Category: monday

life, monday

No Monday Musings this week? WHAT

christinahopgood
So you may have noticed (or more accurately, you probably didn’t notice) that there wasn’t a Monday Musings post this week.
It’s been a really rough few days.  I don’t want to go into details but a close family member has been in hospital since Friday with a complicated problem.  Things are getting better though and hopefully everything will be back to normal in a few days.
But gosh it’s been tough!
In the meanwhile, please enjoy this picture of Kevin Smith as Ares in Xena.

so handsome

monday

Monday Musing… my knitting queue!

christinahopgood
I’ve been really interested in knitting this year, ever since I made my first cardigan back in February, my Miette! I’ve discovered Ravelry, which is the ultimate resource for knitters and crocheters.  It’s free to join Ravelry and you can do all sorts of things with it! I use Ravelry as a giant search engine for patterns, as a community to make friends and share tips, a place to research patterns by looking at other peoples’ projects, and somewhere to research yarn.
On your profile, you can share photos and notes on your projects, share what yarn you have in your stash, save favourite patterns and projects, and you can have a “queue”, which is where you save patterns that you intend to make.  Here’s a link to my queue so you can see for yourself!

So in no particular order, here are the items in my queue!

1. Henrietta Maria Cardigan.

I actually started this one in a black cotton, but the gauge ended up super huge and even when I changed needles and sizes, it was still looking huge so I put it on hold.  I’d love to make this cardigan in a black with sparkles as embroidery!  I need a new black cardigan (as usual) because I wear mine to death and it’s holey.  Wouldn’t this be adorbs?

2. Cherry cardigan.

This cardigan is in a book called Modern Knits, Vintage Style, which I bought online recently.  This is pretty much the best thing in the book, there are lots of scarves and glove-type things in there too.  I’m basically only interested in cardigans though 🙂 There are mixed reviews of this pattern, some people made an amazing garment with no modifications to the pattern and others said that the pattern did not correlate with the pictured cardigan!  I’ll try my luck!

3. Audrey in Unst cardigan.

I had this in my queue, then out, then in again, then out, and finally in again thanks to a post I saw on Lladybird who’s finished hers.  It looks fantastic!  I wasn’t sure because of the neckline’s unfinished look, but I’ve changed my mind and it’s totally gorge.  Too many people have made this recently for me not to try it.

4. Bobble Blanket (crochet).

This is one my friend Vanessa has done before and I was inspired by hers. I love the texture of this blanket, all the bobbles would make it so thick and warm!  It would be a great project for all that leftover 8 ply yarn from all the knitting!  I think it might take forevs though.

5. Owls jumper – as a cardigan.


 I’ve already done this as a jumper and it was a WIN, but now I want to do it as a cardigan!  I’ve seen a couple of people do it as a cardigan and it seems pretty easy to modify.  Just add a button band!  This person has also put the owls cable design on the sleeves too, such a cute idea!

6. Hetty Cardigan

I literally found and bought this pattern last week. I just love the design!  So cute!  So lacy!  It’s by the same designer who did the Miette cardigan I loved so much.  All of her things are quite short so would look good with dresses (which i wear 100% of the time).  Love her style!  I want to make this in a black (it’ll get done before my Henrietta cardi), because as I mentioned already, my black cardigan is nearly dead!

6. Doctor Who scarf (for my brother).

Today I texted my brother and said “I should knit you something, what would you like?” and he immediately wrote “Dr Who scarf!”.  My brother grew up with Tom Baker as the doctor, and of course loves his scarf.  There’s actually a website devoted to the scarf, as it had a slightly different design each season.  I’m sure normal viewers wouldn’t notice the difference but those 1980s knitters sure did!  On the website there are instructions to make each scarf from each season!  I’ve settled on the Season 14 scarf because I just like the colour combinations.  Like I said, they’re not terribly different from each other.

I have offered to make Charles a jumper, and I’ve offered to make my dad a jumper, but they both said no!  Imagine that!  Charles still has lots of lovely hand knitted jumpers his nana made him, and my dad admitted he doesn’t wear knitted jumpers much because they itch.  He does sometimes talk about wanting a jumper with a picture of camels on it… we’ll see.

If I’ve nicked anyone’s picture please contact me and I’ll remove it happily.  I just really like your knitting 🙂

What’s in your queue right now?

dress, finished, monday, pyjamas, sewing, underpants, underwear

Monday Musings… recent makes: a disappointing dress, and a nice nightie!

christinahopgood
The first thing I’m about to show you was a massive fail, in my opinion… please don’t judge! Scroll down for the WIN!
You all know how much I love the Luck Be A Lady dresses on Modcloth… I own far too many and they’re all amazing and I wear them almost every day.  So I wanted to make my own.  I spent ages finding a pattern and finally got one!
This is (supposed to be) New Look 6184. Here’s the pattern envelope: 
Looks like a simple dress.  It has the key feature, which is neckline pleats.  It probably is, if you use the right fabric!  You can either make it a pencil skirt or a full flared skirt.  I wanted to make a circle skirt, which was SO DUMB, why didn’t I just follow the pattern srsly.

 
My fabric… I don’t even know?  It said it was “suiting”.  This fabric has a tartan pattern on it, which is supposed to be STRAIGHT, as it is woven and not printed.  I could not get this sucker to lie straight no matter what I did!  The pattern just warped every which way.  So cutting was the first problem.

My second problem was that the iron-on interfacing wouldn’t adhere to this fabric.  As such my neck underlining keeps popping up to say hello (I managed to keep it down for the photos).

 This is the bit I’m happy with – it’s the first time I’ve used bias binding for underarms.  Even this didn’t quite work out, because the fabric also frayed like crazy making it hard to enclose the raw edge.
So I tried making a half-circle skirt instead of using the pattern pieces for the full skirt, which ended up being the dumbest thing ever.  I was trying to match up plaid and it wasn’t having it.

 Hooooly crap my darts were bad, the fabric was just SO NAUGHTY.
Aaaaaand then I cut the skirt too short while hemming.  Now it’s JUST A BIT too short to be comfortable with, and also it’s see through which I didn’t notice when I bought the fabric.

This is the most I’ve ever stuffed up anything.  I got pretty down about this, especially since I’m doing garment production at CIT and I should be good at this by now. I guess in class we only ever used calico which is extremely well-behaved, and we’ve never actually made a dress.  Nevertheless I’m pretty upset since I had such high hopes for the pattern.  Should I try again?  I think the pattern is probably fine, I just royally stuffed up!

Ok the next thing worked out very well, thank you!

The next thing I made was a nightie, because recently I’ve been wearing a really daggy singlet and shorts to bed, very unattractive.  This is the same pattern I made my undies from recently.

I made a hybrid of both petticoats, the top from view B but the body from view A.  (the difference is that view is less full, and I wanted as few seams as possible).

 This blue stretch satin monstrosity is only my toile, so don’t panic!  The satin was not stretchy enough and I didn’t have the correct type of lace, so it didn’t work out.  I learnt a lot from my toile and my actual garment turned out wonderfully:

 No you can not see me in my nightie.  This top falls to just below my bottom, so I think it will be good for summer coming up!  But recently it’s been cold so I’ve worn it with pyjama pants.

I’m so happy with how the lace turned out.  You have to stretch at the underarms and at the middle front so it doesn’t sag.

 My fabric is a lovely soft poly/cotton knit (I don’t actually fully know what’s in it, but I did the burn test and it is flammable, yaaay flammable pyjamas).  It’s got a pretty sparkle through it!

 The back is just one seam down the middle, and I find it doesn’t bother me in bed at all.
 Knitwit patterns are SO EASY!  I don’t have a stretch machine but my domestic sewing machine is working fine.  I just stretch as I sew, as it says in the instructions, so that the finished seam is still stretchy.

I still have a bunch left, so I’m going to make some more undies!  All the undies I’ve been making for myself are so much more comfortable than store-bought ones, it’s insane.  I just want to wear them all the time but I only have 2 good pairs (and one fail).  Or I could make the opposite nightie, view A bodice with view B body…
Have you ever sewn a KnitWit pattern?  So good!

life, monday, wedding

Monday musings

christinahopgood
I thought I’d start a thing for Mondays where I write about what’s been happening over the week, and what I plan for my life and my blog for the coming week!  On Mondays I teach from 7:15am until about 2, so then I can come home and relax and blog!

So much has been happening over the last few weeks!  But I’m going to keep this one about my friend’s wedding. My friend Kerrie got married on Saturday!
Kerrie, who is quite a bit older than me, ran then youth group at my church until recently when it kind of dissolved (we all became adults and not youths.  Actually that happened ages ago).  She is the most kind and loving person I know!  Last year she had some very bad health problems and had to go through Chemotherapy, and she lost all of her hair, so I made her this beanie which she wore the whole time.  She’s all better now, and she has beautiful short hair!  I organised a youth group party for her and her fiance two weeks before the wedding.  Pics:

 We had kareoke, or Kerrieoke since it was Kerrie.  Here’s me and my best friend Shona singing some spice girls song.

 We played that game where you make a wedding dress out of crepe paper and stuff!  

The cake I made.  It was pretty yummy!
It was a really fun party and quite a few people came.  Kerrie loved it!  Then a couple of days later I went and made chocolates with her.  She wanted to give everyone at the wedding handmade chocolates!

A pretty poor Instagram pic, but we made literally hundreds of these little heart chocolates in dark, milk, and white chocolate!  She wanted everyone to have 5 chocolates and there were like 90 guests.  I think we probably made too many!  I also went and helped her fold little chocolate boxes another day!
Kerrie did a reading at my wedding, so she asked me to do one for her as well!  I was nervous but I think I read well. It was the Corinthians reading, love is patient, love is kind, etc.  

The service was beautiful!  Kerrie had 5 bridesmaids, two of her nieces and three were John’s daughters from his previous marriage.  I just think it is wonderful that Kerrie has this new family to love!
When she walked down the aisle me, my mum, and Shona all burst into tears, we were so happy and she looked so happy and beautiful.  She didn’t stop smiling all day!
My friend Rohan took the photos (see the advantages of having a youthgroup), just like he took ours.  I can’t wait to see them all in a few weeks.  
The reception was at a restaurant called The Lobby, where Julia Gillard famously lost her shoe in a protest. It was a lovely reception!  I got to sit next to Shona and we behaved like silly 16 year olds which was SO FUN.  My parents were also invited to the reception so it was particularly nice.  Sorry about the poor quality photos, but here they are!

 Poor Charles had a really bad cold, he was doped up on Codral!!

 Me and Shona being awesome.

The only photo taken with a flash – me and my rad parents.  Dad is wearing his bicycle tie.
So I know it’s not particularly interesting to people who don’t know Kerrie, but this is what has been occupying my thoughts and time for the past few weeks.  Many things about the wedding were handmade: the invitations, place cards, chocolates and chocolate boxes, chocolate box cards, and pew decorations.  I feel really lucky that Kerrie let me help for her special day!