You guys! I have lost my camera cable!
I am going to find a solution today and upload my photos of Me-Made-May 1st and 2nd, and some other projects I’ve been working on.
Stay tuned!
Blog
Me-Made-May 2014!
This is the first year I’ve decided that I have enough handmade clothes to last me throughout the whole of Me-Made-May! I made my pledge today over on So, Zo. Here it is:
I, Christina of http://www.cutiefulchristina.com, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May 2014. I endeavour to wear at least one handmade item (excluding underpants which are mostly handmade) every day for the duration of May 2014.
I won’t be able to wear unique items every day, I just don’t have enough. But I might be surprised! Some days I find myself wearing 100% me-made clothes (excluding footwear and bras) – and some nights too! I have 2 pairs of handmade pyjamas which are in high rotation. Plus I think I have an advantage because I have a bunch of knitting as well as sewing!
Why Participate?
1. I really love the handmade/sewing online community and I like to participate as much as I can. It’d be nice to get some new readers too!
2. I’m looking forward to finding some holes in my handmade wardrobe and filling them! For example, I like to wear t-shirts and pants on weekends and I have no handmade t-shirts. Billions of skirts though.
3. This will give me a chance to figure out why I don’t wear some things I made. And then when the month is over, I will be able to re-work or chuck out the stuff I don’t like!
4. It’s fun to do challenges!
I’m going to take photos of each handmade outfit and post them on my blog – possibly not daily but in a weekly round up. I prefer that format on other people’s blogs so I should stick to that right??
Links
Here’s where you can sign up on So, Zo’s blog
Here’s a link to the flickr pool where people will post photos
Here’s a link to the Me-Made-May Pinterest board
Will you join Me-Made-May??
Finished – "Mattias" fair isle jumper for Charles!
Here is my first significant unselfish knitting project – and my first fair isle project – a jumper for my husband Charles. He was getting jealous of all the lovely new knits I was getting and asked me to make something for him!
I am pretty happy with how this turned out, seeing as it was my first attempt at fair isle. Knitting fair isle itself isn’t hard, it’s just a little annoying to have to weave in the unused yarn so it’s not too loopy at the back. I ended up with some very tangled balls of wool!
Charles really likes his new jumper, he wears it a lot! But beware this pattern!
I did have to make some heavy modifications to the pattern. I cast off the underarms where written, but stopped for the neckline much sooner than the pattern indicatd. Charles’ arms aren’t as wide as his entire chest, you see. I also re-did the neckline because it was too loose. It’s all detailed in my Ravelry notes, but it was a bit of a headache making it sit right.
When I first sewed in the sleeves, there was a huge amount of bulk at the front, so I re-did the sleeve heads to be smaller and also tucked in a little of the front armhole when re-sewing them together. Now it works pretty well!
It is crazy hard to get a good photo of these colours! It’s a denim blue, quite muted in real life. In photos the white tends to be overexposed which changes everything!
“YES! I have a new jumper!”
Hooray!
Pants take two!
I made another pair of pants!
Same pattern as last time, Knit Wit 2100.
I narrowed the legs quite a lot, and evened out the hip curve. It fits really well!
A bit of wrinkling in the back but it’s pretty good.
From a distance they look like regular suit trousers! But in reality they’re comfy stretchy pants I can slip on!
The blouse is me-made too, from a Gothic and Lolita Bible pattern yonks ago. I remember it was in Japanese and I couldn’t read it! But it’s got cute pintucks in the front so I like it a lot.
Pants! Knitwit pattern 2100.
Look! I made some pants!
These crazy pants are KnitWit 2100, and I chose to do view A (the easy one). View B has pockets and more difficult fastenings at the waistband. I omitted the pleat down the middle to avoid looking too much like a nana! I got the pattern from an op shop, I love knitwit patterns!
The fabric was a gift from Charles’ grandmother, and is a fairly old cotton-elastic blend knit. I can tell it’s got elastic in it because it’s perishing slightly! It doesn’t quite stretch back into shape when I pull it. I made these pants as a toile, as I’d bought some nice black ponte to make another pair.
The alterations I plan to make include making the legs narrower, getting rid of the sagging at the hips (not really noticeable because of the fabric here, but I notice), and maybe making the waist lower.
The fit at my butt is pretty good.
Pretty happy with these pants though. I’m goint to wear them all the time!
Maybe. They do look a bit like pyjamas.
Christina Hopgood 