and to have a poppy theme, and determined I would make a red apron, a green apron, and a brown and cream apron. For maximum versatility the aprons would all be fully reversible with a print on one side and a plain fabric on the other.       

The red apron. I love the Jacobean-style print I used for this one. Fabricland actually carried poppy print fabrics, but I found I didn't like the look of them. This one's close enough to being a poppy print for my liking. 

The apron tutorial I used called for the apron straps to be made out of one of the two fabrics, but I made one change to the style of the aprons by making the straps out of both fabrics so that they'd be reversible too, like the body of the apron. 

I do wish I'd cut the aprons to fit me better. I am very well-endowed, and in order to have the waist tie at my waist, I have to adjust the bib ties to wear the bib lower on my chest than I like. Cutting a longer bib would have prevented that, which I should have realized from the outset -- after all the dresses I've made for myself, it's not like I don't know my chest takes up extra length. But I didn't think of it, and by the time I clued in I was far enough along in the process that I didn't feel like going to the trouble of backtracking and fixing it. It's no big deal, though. I can wear the bib a few inches lower, and if/when I ever make another set of aprons, I will remember to tailor them better. 

  

I scored another lovely print fabric for the green apron. It's a William Morris-style Arts and Crafts print. It actually had the William Morris name on the edge of the fabric, which means it's probably licensed. It's a print that will go well with my Art Nouveau-inspired décor touches.

The third apron, with a solid brown fabric on one side and a cream stripe fabric on the other. By the time I was done making this one, I wished I'd made the entire apron in plain brown. I used brown thread on the brown side and ivory on the cream, and those stitches showed through on the opposite side when I was top stitching, to the detriment of the final appearance of the straps. But there will probably be times when I am glad I have a cream apron to wear instead of a brown one, so it'll do.

And now I can bake and boil and brew in style. 

Sewing Sleepwear

One spring day perhaps eighteen or nineteen years ago, I went shopping for a new summer nightgown. I was looking in Toronto's massive Eaton Centre, where one would expect there would be a good selection of pretty much anything, but though I spent a few hours scouring every possible store, I couldn't find anything I liked. I got frustrated. And then it dawned on me... perhaps I could make myself a new nightgown. I took the northbound train to Yonge & Bloor, where there was (at that time) a Fabricland, picked out and purchased a pattern and a fabric I liked, and was on my way home in half an hour. 

I've never bought any sleepwear for myself since that day. I sew my own cotton nightgowns for summer and plaid flannel pajama bottoms for winter, and pair each pair of pajama pants with a thrift shop long-sleeved t-shirt in a coordinating colour. My practice is to keep my nightwear drawer perpetually stocked with three nightgowns and three sets of pajamas, replacing individual items whenever necessary. I reuse the same nightgown and pajama pants sewing patterns over and over, which helps keep the replacement cost down to under $25 per nightgown/pajama set, and they always last for years. The result is attractive, comfortable, inexpensive nightwear. I'll just add here that I also do have a lovely little spring green embroidered silk chemise that was given to me years ago and that I keep for, um, "special occasions", but there's been a sad dearth of special occasions in my life of late years, sigh.  

This is the cover illustration from Simplicity 9505, which is the nightgown pattern I bought all those years ago. My pattern is considerably the worse for the wear, though it's still usable. I used option C, which is the short-sleeved nightgown you see on the right. I'm not sure how many times I've made it up -- perhaps seven or eight times? It is so easy and inexpensive to make, requiring only 1.5 metres of fabric, some elastic, and maybe two hours of work. I still like the pattern, but a few years ago it began to feel as though it was getting to be too young for me in style. And also too short -- it's never been safe for me to bend over in it. While I may be single, I do need to be considerate of my neighbours, who are nice people and deserve better than to be subjected to an entirely unsolicited peep show every time I run out to put out the garbage. I decided it was time to invest in a new nightgown pattern, one more suitable for a woman approaching her fifties.

After browsing through the pattern catalogues in the spring of 2021, I decided on the pattern you see depicted above, which is Butterick B5792, view B, which is the one in the middle of the front row  It's more work and expense than the old nightgown pattern (note the tucked bodice, and the lace and ribbon detailing, and it also calls for bias tape around the neck and sleeve openings), but I thought it was rather pretty. I might be using some of the style options at some point too. I could use view D with short sleeves if I want to make a plain nightgown with no ribbon trimming. I'm even thinking of making myself a long-sleeved plaid flannel nightgown in option D the next time I need a new pajama set. 

These are the patterns I chose for my new set of nightgowns: a green pinstripe, a tone on tone cream print, and a peach and gold floral. I'm not crazy about the floral and wish I had kept shopping around for something I liked better, but I can live with it.

I had some difficulty finding the beading lace for around the neckline. I think ribbons are pretty, but I don't like lace very much, as I find it too fussy and Victorian-looking. I don't think there's any lace in my entire wardrobe except for some narrow trim on some of my underwear. I didn't like the only beading lace Fabricland carried in the required width. I toyed with the idea of knitting or crocheting some beaded lace, and I may do that next time, but for this set of nightgowns I ordered 4 yards of a cream cotton eyelet lace from an Etsy vendor. Even with shipping the eyelet lace cost less than the Fabricland option, and it looked more like a ribbon than like lace.

Here's the green pinstripe nightgown, made in size medium with slightly larger than called for seam allowances. I couldn't find green ribbon in the right shade for it as I had hoped, so I just used a cream ribbon. 

I couldn't find peach or apricot ribbon as I wanted for the floral, and had to go with a ribbon that was a cream with a slightly peachy tone to it. But again, it looks fine as is.

Here's the cream one. I rather wished I'd gone with a crimson ribbon for it, but the cream on cream look is fresh and pretty enough. 

I had approximately a package and a half of single fold bias tape which I had thought would be enough to do these three nightgowns, but I ran short. It would have cost me $6.50 in TTC fare to make the round trip to the nearest Fabricland just to buy more, so I improvised, and made my own bias tape, which I used to finish the armholes on the cream nightgown. I had never made bias tape before, but it went so well I'm going to be keeping the technique in mind for the future. It saves money, and it can look better to have matching bias tape made out of the garment's fabric than to choose from the limited set of colours commercially made bias tape comes in. 

And now I have three new knee-length cotton nightgowns demure enough and classic enough to be age appropriate, and hopefully also airy enough for Toronto's hideously hot summer nights. 

Clothes-Providing Friends

One day in March 2020, while idly scrolling through my Twitter feed, I saw a tweet authored by my friend Christine in which she'd posted a photo composition of Celine Dion in two very unfortunate outfits that were reportedly styled by a friend of hers, with the query, "... if your friend does this to you on purpose, are they really your friend?"

I must admit that if a friend of mine tried to get me to wear any of these outfits, I'd question their understanding of me, their motives, and possibly also their sanity. I've made a number of pieces of clothing for Christine over the years (by my count, if I'm not forgetting anything, four sweaters, a suit jacket, and a jersey dress), and couldn't help thinking complacently that all of those pieces definitely looked better than... what you see in the photo above. 

Our little exchange of tweets on the matter got me thinking that it had been so long since I'd made Christine anything -- I believe she received the last item in 2010 -- that she had probably worn out all the things I'd given her, and I really ought to make her something new. I added "sweater for Christine" to my knitting project list and picked out a pattern for it, but I didn't get to it that year, nor in the following year. In late 2021, when I was working on a tartan table set for my friend Lindsie and deciding that it would be her 50th birthday present, I also determined that I would definitely get Christine's sweater made in early 2022, and that it would be her 50th birthday present. 

The sweater above is the Veneto Sweater, designed by Handmade Closet. It's a lovely design and it struck me as being perfect for Christine. I could just picture her in it. 

As for the yarn selection, Christine's favourite colour is cranberry red (two of the four sweaters I have made for her have been that colour), so I decided this sweater would be a cranberry red with, if possible, a variegated yarn in warm cream/tan/light brown tones for the contrast colour. Christine is blond with a tan skin and brown eyes, and such a colourway would suit her very well. 

It took a few yarn store visits to find what I wanted, but I eventually purchased 300 grams of Sandnes Garn Sisu Superwash in Cardinal (shade 4228) from EweKnit, and one skein of Pro Lana Golden Socks Fjord 4-Fach (shade 181).  

 

Here's the sweater, which knitted up without difficulty. I made it in a size 3, which has a 36" bust. I did make the body longer than specified in the pattern. Christine isn't tall (I'd estimate her height at 5'3"), but she has a proportionately long torso, and the 20.5" length called for by the pattern would be too short on her, so I added one inch to the yoke length and two to the body length. I also added waist shaping. The resulting sweater should fit. I've never measured Christine, but all of the pieces I've made for her have fit quite well. With knitwear, one can usually just eyeball the size. 

  

 

As with Lindsie's gift, Christine will also be getting a jar of my lavender jelly, two tissue cases, and some homemade cookies for her birthday. The plan is for me to host a birthday lunch for Christine and Lindsie at my house, as they were born just nine days apart and, though the two of them only know each other through me, they enjoy each other's company a lot and are very fond of each other. I have the menu and decorations planned, and I'm looking forward to giving my two closest friends what I hope will be a special and fun birthday celebration, with gifts that are more satisfactory and aesthetically pleasing than the outfits assembled by Celine Dion's friend.