WIP Wednesday: Clouds & Rainbows

It's been a long time since I've done a WIP Wednesday post.

I'm making crazy-fast progress on my rainbow socks.

 

One of my knitting friends persuaded me to try the fish lips kiss heel pattern  (which I usually call fish lips, fish sticks, or fish kiss because the thing is too many words).  The designer has a special formula for the knitter to follow in order to get the PERFECT fit.  This involves having a partner trace your foot on a piece of cardboard and marking the heel hinge line on the cardboard.

 

I made my socks toe-up because I thought it would be the easiest way for me to see if my heel fit my foot when I was finished with the heel portion of the formula. The photo here represents the heel hinge line and the point where you are supposed to start your heel is marked with a dpn from end to end.

 

Here's my sock so far.

 

After following all the designer's notes and instructions exactly, my heel is too big. 

 

It's too big by quite a bit.  I've had this problem with heels and ankles on socks I've knit for myself before.  I don't know if I have a more narrow heel or thin ankle or what, but it's quite frustrating to make a sock and have the heel and ankle just bag  up on me.  I thought I might need an hourglass set of increases and decreases while I was knitting the top portion of the heel pattern and I posted some pictures on the designer's forum.  I won't say too much because I'll get really pissed off, but the designer justified every single portion of her sock formula and said that if I had a problem with my heel, it's because I did x, y, z, and alpha things wrong.  It wasn't because the heel was too big for me.

  

And you know what?  The heel was too big for me.  I frogged back and used a smaller needle size for the heel and that worked famously.  I could still decrease 2-4 stitches on the ankle, but that's less of a big deal.  I'll try that on my next pair of socks.

Florida SNOWPACOLYPSE 2014!!

There isn't any actual snow yet, which is quite unfortunate since it's been a while since I've seen any snow.  I don't know what I would do in the snow...nonetheless, it would be pretty cool.  Here's what I came home to yesterday at about 4:30.

 

Icicles everywhere!  Growing up in the Poconos, we'd always leave some hanging to see how long they got.  Sometimes they went from the gutters to just a foot or two off the ground!  I don't expect these icicles to last to Friday, let alone get long enough to reach the ground.  Southern living at it's finest.

 

The branches of all the trees are hanging so low from the weight of the ice.  The branches of this tree are normally 8 feet up.  Still low relatively speaking, but not scraping the ground low! I'm concerned the suddenly low-hanging branches will damage my roof.  I have branches scraping overhead right now.

 

Frozen deck.  My dog was unsure what to do with himself.  The stairs were suddenly very confusing.  This bit of ice was from around 8pm.

 

Basically all the lower branches on the live oak trees in my frontish yard are brushing the ground now.

 

Ice balls falling out of the sky.  (sorry about the water spots on the lens.  It happens.)

 

This is my wisteria arbor.  Wisteria is like the lilac of the south. It's usually close to flowering this time of year.

 

Sad, sad leaves.

 

Frozen magnolia tree

 

Ice balls of ice.  I'm told this is sleet.  It is NOT snow.  :(

 

We really do wear flip flops year-round in Florida.

 

The rest of these photos are from about 9:30pm.

 

Ice and sand.  

 

Handfuls of ice

It's a perfect evening to lay under my electric blanket and knit.  This is the facing lilies stole pattern and I'm using Dye for Yarn tussah silk in Absinthe.  I wear scarves all the time and I need more of them!

WIP: On the Job (still)

 How about a photodump?  I made lots of small adjustments to the OTJ dress.  Let's see:

 

I had to make 2 darts on the back neckline.  I pulled an inch out on each side, tapering down over about two inches in length.  I learned while working on my Laurel top that neckline darts are supposed to point towards the armpit area.  I think I accomplished that.

  

 

Inside view of the neckline dart.  I would have preferred to take the fabric out of the pattern itself, but I just wasn't seeing a way to make that happen because I didn't have anywhere to add length on the side of the pattern.  The bodice cuts off right under the bust and I didn't want to play with the fit of that in order to pull the neckline fabric out.   You may also be able to see that my shoulder seam looks funny?  I pinned about 1/2" in on the seam specifically for collar drafting purposes.  In order to get the collar to have a little "stand" to it, you need to overlap the shoulder seams by about 1/2" on the armpit side.  It works, I promise!

 

Sorry for the blur.  Drafting a collar was easier than I thought it would be.  I put a tiny nip in the seam allowance at the center front to tell me where to stop tracing my outline.  After that, I simply traced the top line of the garment, noting where the center and shoulder seam was.

 

Here's what the line looks like.  It looks rough, but your pattern doesn't have to look fancy.  It just has to work.

 

My next step was deciding how wide I wanted the collar.  I settled on 1.5" and used an adjustable seam gauge/ruler thingy to make those markings.  I put a dash about every inch or so along the pattern and trued it up as I went.  See that wonky curve?  I didn't like the first line and I redrew it.  Legit.  The last thing to do before cutting the fabric is to add a seam allowance.  I used a 5/8" seam allowance for the rest of the garment and that is what is built in to the neckline pattern (it was supposed to have a lined bodice), so that's what I added to my collar piece.

 

Once I had the pattern all cut out, I realized I wanted the back of the collar to sort of notch out at the bottom.  A quick measurement and marking and that's done too!

 

OHAI fancy tiny collar!   

 

Here's the back of the collar and that notch that I wanted.  The pattern called for a lapped zipper and I could only find a black zipper long enough for this dress!  Shame!

 

This looks like a finished dress and it kind of is, but the sleeves are way too freaking tight.  My dress is all done except not really wearable at all because it makes me have the Frankenstein's monster look.  

 

I only look happy because of the smile detector.  Trust me, I am pissed that I haven't learned my own arm size yet.  I made the sleeves extra big.  Still not big enough.  Grrr.

 

One last parting sort of finished object picture. I love the dress.  I think it's fabulous.  Gotta fix those sleeves though.  I'll post my sleeve adjustments in my FO post, which will hopefully happen next week.

 

Happy HUMP DAY!

WIP: SW Reunion & Laurel

I hate that I don't have anything new to show you!  I've been working on the Sew Weekly reunion project very diligently and, sad to say, the project was a giant FAIL!  I suppose I could fix it, but it's going to take me a while to unpick all the seams and sew it back up with a smaller seam allowance. 
Behold the crappy pictures!

This crazy shiny polyester creation is OMG! so tight all throughout the bodice.  The sleeves are tight. The waist is tight. So freakin' tight.

This is a polyester blend of some sort that I picked up crazy-cheap at JoAnn's. I think it cost $2 or $3 a yard.  Not a huge loss money-wise on this project fail.  I had the pattern and notions already.

The pattern (not that you can see any of the detailing with the SHINY!) is Simplicity 2588  I chose to use the slim sleeves, neckband, and full skirt. The pattern also has options for sleeveless with a yoke, a slim skirt with a back vent, puffy sleeves (probably called pleated), a belt, a bow, and tabs.  The Project Runway pattern collection is really awesome for giving you prompts when you decide you want to change something.  "Designer's extra:  Sew tabs in with back darts (or whatever)."

I threw in a zipper and called it a loss.  I have this thing that I spent so much time cutting it out and trying to make it perfect.  I made a muslin!  I made sure to find the pattern's wearing ease (4.5" my nose) before tracing the pattern pieces.  I don't ever work with polyester and this might be why.  There is zero give on the sewn fabric.  It seemed stretchy(ish) when it was laying flat, but no stretch on my body at all.  I actually really like this pattern and I really like how it went together.  I feel that this was a pattern/fabric matching FAIL.  It's unfortunate that this was going to be my sew weekly reunion project too.  Now I have ten days to make something else to submit and I'm going to be out of town for six of those days.  FUCK!!  I have a backup.  I'm going to draft and sew something.  Stay tuned for the madness.

 

(Meanwhile in Colettelandia...)

 

I'm still working on making all the adjustments to my Laurel.  I swear I'll never use another shirt pattern ever if I can just get this thing to look and fit right.  See, I have giant shoulders.  This is a good thing if I need to carry a 50-pound backpack or lift heavy things.  It's not so great when I need to buy new button down shirts, for example.  The giant shoulder thing on it's own isn't so bad, but I also have giant muscley arms.  Women have told me they would give their first born for my arms.  I'm happily child-free and I tend to like my arms as long as I'm not having to cover them with fabric.  So there's that.  RANT.RANT.RANT.

 

Pictures of progress so far:

In order to make my muslin shoulder wider, I first marked the seam allowance (purple).  Next, I found that dent where my arm bone meets my shoulder bone and I marked that with orange (this is the top orange dot--the other one marks my collar bone I think).  I found the center of the shoulder seam and marked that with a pink dot and drew a line from the armhole to that pink dot.  I had to make one more pivot point (blue) from the arm seam allowance to my pink line.  You'll notice that my blue line ends parallel to my orange dots.  This is awesome!

 

Cut along the pink line first, stopping when you hit the seam allowance.

 

Then cut along the blue line, stopping when you hit the seam allowance.  (This is the back.  I forgot to take the front picture.  Sorry, not sorry.)

Then you need to pull your pink line over to widen the shoulder to whatever you determined it to be.  I had to widen my shoulders an inch.  Then you move that blue line triangle just a bit until the top edge is flush again.  Then repeat the line process with the back piece. 

 

As you can see, I used scraps of fusible interfacing to hold my pieces in place.  I do intend for this weird cotton to become my new pattern, though I may end up having to transfer all my changes onto the paper pattern (twice because this is only the shirt part of the Laurel pattern.  OMGWTFBBQ!)  As I mentioned before about my Hulk arms, they don't fit so well in this armhole.  I thought the shoulder adjustment would help relax that mess out, and it does, but it still isn't perfect.  I already lowered the armscye 1" and I have to either redraft the sleeve or find one in a bigger size that will work for the Hulk arms and my top. 

 

So, no progress on anything really.  Happy stitching (or bitching if you're me),

~elle