Fun with flannel

The weather has well and truly turned this week, and I am a happy camper.  It got to the point where I was wondering if my knitting was even worth the effort, since I probably wasn't going to be able to wear any of it anyway.  

 

I think we can all agree that hot weather makes me a totally irrational.  

 

Every autumn, the summer temps hold on a little bit longer and I have a freak out about the continuing heat.  I need to make a note to remind myself in mid-September that it does get colder eventually and I just need to calm down. 

 

My Mackworth sweater is so close to being finished I can taste it.  I have been working on another knitting project with a soft deadline, but have set it aside temporarily so I can just get the sweater done already and wear it while the wearing is good.  Doesn't hurt that I just finished a flannel dress that I think will look smashing with it.  Pics to come.

But as long as we are talking about flannel and cold weather, I figured I should show my new flannel skirt!  Robert Kaufman's Mammoth flannel line is wonderful, and I have had several great dresses out of it, plus a few good skirts from the Shetland line. 

I was sort of craving another flannel skirt from the Mammoth, so I went through all the choices and picked the junior check pattern in a palette of aquas and light greens.  I thought it went the best with my wardrobe.

 

Given the daunting prospect of plaid matching, I decided to stick with a pattern that had very few seam lines, and adapted the bottom of half of the M7353 for a skirt, along the lines of the Purple Violet Squish skirt hack from earlier this fall.  The pattern is drafted for a knit, and although I've made the dress out of a woven several times, the inseam pocket installation is a bit of a squeeze on the 3/8" seam allowance.  

The pocket is additionally anchored into the waistband and sewn down a few inches from the waistband, so it can be a pain to get it smooth.  I added about 1/2" on both side seams to make the pocket installation easier, and that worked out great. 

 

 

I'm definitely living the elastic waistband life, but I somehow can't find it in me to feel too bad about it.  I think I've mostly found ways to style it well.  (She says hoping that she's not just deluding herself).  I'm reminded that 18th century petticoat skirts were almost as adjustable as elastic, and no one was making boo or baa about it then, so I probably don't need to now.   

It's interesting to me that one of the byproducts of industrialization is a kind of rigidity in fashion that only really changes with the advent of commercially available knit fabrics in the 1960s and 1970s.  (Admittedly, they were double knit polyester, mostly, but still, a huge change from wovens).  And by rigidity, I mean in the fabric and the styles it produced.

 

As the shift gives way to modern undergarments, there is more and more constriction, less room for the body to change over time, necessitating faster consumption of clothing and styles.  I think there is more to unpack there, but I need to think about it further.

 

As I do every time I sew with plaid, I learned something new.  I did make sure to line up the lines very carefully along the sides, but it wasn't clear to me until I took photos that the pattern's gray lines are much stronger than the surround and I should have focused on lining up those instead.  Oh well, live and learn. 

I suppose if it really bugs me I can try to realign it; the skirt is slightly long anyway, so I would have the length to play around with it.  For now, however, it will do.  The inline pockets are from rayon bemberg, as I wanted to reduce bulk on the waistline.  The bemberg shows slightly when I walk, but it is dark gray, so it looks okay.

I also sewed another Coco shirt, using the rhubarb telio knit that I made a skirt from this summer.  It is a much richer shade than how it photographed--a complex deep red that isn't quite burgundy and not quite cranberry, but a saturated tone in between.  I love it.  

The fabric was purpose-bought, so I had enough fabric to make long sleeves this time, and I added an inch to the bottom, as I thought it would give me the option to tuck it in if I wished.  I sewed the side seams at 1/2" and the rest at 5/8" to give myself just a smidge more room through the torso.  I also skipped all the facings this time and did a simple turn under, which I think I prefer. 

My wardrobe is in a good groove now, and I am pretty happy with almost everything I've made this fall, so yay for that!  I'm mostly through my gargantuan sewing list, so it's time to move on to the neglected knitting projects and get ready for Thanksgiving.

Doocot Refresh

Sometime in the late summer, I decided I wanted to refresh my blue Doocot.  I wear it quite a bit, but I find that the plainness of it is a little boring, and the bright scarf I love to wear with it makes me feel stuffy and hot these days.  I've had the idea to embroider on sweaters for a while and wanted to give it a go on this one. 

My first attempt at embroidery was on a magazine submission, using a thrifted grey sweater.  I used embroidery floss on that iteration since the sweater was a finer gauge, but I knew I wanted to use yarn on the Doocot.  Which left me to dither about designs.  Because there are a LOT of options.  I was a bit paralyzed by the choices, and also unsure how to do a design transfer onto a sweater.  (I know I could have used my tried and true tissue method, but some preliminary fiddling had shown me that it doesn't work as well with the blunt yarn needle).  

In the end, I just winged it, freehanding the stitches until I had something I liked.  I did pull out a lot of the stitches as I went, because it took me a bit to figure out how to get the yarn to look the way I wanted it to on the sweater fabric, but I'm quite pleased with the result.  The palette was the result of seeing these balls of yarn next to each other and realizing how well they would look on the sweater.   I might add some additional embroidery on the cuffs and hem, but for now, this is a nice amount. 

For reference, the yarns are: KnitPicks Wool of the Andes Worsted in Hollyberry & Papaya Heather, Malabrigo Arroyo in Sunset, Quince and Co. Chickadee in Cypress, and Wool of the Andes DK in Dove.

The Cancer Train

For those who have been following along this past month or so, you'll know that my dad was diagnosed with cancer in mid-October.  He has stage four lymphoma, and there is a fist-size tumor wrapped around his bronchial tubes in one lung, cutting off his air on that side.  After spending a month in the hospital at Mayo (a Providential occurrence if ever there was one), he was finally discharged last week.  He's completed one round of chemotherapy and is due to start the next one today.  We are so grateful for the excellent medical team around him and for all the support and care we've all received.  

The first round of chemo started the process of breaking up the tumor, and he is off continuous oxygen now, although he remains extremely thin and weak.  My mom has been staying at a nearby hotel this whole time, and they are there together now while he completes this next round and stays for a few days to make sure there are no complications as there were last time.  

They hope to return home to Missouri at the end of this week.  He will have a total of six rounds, spaced roughly three weeks apart, and while he plans to return to Mayo for the next round of chemo in December, barring the weather, his medical team will continue to direct his care from afar, another great blessing.

My dad is semi-retired from a 45 year career as a pharmacist, and was working per diem at the psychiatric hospital where was he had been head of pharmacy when all this happened.  It is unclear whether he will be able to resume part time work any time soon, and there are substantial medical bills that will come due in the coming months.  My sister set up a GoFundMe account for my parents; I know these are difficult financial times for everyone, and the holidays are approaching, but we'd be most grateful for any assistance.  

And as long as I'm talking about my dad, I should show the shirt and quilt I made for his birthday in September.  He is often hot in the summertime, and I fixed a lightweight camp-style shirt he loves when I visited in July, but the fabric was really on its last legs.  And more importantly, my mother does not like the pattern on the shirt.

I decided to make him another shirt in the same style, out of handkerchief weight linen in a lovely pale minty green (called Meadow on the fabrics-store.com website).  I used Simplicity 9157 for the pattern, and found it mostly fine.  The packet I was able to find started at size 44, which was slightly bigger than I needed, so I graded to a 42, but otherwise made no changes.  (Although my dad has lost so much weight in the past month and a half, I'll probably need to alter it for him before next summer).  

My only complaint about the pattern is that the back of the collar is finished a little bit less neatly than I would have liked.  I've made this type of collar before, and there is more than one way to finish the edges.  

This one has you tack the front facings to the shoulder seams, and turn the inside edge of the back collar under and stitch in the ditch to secure. I tried to draft a back collar facing instead, but it just didn't lay nicely, so I gave up and finished according to the packet directions.  

I did flat-felled seams throughout, to mimic ready-to-wear, and used up the last little bit of lightweight fusible interfacing I had on hand for the button bands.  I had to piece the fusing significantly to make it work, but I was on a deadline and didn't have time to wait for additional interfacing to arrive.  

The buttons are vintage from my stash, and were the ones that looked the best.  I like the contrast.

The quilt is just a simple panel quilt with a fishing theme, done in free-hand stitching on my machine.  I noticed a note from my gram in the manual about using the darning foot/setting for free hand quilting, which I never would have thought to do, so thank you Grandma!  (I have her machine, and the manual is full of her notes and stitch swatches--so handy!)  

It was the first time I used that feature on my machine, so I was trying to learn control with the stitching, but the end result looks like tangled fishing line, which I quite like, and fits the theme.  More importantly, my dad liked it, and that is what counts!

Gofundme here.

Moar beets

I guess I should log this linen skirt before the weather makes it seem totally weird to post.  I bought three yards of this color linen back in August, when I was buying for one of my sewing school students and my dad's birthday shirt (also need to blog that!)  The shipping from fabrics-store.com is high enough that it is worth making a substantial order.  It happened that all three colors coordinated quite well!

Beet appears to have been a limited run color, as I hadn't seen it before and not since. It is similar to Tawny Port or Wild Cherry; to be precise, it is exactly the color of beet juice.  The photos don't do the color justice--it is saturated and interestingly tonal, depending on the light.  It's not quite purple or red but somewhere in between.  Three yards was more than enough for a dress, although I dithered a long while about what to make.

I had initially bought it to make a 3/4 sleeve Terrace dress, but after making the Redwood one, decided I didn't want another in my wardrobe. So it sat. Once I got into the whirl of trying new patterns, I made up the Peppermint wrap top, cutting carefully to preserve yardage as much as possible.

 

The wrap top is fine, but it isn't something I want to wear regularly.  I've been wearing my drop-shoulder linen tops so much, it seemed like a good idea to make another one out of the remaining yardage.  After carefully cutting out the top, I realized I could eke out a Free Range Skirt hack as well, so I carefully cut out the skirt from the rest.  

I shortened the skirt by about 4" from the lengthen/shorten line to make the yardage work, and only had to piece a little bit of the waistband facing, so I consider it a great use of three yards! 

While I'm at it, I took some detail pictures of the gusset on this shirt, as it is the first one I made intending to add the gusset from the start.  

This is the underside of the sleeve, and you can see the triangular piece inserted there.  The gusset is actually a diamond shape, although you can use an oval petal type shape too.  The main thing is to figure out how much room you need in the underarm and cut a corresponding size.  On this one, I cut them 6" long by 3" wide.

I'm still working out how to finish these as neatly as possible.  I sew them in on a 1/4" seam and then zig-zag the edges, which is fine.  I've been doing French seams on these shirts, but it is difficult to make it work on the gusset part.  I'll figure it out eventually; I did do French seams on one of the shifts I made, including the gusset, but it was kind of dumb luck that it turned out well.

This is what it looks like from the outside when you pull the sleeve straight up.  The gusset can also be pieced down the middle if fabric is short.  

I wasn't planning to wear these together, but I actually love them as a two-piece dress.  I had hoped my spruce noil Remy and matching Free Range skirt would go together similarly well, but I think I need to shorten the skirt to knee length before I will be completely happy with it.  I don't think ensemble this counts for #dresslikeacrayon, though.  Still working on that one!

Shoulder Season

Top (L-R): Cypress sweater/Free Range skirt; rtw cotton sweater/Zwei Leben II denim skirt/Chinook scarf; Garnet Boneyard scarf/Arctic drop shoulder linen shirt/Free Range skirt; Bottom (L-R): Cypress sweater/Chinook scarf/blue terry Elemental skirt; Beet linen drop shoulder shirt/Beet Free Range skirt (unblogged); Evendoon sweater/Hunter terry Elemental skirt

Rae recently did a fall outfits post, and I thought it might be fun to do the same.  I like seeing older makes on other sewists, and seeing how they put outfits together from new and old pieces, so the following is a series of outfits I wore in the past month or so.  It should be said that the weather has been all over the place this fall.  

Top (L-R): Spruce Carbeth/Marigold linen skirt; Teal knit Coco top/Chinook scarf/Free Range skirt; Dawn linen drop shoulder top/Free Range skirt; Bottom (L-R): Pine Remy Raglan/Rust cord skirt; Seafoam Remy Raglan (unblogged)/Oregano cord skirt/rtw plaid wrap; Pine Remy Raglan/Mustard cord skirt

It was early October before I could even think about tights, and then there was a week of sweater weather in the middle of the month, followed by milder temps again.  Mostly we are into legit fall weather, although the temps are supposed to continue to drop (thank the Lord) this coming week. 

The new linen drop shoulder tops have gotten a lot of wear, as they don't make me sweat and don't have to be tucked in so I get air movement underneath.  Ditto the Free Range skirt hack, and my newly elasticated Rose skirt hack which are my new favorite skirts.  I used the last bit of teal knit from the dress I made this summer to make a 3/4 sleeve Coco top that I intend to replicate.

Just a basic top, but at a length I don't have to tuck in to look nice.  Short-waisted people of the world represent!  I used Tilly and the Buttons' Coco dress and cut it at the lengthen/shorten line, which seems about right.  I cut a size 5 for the top, although I grade to a 6 at the bottom for a dress.  I faced the neckline, cuffs, and hem with 1" wide fabric strips, which I like, but I might try a simple turn under on a future iteration.  The seam allowances are generous, and I could possibly use a smidge more room across the chest and back, so I'll probably sew the side seams at 1/2" next time.

 

My yellow Chinook scarf gets a lot of wear around this time of year, and the yellow goes with a lot of my clothes by virtue of being one of those strange neutrals.  It is a linen-cotton blend, so the perfect fiber/weight for this time of year.  

 

I do have more trouble wearing scarves since I started having hot flashes--anything close around my neck can bring them on--but I'm learning to wear an interesting necklace under the scarf so that when I inevitably have to ditch it, I still look like I put together an intentional outfit. 

Katie Kortman does a lot of color challenges and one time she challenged analogous color combos (colors that are next to each other on the color wheel).  I've always wanted to try it, but couldn't quite pull off the right combination until I hit upon this one.  I really like the Cypress with the Elemental and the pop of yellow from the scarf.   I'd like to crack a monochrome combo as well (otherwise known as #dresslikeacrayon) but still haven't found the right combination. 

On to flannels!

The One Yard Dress

This summer I made a dress out of a yard of fabric.  That covered all my bits.  

Lemme 'splain.  

 

 

Remember when I bought that telio cotton knit fabric and the hand of the fabric out of the package was icky, but changed dramatically with washing?  I had bought two yards in different colorways, intending Elemental skirts, but when the fabric was so gross against my fingers, I called to return it.  The gal said she would refund my money but they didn't want the fabric back.  I felt kind of weird about it, but she was adamant about it, so I thought, well maybe something will present itself. 

After washing it, I thought I could use it after all, so I made one of the yards into the rhubarb Elemental skirt as planned, and have worn that skirt a lot.  But the dark green color was a bit of a quandry.  I already had the French terry Elemental skirt for cooler temps, and by the time I decided to use the fabric, summer was well advanced and I didn't need another skirt.  So I decided to have a go at making a Coco dress out of it. The whole whopping one yard.  A 60" wide yard, but still. 

Coco is a versatile and nifty pattern, but until this make, I hadn't cracked the sizing or proportions on my frame, so I was hoping to figure it out; if nothing else, it would be a toile. Obviously, I had to do cut-on sleeves or it wouldn't work, but I used the Emerald dress as a guide for the top, rounding the neckline. 

I used absolutely every bit of length to get the dress to 37" long, which is right on the edge of an acceptable length for me, but I figured it would do with tights.  I had to piece the binding significantly, but got the whole dress out of the yard!

I had in mind to wear it with tights, boots, and this purple-ish cardigan once the weather cooled, but I did try it with Birks in the summer a couple times.  Unfortunately, even though the knit isn't very thick, the spandex content just made me sweat in dress form.  So I put it away for the fall and happily stomped around in my Blunnies and tights the day I wore this.  (I felt like a better version of my mid-'90s high school self).

 

The plaid wrap barely lasted the way home, and I ditched the sweater after I got home, but at least it was cool enough that morning for the whole ensemble!