Simplicity 1887

I wish I could make sound effects on this blog post, because it would start out with a downward chime something like: wah, wah, wah.  (Even writing that out looks weird).  

I've had in mind to make up the Simplicity 1887 skirt for at least a year, largely on the strength of Masha's makes.  I had such good luck with M7353, also on her recommendation, that I thought this would be a good pattern for me.  It seemed reminiscent of my beloved Everyday Skirt pattern, but slimmer through the body, so I thought it was worth a shot.

*cue the ominous music*  I had in mind to cut my Folk Birds dress down to a skirt since the fall at least, but have been putting it off for a variety of reasons.  This week I decided to be brave, cut into my dress, and hope for the best.  I also decided that I was going to be okay if it turned out badly.

I should say first that these photos make the skirt look better than it really is.  The pattern is bananas.  There are some nice things about it--the deep yoked pockets, the shape of the skirt, and the surprisingly flattering pleats in the front.  But the waistband construction is completely bonkers, and the elastic application more so.  It was my first time making a shaped waistband, however, so the experience wasn't totally wasted.

First, my mods: Masha recommended sizing down to a 16, since our lower measurements are similar and she found a 16 worked well for her (I DM'd her on Instagram to ask for advice before cutting), and I think that was exactly right.  I added 2.5" to the skirt length because the drafted length would have been mid-thigh on me.  

I also lined it with some leftover bemberg from the stash, which added some construction complication to the already bonkers waistband.  I was expecting this to work like the Everyday skirt, which is clever and easy to put together.  Not so much.  My first mistake was not having enough fabric for the facing on the waistband, so I used lining instead (I interlined the waistband with some medium weight cotton for stability).  The inner lining makes the waistband slippery and was a pain in the neck to top stitch neatly.  After ripping out the stitches three or four times, I gave up.  Let's just say it's not my best work and don't look too closely at the details.  

The skirt also doesn't want to sit at my natural waist, so I feel like it is falling down every five minutes. I realize it is drafted to sit 1" below the natural waist, but this is not flattering on me, and I was hoping that by snugging the elastic, it would sit higher.  Nope.  Also: the elastic guides are completely wrong.  I used 4" less on each to start with and still cut off 3" at the end.  I probably should have used braided elastic instead of knit, since I think that is part of the fit problem--the knit elastic isn't "firm" enough to stay put.

Honestly, I think I could achieve the same look with the Everyday skirt by taking out the side panels (I have actually.  I made two skirts this way last winter, although I don't like either of them and they are in the naughty pile waiting to be remade into something else).  I like everything about this skirt except the waistband and where it sits on me, but that waistband is super irritating, so I know I won't enjoy wearing it.  Blerg.  

I almost didn't want to show these photos, but I think it is useful to show what doesn't work as well as what does.  Part of me wants to purchase the fabric again and have another go with a different pattern, but I'm not sure I have it in me.  My sew-jo is seriously missing in action, and this skirt was not particularly fun to make.  I have a knit dress cut out to try as soon as I have coordinating thread, but I'm not that excited about it.  Part of it is that it is still quite cold here, and I really don't have a lot of options to keep myself warm except for wool maxi skirt+wool sweater combination.  It's okay, but I confess that I'm bored of it, after three months.

Update: I unpicked the whole waistband and facing and removed the wonkus elastic.  I redid the top stitching and did the waistband construction just like an Everyday Skirt, which brought the elastic bit more to the back of the skirt (instead of having a weird bulge right to the front of my hips where I do not need bulk!) and also used braided elastic which is much firmer.  I'm so much happier with the fit now!  The skirt is great, and I'll be happy to wear it!  It isn't worth retaking the photos since the fit issues are subtle and don't show up in photos, but take my word for it.  

Update # 2: Nope, not a success.  I wore it for a day after I redid the elastics and I was literally pulling the skirt up every five minutes.  Drove me nuts.  So while I think it is flattering and (mostly) comfortable, the skirt is just not going to work for me.  But at least it looks nice inside and out now, and I'm happy to pass it along to someone else who it will suit better.

Another Carbeth!

So I finished another Carbeth pullover sweater.  This one went lickety-split because I was using bulky yarn and I didn't have to weave in nearly as many ends!  (Apologies for the not-very-detailed photos.  We were taking them quick-a-minute this morning on a museum outing with my parents, and the girls were restless).

I made my usual modifications: size 2, but with a waist taper of 20 stitches from the cast on at the bottom.  I'm considering making one of these as written, but I think the taper is more flattering so, I probably won't.  I think I'm done with Carbeths for this season anyway.  I keep thinking it would be interesting to try deeper ribbing on the body of the sweater, but I always forget.  I also would like to try sizing down another needle on the ribbing.  My gauge has been 10.5 for all my Carbeths, and I size down to a 10 for the ribbing, but I'm curious to know how it would look with doing the ribbing on a 9.

I also made the turtleneck a bit longer than called for because I wanted it to flop slightly.  I considered making it a cowl neckline, but I was playing yarn chicken slightly and wasn't sure I had enough (I probably did, but it is fine as is).

No other things to note!  I used Wool of the Andes bulky yarn.  The colorway is a deep teal green (I know it looks more blue in these photos, but it has a definite spruce-green cast to it.  It is a lovely shade that is difficult to photograph accurately).  I also made the body slightly more cropped than my previous iterations--I think this one is 9" from the bottom to the underarm and it is just about perfect. 

I'm actually wearing this over a dress, which is great, as this dress isn't very warm on its own, but I don't like how it looks with a cardigan.  (I'm just not into cardigans this year, for whatever reason).  This sweater is just the thing (I've worn my other Carbeth pullover with this dress too, which gave me the idea!).  I think this color would also look good with my orange Everyday Skirt as well.

I immediately cast on a wrap/shawl/cowl thing, and have plans for a Pabaigh this spring too.  This is a knitting season for me, I guess!

Yarn Along: February

Apologies for the relative blog silence.  January is always a lost month for me--between January 6 and February 15, we have one birthday, three major Church feasts, the Twelve Days, three namesdays, Philip's day, a bunch of days off school for national holidays and professional development, and the general chaos of winter illnesses.  I usually get to about now and look around, blinking, and wondering where the month went.  After a lingering pneumonia/bronchitis for Piglet that required three rounds of antibiotics and oral steroids (fun times!), four rounds of stomach flu and some minor fevers in as many weeks, plus a stomach flu-migraine combo for me on Friday (I'm still recovering!), I'm ready for some healthy stretches. 

Way back in December, I had my head down for the first half of the month, trying to get through a particular number of edits on my manuscript so that I could put it to bed for a month while my kids were off for winter break and then the general craziness of our Christmas and so forth.  I figured things would be quieter after MLK day and planned to get back to the manuscript then.  

I spent that week doing fussy editing using a software program that looks for misused grammar, told prose, overused words, and other stylistic problems.  I was only able to work with 20 pages at a time, so it was tedious in the extreme.  I went through the whole manuscript that week (all 400+ pages!) and then this past week have been trying to do a general read-through for narrative flow, pacing, and consistency.  I'm two-thirds through, as this read through requires some patience and attention.  My goal is to get the manuscript to my beta reader by mid-February so that she can get it back to me by Pascha.  Then I hope to start shopping it around to agents (gulp!)

But on to making:

~knitting~

Another Carbeth cardigan.  *yawn*  What can I say?  I'm a one (or possibly two) trick pony.  I don't actually love this one as much.  I don't know if it is the color or what, but it isn't nearly as useful to my wardrobe as I thought it would be.  I seem to wear it around the house a lot, but I've had a hard time building outfits around it.  I don't love how it looks with my outfit today.

I'm also not thrilled with how this yarn behaved after blocking.  It is the same Carlton Merino Supreme as my Daisy Carbeth, but it doesn't look nearly as nice, and the woven ends keep wanting to pop through to the front side.  A couple of mods I made to this version: I made the fold over collar shorter, since I thought it worked better with my shorter neck.  I also made the body a bit shorter (although I think I could have gone shorter still, given how much it grew with blocking).  I'm working on a pullover version (I know, I know) and the body on that one is the shortest yet.

I also knit the sleeves flat, as with my other versions, but on this one, I did the seaming last, and attached them flat in the round, which I liked better.  I also did a three-needle bind off for the underarms, which I think looks nicer than what I did on the previous iterations.  The body is tapered like my previous versions too.  (Cast on 20 fewer stitches than a size 2, and increased five times every five or six rows).

WIPs:

A little hat.  I rediscovered a beret I made a year or two ago and wore it a few times over the weekend.  (I know I posted a photo of it at some point, but I never put it on ravelry and do you think I can find it now?  Nooo).  The hat had originally come out too big, but I reblocked it and it is perfect now.  It is Swish Rainforest Heather (a dark teal-green).  So I'm making another one in a lighter color.  My hair may be curly but it is still thin, especially at the back, and having something over the back of my head in cold temperatures keeps me a lot warmer.  I think this beret will be super versatile.

Another Carbeth, this time a pullover.  I'm using yarn that I bought with a birthday gift certificate from last summer.  It is Wool of the Andes bulky, and while I don't love the hand of it, I'm hoping the finished sweater will block nicely.  The color is much more saturated than it looks like in the photo.

A lightweight pullover from Hannah Fettig in purple Carlton Merino Supreme.  This one is going super slow because of the gauge (24 stitches per 4") but it is small enough right now to be a nice traveling project.

~watching~

The Last Kingdom on Netflix.  I took the kids to see a special Viking exhibit at a local museum here during the winter break, and I remembered that I had started this show a while back but never finished the pilot.  I went back to it and was completely entranced with the series.  

I've had a story idea kicking around in my head for a long time that is vaguely medieval in setting, and I'm strongly considering setting it in Alfred's Saxon Britain.  The show explores a lot of different themes, and I really enjoy the whole cast.  I'm also having a Moment with the costuming (which I know is not totally historically accurate, but I just love the whole look of the show so much that I don't care).  I'm eager for season four!

Next: Captain Fantastic.  If you haven't seen this, you must!  It is so so good.  It is also hilarious, and heart-felt, and so well done.

I introduced the kids to Cool Runnings one Saturday when they were sick and the weather was awful, and that was so fun to watch again.  If you've never seen it, it is the (mostly) true story of the first Jamaican blobsled team to go to the Olympics in Calgary in 1988.  It is a clean family movie and such a great story.

Last week when I was sick, I watched The Old Man and the Gun with Robert Redford.  It was fine.  Not fantastic, but fine. I also watched the Coen brothers' Hail, Caesar! and it was everything you'd expect from that creative team.  I enjoyed it a lot.

I also rewatched High Rise and found new things to think about it.  That movie (and the book) are so provocative.  I've said it before, but the book by J.G. Ballard belongs in the great canon of 20th century dystopian literature (alongside Huxley, Orwell, and Bradbury) and everyone should read it.  It has the added bonus of having probably one of the best opening lines I've ever seen.

Long time readers will remember that I loved the first season of Medici (I wrote a whole post about it) and I've been eager to see season two.  It is...disappointing.  I barely made it through the first episode, and I'm not sure I'm going to bother with the rest of the season.  Boo.

~sewing~

Nothing at all.  I've been thrifting a bit, but my sew-jo is missing in action.  I guess all my creative energy is going into the book and my needles.

~reading~

I also read a lot this month.  A few were re-reads (Unapologetic by Spufford and the Mack book) but the others were new to me.  Several were continued reading for my novel.  

I loved Madeleine L'Engle's story of her marriage to Hugh Franklin.  It is a beautifully wrought book.  The Listener was recommended by some writing book I read a while back, and it is good and interesting, but I didn't read it closely after a few chapters.  

The Mamalakis parenting book was so helpful.  I'm sorry it took me so long to get to it, but my relunctance was mostly down to a lot of parenting books not being helpful when you are in the trenches of parenting.  Mamalakis (who has seven children himself) gives a lot of very practical advice that can be used right away, even before you finish the book!  

I also read this book that is in my kids' stacks after The Last Kingdom:

I'm dying to see the Saxon exhibit at the British Library. A friend of mine was able to see it in January and said it is easily one of the best exhibits she's ever seen (and she's seen her fair share!) but it is a limited exhibit and I don't have any hope of a dash to London in the next month.  So it goes.  

I also read a Harold Pinter play this week that gave me some things to chew on.

^^^ On my stack currently.  I'm saving Handywoman for when I finish the Paul book.  The Paul book is seriously blowing my mind.  Sarah Ruden is a classics scholar, and she takes on the Pauline epistles to understand them in the pagan polytheistic cultural context in which Paul is writing.  She carefully parses the Greek texts to get at the meaning, and with her classics background, can situate them in the cultural milieu.  It is fascinating.  If ever you are tempted to think that our own age is in a terrible state, her book will quickly disabuse you of that notion.  Mostly, I took from it that there is nothing new under the sun.  People are broken, and have been, for all time, and that brokenness is always present in society.

Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along!