Melbourne Frocktails 2025

Holy smokes, it's almost a year since my last blog post. I've been making things like crazy, of course, but even snapping a quick picture seems to elude me these days.

Melbourne Frocktails has to be documented on the blog and this year I decided to knit!

photo by Penny Stephens

I liked the idea of a close fitted lace blouse with a simple skirt and I already had just the pattern: The Barbroe Blouse in the Knitting For Olive book.

Ruth (Rootaberger, long time blog reader, I'm the fan ) and I went to the Bendigo Wool Show in July and amazingly had shopping lists and a plan. Of course we came home with more than we'd planned for!

On my shopping list was some very dark colour of fingering silk to make the Barbroe Blouse. I spotted the Green Tea Yarns silk and when I asked about a sombre, dark shade (what is it with yarn people and all those bright colours?!) I was pointed to some dyed-just-for-the-show navy which apparently nobody else was yet to show any interest in. Perfect! 

The knitting was a journey and the full notes with all the tweaking to fit adjustments is finally up on Ravelry

For the skirt I wanted something with a flat waistband and hip area, knowing that the top would lay over it, then an A-line or wider skirt.

Turns out the Vogue 1486 pattern that was a free giveaway from Simplicity McCalls Australia in last year's Melbourne Frocktails stash bag was just the thing.

The skirt pattern is intended to be made in scuba knit and left un-hemmed. I wanted to use silk to match my blouse, definitely needed hemming and lining and only had a too small pattern, but the style was right so I made it work. Oh, and I wanted a curved waistband so it would lay flatter under my blouse than the high rectangle of the pattern. Not much to change, right?

The silk fabric was a very cheap shantung out of India from an Etsy seller. It feels crisp like paper which is what I wanted, but I could have done without the fraying!

I used the waistband from the Grasser wide leg jeans that I'm loving wearing (but still haven't documented here) and then slashed and spread the too small skirt pattern pieces to fit the waistband. I used an invisible zip instead of the pattern's exposed zipper.

The skirt has come out to be worn again since Frocktails and I really like the shape. It's fancy fabric but can easily be dressed down with T-shirt and sandals.

Frocktails came around and the weather turned awful! We had sideways rain all day long and it barely got to 12degC. At least that meant I could wear a camisole under my almost see through lace top and not be too hot.

We do so much planning together for Melbourne Frocktails, but Lisa and I never share what we're going to wear - it's good to have a surprise. Yet this year we looked almost co-ordinated...

Photo by Penny Stephens

Here's Rooty and I in the photobooth! Cheers.

Shawls (that necessitated white shirts)

Wow, happy new year I guess, and it's April...

I've been making the same ludicrous amount of stuff but I just can't seem to get around to documenting anything. And of course that means I have no idea if that means I added 4" leg length to P's trackpants, or 8" to his sleeve length. And since that's meant to be the whole point of the blog, I get stuck and don't start.

Here's some pictures of shawls I knitted in 2023 that then required me to sew black ponte leggings and white shirts. Which did get recorded on the blog.

This shawl is the Girl's Best Friend Shawl by Isabel Kramer

It came about after I'd attended the She's So Crafty stall/fair with Rootaberger and bought three skeins of gorgeously squishy yarn with no particular plan in mind.

All three are merino/silk/yak light fingering weight. Two from Fluff and Nonsense, and one from The Purl Box (Maven yarn)

Then I just had to find a pattern that would use no more than what I'd bought, all three colours, and be interesting to knit. 

The pattern was very well written and definitely engaging. It also helped that I'd just rolled my ankle at that mountain bike race, round about this time last year, so I was very happy to sit and knit. And knit. And knit. 

I hadn't really thought I was a pom pom person, but they're perfect on the shawl.

I'm sure I then went on to sew, crochet or knit other things. I might have even tidied up, or done my tax return. But since I photographed this next shawl on the same day, it can be documented here, all out of order, as well.

This time I knew exactly what I wanted to make, and then I set out to find the yarn to suit the pattern. The pattern is the Scout Mini Shawl by Florence Spurling

I had so much fun knitting the big Scout Shawl. This one has all same interest generated by little panels of colourwork joined with intarsia, but with a smaller yarn and time outlay. Winner!

The yarns came from Fibresmith and are their hand-dyed merino mini skeins. At that stage Leslie was only selling them in bundles and at 70m/20g I would need two of each colour, plus a third skein of one of them. thankfully, with a little begging email I managed to get a single skein of almost the exact same shade as the two lightest skeins.

Then I just had to work out which ones to use where... It's very low contrast colourwork no matter how I arranged them, but I'm good with that.

This yarn comes in at about 400m/100g and the difference in the final knitted fabric between this, and my original scout shawl is quiet noticeable. this is a really, dense, almost felted feeling fabric. I suspect I may not have swatched and just used the pattern's recommended needle size, whereas I'd gone up two sizes for my Scout Shawl

I could definitely make this pattern over again as well. I guess I'm on my way to having enough little bits of yarn leftovers that a "free" one might come about one day...

NAiMA Pullover

It's been such a constantly rainy day here that it seems appropriate to finally upload some details of a jumper I knitted in winter of last year.

It's the NAiMA Pullover by Ankestrick knitted in cascade Heathers yarn (100g/200m Colour 2431)

I think it was as I was making white shirts I suddenly decided I needed a chocolate brown, chunky knit sweater to wear over them, But then I went and fell in love with a sweater pattern that had a high neck such that it wouldn't work well over a collar with a shirt after all.

I got gauge, or at least very close to, using bigger needles than the pattern recommended: 4.5mm for body and 3.75mm for the ribbing. My gauge was 17 stitches and 22 rows per 10x10cm instead of 16/22 and I guess over a full garment that one stitch per 10cm makes a difference.

I made size 4 which would give me 5" positive ease around the chest but it probably came out a bit smaller, and more fitted, than the pattern model's version. But I really like the fit as it is. Initially I was wishing I'd gone slightly longer in the body, but after wearing it quite a bit last winter I've come around to the top of the hip length. I knitted the straight body version (there balloon shape and  A line shape options) and did, for some reason, stop about 5cm shorter than the pattern suggestion.

The pattern was very well written and was a delight to knit. There is this lovely eyelet pattern that continues from the raglan sleeve down the front and back sides. It's not the softest wool in the world (there's a knitted cardigan in the world's softest wool yet to be blogged about) but over a merino tee it's a very useful winter sweater.

Of course I did then go on to find the perfect V neck pattern (and more yarn :) ) to knit for wearing over my white shirts. That one will have to wait until next winter. It might be raining here but it's not cold enough to be knitting heavy wool

A little challenging: vanilla dress

I do love a challenge and if it's small and the price of failure is low, even better.

When my Frocktails co-organiser Lisa's little baby was about to turn one, it seemed the perfect opportunity to try knitting a cute little dress. That it would only take two 50g balls of yarn made it too tempting.

With some Knitting For Olive merino/cotton (colour: dusty artichoke) from The Yarn Bowl and the Vanilla Dress pattern from Knitting for Olive, I was off.

Right from the start there were some new tricks to learn. The neckline is started on a crochet chain and then an I cord bind off is done to create the neck edge. Neat and easy to follow.

I was going great guns until I got to the main lace pattern and then I couldn't figure out how the stitch count worked. It was Easter and I was out in  the country at my folks place. A quick help-needed post to Ravelry and I had a reply in a time that would put emergency services to shame. They explained how to read the chart without necessarily starting at the farthest right and ending at the farthest left - the only way I'd read a chart up until this point.

I think I'm getting the hang of it now.

Then I went and rolled my ankle at a mountain bike race - I got off to walk a tricky downhill section and failed at walking! Loud crack, monstrous swelling and pain and I had to hop out of the bush with the St John's guys and Marshals half carrying me. More time to knit, I guess...

The next challenge that was new to me was to knit the little sleeves in the round on double pointed needles.

I have a gorgeous set of KnitPro Ginger interchangeable circular needles, and a matching set of KnitPro Ginger single pointed needles. Obviously I needed to complete my needle stash with the Ginger double pointed needles.

Knitting with double pointed needles was a bit like wrestling a spider with tetanus to begin with. Eventually I worked out how to hold the needles so it was less like Pick-Up-Sticks and more of a continuous, smooth action.

And then it was finished. Nothing beats a baby sized garment for a somewhat immediate result!

It was blocked on the day of the first birthday party which I couldn't make it to as my ankle was nowhere near good enough for driving.

But just last weekend I caught up with Lisa and baby Cleo and gifted it. I hope it fits!

Having finally got my head around the pattern and all I learned from it, I'd jump at the chance to knit it again in a bigger size for next year. What a great experience.

Jim Sweater

I've sewn and made a bunch of stuff since the last blog post about the Jutland pants, but it appears this blog is brought to you by the letter "J", so here's my Jim sweater*

* my dad's name is Jim, he's just had his 80th birthday, and no, I wasn't a good enough daughter to make him a sweater.

This is the first full size garment I've knitted and I now understand the tedium of "sleeve island".

The pattern is the Jim Sweater by Paula M. I'd previously knitted both her Thea top and her Basic Shirt t-shirt, as well as crocheting the Lucca hat. And I'd found all of those patterns well written and easy to follow.

This one, not so.

The instructions for the yoke, with increases at the shoulder and the 2x2 rib pattern were not clear at all and assumed some knitting knowledge of working in a pattern that I didn't have. I emailed Susanne (the pattern writer) and she tried to help but the language barrier and her knowing what to do meant we didn't get far. Eventually the Ravelry forum crowd talked me through it.

I rewrote the yoke instructions to be 4 rounds of increases which actually told me what to do at each row. Happy to forward that word file to anyone who owns the pattern and has found this blog post by  typing "Jim sweater yoke increases wtf" into a search engine.

Perversely, after giving little hand holding on the yoke section, the next section seemed to overexplain; telling me, twice, not to do something I would never have thought to do anyway, and that wasn't in the instructions. That made me worry that I was missing something all along that I was now meant to stop doing. Ravelry again came to my rescue with an explanation.

Finally I had the body done and could start on the sleeves...

and yep, that took forever!

I finished it just before we went on holiday in September and took it with me, but it hadn't been blocked and was feeling sloppy and the sleeves were weirdly twisting. Curiously, the sleeves seemed to both be rotating anti-clockwise so I guess it's something to do with knitting in the round. 

Now that I've finally blocked it, it's behaving perfectly.

I used Cascade Ultra Pima Cotton in grey and navy, using most of 5 skeins of the grey and about 1&1/2 of the navy. Size M with 4.0 needles to get gauge.

It's not a superwarm sweater being cotton., But on this day when it suddenly got into the mid twenties after so many cold days it was getting hot!

Elvan Shawl

Did I already say I'm not really a shawl person? I might not wear them but I so much enjoyed knitting the Scout Shawl that I couldn't help but plan another shawl. Sticking with Florence Spurling as a designer I decided to try her Elvan Shawl pattern

This one took a bit more planning due to the number of colours needed and my wool stash not yet (ha!) being up to the task. Once everything was assembled I couldn't wait to start.

The yarn is a beautiful wool/mohair blend from Wagtail yarns. This 60% mohair 40% merino 5 ply was exactly the weight required for the pattern and there were options to purchase 25G miniskeins, 50g, 100g or 300g cones. I needed small amounts of 9 different colours as well as 300g of a main colour so the ability to get the same yarn across different sizes was a real boon and a huge cost saving.

It also happens to be the most exquisite yarn. This is how I wear this shawl in reality. Right up close to me!

The knitting was a lot of fun. My little bobbles got neater as I went and certainly "popped" nicely with blocking. What blocking couldn't do was stop the ends curling. The finished shawl reminds me a lot of an octopus: curly, sucker covered limbs. Only it feels more like cuddling a baby cashmere goat than a cephalopod.

My progress photos show me starting in late March

Knitting through April

And finishing and blocking in early May

The heated concrete slab of our renovated house is perfect for blocking and drying knitting!

I wasn't sure about all the colour combinations and when I got to the yellow and blue centre motif I did feel it was too bright for me. But, that was just about the time that Russia invaded Ukraine and to reject the yellow and blue was unthinkable.

My notes scribbled on the pattern shows I used 3.5mm needles to get gauge in stead of 3.75mm.

The colours I used are as follows: 

Main colour: coffee

CC1: Navy

CC2: Mushroom pink

CC3: Copper

CC4: Saffron

CC5: Sage

CC6: Olive

CC7: Mushroom

CC8: Slate grey

CC9: Brown