Buttons and Lace

Well this poor blog has been a bit neglected of late mainly because there has been a lot going on here, but more on that some other time.
One of the things that I will post more about later is that Mr A, Miss M and I recently spent 10 days enjoying the hospitality and fun at my parents place.  We had a lovely wee break away and while I was there Mum decided it was time for me to go through her sewing stash and decide what I wanted out of it.  Now I knew her stash was large but even I had no idea of the actual epic proportions of it.  The sorting took place over about 4 nights once the kidlets were in bed and there is now a massive box at their place with my name on it.  Inside is a veritable treasure trove of patterns, laces, edgings, elastic and buttons, hmm did I mention buttons?
I did bring a small selection of stuff back with me that I thought I might use some of in the near future but the bulk of it is staying put until we have the car there at some stage.  First up the laces I brought back.

And just a few of my firm favs up close (sorry the lighting is so rubbish in the pics).

I am totally in love with those funky vintagey braids and can't wait to get some wee denim dresses made up for Miss M to put them on.

Then there are the buttons.  The box of buttons my Mum has at her house is massive, like probably the equivalent of about 6 shoeboxes FULL of buttons.  I went through them one night and made some selections and then Mr A had a fab time going through and selecting some for his craft projects as well.

Here is our haul

And one lot of Mr A's tipped out.

There are some real gems amongst them but I have no idea how I will ever use even a small proportion of them.  Any ideas for using large vintage buttons gratefully accepted :-)

I can't wait to get my whole big box here although I have no idea where I am going to store all the stuff!

Testing Undina

Yes I have been back at the test knitting again, this time a gorgeous wee tunic/top for Miss M called Undina, tested for Elena Nodel.  This pattern is part of Elena's Back to the Sea collection which I tested another pattern from, Maritimes, earlier in the year.  As the last one was for Mr A, this time I decided to do the girly version of the pattern for Miss M.
I think I adore everything about this pattern.  I love the finished shape of the tunis, the detailing of the yoke and of course I am always a sucker for cables.  I completed this knit in Bendigo Woolen Mills Luxury 8ply and used Utiku Possum Merino in Lipstick as the contrast colour.  I completed a size 12-18m for Miss M even though she is only 9.5m as her chest size was between that and the 9m size and I wanted it to last her for a while :-)
So here is my finished version of Undina:

Undina

The cables

Sleeve detail

And a few, rather rubbish, modeled pics.  The light really wasn't great the day I took these and I will try and get some better pics once the weather here improves enough for me to take some outside.

I should just note that it isn't actually as 'bulky' as it looks in the pics and Miss M isn't build like a rugby player, she just had a whole lot of layers of clothes underneath it.

A Little Bit of Culture

Well I have fallen way behind on my blog for a variety of reasons.  One of them being that it is the middle of winter and just keeping on top of the boring things like washing etc while battling the seemingly never-ending rounds of colds seems nearly impossible, let alone blogging.  Also DPs job is going through a lot of changes which is meaning a few changes for the family, including time away for him, which is taking a bit of getting my head around and getting used to.  In amongst all this my crafting has pretty much ground to a halt but life in general never seems to slow down.

A couple of weeks ago Mr A's daycare had a week celebrating all the different cultures represented within the centre.  As a centrepiece of this week was an International Pot-Luck Dinner which Mr A was very excited about.  He came home telling me how he was going to take a "scottish dinner" and wear his kilt :-) This may all sound fine and dandy but said kilt was made for him 2 years ago and he may just have grown a tad since then.  Here is what he looked like when he last wore it.

Hmm he may be ever so slightly bigger than that now :-P  Anyway Gran made him this kilt in his family tartan before we went back to Scotland for his 2nd birthday and she made it as a true childs kilt on a bodice.  In order for him to be able to actually get into it, and for it not to be some kind of mini skirt I had to do some pretty impressive bodice lengthening which isn't too pretty but does the job.
Okay so where are we now.  Dinner, check, (taking haggis, neeps and tatties), Mr A's outfit, check.  "But Mum what will Miss M wear?".  Very good question!!!!!!
I have been wanting to make Miss M a traditional baby dress for some time now and even got out the fabric and pattern to cut it out only to find out that the pattern I had was missing a couple of vital pieces - ARGHHH!  So good old Mum came to the rescue by sending me her, rather vintage, copy of Enid Gilchris'ts "Little Coats and Dresses" book.  This was my first ever attempt at pattern drafting but I was actually surprised at how well it all went, once I had acquired a decent metal ruler with inches on it :-)
And fabric?  Well of course ever wee girl needs a wee tartan dress.  I didn't have any of the family tartan in a suitable fabric so her's is Black Watch.
Long story short I got from this...

...to this....

...in just a few short days with only a few minor headaches and a couple of bad words muttered.

The dinner was a huge success with many people pleasantly surprised to find they liked haggis upon their first tasting of it, Miss M certainly downed hers, and several people said they had wanted to try it for some time.

Here are my two wee kilted kiwis looking a little tired on it upon our return home (I forgot to take the camera to the actual dinner!).

FO: The Red Jeans! (And a T-Shirt)

Well a lot of people have heard me mention/talk about/complain about/swear about the now somewhat infamous in our house RED JEANS!!  So it all started a few weeks ago when Mr A discovered a hole in the knee of his jeans.  The following conversation went something along the lines of...
Mr A:  Look Mummy my jeans have a hole in them
Me:  Oh well never mind
Mr A:  I need some new ones then don't I
Me:  Yes you do but these ones are getting too small anyway so that's fine
Mr A:  You could make me some Mummy
Me:  Well I guess I could or we could just buy some (slowly starting to stress at the thought of trying to produce even vaguely passable jeans)
Mr A:  No Mummy I think you could make me some..... red ones.
Me:  Red??
Mr A:  Yes I want you to make me some red jeans please Mummy, red is my favourite colour.

Okay then, I mean how could I resist a request like that.  So I dragged out the ever faithful Ottobre mags and found a jeans pattern no problem, then took myself off to the local fabric shop and got some red drill fabric (there was no hope of finding red denim), and the process began.  This project was a learning curve for me in many ways, not least of all in that is was my first ever attempt at a zip front fly.  I was pleasantly surprised that the jeans actually went together really well, the pattern pieces all matched up nicely where they were meant to and the zip went in with no major headaches - PHEW!  My only slight regret is not putting interfacing in the waistband which is the only shortcut I took, but I kind of did it on purpose not wanting the waist too stiff, and I now wish I hadn't.
So anyway the pattern is Ottobre 6/2010 number 31 the Paperback Writer skinny fit jeans.  They certainly are skinny fit and I love the line on Mr A.  I did a size 92cm with extra length and the fit is perfect everywhere except at the very top of the waistband so I think I will handstitch some buttonholes on the inside of the waistband and insert some buttonhole elastic to make them adjustable waist.
Being red, very red, they are nearly impossible to get decent pics of but here goes anyway.
First lot of pics were taken before I put the dome on the front.

And a couple on the man himself:

I also made the top in these pics which is just a basic long sleeved T-shirt from Ottobre 1/2010 (I think?).  I actually cut this out months and months ago but only rediscovered it the other day and thought it would be handy for daycare.  

My Creative Space

So with all the finishing that has been going on here lately what is coming up?

Well I am still knitting as always.  When I finished this scarf I found myself in the very strange situation of having NO current active WIPs.  Okay there are still 3 or 4 WIPs that are languishing at the back of the wardrobe but we all have some of those, right?  Anyway in celebration of the completion of said scarf I took it upon myself to cast on two new projects in one evening, one is a test knit which will be for Miss M and the other is actually a cardy for Me!!  In fact it is the one I blogged about way back in January.

On the sewing front I have also been pretty busy.  It seems my latest addiction is vintage sewing patterns, in particular wee girls dresses.  I'm not sure quite what it is but I just can't seem to get enough of them at the moment.  I have had some great finds on Trademe recently and I'm awaiting some from Mum's vast pattern collection to add to them.  Here are some that I have gained recently.

I know most of you are thinking "surely she wouldn't be mean enough to dress poor wee Miss M in those" but hey basic styles are pretty fab.  My love of vintage patterns has also turned into a love of trawling the local second hand shops for these patterns and although I haven't bought any patterns I have had a few good fabric finds recently including 2m of gorgeous navy wool suiting for $6!!!

So sewing projects planned?  Well to be honest the list is way too long and a few things on it are super secret squirrel but coming up next are a pair of red jeans for Mr A (requested by the boy himself), a dress for Miss M (probably the top left in the second photo above since the baby dress pattern I was going to make for her had two pieces missing - grr), a couple of gifts and an outfit for Miss M (trousers, blouse and jacket).

Well all that should take care of all that spare time I have on my hands with nothing to do :-)

FO: Saryon Scarf

Well I think I mentioned a few posts ago that I had been on a bit of a 'finishing' spree and that is continuing.  Hopefully soon I will find something to post about that isn't simply something I have made, hmm maybe something I am thinking of making ;-P

Anyway a couple of months ago and very dear friend had a special birthday.  As usual my solution to having no idea what to get as a gift resulted in the idea of making something so on her birthday she was given free range of my yarn stash to choose something she liked and decide what she wanted.  The yarn she chose was a lovely Vintage Purls Limited Edition in "Brantome", and a scarf was requested.  After trawling through Ravelry (and who would have thought there were quite that many thousand scarf patterns out there) I decided on Saroyan and here, after way too much procrastination, is the result.
This shows the scarf blocking and nicely shows the shape of it.  The main body of the scarf is stocking stitch with a leaf design along one edge.  I chose to knit this in 4ply on 4mm needles to give a nice soft drapey fabric.

And all done:

The weather has been pretty grotty here lately hence the slightly rubbish indoor photos but you get the general idea :-)

FO: Trackies for Mr A

The next installment of my latest sewing phase are these simple wee trackies for Mr A to wear to daycare.  I used Burda 9828 as the base pattern.  The pattern was meant to have a turn up cuff but I didn't want this so I just didn't add this on.  In the end I did a size 92 and cut the length as I wanted it and they are a nice fit on him.  The pattern also had pocket flaps but since they didn't even properly overlap the pocket I didn't see the point and just left them off.

And a couple of action shots.

These have now been thoroughly tested at daycare and given the thumbs up so I think I'll make some more but maybe put pockets in the side seam of the next pair.