It’s Fiber Friday and time to talk about textiles and colour—and the wonderful stress-busters that they are. I’ve embarked on a new adventure that I wanted to share. I’d heard a fair bit about Japanese sewing patterns and earlier this month, I decided to try some. Part of the impetus was that I nearly finished a garment from a US pattern company, tried it on, and discovered that the fit was weird. The scoop neckline has ripples on the back shoulder, not because my shoulders are weird but because the curve of the pattern piece is wrong. It’s even ripply on Nelly, my dressmaker’s dummy, whose shoulders are perfect. As this dress has a ton of tiny pleats that took forever to sew, I was a bit annoyed.
Time for a change in my approach! I ordered three books from Amazon: Simple Modern Sewing, Basic Black, and Feminine Wardrobe.
These pattern books come with sheets of patterns in the back, much like Burda magazine. You have to locate the pieces for the garment you want to make and trace them out in your size, then add seam allowances. We have a tempered glass coffee table so I cleared it off and set a desk lamp underneath it to trace the patterns. The sizes tend to be smaller—the largest size in Simple Modern Sewing is L for a 37″ bust—but when you have all the sizes shown together, it’s easy to extrapolate to the next larger one. I missed that the patterns are also for shorter people—until I made my test garment. I’m 5’5″ so am usually on the short end for American commercial patterns, but the back waist length was only 15.5″ in SMS instead of 16.25″. I wouldn’t have bothered adding it to a waistless garment, but my first test was the wrap top on the cover of SMS, and it looks best with those ties on the waistline.
What I like about these patterns is that the books show lots of variations. So, that wrap tunic on the cover also has the option of 3/4 sleeves, and is shown in a dress length, too. Once you have the basic pattern fitted, you can have some fun.
I had some bright sheeting in my stash that I bought in a $1/m sale just for making muslins, and cut into it for a test garment. I had to drop the darts, but the fixes were very easy. These designs have simple lines—in fact, I probably chose one of the only ones that I’d actually need to modify. (But I like that long linen wrap dress sooooo much.) Several bodices later, I have a very ugly test garment—it’s too orange to show you!—but it fits. Ha. Now the fun begins.
I’ll do the finishing on the test garment and probably just wear it around the house—sometimes we need a garment that can risk being ruined with some job or other! Then I’m going to cut a real top out of some really interesting cotton with a border pattern. It looks like this:
And here’s a detail shot:
I’m not sure how I’ll be able to place the border pattern on the blouse, but I know it will look great.
Next up, I’m going to try the dress option with one of the linen fabrics in my stash.
Have you embarked on any craftsy adventures lately?
Mr. Math likes thick socks in the winter – he wears them instead of slippers in the house. I use a Canadian yarn for these socks called 
The second of this pair of socks is currently on my needles. It’s knit in another yarn from the Maritimes: 
This pair of socks are knit in Noro Sock yarn. Although this is a yarn from a big commercial mill, there’s a deliberate wabi-sabi attitude toward self-striping repeats in Noro yarns. Sometimes a color is missing from the sequence. Often the color segments are of different lengths. The repeat is less perfect and more organic, which I like a lot. These socks are knit from alternating balls – 2 rows from ball A, then 2 rows from ball B, then back to ball A for two more rows etc. This is one of my favorite ways to show off self-striping yarns.
I had an email earlier this week from my niece, who wanted to know how to knit socks. For some reason, she thought I might know. (Ha.) Since she lives far away, I can’t sit down and show her. I need to explain how to do it. I knit socks so often that I don’t pay a lot of attention to what I do (and don’t use a pattern anymore) so I got out my needles, cast on, and wrote down what I was doing as I went. The result is here, for my niece and anyone else who wants to knit socks.
Pick your needles.
Fussy Knitter Tip – If you’re knitting with self-striping yarn that comes in 50g balls and you have the matchy-matchy disease, be That Customer and go through the selection until you find two balls that start at the same place in the stripe sequence. Commercial yarns (like Kroy Socks) have a striping sequence that repeats at precise intervals. If the ball starts in the same place, you cast on each sock from the new ball, you’ll get socks that match. This can be a bit of a mind-melting exercise as mills wind self-striping yarn in either direction of the color sequence. So, you can be looking for balls that start with B-C-D of an A-B-C-D-E sequence, and will come across ones that are D-E-A as well as those that are B-A-E. Remember that puzzle-solving is good for avoiding dementia. If you have the matchy-matchy disease badly, choose a point to make the cast-on knot that’s easily repeatable – maybe the point where one color changes to the next.
If you have a sock yarn that includes a spool of matching nylon thread (Lang Jawoll does this. The spool is buried in the middle of the 100g ball.) use it for this part. Just knit with it along with the sock yarn for the heel flap and the turning of the heel. It’ll help the socks to wear better.
Fussy Knitter Tip: I like when ribbing lines up, no matter what I’m knitting. Since I’m knitting these socks in 6/2 rib, there are nine repetitions around the sock. I chose to have four knit bands descend into the heel. To make it symmetrical, I didn’t work the last two purl stitches in the last round of the sock leg. Instead, I moved them on to the next needle and worked them as the beginning of the heel flap. That gave me (8 x 4 +2) 34 stitches for my heel flap.
First, here’s the issue of VK (fall 2016) and the hat in question. The hat is in the 
What do you think?
I cut out the short version of 
Here’s my lovely assistant Nelly, showing off the result
It fits perfectly! I’m so happy with this dress. The fabric is a little sheer, so I’m going to cut out an underdress in black cotton voile. The skirt has a nice flare, which is tough to see since Nelly needs to work on her modelling skills.
I’ve already worn this one a few times.
Alive & Knitting 