Tag: hoody

New dress, new jacket

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I made Simplicity 1755 to wear to a wedding. Then I realised I didn’t have a smart little jacket to wear with it, so I thought I’d better make one. This is a short bolero hoody, with long bell sleeves. (I drafted the pattern myself.) I couldn’t get any bias binding to match, and I didn’t have time to make any with the left over fabric from the dress, so I bought the least-clashing colour and went with that. What you can’t see in these pictures is the machine embroidery that I added over the top. I thought it would help to tone down the very pale lilac, so there are little leaves embroidered all over the binding. Definitely a finishing touch that I’m going to use again, I’m really pleased with it.

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Here I am, looking wistful in a gazebo. As you do. No matter how hard he tries, Paul just doesn’t seem able to take a decent photo of me, so you’ll often find me staring away from the camera looking a bit grumpy. (Any suggestions that perhaps I’m just not very photogenic will be met with derision. And then crying.)

I’m pleased with the dress, but my lack of a 1950s-style well-defined waist does make it look a bit frumpy. I do need to change the collar though. As you can see, the hook and eye kept coming undone, and that made my brooch wonky, which annoyed me all day. I’m wearing a huge floofy petticoat in these pictures, but I took that off half way through the reception because it was just too damned big and annoying. I have a very low tolerance for uncomfortable clothes, so anything that I have to fiddle with or which makes a nuisance of itself will very quickly be consigned to the charity shop pile. (Or the boot of the car, in the case of the petticoat.)

I will make another of these dresses though, just with a slight alteration to the front neck. And I’ll definitely be making more of these little jackets. The only change I need to make to this one is the hooks and eyes on the front. I think I’ve sewn the eyes on back-to-front (I didn’t realise it mattered!), and the jacket won’t stay closed. But once I’ve sorted out the fastening, I want to make another one with narrower sleeves, and one with a printed cotton lining, and a longer one with pockets, and a fancy one with needle felting… I have a lot of plans for this design!

Black Fleece Hoody

Black fleece hoody

I’ve been saving my pennies for ages, and last week my copy of the Cochenille Garment Designer software arrived. I haven’t said too much about it yet because I’m still on the steep part of the learning curve. This means that anything I might have wanted to say was probably unprintable anyway.

The first pattern I drafted and printed out was a simple dress… which would have been lovely if it hadn’t turned out to be at least six inches too big! I hadn’t checked the design ease in the pattern, and it was rather more generous than I’d expected. Oops.

Black fleece hoody

This little fleece hoody is my second attempt, and I’m really pleased with it! Isn’t it adorable? I particularly like the slim bell sleeves and the edge-to-edge fastening at the front. It’s trimmed with bias binding because they’s my current obsession. I think it makes for a lovely neat edge, and it would be great in a contrasting colour too.

Unfortunately I went a little bit too far the other way with the design ease on this one, and it’s come out a little bit too small for me. I’ve popped it into my Big Cartel store, alongside the organic fabrics, so if you’re a size 34-36″ chest it might be just right for you.

This pattern’s definitely a keeper though, unlike my first attempt. And now I’ve made one pattern that’s much too big, and a second one that’s much too small… it stands to reason that the third pattern I make should be just right!

HUGGIES!

This is a knitting pattern from 1977. My sister and I (and probably my Mum and Dad as well) wore many incarnations of this cardigan over the years, all knitted by my Mum.

Once you’ve stopped laughing at the extremely dated styling on the pattern cover, this is actually a really nice cardigan. It can be knitted either in chunky yarn, or with two strands of double knitting held together. You can choose between a collar or a hood. It doesn’t give instructions for pockets, but I think if I knitted this again, I’d add them.

1970s cardigan

I think the only thing I’d do differently is the buttonholes. The moss stitch border is five stitches wide, but you make the buttonholes only one stitch away from the edge. I think I’d move them over, just by one more stitch, to give the button band a bit more stability. Admittedly I have sewn on rather large and heavy buttons, so I might reinforce the bands on this one with a strip of fabric.

I did really want to knit the hood, but it turned out that twelve balls of Debbie Bliss Soho wasn’t quite enough. Just one more ball would have done the hood, and probably a pair of pockets as well. One of the problems with older patterns is that they don’t give the weight or yardage of the specified yarn, so you just have to try and make an educated guess.

Now I just need to decide which yarn I want to use for my next one…

Trailing Leaf

This little beauty is “Trailing Leaf” by Amanda Jones, and it’s on page 66 of issue 6 of The Knitter.

I have a whole bag full of Rowan Cashcotton 4 ply in a lovely peachy colour, which I think would be perfect for this.

[edit] Oops – there’s a misprint, and the pattern calls for DK, not 4-ply.

I’m still knitting this fabulous 1970s hoody, but I have reached the point where it’s painfully obvious that I don’t have enough Debbie Bliss Soho left to finish knitting the hood. Actually, I reached that point quite a long time ago, but I spent yesterday evening knitting the hood anyway.

Chatting to other knitters, it’s clear that it’s not just me who’s determined to keep knitting in these circumstances, as though some extra wool is mysteriously going to materialise through sheer force of wishful thinking. It’s the same as knitting faster when you think you might not have quite enough yarn to make it to the end of a project. Common sense (and, you know, physics) dictates that wool doesn’t magically get longer the faster you knit, so why do we persist?

My plan for this evening is to unravel my poor half-knitted hood, and start again with a big collar. After that I can spend the weekend blocking and sewing, and I’ll have a nice new chunky cardigan. Just in time for summer…