Birthday T-shirt - the stick stencil

 I couldn't let June go by without a t-shirt for the freshly teenaged kiddo. (oh my)

As always I asked what he wanted, what's the "thing" this year. No more Pokemon or fidget spinners.. this year he wanted a lacrosse stick on his birthday t-shirt. Not as easy as it sounds.

Obviously the stick part is easy, but the whole mesh basket bit definitely wasn't. I figured the only way to distinguish a women's from a men's lacrosse stick was the pocket, so I turned it to be side on. 

The stick, lettering (yes, I've outed his name, shhh) and head were all part of a freezer paper stencil. Then I just freehand painted the mesh.

On the back, a big number 7. His playing number.

Once I'd finished the painting (Setacolour opaque fabric paints) then it was a simple matter of sewing up the t-shirt. 

The pattern is Jalie Nico (Jalie 3669) is size Q with no alterations. The grey cotton lycra was out of the stash and came from RubyJam. It's a lovely quality, and I'd had other plans for it but c'est la vie. The sleeves were meant to be black, but amazingly I had no black cotton lycra left. A quick trip to Spotlight didn't yield any black but I phoned home and checked that the club colour of dark green would be even better.

I also zoomed out to buy a second bobbin casing for my new sewing machine (I really need to introduce it, it's amazing!). I'd had twin needle hemming down to a fine art with the old machine and needed to set it up nicely for this one. There is a factory bobbin holder (blue mark) that is looser tension so I bought that. It's not loose enough to use with woolly nylon and a twin needle so my hems are a bit tight. I'll take to it with the screw driver and tinker until I get the sweet up as sweet as it should be.

Meanwhile, unless the hems pop, he's a happy teenager and he's confused all the other kids in the team who suddenly thought personalised lacrosse t-shirts were an available thing. Nope!

Little crop tops and a failed leotard

Quite some time ago, I made a leotard for my daughter for the end of gymnastics term costume day. The theme was rainbow (again?) and so I used some of the leftover rainbow flame lycra seen here.

I thought I could be clever and mash the top half of one Jalie pattern with the shorts part of another, forgetting that the only way into a leotard is through the neck opening. With quite a bit of shoving we got a kid into the leotard but it was a disaster, worn once and then chucked.

But... the Jalie crop top pattern looked promising and so I made one in a scrap of cotton lycra. She loves it.

The lining is swimsuit lining and the neck and armholes finished with fold over elastic. The pattern is Jalie 3247, View A (I forget the size, but am pretty sure it's the only tracing in the package)

One wasn't enough, so I whipped up another two in the very last remnants of some lovely cotton knit.

They're in constant rotation and I think I hit the jackpot with these - at least compared to the impossible to get into, ill fitting, poorly laundered, not so bright rainbow leotard. Easy to succeed when you're following after such a trainwreck!

Irma Hat for my dad

 A few weeks ago I found myself in the city on a day off (now we're home-schooling and home office-ing and in lockdown v4 it feels like a lifetime ago and a real treat)…

For the first time I wandered into Morris & Sons and found the loveliest, squishiest wool. I decided to knit my dad a beanie.

I was interested to try a pattern with some texture or design to it, but I'm not yet feeling ready for cables. I found the Irma Hat - a free pattern on Ravelry and then read a lot of the reviews. 

It appeared it might need some sizing tweaks, and I know my dad would rate his head size as larger than average. So I upped the needle size from 3.5 (rib brim) and 4.5 (main body) to 4.0 and 5.0 respectively. I also cast on 108 stitches instead of 92

The other change I made in sizing was to knit 3&1/2 rounds of the hat body pattern rather than 2&1/2 before beginning the crown shaping. I'm happy to say the sizing worked out perfectly. I tried it on after I'd finished and before blocking it and it made for a pretty slouchy beanie on me, but when I'd tried it with only the 2&1/2 rounds it had too much of a skull cap vibe.

I found it much easier to get the right leaning stripes (K2tog) to look tight compared to the left leaning stripes (SSK). With a fluffy, multi-coloured yarn it doesn't look too gappy or unbalanced but it could get messy if I tried with a flatter yarn or a solid colour.

As a design change, and a chance to try something new I also altered the rib brim. I did a provisional cast on (waxed macrame thread worked really nicely as the waste yarn) with a crochet chain. Then knit double the number of 1x1 rib rows before folding the brim up and joining the cast  on row into the main knitting.

The double rib brim is so nice and extra squishy I think I'd always do this for a beanie from now on.

If I sound like I suddenly know what I'm doing, I don't. But I have this book (The Knitter's Book of Knowledge - Debbie Bliss) and it's brilliant!

I used two balls (2x50g) of the Morris & Sons Peru - wool/alpaca blend (green graphite colour). They came as shanks and I wound them into balls. Without really thinking about it I used the first ball pulling from the centre, and then the second ball winding from the outside. It means the colour stripes are mirrored which looks kinda cool and I wish I could say I'd thought to do it.

With the doubled brim, the greater number of cast on stitches, bigger needles and extra pattern repeat it turned out the 100g (approx 200m) was exactly the right amount of yarn. There's barely a ping pong ball sized leftover.

I posted it off to my dad on Monday and heard it had arrived on Thursday and he's happy. Perfect for pottering about in the garage in the middle of winter.

Cartwheel Wrap Dress

 And with this pattern it's a wrap*. I have now sewn every Oliver + S children's pattern at least once (and many of them many, many times)

*Cartwheel Wrap Dress

The modelled photos are from quite some time ago. Late March perhaps? We'd gone into the city to see a show for the Melbourne Comedy Festival. 

By the end of the night the city was looking beautiful, as it often does...

The fabric was an impulse buy from the remnant bins at Rathdowne Fabrics. It's a cotton poplin with slightly diagonal stripes of elephants. I figured A would like the colours and who doesn't like elephants? I confess I sewed it because I wanted to. I have no ambitions for it being worn much and expect it may get handed down after only a few wears. Some patterns make you just want to sew them.

I'm going to be a bad blogger and not even try and remember what size I made. It will be written on the tracing interfacing as it's the only copy of this pattern. I suspect it's a straight size 12 which sees her outgrowing these beautiful patterns.

Of course it was a joy to sew with some clever details and finishing that I would not have figured out had I been trying to make an overlapping wrap skirt with lined bodice dress on my own!

I'm going to have make one of these patterns every few months for someone else's small child, just to keep my love of sewing from growing stale. They were the patterns that first made it all make sense to me, and they're the ones I always turn to for a the sewing equivalent of an amuse-bouche.

If you haven't sewn one yet, then dive in. Bon appetit!

Little things without patterns

When motivation for a big project is lacking, I quite enjoy making something up in an afternoon using scraps.

In that way, our guinea pigs have come to be the happy occupants of not one, but two woollen winter tents.

Here's the original with them kind of modelling in it...

I cut a 10"x10" square for the base then 4 triangles, each with 10" wide base and whatever side length (you do the math) resulted from cutting to the centre of the top of the square.

The main fabric is scraps of wool coating. That was then basted to stiff interfacing. The lining is some leftover sweater wool from this very cosy jumper.

On this first version I constructed both tents, outer and then inner and then attached them by hand sewing the bias binding around the door opening. I didn't secure the lining inside as it's good to be able to pull it out through the door to shake out all the poo (so much poo!) and when washing.

It's getting cold, and they definitely like their tent. It needs a wash once a week when we do the hutch clean out so I thought I'd make a second to be used while this one's drying...

I've just bought myself a new sewing machine (I think she needs an introductory blog post of her own, doesn't she?!) and it's a beauty.

So, in playing with some of the automatic embroidery stitches I added their names over the door..

This time I sewed the opening bias binding on the machine at the start and then constructed the outer tent to one side and the inner lining tent to another side before finally turning the whole thing inside out through an opening in the back of the lining tent.  The lining on this one was an old ready to wear wool sweater of mine which had a few holes in it, but I could cut around those.

They are so stupidly cute.

Equally cute is the big kid who started high school this year and needed a laptop case for his school computer. I was keen to make one but wasn't sure he'd let me... He finally realised he'd never be able to purchase a simple pouch that also had space for a mouse, charger and ear phones. It seems laptop cases are either minimalist shells or big bags. Mum to the rescue..

I started with just some measurements and what was  in the stash. Thankfully the "Glory Days of Motor Sport at Albert Park" was in the book stash and is exactly the same dimensions as the school laptop so I used that as my template.

The design was dictated by having a vintage zipper that was exactly the right length to go around three sides and make it open flat. The fabric was a remnant of a thick cotton moleskin, some wool batting and lining from Flipper's Tron shirt. (If you're in the mood for a flashback, here's some cute little baddies in their Tron pyjamas!)

I started with a welt pocket opening for the earbud pocket

Then added a flap with some reflective piping sewn in.

And then I made some maths mistakes so I stopped photographing the progress shots as that seemed too much like tempting fate.

For the main front pocket to store the mouse and charger I used the technique from the bellowed pocket of the Oliver + S Field Trip cargo pants

I thought I'd calculated the width of the pocket plus the extra for the height, but when I went to make the box corners I realised I'd only added the height once, rather than twice (each side).

So the pocket ended up slightly smaller and shallower than I'd intended. but it also ended up exactly the right size for its purpose. Go figure!

I trimmed some sections of the Vlisco lining fabric to use as highlights, then just ran a basting stitch to enable me to fold under the curved edges and applique stitched them onto the front. I was deligted with how cool it looks. I even remembered to tuck a little "You Can't Buy This" label under the applique on the main pocket.

Sewing metal zippers around corners isn't exactly fun, but it's not really that hard either. I'm glad I bothered as he loves how it lays flat and he doesn't have to get the laptop in and out through an opening. The one addition he's said that he'd like is little elastic corners (like photo corners) so the computer can keep wearing it's cover once opened. I think that confirms that he thinks it's pretty cool too.

I wonder if, in two years time, my scribblings in the sewing journal make any sense. I'd love to be able to get the maths wrong in exactly the same way and make one just like this for the littlest when she starts high school.

Tessuti linen apron

Where did April go? I've been making things alright, but my motivation for updating the blog has hit a wall. - I think that's to do with a pattern test I did in January that kinda sucked as an experience. I want to write about the sewing and pattern reviewing experience because I document everything here, but it won't be an altogether pleasant write up, so I keep putting it off.

Meanwhile I make stuff.... Easter sees us travel out to my parents place for the long weekend and I always like to take along a little non-machine project. I decided to make an apron for a client of mine.

I bought 1.5m of lovely natural linen from Fabric Deluxe and then downloaded and printed off the free Tessuti Apron pattern while I was at my folks place.

That always sounds like an easy thing to do but it never is. I should have been able to download to my phone and print from there via the wireless connection at my parent's house. But inevitably the printer settings need tweaking and the test square is never right. It took about 4 tries and using the main pc not a phone to get the printer to not scale or adjust the pattern. I have a nice crossover back apron pattern in Sanae Ishida's book Sewing Happiness that is based on rectangles, but I was keen on the curved armholes of this pattern. So often PDF pattern's are more trouble than their worth, even when they're free! I'm glad I persevered as the apron turned out beautifully.

All I sewed on that weekend away was the handstitching on the pocket anyway, and I adjusted the pocket size to suit my stitching, so the pattern could have waited until I was home.

I didn't want the threads on the back of the pocket to be exposed so I made it a lined pocket, turned through an opening at the bottom. 

Otherwise I mostly followed the pattern, although I turned a 5/8" hem rather than 1/2" and followed Liesl's technique of basting along the fold line, pressing up, then tucking under the raw edge. As opposed to Tessuti's suggested technique of trying to baste the 1/4" line and turning twice.

I wouldn't normally sew something for a client, but this lady is especially nice. She's the Japanese-Australian grandmother whose adult son is technically the dog' owner, but she's very involved in the dog's care. During our long lockdown last winter she took up baking and would regularly come to visit the clinic and bring me biscuits or cakes. (vet clinics were one of the few open businesses and I think we got  a lot of visitors who just needed an outing more than anything else!)

Her little dog has a ridiculous list of illnesses and injuries for one so young, so she keeps me both busy and well fed with snacks! Bless little Ada. (and yes, she usually looks that cross when she comes to see me, so I think my embroidery is fair! :) )

I hope my apron is well liked and useful. I enjoyed making it.