Monkey business

The lovely part of having a daughter who doesn't sew is having a granddaughter who thinks her nettie is pretty special at being able to fix broken things.

Monkey broken 

Monkey fixed

More hats

I love using my handspun yarn to knit hats - can't have too many hats in this family.

Ribbed beanie in yarn spun from Southern Cross Fibre in Deep Thought colourway.

Hat with Heart in yarn spun from Southern Cross Fibre in Binary Sunset colourway.

 Barley in yarn spun from Southern Cross Fibre in Immortal colourway.

Another six months of socks

You may recognise some of the socks in this post from this post.  At least they're finished now.

Ahem.  I didn't quite live up to my self-imposed challenge of knitting a pair of socks for each month of the year. The first half of the year went well, with even an extra three pairs done!  So, although I slowed down in the second half, I still had a pretty good output overall, methinks.

July socks - Nice ribbed socks

August socks - Plain vanilla socks

Both of these crossed the ocean for xmas gifts for my favourite sister and her bloke.  

But by September I had realised that there were too many unfinished sock projects still on the needles, so I decided I'd have to spend the rest of the year finishing those I had already started.  I also finished these...

 Diamond gansey socks from May.

and these...

Mockery socks from June.

Which brings my grand total of hand knitted pairs of socks for the year to eleven - six pairs for me and five pairs for others.  Not too shabby at all.

Some knitting has been done

I do love knitting small projects - socks and hat mostly - and while it's great to have small projects on the go through this hot summer, I did spend the cooler months knitting garments.

In Threes cardi for ma minette.

Abernathy jumper for Mr Bear.  Spot the poor colour change in the left sleeve?  I'll fix that before he needs to wear it next winter.

And Miette for me.

More softies

She's on a roll - xmas gifts designed and sewn by ma minette, age 6.

So proud

It's hard to describe the thrill of guiding ma minette's first foray into sewing.  At only six, she was so, so keen to try; so, so keen to do it herself 'I can do it, Nettie, let me do it'; and so, so happy with both the experience and the outcome.

We began our joint sewing venture with a secret xmas project for her mama.  She immediately wanted to move on to other, rather more complicated things.  'Let's make a shirt for Perko.'  mmm.

Given we were in gift-making mode, we started thinking of making soft toys for beloved little cousins. We asked Mr Google for images of monster softies. We pulled out some favourite soft toys for inspiration. Being six, the activity morphed into 'let's make a dolly for me'.

We talked about design and pattern making.

We talked about fabric and accoutrements.

I helped a little with some hand sewing of the button eyes, sewing the lingerie elastic mouth and fixing the woolly hair.  But she did the rest.  Her favourite part was the actual machine sewing.

She felt very pleased with herself.  I felt so proud of her.

I look forward to more sewing adventures with our little sewist-in-training.

Knotty mitts

A wonderful weekend back in May was spent with friends, new and old, for a feast of laughter, knitting, eating, drinking and buying up yarn at the Old Bus Depot Markets Celebration of Wool day.  Lauren had her gorgeous Knotty mitts with her, adapted from the Knotty Gloves pattern.  Well, we all jumped on to the Knotty bandwagon, me included.  I did make a pair, even though I only photographed one! Perfect for this sub zero weather.  And red is warmer, don't you know.

Rhymes with...

I seem to have a lot of orange yarn.  And what a great colour for a baby blankie!

I joined a knit-along to make the Twinkle Twinkle Blanket for my lovely friend Lis's new bubba.

And some beanies too

In my stash busting efforts, I am concentrating this year on using up my single skeins.  What better project than a beanie or two.  Beanies come in handy when little ones visit in these colder months and then want to play outside.  Or when the dog insists on a walk on a frosty morn.

Some are simple, but for others I am trying out some of the many patterns on Ravelry.

London beanie

Hurricane hat in wool that I spun myself

Hat fit for a boyfriend (or in this case, a wee cutie)

Simple beanie (which matches some mitts I  made for ma minette last year)

Felicity - this is my favourite hat, in lovely soft natural handspun wool

Odessa in soft alpaca

Classic WWII Watch Cap

It would appear that I've been rather productive over the past few months, looking back at all these projects!  To be honest, it's easy to knock over a beanie in a day or two.  And I do love to knit.

Six months of socks

Socks are my go-to knitting project.  I like to have at least one pair of socks in the making at all times. Socks can be an easy, portable project - sometimes easy as pie, sometimes with a lacey pattern.  I set up my own Personal Sock Club 2013 whereby I matched 12 skeins of yarn with 12 patterns and, on the first day of each month this year, I pick up a kit and start knitting.  I may not have finished the last pair, or the pair before that, but each 1st of the month I'll start a new pair.  Some months I even slip in an unplanned sock project.

I love to wear hand knitted socks, so good thing I also love to knit them!

January - Komet

February socks - plain vanilla socks 

(These started out as something fancier, 

but the yarn and pattern were not loving life together,

 so they turned vanilla.)

March - Blackrose Socks for my favourite sister's birthday

April - Anniversary Socks

May - Diamond Gansey Socks

My first ever two at a time toe-ups (still going on these ones).

June - Mockery Socks

Still going on these ones too.

And just for those times when I needed some plain vanilla socks on the needles:

At the tennis - knitting between matches at the Australian Open in January

Stash busters and mini stash busters

And, yes, July's socks are on the needles too.  By year end, I plan to have at least another six pairs of socks.

FBA success

This little trio of Sorbettos actually fit me. No gaping armholes.  Yes, I have mastered the FBA.

I have attempted the full bust adjustment, halfheartedly, on previous occasions without success.  This summer was my summer to finally make some tops that fit.  As I moved from drafting and cutting at the kitchen table, back to the sewing room to stitch and press (in the sweltering heat, mind you), muslin after muslin fell to the floor.  I continued to tweak my pattern according to the very comprehensive instructions in Fit for real people: sew great clothes using any pattern by Pati Palmer and Marta Alto, until that previously elusive great fit was no longer so.

I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Sorbetto 1 is in a lovely light voile I purchased forever ago from Michael Levine in LA.

Sorbetto 2 is in a retro Robert Kaufman print picked up at Vinnies last week for $2.50.  

I used the bias to not only bind the neck and armholes but to finish the hem.

Sorbetto 3 is in a light as a feather, soft, dark brown cotton voile given to me by my friend, Michelle, for this very purpose.  I was only game to cut into it once I had mastered the fit. 

I topstitched this one in contrasting thread that matches the vintage buttons.

I now have three lovely, loose, light, flowy, comfy, non-gapey tops.  Perfect for wearing to Rod Laver Arena this week.  Oh yes, tennis, here I come.

Thank you, dear sister

Although our xmas this year is somewhat subdued, my favourite sister's creativity and generosity continues to astound and please us. Handmade xmas gifts galore!

 

Communicate

As the sun set off the Western Australian coast, we tried to comfort each other in our individual sorrows of losing our loved one.

Communication takes time, sure – maybe a minute or so.  It takes a bit of effort, certainly – one actually has to pick up the phone and talk or punch out a text.  But, truly, just do it.  They might leave without saying goodbye.

1-2 Dressember

A hot start to summer meant light, billowy dresses for the first days of Dressember.

For my first day of Dressember I wore my cotton and silk Cafe dress, bought from Department of the Exterior in Manuka last year.  (Have you been there?  I love it.)

Coincidentally, Sunday's dress was also from the same shop, but several years ago now.  It's Ammo and very, very comfy. It's probably my favourite dress but starting to look a little worse for wear these days.  However, it was an ideal choice for Sunday morning coffee and cake with mates.

Fear not, there will not be daily posts of 'what I wore'.  I'm planning end of week posts and end of weekend posts for the rest of Dressember.  I'm looking forward to the challenge of wearing the same dress to work every day this week.  Yikes!

Just practising

Dressember, anyone? I’m not usually one to participate in the likes of Me Made May or Self Sewn September where every day for a month you wear an item that matches the theme (both of those examples are clearly for self made items of apparel), but I’ve decided to take a related plunge and participate in Dressember – with a twist.


Not having many clothes (no, really, I don’t) and being a fan of limited consumerism, I have long held an admiration for The Brown Dress Project, where Alex Martin of Seattle wore the same little brown dress every day for an entire year, as part of a performance art project and a statement against comsumption.

For the past couple of summers, I’ve tried to do my own Summer of Skirts, with varying degrees of success. But this year, for the month of December I am going to wear a dress every day (there’s 31 of those) but the twist is that I am going to wear the same dress every working day (there’s 15 of those). It’s a simple soft denim shift (Trenery from Material Pleasures) with a lovely exposed brass zip down the back that I can complement with cardies, shoes and belts. And just to practise, yesterday I wore this every-working-day-in-December dress to work.

Other dresses will be weekend dresses, beach dresses (for my couple of days at the beach) and a xmas dress or two. I am going to wear only:

• dresses I already have in my meagre wardrobe (a week ago there were only two of those),
• dresses I buy second hand (I now have five of those – from Vinnies, Material Pleasures and last weekend’s Vintage Frock Fair) and 
• dresses that I make (I have, er, one on the go, but plans for a couple more throughout the month).

 See… plenty of dresses…

 

Can I do it? I think so. But wish me luck, anyway.