It is so hard to believe that after this month, there will be only three squares left to get to the planned sixteen squares. How fast this year has gone!
It is fall here on the West Coast. The temperature has dropped, the leaves are turning and it has started to rain. And thank heavens for the rain! It was way too dry this summer.
Fall almost always has me thinking of the past. The past year and the past years.
Do you save up memories? You know, those moments that you experience that you want to be able to revisit, so you drink in every moment and try to preserve it in your mind’s eye. I have a few of those moments.
One of them is a fall moment:
I am 13. We have just moved back to the Okanagan and were living in a house on Mount Boucherie. My parents were looking for a house across the lake in Kelowna. While they looked, I still had to go to school.
The school wasn’t too far away if you crossed through the orchards. Which I did.
One morning, it was so frosty that the grasses crunched and the leaves and few apples left on the trees were sparkly. The air was thick and moist, foggy. And that orchard was magic. I walked through, taking it all in.
I was in the habit of eating an apple as I crossed through the orchard. The pickers had missed a few and they tasted so good!
This morning, the apple tasted even better. So good. I had never tasted an apple so sweet and so crisp.
I learned later that certain fruit, like some apples and grapes, improve when they get frostbitten.
This was my fall moment, and my inspiration for this month’s square.
So if you like vintage looks — with or without beads — this set might tickle your fancy.
Life here has been busy. I played hooky one weekend. I will tell you all about it in my next blog post.
And I went down to Victoria to see my daughter and went to Gala Fabrics. I, umm, may have bought a few items. A very dangerous store.
Right beside the till, a very dangerous spot, was this innocent looking bowl of buttons. They were all made of stone. And there were enough to actually use on a project – as yet unknown. My button box thanks me!
I am looking forward to a great start to autumn, aren’t you?
Really it is still Summer, but the evenings have a little chill and it gets dark just that much earlier, letting us know that Summer is on the way out! So I am working on stuff for the Fall, both personally and professionally!
Part of my job description is teaching. I teach people how to knit, how to knit better, how to execute specific skills that you, the student, may want to add to your repertoire. It is one of the more challenging aspects of my job. Just figuring out what to teach and how to present the goals.
Professional Projects
This fall has started with a successful Thrumming class and a not successful cables class. Perhaps the project wasn’t interesting enough or perhaps those who wanted to learn were looking for something more traditionally shaped. I will still write up the pattern later in the fall as I really do like it a lot! The thrumming headband will be out later this week.
This one didn’t work.
Right now I am working on a 3 part series on finishing for knits. This is loosely based on a Fear of Finishing Workshop that we at Mad About Ewe Fine Yarns ran for years. It was our most popular workshop – Tons of information presented in a six hour workshop. Everyone went home dazed and confused. So this time, it is three, four hour workshops, with time in between so there is time for everything to sink in!
Part 1 – Button Holes and Button Bands. This will be an in depth look at how to pick-up stitches to create button bands. We will look at ratios and gauge, at button holes large and small, how to sew on buttons, and we will start to look at I-cord. This class is already more than half full and I think that the new format is going to work really well.
Part 2 – Seams – I think that says it all. We will look at ratios – ratios are very important to all aspects of finishing. There will be 8 seams built off of the swatches. Seams will include; grafting, 3 styles of mattress stitch, 2 styles of 3-needle bind-off. One unique seam and I am still looking for the last option. There may be some finishing techniques as well.
Part 3 – Everything Else! You know, how to lengthen or shorten our knits. How to add anything after your knitting is finished. Ie Heels to tubes, afterthought pockets. Maybe some dimensional embellishments. Things to consider before we start knitting as well. Swatches, how to make and use them before we start knitting. The best place to work shaping. How to work a short-rows. All of those extra things. Which really aren’t that extra.
Every workshop will include homework beforehand of some kind. Mostly some swatches, something to practice all of the new techniques on!
Personal Projects
Yesterday I cut out a blouse and a pair of pants for myself. Though apparently I made the blouse for my daughter. I missed a couple of key measures. I am really thrilled with the finishing. French seams and fine finishing on a napped wool flannel fabric. My daughter is thrilled.
I hope that the pants turn out a little better as I know I am the only one who will want to wear them!
Italian wool woven fabric. I am planning pleats in the front and maybe a button fly instead of a zipper. Those colours!
When I was much younger I collected coins. Old Canadian and English pennies and coins from when we went to Malaysia. When I was a teenager my father gave me his coin collection. I
As a collection it was very informal. It consisted of an old plastic tub of coins most of them from Panama and Peru. Most from the late 1950’s, from when he was in the Navy and his ship cruised those waters. I had put away my coin collection by then and wasn’t actively collecting, so I put the tub with my collection and proceeded to spend the next 50 years carrying the collection around with me.
A few months after my father passed away I hauled out that old tub and looked again at those coins. In the collection were about 30 old silver coins, all the same size and all from the Republic De Panama. I started to think of what those coins could become. I wanted to use them as embellishments on a shawl, So, I took the coins to my Silversmith friend Joan and left it with her.
I think that this will be an interesting way of creating a unique piece of knitting while honouring my memories of my father.
Remember this one? Well it was put on hold while I waited for the book and then it arrived and needed to be examined for new ideas. Which I really couldn’t find. I was in an odd headspace I think. I was looking at my knitting, on the 1.75mm US #00 needles, and thinking it was too loose. I had to get my head around that. So, yesterday I also ripped out my little bit of knitting and put away the the 1.75mm needles and pulled out the 1.0mm US #00000 needles and cringed. I have never, ever, knit with anything that small. So sometime in the next week I will be casting on a new project.
Still trying to get my head around that as well. Do I order more yarn, or do I design a smaller project. Still thinking on it!
This one has been on hiatus for a while, but I am planning on picking it up at the end of the month. I am not far off the waist and I am hoping to reach the shoulders around Christmas.
There are other projects in the background and more classes to share, but that can be for another day!
Nope I haven’t been sick, but I am looking to mend!
I am going to learn how to mend my clothing. Well, I am teaching myself how to mend my woolens mostly.
I have been a sewer, (sewist?) all my life. I started with Barbie clothes and I have made my own and my children’s clothing, at various point of my life, with varying levels of success. I have designed and created costumes for live theatre. And I can mend many of of clothes, as in hem, fix seams, adjust fit and play with anything fabric. But I have seldom mended my clothing, as in fixing actual holes in the fabric! That needs to change.
I also knit. And I have knitted steadily for the last 40+ years. Like most of us knitters I have a stack of woolens to mend. I hate to throw things out, especially now, when we are talking of sustainability and slow clothes and making everything count. So I have been looking at my own pile of clothes that need saving. From woolen undershirts (sorry, they are not pretty enough to be called camisoles) to fine merino sweaters to my handknits – I have things that need mending.
So, over the last few months I have been collecting books and tools to start teaching myself the basics. Okay, not just the basics, in some cases the more interesting and artistic ways of doing things!
Not that I will be starting with the fancy patterns, but the possibilities are interesting.
I am also going to learn how to use a tiny punch needle, really a needle for tambour bead embroidery. Beads as mending! you can see that this is a whole new rabbit hole for me! For mending you are supposed to forgo the beads and just use a fine wool to punch through your knit fabric. And I have just purchased a Speedweve style mending tool. A small one (14 hooks), with a bigger one (21 hooks) on the way.
Tambour beading is a technique that developed in Europe in the late eighteenth century. A small hook (tambour hook) is used to attach the beads to the ground cloth, rather than a needle. The word tambour is French for ‘drum’ and is named after the drum-shaped tensioning frame that was originally used.
Plus there are the traditional means of mending as in swiss daring, patching and overdying. Overdying is a great way to recover sweaters that have been stained by life. I have used this method a few times! I would also like to try some leather patching for sweaters, especially hems at neck and sleeves. So, lots of things to explore!
This is going to be so much fun!
And then, this fall, there will be a class at Mad About Ewe Fine Yarns in Nanaimo. After all, there are not many things better than sharing an interest!
Is the glib answer. But for me it is a statement about what I am starting to discover about myself and my relationship with the world right now. Now that was the weighty answer. Reality is always somewhere in the middle.
Over the years I have seen several dresses knit by customers, often with my help interpreting instructions and working out gauge issues. These dresses often looked and felt heavy to me. On-line I have seen the most stunning knitted wedding dresses. Made with love from lace stitches and many hours of knitting.
Many knitted dresses are simply a long sweater worn as a dress with leggings. The concept of knitting a dress like this for myself was kind of ludicrous. I am short, quite rounded and I have always thought that a knitted dress, especially a sweater styled dress usually clings, making it look its best on on tall willowy types. I believed that I could never put a sweater dress on and not look foolish.
I am usually an optimist at heart, but not on this topic! I needed to rethink how I looked at my clothing choices.
I had already started to rethink my wardrobe in light of todays challenges with sustainability, examining the concept of slow clothes and the making and mending movements. Then I looked at my wardrobe for what I really wore the most often and what I had been putting my money into. I saw a huge difference between my Summer and Winter wardrobes.
In the summer I wear dresses. Longer, fuller dresses with cotton slips and lots of movement, quite often with vintage details. Several of which I had recently made for myself. I used to sew, in the past, and i am now refreshing my skills.
My winter wardrobe suffered by comparison. Most of my work pants were old except for the two pairs I had made myself. They don’t fit as well as I would like, but they are easy to wear and are made of wool or wool blend fabrics. My sweater and shawl collection really was what my winter wardrobe was all about. I didn’t wear dresses because they were never warm enough. I hate to be cold.
So why not knit a wool dress?
Boredom! The thought of all that plain knitting would drive me crazy. There is a reason why most of the things I knit are colourful, or textured with cables and patterns, or covered in lace patterns, or all three! I am often defeated by large swathes of stockinette fabric.
It only dawned on me recently that my dress didn’t need to be plain and it didn’t need to be heavy and I could wear it everyday in different ways. Sort of like the 100 day merino dress. Though I don’t think I could wear it 100 days in a row.
So I took some time to examine my summer dresses . What was working and why it was working. Every dress was shaped to the waist or an A-line shape. I wanted a shaped dress, not tight at the waist, but shaped and comfortable. I may look at A-line for my next dress.
How to create the shape? I thought about reversing a pi style shawl shaping for the skirt, but I think that might have been too full. I most definitely didn’t want to make a tube and then gather it to the waist, even with a lace weight yarn that is too much fabric sitting at the waistline.
I have knit myself a couple of sweaters that employed shaping around panels and thought that should also work for a skirt. Once decided, it was the matter of researching patterns and panel patterns in particular to create the way I wanted to go.
I am making a couple of adjustments. After 1 more 10-round repeat I moving my needle size down to 3.75mm from the 4.0mm. I have decided to combine physical shaping of the skirt with decreasing panels and the tightening of the gauge. This will make a smoother shape – I think. Everything is a bit of an adventure through this. I am lucky to have knit as much as I have and tried as many types of knitting as I have, it does allow me to make decisions based on experiences in the past. They may not all translate to this project, but they do help form a starting point.
Progress Report
I have knit up to the end of the chart and started my next 10-round repeat. After this repeat I will be changing my needle size. It is looking like each 10 round repeat adds approx 1.5 inches to the skirt when dry blocked. It may add a little more when wet blocked.
I am going to start designing the chart for the shaping panels this week (I have this week off from work and so have extra time). I am thinking that I will start by shaping out 1 panel out of every 3. And shape each of those panels over 40 rounds. I am hoping that this will be a slow enough to keep the shape from “belling out” and just be a smooth progressive line.
Belling out – the decreases are too quick and the dress suddenly looks like it has a line across the skirt where it has been gathered up. If it does bell – the knitting will need to be ripped back and the decreasing will have to be slowed down.
I have had a couple of people ask me why I choose Einband for my dress. They think of it as itchy. I chose it because I have used Einband before, for the Spring into Summer KAL, The Garden Gate Shawl. I was very pleased with the results from that project.
I had knit a shawl and then hand painted it with dyes. Once blocked the I found that the yarn holds the shape well. Something that I felt was important for this project. It also takes dyes beautifully and since I couldn’t decide on a colour before hand I am hoping to be able to decide after the knitting is complete! Maybe I will even paint the fabric with dyes and not immerse dye it. We shall see.
Do you have a button box? Or better yet your Mother’s or Grandmother’s button box? Do you use them? Or simply admire them? I do both.
My Mother’s box was lost to time and just one too many moves. It was a huge glass jar that I loved to look through. She didn’t do much sewing, but she would knit occasionally. Like me I think that she just loved buttons.
But my boxes are pretty full. Collected over my time of sewing, knitting and well, collecting buttons! I love buttons! They are a fabulous item that can just add that perfect touch to your finished garment or they can be applied as embellishments. Adding buttons to button bands, or as design details is the one aspect of finishing my knitted pieces that I actually enjoy! I have also used shell buttons as embellishments in many of my knits – I love their sheen and the way they pick up the colours of the yarn.
My button collection!
This morning I was busy finishing off a childs vest – Reindeer Vest – that I had Jana knit up in Patagonia Organic Merino as a store sample. I also got her to knit the doll vest – Mini Reindeer Vest – as well. The original set was my Grandson’s Christmas Gift a couple of years ago. The Mini Reindeer Vest is a free pattern and will fit most medium dolls or bears! The Reindeer Vest is 50% off right now until Nov 30. Use the code Reindeer.
It was a good thing I found a few button options for the vest as I was scrambling through my button box looking for some buttons! I started to sew on my original choice of button – I thought they were a nice bright red – I realized that the red buttons were really pink – bad early morning lighting! So, I went with another option!
Not a bad thing to have a button box at hand as buttons seem to be a little scarce right now!
It has been a good week, beautiful sunrises and sunsets at Departure Bay Beach. Roses still in bloom on the Promenade and always knitting.
A few months ago I watched a fascinating little video about Leavers Lace and why it was so expensive. Amazing!
So why has this come to mind once again?
Yesterday I went to my favourite fabric store in Victoria, Gala Fabrics. I only go about once a year and not at all in the last couple of years. Umm, I wonder why? LOL!
I generally shop the Vintage woolens section, you know the section where all the wools and wool blends are discounted to $10.00 a meter! Such a good deal! And you know that wool fabrics can be over dyed – just like wool yarns! So many options.
But I digress! Leavers Lace! This is todays topic.
As I was perusing the woolens with the help of a a wonderful sales person (I am so sorry that I didn’t get her name). She got that I was into vintage stuff and loved fabrics and she happened to mention that a great deal of very expensive beaded lace fabric had just hit the discounted fabric section. Expensive as in it used to start at $149,00 and went up to $200.00 dollars a metre and here it was at $10.00 a metre.
Not in perfect condition, despite their best efforts to protect the lace (some of it had to be over 40 years old). On some pieces the sequins were discoloured, but still iridescent and in spots the fabric had also discoloured. And it was a little dirty. Time fades us all. It doesn’t matter! Every bead and sequin had been placed by hand, the every piece lace was an intricate designs of holes that was beautiful! The work that goes into creating each piece of fabric was amazing!
Look at the drape of the fabric!
We are no longer a society that really dresses up, not with the lace, beads and sequins of the past. Perhaps for weddings or graduation parties and not so much as tastes change. Here on the west coast dress-up now is quite often a pretty dress and nylons (can the nylons – lets just say a pretty dress and sandals)!
But Oh if we were still that society!
So I bought a metre and a half of the most beautifully decorated fabric I have ever seen. Machine and handwork combined in a way we don’t see any more, except in theatrical productions and period movies. I am going to make myself a little jacket or little top to wear out and maybe bring back another era if only for a moment.
On my piece there are some loose beads and detail work that needs to be reattached. I can fix all of that. It is still so beautiful! This is the Leavers Lace.
