Practise, Practise

I didn't sew yesterday. i think it was holdover stress from the pattern drafting.  My heart wanted socks so I did socks.

My April pair is finished and I couldn't be happier.  I am wearing them right now and they are perfect.   

I was going to cast on another pair with the yarn I wound last week but I ended up pulling out one of the other pairs of socks on my needles.

I bought Operation Sock Drawer a few years ago.  It's a great book for every sock knitter.  

In a blast of new book-itis, I cast on a couple pairs from it and then never got back to working on them.  

This is the A Drawer Full pattern from it.  I am using a patterned sock yarn from Meilienweit for the colours and a plain grey Trekking yarn from Lana Grossa.  As you can see, it is a sock of socks, which makes me happy.

I picked these up because I taught myself to knit colourwork with the yarns held in one hand and it felt like a good time to practise the technique making a thing where the results are something no one ever looks at closely.  My hope is that by the time this pair of socks are done, I will be ready to put it into practise working on this vest

and on a whole host of other stranded things.  I have some beautiful things planned. Plus my blanket of blue yarn from my grandkids.

A math headache

The whole day yesterday was spent in the sewing room.  NOT SEWING.

But I was very engaged with the process of sewing.  I was drafting a skirt pattern.  From scratch.  A skirt can be made from a basic rectangle of fabric gathered and at its most simple, tied front and back at your waist with ties.  This was how most skirts for ordinary people were sewn for centuries.  Today elastic is a great closure solution for a skirt.  A casing at the waist makes it simple,  

The trouble with this sort of skirt is that there is a lot of fabric at the waist.  Whatever the bottom of your skirt is in width is bunched up, gathered or pleated at your waist.  It works but it is not optimal if your fabric is anything but the lightest.  Even a plain poplin or gingham is almost too thick for really good results.  I wanted something a bit different without quite so much weight.

Since I started knitting, I have become very daring about making comfortably fitting garments. I have no fear about trying to make a pattern for myself that fits how I want it to fit.  I have been watching some of the very talented people on youtube and I found something I could work with, a video on the math of skirt making by the very talented and wise Mariah Pattie. Yesterday was all about putting that math into practise.   

Because math, by the end of the day, I had three basic skirt patterns, and a worn out brain.  I couldn't put two thoughts together, so I retreated to my old standby, socks.

I knew I was getting close to the cuff.    

The fourth blue stripe was supposed to be the start of the ribbing.  Or not.  I just knit and knit.

I put it down and went to bed.  

Today the sun is shining bright and the air is fresh and crisp and everything is new.  I will sort out the socks today and am going to try out skirt pattern one with an old sheet to see if my pattern works. I am looking forward to the challenge.  

Still Dreaming

Sock knitting is progressing and I am approaching readiness to sew.  I am still in the thinking stage, which is nice because some other stuff is moving past the thinking stage into the how to do a thing stage.  

I have been planning of working on my miniature house again.  Not the house precisely.  The garden. I have been dreaming and thinking about a miniature garden since forever.  I have the books to prove it.  

Lots of good ideas long before I learned to knit.  The Embroidered Garden by    Once I started knitting, there was lots of support.  

Hannelore Orkis' The Knitted Farmyard and Jan Messent's Knitted Farmyard and lastly

the Mini Knitted Farmyard by Sachiyo Ishi

My mini house is in a cabinet  and it has a fairly thick base.  It is up on a table so I can work on it easily and for a long time, the table was going to be all the space I could use for a garden.  Recently, with all the moving and sorting I have been doing, I managed to find a bit more room.    

Since then I have been planning and figuring out how to get what I wanted out of the space I have and my head is full of plans.  I have been preparing by watching all sorts of youtube videos about all sorts of weird model making techniques.  So much to learn.  

Today is not the day to do though.  Today is the day to get my sewing in order.  The room is ready.  The repair pile is all done.  And it is time to put pattern and fabric together.