I made three pairs this winter – one for me, two for the mister. Even though we’ve now moved to a house with heating.

Mine are the yellow ones. All three used the excellent pants pattern in Sew La Ti Do.

This is the only sewing I’ve done in a long time. Why? Well, here is a picture is my wardrobe.

I have so many clothes, and I only just have enough space for them (not shown: the blanket box full of summer clothes and big jumpers, the summer dresses hanging in the spare room, and the coats hanging in the hallway). I’m running a one-in-one-out rule, which means if I want anything new, I have to let go of something old. And I like everything I own, so it’s really tough to let things go. So no new things for me for a while.

Three years and three months later it’s finished.

It’s an interesting exercise to finish something that had a long hiatus in the middle of its making. I can see how much I’ve learnt in the interim.

For example, that knitting both fronts of a cardigan at once is a good idea, because then they are much more likely to be the same size and shape (even with aggressive blocking one of the fronts is shorter than the other).

And that yarns of different fibres will drape differently, which means if they are mixed up on one garment, unexpected things will happen. In this cardigan I used wool for the trim (the darker burgundy) and alpaca for the rest. The wool is heavier than the alpaca, so it tends to drag down the sleeves and the body. On the body I don’t mind so much as I like my tops long, but on the arms it has turned the bracelet-length sleeves into full-length ones.

Still, I like it enough to wear it. And I especially like the vintage buttons I found stashed away, which were the perfect colour for it. I’m not sure how old they are, except that they are advertised as ‘boilprooof’ (which would date them to a time when coppers were more common than washing machines) and marked in pre-decimal currency (which would date them to before 1966).

:: details ::

:: yarns :: Jo Sharp Classic DK (trim), Eki Riva Natal and Eki Riva Supreme Superbaby (main, held together)

:: pattern :: #21 Oxford Jacket by Joan Forgione, from Vogue Knitting, winter 2007-08

:: ravelry link :: because my wardrobe is too grey

:: inspired by :: Katherine Hepburn and Lauren Bacall – definitely a cardigan to wear while swapping witticisms with Humphrey Bogart

A jacket for my new nephew. Chunky and warm to keep out the cold Glasgow winds. Started on Bells’ deck on a 40 degree summer day, finished as winter closed in.

:: details ::

:: pattern :: Lino’s Coat from Lili Comme Tout

:: yarn :: Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 12 ply

:: buttons :: japanese felt buttons from purl soho

Green is not an easy colour for me. Most shades of green drain the life out of my face and make me look ill and tired. About the only shade that works is this bright olive shade, the colour of a new leaf. When I started this project,  it was election day, a long winter was grinding on, I had come to the end of a long project at work – green represented the idea that winter might end, that things might change, that there might be new things to work on.

And winter did end, and things changed in unexpected ways, and there are always, always, new things to work on.

I wanted this jumper to be a bit loose, a bit long, for dagging about the house with a pair of jeans. If I was making it again I would keep the sleeves narrower, and maybe not make it quite so long. And I do kind of wish I’d made it with a little more of a I-borrowed-this-from-my-boyfriend look, maybe with a v neck and no fancy edges.

The yarn was a disappointment. It was a bit splitty, a bit fluffy, and impossible to join or shape without the join showing. The neckline looks quite messy as a result.

More pictures and details follow.

:: details ::

:: yarn :: Touch Yarns merino 8-ply

:: pattern :: fitted sweater from modern classics, Louisa Harding

:: ravelty link :: green is beautiful

:: inspired by :: Jeanne Moreau in  Jules et Jim, Margaret Harding’s and Bernadette Watts’Green is Beautiful

One of my recurring themes is the project that is 99 per cent finished then languishes long because there is something that needs to be fixed that I don’t get around to doing.

This cape is the perfect example. It was 99 per cent finished in July last year, and I had a great time making it. The fabric (a beautiful thrifted wool that I was given by Sally) was a dream to work with.

I made welted pockets and sewed the button holes by hand.

And then I discovered that I had screwed up the lining. I trimmed it too short, then didn’t fix it properly to the hem (read, I was too lazy to do it properly), and surprise surprise, it looked terrible.

After 8 months, I gritted my teeth, cut out the lining, and made a new one, and this time fixed it to the hem properly. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better. And as soon as I wore it, I loved it.

It’s warm and stylish, perfect for cycling (wind-proof but leaves arms free, and no sweaty underarms). Perfect for walks in the woods. Perfect enough.

Details

:: fabric :: thrifted and gifted 100% wool herringbone

:: pattern :: lindsey from BurdaStyle

:: modifications :: added welt pockets and changed the angle.

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more updates coming soon

In a piece of exquisite timing, my landlord has sold my house, so I also need to find somewhere new to live during by the end of May, and move.

I need to allocate my precious and very small amounts of free time to things that will help de-stress, and putting pressure on myself to update a blog is not helpful.

Thanks for reading, and please come back when I come back!

Yesterday I made two plumcakes - one to keep and one to share (which I think is always the best strategy with cakes, especially if your household is not large or greedy enough to eat a large cake before it goes stale or mouldy).

I call this recipe a plum shortcake, though I’m not sure that it’s a true shortcake. It’s adapted from this recipe for a rhubarb cake, which I also make often and enjoy. The great thing about both these recipes is that they look spectacular but take very little effort to make.

:: ingredients

175g butter, softened
3 eggs, separated
150g and 120g caster sugar
250g self-raising flour
3 tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla essence
4-5 plums, each cut into 8 wedges

Two circular baking trays or pizza trays, lined with baking parchment (I use the bottoms of spring form cake tins)

Preheat the oven to 180C
Use a wooden spoon to beat together the butter, 150g sugar, vanilla and egg yolks, until soft and fluffy.
Add the flour and milk and beat with a wooden spoon until a dough forms (add a bit more flour if it’s sticky).
Divide the dough in half. Flour your hands, and spread and push each lump of dough on the lined tray until it’s roughly circular and about 1 – 1.5cm thick.
Arrange the plum slices on top of the dough.

In a clean bowl and with a clean whisk or handmixer, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, and then beat in the 120g of sugar until the mixture is a stiff and glossy meringue.  Spread half the meringue over each plum-topped base. Don’t worry if the plums poke through in places.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the meringue is pale brown and a little bit cracked.

Eat hot or cold.

Will keep in the fridge for a week, though the meringue will lose its crispness after a day or so.

Some weeks ago we thought we might have a picnic one Sunday evening. I don’t know about you, but I associate very retro images with the word ‘picnic’ – something like the picnic scene in Mad Men. So I decided that if we were going on a picnic, I needed a full Betty-Draper-style skirt.

By coincidence, Kris had posted a link to what looked like the perfect full skirt, and it looked so easy to sew – two rectangles, some gathers, a zip, you’re done. I also had a fabric stashed that would take the retro theme even further – Hawaian print in dirty greens and blacks with bits of tan. Obviously everything was coming together for me to cut the perfect retro dash at my picnic.

:: oh dear…

You’ve already guessed where this is going, haven’t you? The skirt was an utter failure. I’m not posting a picture of me wearing it because it would set my body image self esteem back a year or two, it was that bad. But you might be able to guess from the picture above that it came out all wrong – drapey where it should have been stiff, full and heavy around the waist, not full enough around the hips. To top it off, the zip I used wouldn’t stay closed – it would slide open every time I moved.

But failures are for learning from, yes? So here’s what I learnt from the Skirt of Fail.

1. I cannot imagine a fabric into being something it is not. The fabric I chose was the perfect print. But not the perfect farbic. It was drapey and soft. It was never going to stand out stiff and crisp the way the skirt should have. I think I knew this at the start, because I tried to correct for it by adding an underskirt or black cheesecloth – forgetting that cheesecloth was going to drape as well, and creating a result which was think and bunchy but still drapey.
2. Icannot imagine my body into being a shape it is not. I love the full-skirted new-look look. Love it. But it is very hard to make it work on me. While I’ve got the small waist, it sits between a short body and larger hips and I’m not very tall. I need exactly the right full skirt, that flares out below the hips and doesn’t sit too high on the waist. The Skirt of Fail flared out from the waist, and it was full and thick over the hips, so my waist disappeared, my hips were two sizes larger, and I looked about 6″ shorter to boot.
3. If something is cheap, there’s usually a reason why. The zip for the skirt came from a batch I picked up at Reverse Garbage a few years ago, 10 for a dollar. There’s a reason they’d been sent for recycling: they’re broken. None of them will stay shut.
4. This technique for gathering fabric is FANTASTIC, and I will never ever go back to the way I used to do it (the traditional way, pulling the bobbin thread).

   :: the only good bit

5. I now know how to do an external zip. As you can see above, I did the zip so that all the zipper tape is on the outside of the garment – I got the idea from the dress you can see in this blog entry (which, by the way, is an example of a full skirt that I CAN wear). I really like this look, so I hope to be able to use it again soon.
6. I can have a perfectly fun time on a picnic even without a retro skirt. To go a-picnicking, I wore the dress in the picture below – it’s one I made in 2005. It’s faded now, but I still really like it. Probably because it’s made from a suitable fabric, it suits my body shape, and the zip was brand new, so it stays zipped up.

Presenting the first pair of home-made socks that I’ve been happy with. My previous attempts have been too big, a gift, and too ugly. These ones are snug, pretty, and all for me. I really love the stitch pattern as well, and I’m keen to use it on something else soon.

They should not have taken as long as they did (erm, over a year) – I was making good progress and then decided to take them on the plane to London in May last year, thinking that a 28 hour plane flight would be perfect for getting some knitting done. However, a 28 hour flight mostly at night, with dim lights, small needles, dark yarn, and a complex pattern is a recipe for disaster. I ended up ripping back to the gusset three times before giving up.

When I picked them up again over the Xmas break, it was embarrassingly  obvious that the problems I’d had were not entirely the fault of the dim lights, small needles and dark yarn. Much of it was me overconfidently not following the instructions because it looked obvious to me what needed to happen.

(Yes I know. Following the instructions leads to a better outcome. Who knew?)

I made two modifications to the pattern: I used 2.25mm needles, because all my previous sock attempts have come out too big; and I modified the toe slightly to better accomodate my short wide feet.

:: details

yarn :: Blue Moon Fibre Arts, Socks that Rock, Haida

pattern :: pomatomus, from knitty, designed by Cookie A