And here it is!

Julia has sent me through a still from her short film for which I knitted all those red jumpers last year. The girl unravels the jumpers to sew up a kelp coat.

Happy Birthday Roxanne!

I've always wanted to be a Jo Sharp fan, and I've knitted a number of her patterns and used a number of her yarns, but always been just a little bit disappointed. Not anymore. I just love the new design aesthetic in Jo Sharp Knit Issue 7, although I knew none of them would really suit me. For Roxanne, however, they are perfect and while looking for yarn to knit a fabulous tunic from Louisa Harding's Queen of Hearts – another fabulous book full of patterns which don't suit me but do suit her – Roxanne saw the store garment in Wool Baa and just loved it. I was thrilled to have a go at putting it together.

It looks hard, but it's not. There is really only a day or so (or a week of evenings if you don't have the Australian Open Finals to watch on TV) in the knitting and the pieces are woven together with the icords and not stitched. The hard part was getting the colour scheme right. So I knitted the back ribbing four times in different colour combinations and tried many different colours together in Wool Baa to get the palette right. It needs to be subtle, I think, softly toned and dark colours would not show up the different textures as well. That being said, I really don't think you need to buy 10 different balls of yarn, especially as you only use a few meters of some. In the end I settled on six yarns and used most of nearly all of them. The effect is fabulous and Roxanne just loved it. Happy Birthday!

Preserves

Cathy and Peter dropped by with these last weekend! They are the pears we used as table decorations for our wedding at Libertine last year beautifully preserved, literally! Aren't they beautiful!

MIA

Well nearly, but not quite...weddings and teaching have kept me busy, but I've still be knitting away...and at least now I have a corner to sew in and keep all my clutter under control.

I have been working away, both sewing and knitting. First of all the knitting. Finished is Kim Hargreaves's Jen from Precious in Rowan Cotton Glace. It was a quick knit despite making a mistake on each piece and having to pull out most of my work a number of times. A lovely summer cardi.

And the buttons are from Wool Baa in Albert Park. Next is Frankie from Kim Hargreave's Breeze. I'm knitting it in JaggerSpun Wool Silk DK and I've run out. I'll have to put it on hold for a while as I wait to order more yarn. It has knitted up beautifully and the colour is fantastic.

Also on the needles and likely to get finished more quickly is Kim Hargreave's Lilac, also from Breeze. I've pulled out the lace edging so many times as I keep making mistakes...but three quarters of the way there now.

And now to the sewing. The top is Simplicity 2934 View C with the capped sleeves from View D in a cotton knit from Tessuti. It is a fabulous shirt, a really easy pattern with some nice touches. It does run on the large size especially in length. I made another one in a Gucci Viscose knit. The skirt is my third version of McCall's 5590 View C with the pockets from View A. This remnant, again from Tessuti has quite a bit of stretch, so it's very comfy to wear.

This little shirt is made from a piece of remnant cotton from Clegs...about 1.2 metres. The pattern is McCall's 5884 View A. This pattern runs really large and taking my lead from some comments on Pattern Review, I cut out a 10 and took two inches out of the back. Also I cut the tie down the selvedge rather than on the bias. Works a treat. I've cut out two more (you can see the material piled up next to my sewing machine in the first picture). One is a white spotted lawn and the other is a blue and coral spotted silk, again both from Tessuti. Maybe before Christmas?

Another remnant, from Tessuti, made it into a cute little shirt with some easy simple detail. The pattern is from Wendy Mullin's Sew U, a medium with bust darts but not the waist shaping. I cut the button facings with the fronts by extending the pattern by the width of the facing less seam allowances and folded the facing outwards to make a placket style detail down the fronts as well as on the sleeve (all suggestions she makes in the book). Perfect with my denim skirt!

I have perfected is tee-shirt...made here from a cotton print from Astratex from Wendy Mullins Sew U Home Stretch. The sizes in this book run really large, so I've made my own pattern for the back and the front and cut down the neck to a shape of my liking. I make the neck band by cutting a piece that is 80 percent of the length of the neck opening and stretching it slightly when sewing it in place.

Hanging out after washing are my work pants...I finally bit the bullet and bought a pants pattern maker pattern, Simplicity 2700 and cut out a curvy 14 as a muslin with inch seams. For this pair (my work pants, that's why they're drying on the line not on me) made in a stretch cotton, I let the seam allowances to 5/8ths of an inch between just above the knee and the waist to give me room to move. The next pair I'm going to make are out of denim with a little stretch, so I'll increase the seam allowance again to make them more fitted. I'll also change the pockets to make them look more jean-like.

I've a very long list of sewing to keep me going, hopefully I'll get a bit done after Christmas!

And Happy Birthday Michael!

What a weekend! Dinner at Libertine on Friday night and then cake, cake and more cake for afternoon tea on Sunday! Yeah!

Happy Birthday Mamma!

Olivia by Kim Hargreaves from Thrown Together knitted in Eki Riva Natal.





She looked beautiful in it last night and she said it was beautiful and warm. I don't think I'd knit with that yarn again as it was quite splitty and soft, but as the finished jacket is a bit formless it suits the style.

Lights, camera...

...action, well my action is finished! I knitted these two jumpers for a short film being made by a friend. The requirement was that one jumper be able to unravel and the other have a ragged bottom edge. They had to look like home made school jumpers and be in this alarming red. The yarn was a cheap acrylic which is hard on the hands to knit and hard to keep at the right gauge. My solution to knitting two jumpers quickly was to borrow an old Singer 200E and it's ribber. After battling with the machine for a day I didn't dare attempt the ribbing and just knit the bodies and sleeves on the machine and picked up the ribs by hand. Great for straight knitting, but increasing, decreasing and casting off are a real pain.