some experiments succeed (sort of)

Part of what made me think I could just wing the Boden shirt was making this tank top. I had a vision in my head and some extra jersey laying around and decided just to have a go at it. The front and back were cut identical and I went back and altered the neckline of the front. The collar is just a strip of leftover fabric I twisted will sewing on and tacked in place along the neck and at the bottom of the bust. The straps tie in back.


I had difficulty getting a good picture of this shirt. The early morning sun and my camera were not getting along. I'm pretty sure the shirt doesn't appear as shiny in person. I thought about giving it up and trying later in the day, but I knew I'd get something on it before then and a big stain on it wouldn't do. The color is truest in the close up picture. The necklace is by Ali of Kissum Up. I'm not sure she ever stocks there anymore, but she does occasionally stop in at Venus Vanguard.

What was worse was the back shot. I knew it felt a little snug, but when I saw the back side I promptly took it off until I could figure out a proper undergarment to wear to get rid of all those lumps. Why must bras dig into back fat?

some experiments fail

After my relative success with the last gauzy shirt I decided to try my hand at making this shirt featured in the Boden's summer catalog (If you're not familiar with Boden you really should go look. They have the most fantastic clothes. Some things are overpriced, but some things are very reasonable. Bonus is that they carry up to a US 18).

Mistake number one was using my final fabric right away instead of making a muslin pattern.

I used a old shirt as a pattern for the size and just eyed up the cut of the neck and the length. I added as much extra fabric for gathering across the bust as I had fabric to do. The yoke was cut from the shape of my bodice piece and the sleeves were copied from aforementioned old shirt.

I put the yoke on first and it turned out rather nicely. I used elastic to gather along the waist.

Mistake number two was forgetting that the underbust measurement that I took did not accomodate for my ample chest.

All of those extra inches I included to make the gathers only served to actually make room for my nursing boobs and I found the fabric to be stretched tight instead of attractively gathered.
I also failed to realize that my chest would bring the resting position of the elastic higher up in the front than on the rest of my body so it droops in the back. This can be remedied, but it will involve the tedious task of ripping out all of those triple stitch zig zag stitches.

Mistake number three (which is really mistake number four) was not remembering that the old shirt was stretched out in weird places from a nursling pulling on it all winter.

The armholes ended up being too big because of this. I'm not exactly sure how i'm going to go about fixing this, but I'm confident I'll find a way. In the end I'm sure I will have a wearable end product, but I will definitely remember to make a mock up out of muslin the next time I try to draft my own shirt pattern.

wool shorts

I know some people don't care to knit in the summer, but I do. I suppose it's mostly out of necessity though. If I didn't knit in the summer I'd never get anything done and the baby needs wool. I had planned on making Oz four pairs of wool shorts for this summer season, but realized some wool from Carter would fit him and I made a pair out of a upcycled sweater so I think I'm only going to knit three pair. I'll also need to make a pair for my BFF's baby girl. This is the first completed pair:

These were knit with Three Irish Girls Lindon Merino in her Liam colorway. I knit them on 7's even though it's an aran weight yarn as I like the stitches to be tight when used for the purpose of keeping urine of my jeans.

I used a trim yarn to Huckleberry Knits' Flying Fish colorway (which is what's on the needles right now) as it happened to match the gray perfectly. I love when things work out that way. I also tried out a new crotch gusset. It's functional, but it doesn't look quite right. I used a k1f&b increase. Anyone know what I did wrong?