Knitting and crocheting clothes

What else have I been knitting and crocheting over the past 8 months?  Clothes.  One of the many reasons that I finally taught myself how to knit was that knitting creates really, really nice clothing.  Great, stylish crocheted clothing patterns are rare, at least in my experience.  Nothing I've ever crocheted myself has ever made me very happy.  So, in February, as soon as I got a bit of knitting confidence (created by 6 weeks of knitting afghan blocks and dishcloths), I attempted a short-sleeved cardigan for Sonia:

Haimi Cardigan

It turned out okay, but I had chosen some really cheap yarn, and I wasn't wild about how the front curled in on itself.  But I succeeded in my goal-- knitting something wearable!

I decided then that I needed to try creating some smaller clothing.  Plus, Sonia was sick for over a week, and we needed some sort of excitement.  So, Barbie dresses were next!  I was too nervous to try knitting at first, so I crocheted dress # 1:

Barbie's Crochet Dress

I was so confused as to why the dress was turning out much longer than I thought it should.  I ended it right where the pattern was just getting to the waistline.  After I finished off, I looked closer at the pattern and realized it was written in UK crochet terms.  So, I should have been doing a single crochet stitch, not a double crochet stitch.  Whoops!!  You can't tell in the picture, but in real life, the dress is a bit see-through since I used such a large stitch.  Oh well-- Sonia doesn't care!

Then, I took a deep breath, and attempted a knitted dress. It turned out GREAT!

#0099 Short Pink Dress

Sonia chose the yarn... Can you tell?

Then, my crazy friends, Libby and Sallie, managed to talk me into attempting to do a knit-along with them.  They had been planning for months to knit the Hitofude Cardigan, and it looked crazy-complicated.  Gorgeous, but very intricate.  I had done a tiny bit of lacework so far, but as of May, I was not in the position where I was confident in my lace skills.  But they promised me that we would help each other through the project, so I bought a huge hank of yarn from Miss Babs, took a deep breath, and cast on.

Then I frogged it.  Then I cast on again.  Then I frogged it.  Then I cast on again.  This time, it worked!  Why was the casting on so hard?  Well, it was a special provisional cast where you start with a crocheted chain made out of waste yarn.  Sounds like that would be right up my alley, but it just about killed me.  However, I made it work finaly!  The sweater took me six weeks (and a million conversations with Libby and Sallie) to knit, but I got it done.... and I LOVE IT!!!!

Hitofude

I kind of wish it had turned out a little longer, but I was running out of yarn.

This sweater never fails to turn heads when I wear it, and it's not just because I chose such a shocking pink color!  The pattern is ingenious and perfect.  It is made all in one piece.  NO SEAMING.  I don't mind sewing up seams too much, but it was thrilling to make an entire cardigan with one strand of yarn.  Only two ends to weave in.  (Well, I actually had four because a cat chewed through the yarn at one point, but we'll just pretend that didn't happen.)

I usually never like to make the same pattern twice, but I am itching to make another one....  Longer this time, of course.  Maybe Niki needs one for her birthday next summer.

During the knitting of the Hitofude, I took a short break to crochet myself this cute little top:

Summer Road-Trip Top

Unfortunately, I stupidly chose 100% merino wool for it, and I come close to passing out from heat stroke every time I wear it. I should have used cotton.  Boo. I'm thinking of frogging it and making something else with the gorgeous MadTosh yarn.

By the time I finished my Hitofude, I was convinced that I was a sweater-making GENIUS.  So I promptly knitted three more sweaters.  TO BE CONTINUED.....

Pattern Review -- Blank Slate's Pristine Swing Dress

(Also posted on Go To Sew!)

I was so excited to get an opportunity to review Blank Slate's Pristine Swing Dress pattern, which is part of the Go To Patterns lineup.  I was especially excited because Melissa of Melly Sews (the designer behind Blank Slate Patterns) is one of my favorite sewing bloggers on earth.  She is a terrific designer, takes beautiful photographs, and is a fantastic writer.  But enough about the designer -- let's get to the dress!

Actually, I decided to take the option of making it a tunic length.  The pattern provides options for either dress-length or tunic-length, as well as three different sleeve options (short, 3/4, and long).  I didn't hem it up as far as I might have because I didn't want the pockets too close to the bottom, but it's a perfect length to wear with some leggings and what five-year-old Charlotte calls her "high school boots".

I bought the medium-weight knit fabric (Button Flowers from the Doodles Collection) at Jo-Ann's and used some green woven quilting-weight cotton from my stash (the designer and name of which are forgotten, unfortunately).  The pattern specified that combo of fabrics, and I'm curious to see how it will wear over time.  (I prewashed both fabrics, of course, but I know that fabrics continue to shrink over time.)

I love the yoke detail and the pockets.  The pockets blend in because of the busy pattern I used, but the cute green trim detail stands out for sure.

Charlotte was virtually unable to keep her little paws out of the pockets, but I didn't like any of the photos I took with her hand stuffed down in them.  With below freezing temperatures and a near constant cloud cover, it's a little difficult to go outside for a fun, extended photo shoot or to get good inside shots anywhere except for under the skylights in our kitchen.

The pattern came together really nicely and everything fit together just like it should.  I sewed facings (front and back!) for the first time ever, and they made the neckline look great in addition to covering up some inside seams that might have been irritating to Charlotte's chest and shoulders.  I do think I made perhaps one size too large in my eagerness to make a garment that would fit Charlotte for more than a few months.  As a result, the shoulders were too broad and I had to cheat the button over a little on the back placket to pull it tighter.  As she grows, I can easily move the button back to where it should be.  I would love to make the pattern again with short sleeves for the summer, and perhaps I would run over to Corey's granny's house to use her serger to finish off the seams inside.

Charlotte wore the tunic to school today and reported that it was "very good".  She said she would definitely wear it again and that her favorite part of the dress was the pockets.  Sounds like a good review if I ever heard one!

Thank you so much to Andrea and Heather from Go To Sew for giving me this opportunity!

A second Playdate Frock -- this time using a knit

I made a second Playdate Frock using an adorable teal and white polka dotted jersey knit.  Or at least I think it's jersey.  I'm really not sure the difference between jersey and interlock.  I think I need to wander around Haberman Fabrics for a while someday and try to teach myself about different types of fabric. I can read all day long about voile, interlock, and crepe, but I really don't have a good knowledge base that comes from actually working with those materials.  Anyway, I'm pretty sure this was jersey!

I didn't get any glamor shots of Charlotte wearing this yet, but here are two photos of her up in northern Michigan sporting it.  There is a purple heart and purple pockets (courtesy of her daddy's Northwestern University t-shirt that got a nasty grease stain on the front), but their color didn't photograph well.  I knew Charlotte might get a little cranky because the dress wasn't pink, so I decided to throw her Fancy Nancy-loving-self a bone and put a heart on it.  I also added a ruffled strip to the pockets to make them extra "cute".  Unsurprisingly, the heart and the ruffles on the pockets are Charlotte's favorite part.

Here is Charlotte at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore after we toured their Maritime Museum.

And here she is at the top of Pyramid Point (with her back to the amazing view, unfortunately).

You may also notice that the length of the "frock" is more like a long tunic.  That's because my machine rebelled against me when I tried to hem with a stretch stitch.  The details of my epic hemming battle are unimportant (yes, I was using a needle meant for knits -- not sure what else I was doing wrong because the rest of the dress sewed up just fine with a straight stitch), but the result was that I was forced to chop off the hem (to get rid of the chewed-up spots) and simply zig-zagged around the bottom.  It rolls up and looks like a low-tech lettuce-edge if you kind of squint.  The gathered sleeves would have looked cute that way, too.

Playday Frock from my One-Yard Wonders book

I tackled another project from the Fabric-by-Fabric One-Yard Wonders book that Erin got me for our birthday.  I probably should have used a softer fabric (this was a quilter's weight fabric but it's kind of stiff) but I just love the print.  I think I finally used up the bulk of this fabric (originally purchased for the preschool teachers' aprons) but still have some scraps I can use for small bags.

ANYWAY, this project was on page 86 in the section of the book that features projects for quilter's weight fabric.  I think this would be pretty cute out of the teal blue polka-dotted knit that I got recently -- might need to make that for Sonia before I finally send Erin her package with her purse and pouch in it.

I tooooooootally should have made the pockets out of a contrasting fabric -- they really blend in to the background and they really are an important design element.  This would also be a cute pattern for pajamas if you just leave the pockets off and use a soft fabric.

I did a triple line of stitching around the fluttery sleeves as a happy accident (it's a long story).  It looks kind of cool, but isn't really all that noticeable.  I also altered the pattern a little to make French seams down the sides (I HATE raw edges in projects, and I have yet to get my hands on a serger) and to extend the bias tape facing under the arms to encompass the raw seam where the sleeves are attached to the dress.  Worked pretty well, actually.  Why on earth do pattern designers not take the 2 minutes extra it would take to think through how to hide a raw seam in an unlined garment?  It only took me a heartbeat to figure out how to do it, and I'm a complete sewing moron.

Fun pattern!  I will definitely be making it again.

Another racerback dress and a revelation

This racerback dress was made from some heavier knit that Charlotte helped me pick out at the fabric store.  Unfortunately, it's kind of a bust because the armholes are too big even though I cut them a little smaller than the pattern specified.  I think my whole "I know better than the pattern drafter -- I should bind the neck and armholes way differently" attitude was proven to be misguided (Sonia's racerback dress using the same technique ended up to have oversized armholes and the binding didn't look so great after washing).  Whoops.  I may have to try this again but with the right type of binding, because Charlotte loooooooves little cotton dresses like this.  So, my latest revelation is that I should try to follow the directions a little better when making something I'm not so skilled at sewing, like clothing.  Obvious to most people, but not necessarily to a hard-headed person like me.

I took this photo of Charlotte with the iPad right after I first made the dress, and I was annoyed that it wasn't more in focus.

So today, I tried to get some more shots of her, but she threw an uncharacteristic fit when I whipped the camera out.

I know models are supposed to pout, but this is ridiculous.

Classic A-Line Dress disaster

A while back, I won some free patterns from an online indie pattern designer.  I was allowed to choose three patterns from all the ones available, so I figured I couldn't go wrong with the "Classic A-Line Dress".

I read the directions, and was a little suspicious of the method for constructing the straps.  I kind of forgot about the pattern until his evening after dinner when Charlotte and I were talking about how people design clothes.  I told her I would sew her an elegant dress and thought of this pattern.  I dug out a couple girly fabrics (teal eyelet and pink with multicolored striped circles on it).  I cut out the pieces under Charlotte's watchful eye, but she wandered away when I started sewing.

About an hour later, I was done.  The top where the straps came together is a complete mess, and it's totally not my fault.  The method of tucking one side inside the other and sewing it results in a really crappy finished product.

Still, I persevered and finished the dress.  Charlotte is in love with it, but it falls off her skinny little shoulders and isn't roomy enough around the middle.  It's difficult to get on because it has no closure anywhere, but I guess it's cool because it's reversible.  Even though Charlotte had a long day at Camp NanaB, I had her model the dress by striking her "most elegant" poses.  Here it is with the pink side out.  I didn't even bother to iron it perfectly because it gets so munched up as we wrestle it on her.

The v-neck back is kind of cool, but it makes her skinny little shoulders pop right out of the dress.

And here it is with the teal eyelet side out.  Yeah, I probably should have chosen a solid for the other side so it would look prettier where the fabric peeked out from behind the eyelets.

That pattern was probably just a waste of fabric.  Pooh.  I'm deleting that pattern!

The funny thing was that Peter wandered out while I was telling Charlotte to strike an elegant pose.  He then made an elephant trumpeting sound and said "dis MY elephant pose!"

Back to sewing -- a racerback knit dress

I was away from my Husky (my completely unoriginal nickname for my Husqvarna Viking Lily sewing machine) for two weeks while the kids and I (and Sonia and Erin) visited Mom and Dad in Texas.  While we were there, Erin and I ended up at Hobby Lobby where I bought two yards of some cute light jersey knit with dreams of sewing something for Charlotte and Sonia when I returned to Michigan.  I'm finally back, unpacked, and ready to sew.

I saw this sweet tutorial and pattern for a simple Racerback Dress and finished it up in a morning of (mostly) uninterrupted sewing.  Charlotte said it was "bee-yoo-tee-ful" and refused to take it off, even though the temperature outside is barely in the mid-60s.

(Yes, my house is currently a disaster because we have Peter's clubhouse/tent upstairs so the kids can practice for our camping trip this weekend.)  I told Charlotte to strike another pose after the first picture and this is what she came up with.  I'm not even sure how she gets her little rubber legs into positions like that.

It's hard to see because of all the awesome polka dots, but there is a separate yoke on the back of the dress and the back is supposed to be racerback-shaped.  I made the 5/6 size from the pattern, but Charlotte's skinny little torso doesn't fill out the bodice very much.  It goes on and off very easily.  Next time I make this pattern, I will use a contrasting color for the bias trim around the neck and armholes.  The pattern showed pictures of the dress that way, but I didn't have any other knit material in a similar weight that would have matched very well.

Probably should be making the kids lunch rather than blogging about this dress, but they're not whining about being hungry yet.  Time to start planning Sonia's sundress (I want to make a different pattern, just for fun) out of the same material!

Here are a couple of more shots of the dress in a better setting:

Oooh -- update!  I sent in a picture of the dress to Pretty Prudent (they ask people to show them creations they have made from their tutorials) and they featured it in a roundup of projects made by their readers!  Here is the composite pic they posted of the project (which really makes me wish I had taken a some better glamor shots of the back!):

How fun!

Really really long post of Niki's past projects

Don't hate me because I have a pathological burning need to be complete in documenting my sewing adventures.  Holy cow, I really DO keep Jo-Ann Fabrics in business . . .

Oh my gosh, tissue pack holders are crazy fun to make.  I made the one on the top from this tutorial, and the one on the bottom from another one that I have since deleted off my Pinterest board because I liked the other one so much better.  The bottom one is totally lame compared to the top one.

Here is another one of the cool kind.  It's a great way to use up tiny scraps from old projects.

I love love love this sewing caddy.  I obviously don't use it for carrying sewing supplies, but I totally could.  It features pockets on the inside AND on the outside, and was fun to sew.  The handles are floppier than I would like, but I can't remember if that is because I didn't follow the exact instructions.  that is always a strong possibility since I usually just use what I have on hand rather than running out to buy the exact brand and type of interfacing or weight of fabric.

I'm using the caddy to hold all sorts of other little goodies I sewed.

Like this really lame camera case for Charlotte's camera!  Early last year, I got all ambitious and tried to quilt some material and wing some little bags for Charlotte's and Sonia's new cameras.  I learned two things: (1) quilting needs a walking foot and is a lot more complicated than throwing together a sandwich of fabric and batting, and (2) I needed a lot more practice actually sewing bags before trying to design one myself.  In fact, at this point, I don't think I had discovered online sewing tutorials.

The very first online sewing tutorial I followed was for a "Car Cozie" (a car caddy to bring to restaurants, doctor's appointments, etc. to hold cars and provide a street for them to run the cars on).  I fell in love with them and made something like 14 of them by the time the summer was over (for all of the cousins, friends, and even one for Corey -- per his request).  I made this one for Charlotte:

And this one for Peter:

This is what it looks like all rolled up so you can throw it in your purse:

Since the car caddy was such a huge hit, I followed another tutorial (that I have since deleted because the directions were cruddy) to make all of the kids crayon caddies (they roll up in a similar manner, but I didn't take a picture of one all rolled up for some reason):

This diaper caddy (Do you see a theme?  I seem to like caddies . . .) worked out great until Peter got (sort of) potty-trained last month.  Now it's waiting to find a new use.  Too bad I can't find the tutorial I used for this one, either.

At some point, I discovered what I thought was oilcloth in the remnant bin at Jo-Ann's.  I made Steph and myself "wet bags" (thought the tutorial calls them "grocery totes") to bring wet bathing suits home from the beach in last summer.  Turns out, this is really some sort of cross between vinyl and oilcloth, and I have yet to figure out the exact name.  It's found in the utility fabrics section.  This was my first round-bottomed bag, and it was fun to see how it all went together:

I winged this tote to give Peter a little bag for carrying around his treasures.  Turns out he's not as interested in doing that as Charlotte is, but he certainly likes the bag.  I brought it with me filled with Peter's car caddy and crayon caddy when I needed to entertain Peter during Charlotte's ballet classes:

This Olivia Bag was fun to make, but turned out smaller than I had imagined.  I also had a rough time with the top stitching, never really fixed it, and just gave up on it after Erin crocheted me my awesome new purse.  I loved that the tutorial taught me how to do an internal zipper pocket, though!

All last fall, Erin and I carried these purses that I made out of my old jeans.  I found a couple of tutorials on the web for jeans purses and hated that they had stupid things like raw edges inside and really thin bottoms, so I used the skills I had learned from making a bunch of other bags and to sort of design this myself.  I made a few more of them from Charlotte's old jeans and cords and they turned out even cuter (since her butt is so much smaller!).

This winter, I bought some Insul-Bright and went a little crazy making potholders for a while.  This "oven hand mitt" is the one I made that I liked the best.  I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures of the cool one I made for Jordan or the Star Wars one I made for his friend (to match the aprons I made for each of them, too!).

This fun little "fabric box" turned out to be perfectly-sized as a pencil holder.

Here is the super cool purse Erin crocheted for me.  I sewed the lining for the purse based on this tutorial, and I used the wrap from Erin's bridesmaid dress for Ali's wedding as the fabric!  Erin had given me the fabric ages and ages ago. and it works perfectly as a purse lining.  I also sewed the little fabric key chain to match the jeans purse that I used to carry, but it still looks cute with the crochet purse.

Here is another one of the snappy bags.  Fun fact: I got in huge trouble with Corey when I cut up his nicest tape measure to use in it.  Whoops.

I adore adore adore this dumpling pouch.  The fabric is cute, the pattern was fun to follow, and it holds a surprising amount of stuff in my purse.

I have sewn some pretty superfluous and unnecessary things just for the fun of it, but this may take the (cup)cake.  It's a cover for my checkbook.  I made the not-cut-on-the-bias tape myself, which is awfully cute in the strawberry fabric.

This little boxy zipper pouch was great to make, but it's unlined and you just can't zigzag enough with a regular sewing machine to get the raw edges inside to look good.  I have since found tutorials for lined box zipper pouches, and would choose those tutorials instead next time I make one.

I made this tablecloth and the set of cloth napkins for Charlotte's tea parties.  I sewed them over a year ago (before I discovered the wonders of online tutorials and the effect of the grainline in fabric) and they're a little bit funky as a result.  I designed it myself and couldn't have done a worse job.  Please don't look too closely at any of it.

This is my denim scrap basket.  Charlotte loves looking through my old scraps, and I need to come up with some sort of project for her to use them so they don't overflow!

Now THIS is actually oilcloth (aka laminated cotton).  Once I finally buy some more bright green thread, I will finish topstitching around the edges of them and will have some great kid-friendly laminated place mats for the summer!

Here is the backside (a great heavy oilcloth I found on my pilgrimage to Haberman Fabrics in Royal Oak):

I made these curtains for Charlotte's room back in 2009.  They are actually two separate valances (because her old room had two skinny windows) squished together on one rod to fit the big window in her new room.  The buyers of our house in Tennessee had checked the option that they wanted our "window coverings" which technically included the valances, but since I was pretty darn sure the buyers didn't actually want my hand-made crap, I left them a stamped, addressed envelope for them to mail back to me any of the valances they didn't want.  They sent back these, the ones from Peter's room, and the ones from the bonus room, but they didn't send me back the valance I REALLY wanted -- the cool tab topped one I had made a decade ago and still adored.  Wah!

My great pillow sham piping experiment turned out better than I feared when I made Charlotte these two throw pillows for her bed.  The purple one actually has a zipper closure!  Too bad I only had a black zipper on hand and was too anxious to finish the project to wait until I had a matching zipper.  Charlotte really loves the one with the heart applique, and insisted on sleeping on it instead of her real pillow for several weeks.

This dresser scarf was made to match Charlotte's valances and to test out the decorative stitches on my new (well, it was new then) Brother sewing machine.  It was made out of my own imagination, before my imagination knew about things like batting and quilting.

I actually took an old t-shirt of mine and downsized it to fit Peter!  I used Dana's tutorial for the pattern and technique of putting it together, but cheated by using the hems off of the original shirt sleeves, hemline, and the shirt's original neck binding.  I really should have rebound the neckline because an adult t-shirt neckline has too shallow of a curve.  The shirt is a little funky, but Peter doesn't care.

This diaper caddy has been transformed to an underwear caddy now that Peter is sort of potty trained!  Petey can't reach his underwear drawer, so I put his undies in this in his closet since he needs to change them so often.  Ahem.

I used the method of putting in a waistband a la the circle skirt, but the bottom part (recycled from some old t-shirts, is not a circle.  The skirt is NOT super flattering on me, but Corey loves it because it has the Michigan State logo appliqued on it.

This little tote bag was a blast to make.  I cut the pocket off of one of Corey's old shirts and it looks hilarious on there.

This pleated tote looks huge, but doesn't really hold a ton because it's flat.  It was a fun introduction to pleats, though!  After I made it I decided I hated the fabric, so it hasn't been used that much.

This tote has has been really handy.  Who knows where I found this original tutorial, because I can't find it anymore.  The tote has six pockets on the outside and I really love the stripes.  I want to find more of that material to make some more stuff.  That's the problem with always buying remnants -- yes they are 50% off, but they also are hard to ever find again!

This is Petey's other cape (made from a pattern created in my own little pea brain).  It was not the original one -- that one was quickly destroyed because I made it out of my high school graduation gown, which was some crazy thin man-made nasty material.  I salvaged the "P" applique and reapplied it to this new cape.  The blue nylon fabric was from an old laundry bag that had never been used much.

This pleated zippered pouch is of my favorite pouches ever!  I use it every time I travel.  The pleated pouch tutorial is really well-written and easy to follow.  The striped fabric was left over from some valances I made for Erin's apartment when she was first married.

Finally, this is the wardrobe I made for Charlotte Doll for Charlotte's birthday.  This "Katie Dress" was my first dress that has a bodice!  It has a zipper in the back and my first use of piping in a fashion sewing project.  I got the skirt's pleats all wonky when I sewed the skirt to the bodice because that darn polyester does NOT like to hold a pleat in place, no matter how much you iron it.  Yes, Charlotte Doll's hair is all wonky because I was practicing different types of braids and didn't bother to restyle it for the photo shoot.

Charlotte doll also needed her own pillowcase dress.  I figured Hello Kitty fabric was a good choice, but it doesn't do much for Charlotte Doll's figure.  Hee hee.

My first experiment in shirring!  The bias tape along the top is kind of lame, so I would skip that step next time.  The straps Velcro closure in the back.  The top and the matching tote were made from my little pea brain.  Now Charlotte Doll needs some coordinating shorts!

Auntie Ernie crocheted this awesome top, and I made a teeny circle skirt to match.

My first attempt at a t-shirt for Charlotte Doll was a disaster.  This is take #2, and despite the fact that it looks like a mock turtleneck (barf!), the rest of it worked out well.  The back has a Velcro closure.  The tutu underneath is just a circle skirt stitched to 1" elastic for the waistband.