Kinder Cardigan

by alwaysacraftylady

There was a big transition for our family this week as our oldest daughter started kindergarten! Lu was just thrilled to go to elementary school and start learning big girl things. I really wanted to make her a first day of school outfit, but she is required to wear a uniform. Sure, I could have made her a blouse and skirt, but I have to admit uniform sewing is super boring. While I try to make a good chunk of the kids clothing, for uniforms I was happy to put in an order from Gap and use my limited summer sewing time for other projects.

This seems ridiculous since we live in Southern California, but I opted to knit Lu a first day of school sweater!

Gosh, she is so cute. Sure it was a high of 85F on Monday, but it was grey and cool-ish in the morning. She happily donned her new cardigan which looks quite nice with her new school shoes.

I’ve been trying to knit up some of the patterns in my library and yarn in my stash, so I shopped both to achieve a nice traditional sweater. This is the Wee Wildflower pattern from Alana Dakos. There is actually an adult version too, but I don’t think I’d ever knit it for myself. A little too twee. The yarn is Madelinetosh’s Twist Light in the color Care. Twist light is 75% wool and 25% nylon which is a good combination for a kids garment. Technically it is machine washable, but I’ll try to remember to wash it by hand. Care is a wonderful color that includes nearly every shade in the rainbow. It was a limited release color sold to benefit Doctors Without Borders. I took the time to alternate two skeins so there is very little pooling of the colors. Yay!

Choosing a size to knit was a bit tough. Lu has a 19 inch chest, but is average height for a 5 year old, so I ended up knitting the size 2 sweater with a size 6 for the length. It worked out pretty well everywhere except the sleeve caps. The sleeve caps as written have almost no height, just a lot of width. I added some extra height and it was still tough to fit the sleeves into the armcye. Lu also have very thin arms and the sleeves are tight. I cannot imagine shoving a 2 year old’s arms into such a small circumference. Could be my gauge was off, but still I found the sizing odd. The pattern also has no shaping for the shoulders in the back, so I added that too.

This finished sweater is pretty great and fits Lu well right now, but I don’t think this one is going to last long. I have a feeling Lu is going to shoot straight up this year with all the running and learning she’ll do. Just one day into the school year she’d figured out how to swing by herself and by Friday Lu was all atwitter over recycling, the solar eclipse, and science! “Mommy, I want to be a teacher when I grow up.”

11May2016

Me Made May – Week 1 Round Up

by alwaysacraftylady

If you follow me over at Instagram, then you’ve probably seen these already. But I thought it might be fun to post them here too as a way to show that yes! I wear what I make!

What is Me Made May? Well mostly it is a challenge to give your self-made clothing a little love. But it is also a celebration of yourself and your skills. It’s a chance to see which of your self-made items you love and enjoy and which items don’t get any love. At the end of May I’ll be ditching some things I made that I just don’t enjoy wearing. Want to find out more? There is a great post over at ‘So, Zo…What do you know?’.

Week 1 – Knit Dresses

I’m sure you’ll see these pop up again as the month goes on. My knit dresses are the first thing I reach for after laundry day. Frankly, I am not a morning person. Having to wake up to a baby crying for her breakfast is not my favorite part of motherhood. Having a stack of things that are easy to pull on and don’t need ironing is the best. I have plans to sew up a few more of these for summer as the weather warms up.

Clockwise from top left is Washington Dress Hack 1, Cats! , My Gillian Wrap Dress I never blogged. Whoops! , and Washington Dress Hack 2.

Week 1 – Cardigans

I should just accept that I like and wear one style of sweater almost exclusively. I have one completed pullover and one more in progress, but otherwise I am a cardigan girl.

From left to right is my beta test of Amy Herzog’s Custom Fit program (made pre-blog) and my Viridis (also made pre-blog).

Week 1 – Hat!

Lastly, is my Edwardian Hat (upcoming blog post). I usually have a party for the Kentucky Derby, but this year I was so sick when I needed to start planning that I just could not face hosting a bunch of people. Oh well. I still enjoyed my mint juleps and wearing my fancy new hat!

One week down and I’m feeling pretty great about what I’ve worn so far! Is anyone else participating this year? Do you have a goal in mind for the end of the month?

26Oct2015

This sweater is cursed!

by alwaysacraftylady

I swear. It really feels like this sweater is cursed. I’m sitting here wearing it and loving how it feels, but…blah. I’ve procrastinating writing this post and hoping I’d finish something more fun, but I seem to be hitting a streak of unsatisfactory projects lately.

Back in November of 2014 I’d just had a baby and I was on maternity leave and determined to make as many things as I could before returning to work. So I pulled out my stash of Miss Babs Yowza in Aubergine. Hello gorgeous! Nice soft yarn with a fantastic reputation. I’d purchased it from a friend who didn’t love the color, but I found it to be so beautiful.

And at first I thought it was destine to be Fannie Fouche. Sort of a jacket/sweater combination. But then I read a few comments on Ravelry about the pattern and got cold feet. It seemed I would need to make too many alterations to the pattern for my sleep deprived mind to handle. Next!

Then I choose the pattern Effervescence Cardigan. I bought this pattern back in September 2013 and have wanted to knit it ever since. I love the look of it! Really, I do. Several of my knitting friend have made Effervescence and it looks fantastic. I got to work and knit the back of the sweater using a mash up of Custom Fit and Effervescence. And then I just stalled.

The yarn was an issue. One of the skeins looked like maybe it had a tiny bit of a moth (!) problem. Or maybe it had accidentally been snipped at some point. By the time I would it all up I had several little balls of yarn, no, evidence of a moth problem, and no desire to actually keep knitting it.

Stall…

But then, magically I found some desire to pick this project back up and transform it into the ultra classic and chic Acer Cardigan!

Isn’t it pretty! But of course there were further complications. I got to the end and lost one of the sleeves! Frustrated and annoyed I just bagged up the pieces and hoping I would some day find the other sleeves. Finally in July I found the other sleeve! YES!

It all got sewn together and I bought buttons last month and managed to get the whole thing put together.

The detailing is so so so pretty. And it fits pretty well considering I knit it to fit my pre-baby #2 body. Wishful thinking. Though a little tight across my backside.

Over all very wearable and pretty. But I swear this sweater was just destined to be cursed because today is only the third time I’ve worn it and it is already pilling like crazy. At least it is no longer in my works in progress bin.

7Sep2015

So This Is Love Sweater

by alwaysacraftylady

I’ve been finishing up a lot of lingering projects lately, but this is my favorite. My husband and I celebrated 5 years of marriage in June, so I cast on a sweater the same color as my dress.

And I think you’ll agree the sweater is a fitting homage.

I had a lot of fun knitting it. This sweater went beer tasting on our vacation.

And to see a concert performed by a few hundred french horn players.

And for more beer. I guess you could say this sweater is brought to you by beer. But my husband is a home brewer and we went to Belgium on our honeymoon so bar knitting is fitting.

The design is mine on a base pattern from Custom Fit. I wrote about Custom Fit recently and the program makes is so easy to take an idea in your head to reality! In this case I wanted a lace panel up the front and along the side seams and onto the shoulder.

I’ve never seen a set in sleeve pattern with lace along the outside edge of the shoulder.

But I fell in love with the design feature and plan to try it again in the future! It look a little more thinking ahead, but not that much.

The yarn color is Pocket Full of Posy from the supremely talented Ridgely at Astralbath and the base is Compass which is very similar to Madelinetosh Sock.

This sweater also gave me a chance to break into one of my Japanese stitch dictionaries! I’m not sure what the title is, but here is a photo of the cover. Japanese stitch dictionaries are great because they have photos and charts for all the stitch patterns!