Panic at the wedding!

A couple of weeks ago two of my very lovely friends got married after many years together.  The bride is an exceptionally talented florist and she was doing her own flowers so I expected the venue to be beautiful (it was) and I wanted to make a special dress to wear for the reception.

I eventually settled on New Look 6447, view C with cap sleeves and full skirt and chose some very lovely rose print viscose from the stash.  Unfortunately it became clear once I'd finished the bodice that it was going to be a little too small.  I went ahead and attached the skirt and inserted the zip just to be sure (of what I have no idea) but, yeah that sucker was not doing up!  Ordinarily I would have completed the dress because it is only a little too small and once I'm back walking the kids to and from school everyday the extra summer fluff I've accumulated will hopefully disappear.  But as I had 3 days to go until the wedding I put it aside for later and started searching for a pattern I could put together quickly.  I will finish that dress soon and post photos once it's done.

Enter Colette Seamwork.  I will say that I probably don't make enough Seamwork patterns to really justify paying for it every month, but in this case it was really useful to have that option.  With patterns that are designed to be made quickly I was really hoping to find something I could use.  In the end I settled on Catarina, a pattern I had never considered before at all but looked quick to make and definitely a bit fancy in the right fabric.  Fortuitously I remembered I had some bird print crepe de chine at the back of my wardrobe, unused because even though I loved the print I'd decided it was a bit shiny for the kind of clothes I normally wear.  Perfect for a wedding though!

Decision made I stayed up late taping the pattern together and got sewing first thing next morning.  As predicted this was a really quick project.  There is a lot of gathering needed before attaching the skirt to the bodice and obviously I hated every second of that but even that didn't really take too long.  Once the skirt was attached I slightly deviated from the instructions which ask you to remove the basting from the gathers and sew in clear elastic, stretched so as to gather in the waistline further.  I decided that sounded like absolutely no fun at all so I overlocked the edges of all the waist seam allowances together, leaving a small gap and fed some ordinary elastic into the resulting channel.  It looks fine and seems easier so I'd definitely do it that way again.

For a last minute panic dress I'm really pleased with how this turned out.  I was worried it would be too long and the skirt too voluminous for me but actually it looked just how I hoped it would.  I would say that the bodice is a little large, as the original dress was too small I picked a larger size than I might otherwise have done.  However, even though the bodice does gape away from my body at the underarms, there are no closures on this dress so I do wonder if it might be difficult to get on and off if the bodice actually fitted correctly so I probably would err on the side of too big with this one if I were to make it again.  Oh, also I didn't make the waist tie.  Basically I couldn't be arsed.

I had a fantastic time at the wedding, so much so I failed to take any photos of me wearing my dress, but it was absolutely perfect for the occasion and I was so glad I managed to make something myself rather than falling back on a hastily purchased Amazon Prime dress which has definitely happened at least once before!

Stella Baby Blanket

I seem to be getting to an age where family members are popping babies out left right and centre! This is great, I flipping well love babies and I am so grateful that my daughters have lots of lovely cousins. I do seem to spend a lot of time knitting blankets though!

Rainbow blankie the first

Having knitted a fantastic rainbow blanket for my eldest nephew last year, I was still feeling a very strong rainbow vibe when Stu's brother announced that he was going to be a daddy. Much as I love The original rainbow blanket I didn't want to knit the same one again so I spent some very peaceful hours searching blanket patterns before settling for the Stella Baby Blanket by Kate Gondwana. I also decided to go for a 'dark rainbow' this time using black stripes instead of white between eash rainbow stripe.

The centre part of the blanket knitted up really fast, and by the time I had completed a whole rainbow I could have actually stopped knitting and had a nice baby sized blanket. I still had a fair bit of yan left however and I like to give a larger blanket that can be used throughout childhood so I decided to add another rainbow. For the centre rainbow I had made each rainbow stripe 6 rows high, with the black stripes 2 rows high but for the second rainbow I only made the rainbow stripes 4 rows high, partly for visual interest and secondly because I didn't want it to be too big. This was definitely a good decision because the finished blanket is quite large, the rows towards the end were incredibly long and I ended up having to buy more yarn twice! I think the final row took almost an entire ball of DROPS Paris to complete.

The end result was totally worth the work, I love this blanket and the new mum and dad were really happy with it too. I’m sure my new nephew loves it too but he’s far too busy being tiny and scrumptious to have an opinion right now! Despite the long rows towards the end, this was a fun knit and I'm even considering knitting another for myself but adding a 3rd rainbow with even smaller stripes. I'll wait a while though, just until the memory of managing over 2 metres of circular knitting needles fades a bit!

Dreamscape MKAL - Tada!

Well, like pretty much everywhere else we have been having a very hot summer here and unfortunately crafting has taken somewhat of a back seat.  This is not the only reason I haven't finished much over the last couple of months, but it is the biggest reason.  There have been weeks at a time when it's felt too hot to move, let alone knit or sew, but when it comes to a Boo Knits mystery knit I always do my best to suffer through it because they are always so much fun.

The pre release info for Dreamscape advised to use three different skeins of 4 ply yarn mixing semi solids, short stripes, solids or speckles.  At that point I will confess that I wasn't sure I was going to like this one, I do so love my silky, lacy and beaded shawls.  However I needed to knit it to qualify for this years Boo Challenge, plus I knew I'd enjoy knitting it up and that someone would love it once it was done so I went ahead and picked my yarn.  I know I wrote about my yarn choice in a previous post but I've included a picture again because it's pretty!  It was pretty hard choosing yarns without a picture of the finished item to guide me, but by about Clue 2 I was pretty sure I'd chosen well.

Although it was super hot and I had to knit most of this with 2 fans pointing at me, I really enjoyed knitting it and was always glad to pick it up and see what was next.

It's funny that I was worried I wouldn't like this and now it's up there with my favourite shawls!  I absolutely love this one.  Obviously my amazing yarn choosing skills helped, but the pattern uses the different colours and pattern in a really great way and is a great canvass to showcase some interesting yarns.  My only really complaint is that this was a summer knitalong and now I have a lovely cosy shawl which I may not get to wear for a little while yet.  I shall very much enjoy wearing this, however, when the time is right so I don't mind waiting at all.