My Creative Space

Vaguely inspired by this necklace from Anthropologie I am trying to use up some of my seed beads, purchased in a large quantity from the Rozelle markets. I had however forgotten how very boring it is to thread seed beads, especially in the quantity I am trying to do, need a good movie to watch at the same time really. My necklace won't look anything like the Anthropologie, but the colours are pretty similar and that was what drew me to that particular necklace.

Anyhoo - loads more going on over at Kootoyoo :-)

Cheering me up today

I have some long put off big decisions to make, and it is not going well. Luckily I have these two recently acquired vintage brooches to cheer me up. The daisy is from a lovely vintage store and tearoom called Geordie Lane, in the Blackall Range, Queensland and the blue one is from my local salvo's. Got to love flowers!

What I've been up too...

Well, it has been a while hasn't it?

My mum has been visiting so I have been taking a break from blogging (and crafting). We just spent a lovely weekend in Bateman's Bay, where the absolute highlight was seeing Southern Right Whales literally 5 - 10 metres off the coast, amazing!

My knitting is still going ahead and the dress I last blogged about here, is finished but I am not happy with the fit so needs a a bit of work before I will post about it.

Thats it for me really - what have you all been up too?

My Creative Space

I am working on another dress at the moment, which is going to be very interesting. I don't normally wear a lot of colour, but have been trying to change that, and this fabric just caught my eye.

So I am going with a simple strapless dress with a big white sash to break up the colour a little:

This in itself poses some challenges, I have never used boning before so that is going to be an interesting exercise. Also the sizing of this dress seems very weird (I am using New Look 6773), as after cutting out the size I should have been given the patterns measurements, it appears that it is still about 2 sizes to big! So I am having to make some major adjustments..

I am of course still working on the cardigan, I have been having some issues with the increase stitches. My m1r leaves large holes, I have already undone a few rows and knitted them them again but there are still holes. They are not too big so I am going to have to put up with them. I am hoping once it is all sewn together they wil not be too visible...

Lots more lovely creative people over at Kootoyoo - have a lovely day!

The Parfait Dress

My husband and I just spent the weekend on the Sunshine Coast which was lovely. We spent Saturday at the Blackall Range, walking, eating, singing along to cheesy songs in the car and on Sunday we explored the coast, played in the waves, explored rock pools and are lots of fish and chips, it was bliss.

I had been trying to get the parfait dress finished in time for this trip and I succeeded! So, feeling like a right twit I had my husband take some photos of me on the beach, so here you go.

This dress was a challenge, technically it is not that hard but for some reason nothing really wanted to come together on it for me. I documented some of the trials here. But it has mostly worked out, my solution to the brozen zipper is less then ideal, I am using a necklace clasp at the moment but I want to buy a soldering iron so will be able to fix it better then. I interfaced it with a silk organza to try keep it cool for summer, which worked really well so I might start doing that more. There are a few things I would change if I make it again, mainly, I would put the zip to the top of the dress (the pattern says to sew the seams for a couple of inches and then insert the zip) as I found it really hard to insert the zip with the dress already sewn together. I would also make some small adjustments to the way the midriff is constructed.

But, other then all of that I am happy with the way it has turned out, and I felt very stylish on the beach. I have already started cutting out the next project, the fabric is a riot, but more on that another time.

My first cardigan - part 2 - unhelpful instructions for beginners

I guess I should have expected it, but, every now and then I have run into some instructions which while I am sure the pro knitters out there can handle without a second thought have left me going down some very wrong routes. The latest example was when I got up to the ribbing and the instructions read:

K1, *p1, k1; reapeat from* to end. Cont in rib as established for 24 rows.

To the novice, this reads like you continue the exact pattern for 24 rows, which I started to do, and after three rows realised I was producing a seed stitch and not a rib. So I had to do a little research to realise that what I actually needed to do was:

K1, *p1, k1; reapeat from* to end. Next row P1, *k1, p1; repeat from * to end.

Seed Stitch

Ribbing

I guess I have to put it all down to the learning experience, but I am pleased I looked carefully at the pictures first, so had an idea of what each stitch needed to look like before beginning, otherwise I could have had a disaster on my hands!

Anyone else ever come across instructions that make no sense to a beginner?

My Creative Space

Today I am trying to turn a rather uninspiring pink singlet..

into something a little bit special with some antique lace.

So that hopefully it looks a little like this.

Also, my cardigan continues to grow, slowly but steadily.

Lots more creative spaces at Kootoyoo.

Iva Rose

So, my entire inspiration for wanting to learn knitting again was this cardigan Casey made. I just think it is gorgeous, so when she mentioned she got the pattern from a reproduction knitting book from Iva Rose I immediately looked it up and fell in love with about 6 of the patterns. My book arrived yesterday and I am very happy with it, although as I just started a cardigan everything in my new book will have to wait. But, in this post I just want to say how great the service was at Iva Rose. I dealt with Peggy, who was amazing. There was an issue with the payment which she dealt with straight away, and she even found me a link to see some other examples of patterns I had purchased knitted up. How is that for service?? If you are looking for knitting patterns I highly recommend checking out this website.

And I think that is why I love this world-wide crafting community, wether it is the lovely comments people leave, how open people are on their blogs, or the amazing one on one service you get from the online crafty retailers, you get a real feeling of community. It is such a shame that we have to go to cyber space to get that now... but I feel very lucky that I stumbled upon it x

Documenting my attempt at a cardigan - Part 1

The wool has been bought, the needles have been bought, a tension square has been knitted and hours have been spent mulling over the size so it must be time to start.

The pattern calles for a cotton silk blend, but I have chosen a 100% cotton, as this little cardigan is for summer and I want it to be as cool as possible. I ended up with 10 balls of Jo Sharp DK cotton in the colour 'Carmen', which is a dark red, almost a burgundy. This photo shows the colour best.

The next issue was the sizing, the pattern had sizes for a 36" bust and a 40", while I am a 37". I hmm'd and haa'd and finally decided to just make the 36", my knitting is a bit loose and I would rather have something a touch to small then a top I am swimming in. Plus, you have to love ravelry where you can see so many versions of this made up by every different size.

And so, I begin. And up until about row 9 it was going very well. The first 10 rows are a seed stitch, which it took me 2 tries to figure out (turned out you have to move the unknitted yarn with each stitch, which makes sense). But then at row 10 (I think) I managed to do something very weird, I thought it was dropped stitches, but as I ended up with two extra stitches after attempting to fix it I now have no idea. Here is my attempt at resolving to the situation.

So now I am left with the dilemma, to tink or not to tink? Can I live with this little mistake, it is at the back after all, or is it worth the trouble to undo those rows and re-knit them. If you have any thought or advice then please let me know :-)