Hello my friends! I thought I'd share with you some early thoughts for probably the biggest project I'm planning this year. I'm going to sew Simplicity 1928, a swing coat pattern from 1956. The best part about this pattern? A HOOD! Hoods are a huge winner on coats and jackets in my book. I'll be doing view 1. I was looking for a swing coat pattern earlier this winter and then stumbled on this one for a good price, ... Read more »
More vintage, more embellishment, and a confession
Happy New Year! In my wrap-up of sewing and knitting in 2014, I mentioned that I had a few ideas floating around in my head for this year. And while wanting to keep it very low-key, two things keep surfacing in my brain: more vintage, more embellishment. So here I am to chat about it. And you get an added confession, to boot! More vintage Last year, I had fun knitting and sewing a lot of vintage-inspired things, but I ... Read more »
Reflections on 2014
Happy (almost) New Year, my friends! It's that time of the year, so I thought I'd do a reflections post. Instead of rounding up everything I've made (gag—not this year, I've made too much), or try to draw any conclusions or do a lot of soul-searching, I thought I'd instead just chat about the underlying themes that I noticed ran through my blog this year. The year of the dress I had no idea back in early January when I ... Read more »
Thank you, {Secret} Santa!
Well, we're off to my mom and step-dad's for the holidays tomorrow, and I'm in a particularly cheerful mood! Mostly because I'm excited to see family and friends, but also because it meant that today, I got to open my Secret Santa gift! Jessica from Chronically Vintage organized a Vintage Secret Santa swap this year. Several days ago, this amazing-looking package arrived on my doorstep. I may even have heard the slight ... Read more »
Thanksgiving weekend and holiday cards
Hello friends! I meant to do this post a couple of weeks ago, but here we are, closer to Christmas than Thanksgiving. And so it goes this over the holidays, sometimes! ;) I just wanted to share a few photos from our long weekend over Thanksgiving. As it happens, we unfortunately ended up taking pictures in several places where the lighting was less than ideal, so I apologize in advance, but hey, at we we have a little ... Read more »
The galaxy dress and a cardigan that almost was not
Some sewing and knitting today for you! You may recall that earlier in the fall, we established that I really love galaxy prints. Well, now I've had the opportunity to sew a galaxy print dress! This dress comes as a result of being generously offered to try out fabric by Funki Fabrics out of the UK. I almost said no—their fabric is a lycra and nylon blend, very well suited for swimwear or dancewear. And I'm not ... Read more »
Inspiration for planning a vintage ski pullover
If there's something I've wanted to knit for ages, it's a ski sweater! Especially when it starts to get really cold out, my thoughts always return to the idea of knitting a somewhat Scandinavian-inspired pullover, but I haven't made it happen yet. This winter, I'm already wearing my oversized pullovers a lot, so I've been in the mood for knitting something in a similar vein. Something you'd typically sit around in ... Read more »
Lounging with Linden and pink squirrels
Hey guess what, I wear sweatshirts! Well I mean, sometimes, obviously. I only have a couple, but they're both oversized with raglan sleeves... pretty much the exact shape as the Grainline Studio Linden sweatshirt, but with a crew neck. So if any pattern was ever going to get me to sew a sweatshirt, it would be Linden. And how I came to sew it was a bit roundabout. I was contacted by Organic Cotton Plus to see if ... Read more »
Pants update: I (kind of) (maybe) have a winning combo!
Thank you all so much for all your comments and suggestions on my post about my pants fitting struggles and seemingly endless cycle of muslins to try and fix the bagginess at the back of my thighs. I really appreciate your thoughts, helpful ideas, and commiseration. After my post, I mulled over all the suggestions, did more research, and started to try out some new adjustments on one of my previous muslins (the ugly ... Read more »
An outfit to walk to the zoo
On a recent weekend, Mel and I had a couple of errands to run in one of the neighborhoods in which I grew up. We weren't really planning to take any photos but as it happened we had along a little point-and-shoot camera. While my nicer DSLR takes much better photos, sometimes it's either take quick snapshots or nothing. And since we've gotten pretty lax about taking a camera (mainly because I often don't feel like lugging ... Read more »
Pants muslins and back of thigh wrinkles have nearly done me in
My sewing friends out there, I'm about to get all fitting saga on you. And it's about pants. I know. It's a really really really long post about pants. You've been warned. I kind of wish this were about the British use of the term pants, it would probably be more fun. Alternate post titles? How about "Fitting pants is a bitch". Or maybe "A tale of misguided adjustments". Or "I will get these pants right if it kills ... Read more »
A vintage-inspired Jenna cardigan… that I sewed!
I sewed a cardigan. Now there's a sentence I never expected to come out of my mouth in a million years. Being a knitter, cardigans are the domain of my knitting needles. Not my sewing machine or serger. The idea of actually sewing a cardigan was never something I had ever contemplated, although I readily admit I've complained plenty at the frustration of trying to find suitably vintage-appropriate lightweight ... Read more »
Seeing spots
Here's a post full of polka dots on a couple of projects for you! I finished up my first Lady Skater dress, a pattern by Amanda from Kitschy Coo, and I definitely understand why this is another knit dress I've seen all over the sewing blogosphere! This outfit ended up looking a bit twee with the polka dots, light shoes and hair bow, though I didn't mean to dial up the saccharine so much. Yak. Apparently I have a ... Read more »
Ten of hearts cardigan
This fall I've been on a knitting roll, which happens to a lot of us knitters when that season hits. I finished off one old project from the spring, I'm working on finishing another from the spring, and just this week I finished one from literally 4 and a half years ago. Seriously! But this one is all new! I bought the Ten of Hearts cardigan pattern from Bex's Etsy shop awhile back. I would guess it's from the ... Read more »
A turquoise Moneta dress
Stop the presses! I've sewn a dress in a knit fabric! Meet my first Colette Moneta. Okay it's not really that exciting, but hey, it's my first knit dress so cut me some slack. I'm psyched! Though there's one main issue with this dress that's entirely my fault. It's a bit too tight...I'm pretty much poured into this dress bodice (sleeves on the other hand are far too wide at the upper arm, and I'll pick your brains ... Read more »
A chunky cabled pullover 8 months later than planned
Back in March when I met Rochelle in D.C., I bought some yarn at Fibre Space, a great yarn shop in Alexandria, Virginia. I was mainly intending to window shop and enable help Rochelle pick some yarn, but then I saw a pattern booklet with the pullover Vashon on the cover, and suddenly it was absolutely imperative that I knit myself a chunky cabled pullover for our trip to Ireland in the spring. Except as the ... Read more »