Dartmouth Double Take

by alwaysacraftylady

Yay! I had unexpected sewing time! Boo! It was because of a sick kid. She’s totally fine, but Lu and I have both been limping along with our colds and adding vaccines on top of her cold meant a miserable little kid for a day or two. I wasn’t terribly sad to stay home and have a little down time for myself. Plus I came home last Wednesday to find a new pattern in my mail box. So nice I made it twice!

This is Cashmerette’s new pattern the Dartmouth Top!

So far Jenny’s knit patterns have worked really well for me, so I was pleased to see her come out with a fixed wrap top. I totally love wearing this style on the weekends or as a pajama top. So comfy, but not quite as casual as a typical t-shirt pattern. I also think they work particularly well on a figure like mine with a full bust, narrow waist, and full hips.

My first crack at the pattern was using this heavier weight cotton/lycra fabric from Sahara Fabrics. After shrinkage in the wash I only had a 46 inch length to work with and I could just barely fit all the pieces in the yardage if I used the short sleeve and cut the neck band in 3 pieces.

Overall I really like this shirt. I really rarely wear separates, but on Friday I had a mammogram after my doctor found some thicker tissue in my breast. Having this new, fun, and colorful shirt to wear really lifted my spirits. It was also a lot more practical than my usual dresses. (And thankfully my boobs got a clear bill of health!)

The Dartmouth Top wasn’t quite perfect straight out of the envelope. Besides grading between sizes (14/16/18) I made no alterations. But the front hem was a tad bit on the tick side since there is 4 layers of jersey there. Sure, it would have been easier if I’d used a thinner knit, but 4 layers is still a lot. I’m also going to need to do a sway back alteration of future versions. I think Cashmerette patterns usually have a sway back built in, but I need more.

So we had the feverish 5 year old, my cold, my boob testing, and oh did I mentioned pink eye for the 2 year old? Yeah. It’s been one of those weeks. On top of all of that my husband and I also had our first weekend away from the kids (shout out to my parents for babysitting)! It was an awesome weekend away for a friend’s wedding and then I came home and made a Dartmouth Dress.

As soon as I put on my finished top version I knew I had to attempt a dress version. The hip curve perfectly covered my widest part so I wouldn’t even need to add fullness. Sweet!

I dove into my stash and pulled out this ugly ass plaid jersey. It was purchased in one of those Girl Charlee Knit Fixes where you get a bunch of ugly fabric for cheap and is some sort of thin cotton jersey/mystery fiber blend. I’d guess polyester. Basically I hate it so much that I figured if the dress was a total fail then I’d have a soft and lightweight nightgown.

But it wasn’t a total fail even though I made it into a mock wrap.

I spent all weekend mulling over the ways to make the Dartmouth have one layer below the waist and finally determined I’d trace off just the shoulder and see how it worked. I also shortened the neckband.

This is still going in the pajama pile since it is thin and needs a sway back fix, but my experiment worked pretty darn well! I even got the plaids reasonably matched up despite having just 2 yards of material.

Now tomorrow I pack away my machine while we have family visiting, but I think I’m going to pull out more of my ugly mystery knits to make up a few more of these as a nightgown while I play around with some minor alterations to the pattern because the Dartmouth Top is a fun and simple sew!

17Mar2017

A Very Disney Birthday

by alwaysacraftylady

Five feels like such a milestone age. Five! A year of transition as Lu moves from toddler to kid and preschool to kindergarten. She’s learning to read and makes some rather fantastically creative art work. To celebrate we treated the girls to their very first trip to Disneyland.

Sure, I could have bought them t-shirts at Target or grabbed something from their dress up closet, but where’s the fun in that? Naturally the sewing momma had to make them something special.

First up, the birthday girl’s dress.

I started with the idea of a dress with a circle skirt and a big ruffle. The base is my favorite girl’s pattern the Geranium Dress from Made by Rae. The bodice was lengthened and the skirt swapped for the circle. I grabbed plenty of this Princess Emoji fabric from Michael Levine’s one rainy lunch break. I find a lot of licensed Disney fabric to be pretty ugly, but this was cute and some quick texts to my mom for her expert opinion confirmed I was making the right choice.

Lu’s dress was tricked out with rick rack and piping at the waist and hem. Quite cute! I had a hard time picking trims without spending a small fortune.

I purposefully picked something sleeveless because March is really hit or miss weather wise. Two days before out trip it was over 80F, but the weather cooled drastically by our trip to the park. Thank goodness I also grabbed some organic cotton knit in bright pink to make a t-shirt and leggings. Poor birthday girl would have been cold without them.

So, what about that ruffle I mentioned? Lu didn’t want it! I was left with about a yard of leftover fabric! Naturally that meant Charlie got her own dress too. I made a really basic Geranium dress for her as well and dressed it up with a little rick rack I found in my notions box. Lucky little sister. A red school shirt and pair of tights rounded out her princess look without needing to spend anymore money. Hooray! Disney is expensive!

Lucy showing Sleeping Beauty the Aurora emoji on her skirt, priceless.

Those dresses would have been enough, but I still have a couple more tricks up my sleeve.

This sweet little dress was made for Valentine’s Day. Charlie loves Minnie Mouse, so she was wild for the fabric. Plus she’s decided her favorite color is pink just like Lucy. Charlie’s in a sister worship phase that is so cute and sometimes frustrating.

The pattern was the Geranium Dress you’ve seen a million times and the fabric was from JoAnn’s. Just a nice basic yet fun dress she can wear any day of the week.

I made Lu a Valentine’s skirt too, but she didn’t get to wear it since her school requires uniforms. The Doc MsStuffins’ tiered skirt came in handy for our day at California Adventure. It rained sideways for two hours, but I don’t think Lu even noticed after meeting 6 princesses at breakfast.

I never did get a great picture of her outfit, but she is wearing a hand knit sweater with her new skirt, so plenty of mom-made clothing on display.

Our trip was wonderful, if exhausting. Special shout out to my mom, sister, and brother in law for tagging along as well as my husband for wrangling the two year old so I could geek out with my newly 5 year old girly girl Lu. It was totally magical.

In other sewing news, I’ve been working on a big project for myself, a new sloper. The sloper itself is done and just needs a write up and my first dress using it is in the muslin stage. Exciting, but slower work on top of the never ending cold I picked up at the Happiest Place on Earth.

8Mar2017

Rainbow Girl

by alwaysacraftylady

Our super busy spring is in full swing now. I can’t remember the last time my weekends we’re so full! Recently my mom, the girls, and I all headed up to San Jose for Stitches West. A lot of my knitting friends head to Rhinebeck in the fall, but my group on the West Coast heads to Stitches instead. Usually I spend more time at the event itself, but this year I spent more time with my family because my sister is getting married!!!!

Oh how Lu loved those wedding dresses. She loves all thinks sparkly right now and was pretty happy to see Aunt Kat try on pretty dresses. Now Lu is plotting what she will wear for the wedding for her important role as flower girl.

It felt kind of silly going to a knitting event when I’ve barely knit anything recently. I spent so much time cross stitching this year during my evening tv time. However one of my knitting groups started a challenge for the year. Every quarter we set our own goals and for each goal met we get one entry into a lottery for a prize. I don’t qualify because I’m the one buying the prize, but I’m still finding the event useful for focusing my time.

I’ve already posted about my first goal (pussy hats) and now I’m posting my second goal, a new sweater for Lu. She wears a sweater every day to school and all of hers were looking rough. So many pills. So much dirt. So well loved.

I started planning this sweater in the fall of 2015. I knit a baby dress with a rainbow mini skein kit from Neighborhood Fiber Co. and had way more yarn left over than anticipated. Not enough to knit a whole kid sized cardigan, but enough to alternate with a coordinating color.

I headed to my local yarn store and picked up a skein of Knitted Wit in a grey. Turned out to be a perfect coordinate to the rainbow, don’t you think?

For a pattern I dove into my library to find something simple and near the gauge on my swatch. I settled on Cricket which had a slightly tighter gauge. By knitting one size smaller at a looser gauge the finished sweater is around a size 4. I’ve knit this pattern once before (also as a school sweater) and I think I won’t knit it again. It is very square and very wide in the shoulders. I’ve knit other patterns that suit my tall and thin girl better.

Of course Lu just loves the finished sweater. It’s really so fun and cute and looks good with her navy and red school dress code. I still had leftover rainbow yarn so I sent it on to live with my friend. I made 3 projects with that rainbow set! It was like the yarn in the book Extra Yarn. I’m pretty sure I could have knit a mailbox cozy and a dog sweater, but instead I’m sharing the rainbow love as my rainbow itch has been satisfied for now.