Knit in a New York moment

Finished! The LondonNY scarf.

Orange: Cascade Magnum, 100% Pure Wool, totally chunky. The poetically-named colour 9465B. From Purl in Soho, NYC.
Pink: Gedifra Highland Alpaca, 50% alpaca, 50% Andean Highland Wool, pretty chunky too. Lyrically-monickered colour 5945*. From John Lewis, Oxford Street, London.

*NB to self: change future work ambition of “being on paint colour-naming panel” to “being on wool colour-naming panel. Sounds like FUN! Bet they’re just high ALL day and shouting out the coolest, creativest four-digit combinations they can think of! But of course someone would have to be sober to write down these moments of genius, so they don’t all get forgotten in the cold light of day. That would probably be me, then.

Pattern: Devised from the cunning and creativity of my own mind: reliable garter stitch all the way on 17 stitches.  

I got fancy trying to reproduce the ‘♥’ from ‘I♥NY’ and the London Underground roundel in stocking stitch, to mark the transatlantic sourcing of each wool. Not entirely obvious, to the untrained eye, but *I* know they’re there.

 

And it reminds me of an utterly magic 10 November days spent in NYC with my dear friend MHS. Thanking you and yours in my ♥, MHS.

Needles: the wooden whoppers – 11-12mm. They have no markings on them so I guess they came from somewhere in the Alps – they were part of my mother’s knitting basket when I was a child, and my family had lived in Germany/Austria for years just before I was born. Who knows? They have a soft feel to them and don’t make the wool squeak, which makes for pleasing knitting.

Can you see the join?

New thing(s) tried: joining the two yarns using a felted join. You splay out about an inch of each yarn end, dampen them both, lay one over the other, then vigorously roll them together between your palms for half a minute or so.

The first tutorial I watched recommended having a handy glass of water nearby to dip your two yard ends into – the moistness is necessary to make the felting hold. I just thought this was impossibly mimsy, and couldn’t be arsed to get up, so opted to suck the wool instead. Coughed for minutes afterwards trying to get strands of alpaca out the back of my throat. Ugh.

Then, feeling pleased with self, held up newly felted-joined wool, told hubby ‘look how strong this join is’ while yanking the yarns apart, hard. Broke instantly. Buffoon.

Verdict: lovely wools to work with, brilliant pattern ;). So, so fast to knit up – no brainers like this are like salve to the creative soul.

And it’s a soft, snuggy, happy scarf that makes me feel warm inside and out!

Sailor trews – updated

Another essential update – I need a pair of trousers that I can wear to work, without letting it all hang out. These two-year old Boden sailor trousers already got a new lease of life courtesy of some Dylon Navy Blue (well khaki green wouldn’t have really gone with all that nautical styling, would it?) machine dye and some jauntier vintage buttons.

But how to make them fit for longer/bigger? The wide pocket facing can easily accommodate a bunch more belly by just moving the buttons over. Buddy Cat shows us how in case you missed the pink  arrows :)

I do this and wear trousers proudly for an afternoon. But they keep falling down. Nothing like hitching up your trousers every three steps to draw attention to the fact they don’t fit. Or wearing them in the rain, for a miserable, damp-ankled experience.

So, this morning, I… 

• put a couple of buttonholes into the back of the waistband
• sew in a button next to each button hole and
• run a strip of elastic through the waistband.
• Three buttonholes at each end of the elastic attach to the buttons, and can be let in/out as expansion/contraction takes place.

Voila!

It’s great practise for making buttonholes. And a quick look in my Bernina instruction booklet reminds me that you should thread your bobbin thread through the hole in the finger of the bobbin case. Apparently it increases the tension.

The positioning of the buttonholes def needs adjustment so they fit smoother, but as my future shape is not entirely certain, I’ll just stick with this for the time being. Who knows? They might fit perfectly in a week’s time!

Mind the gap

I’ve been having a bit of trouble doing up my jeans (see here). So, rather than break my newly-made Wardrobe Refashion 4-month pledge, I’ve attempted an upgrade to make them fit with my expansion plans.

After checking out how maternity clothes accommodate said expansion, I’ve plumped for giving these jeans a gusset, with elastic along the waistband. Worth a try, anyway, and if I screw it up, the jeans are not irreparably damaged. Detailed post – a tutorial, even - follows…

First things first. I need to work out how big this gusset thingy needs to be, so I…

… cut through the waistband and rip down the side seam, until, when hoiked up at the back, they fit on the bum like they used to;

…mark this point (18cm from the top of the waistband) in the side seam, and rip a inch further or so down the side seam;

… measure the approximate width of the gusset along the waistband (apologies for knicker exposure – I’m trying to keep this decent!)

… cut a rough guess shape from an old t-shirt of hubby’s

… then stitch this down the side seam, to the back  of the jeans.

I then try the jeans on again and mark in the more realistic dimensions of the gusset. Unstitch the gusset from the back of the jeans. NB this all takes me ages and is fiddly.  Don’t be fooled by these short sentences.

Break for a cuppa – this is important! I actually didn’t, but if you’re following this, you should :-)

Next I…

… recut the practise piece of jersey to a more accurate size, fold the jersey over the waistband and insert the elastic

… stay stitch the elastic at each side

… pin the gusset in place and stitch to the back of the jeans, and then stitch the other side of the gusset to the front of the jeans. This bit is hard. Because I cut the bottom of the gusset at too wide an angle, it takes three tries and a recut of the gusset to a finer point at the bottom to stop this bit getting all bunched up. I get quite dispirited, so do not photograph. Sorry.

Finally, I stitch back up the extra inch of the side seams.

The ugly truth on the inside is like this (above). I’ll probably overlock the raw edgess at some point to give a neater finish, but don’t have the puff to do this right now.

The gentler truth on the outside is like this. I finished! This is good. The fit is ok, but a bit poofy. Fairly good. When I sit down my bum is a bit exposed, and they do fall down a bit when I walk around, but wearing a belt will probably fix that.  Not so good. And I’m knackered. Really not good. Time for supper.

Mmmm, smells…um…ok I guess

Staged and utterly impractical laundry photo: it is 2° centigrade today. This laundry won’t dry out on the line until March

Fabric softener made from leftover hair conditioner is, according to my recent experiment,

• easy to make
• very quick
• not expensive (that is, if you ignore how expensive the conditioner was in the first place)
• satisfying in an at-least-that-waste-of-money-isn’t-gathering-dust-in-the-bathroom kind of way

but to be totally honest, the laundry doesn’t smell as amazing as the original Aveda conditioner did on my hair. Maybe I over-diluted it. And if I’m really picky, can’t say the fabric feels any softer! Have I just stumbled on a huge marketing conspiracy – fabric softener is pointless?

Not disappointed, but tiny bit underwhelmed.

Just stepped outta the laundrette

Over Christmas, the flat got gradually sorted through – well, enough to give the feeling of knowing what’s where, that the rubbish is actually in the bin/recycle/on its way to someone else’s house and that things are generally in order.

Unsurprisingly, there’s now a long to-do list. All the usual suspects: grow salad vegetables, refashion more clothes, finally make husband some pyjama bottoms (I’m determined he’s NOT going to put my sewing- and getting-on-with-it-skills to shame me by buying some from Marks and Spencers), sort out photos, blah blah blah.

Starting small and easy, with a bit of upcycling, in liquid format. I bought a litre of Aveda Shampure Conditioner without trialling it first. My hair smelled amazing but felt and looked like coir matting. Hubby has gamely been using it when he can, but he ain’t got as much hair as I do and there’s still 1/2 litre to go.

So hair conditioner is becoming fabric conditioner, with the help of some vinegar, water and an easy to follow recipe. They say it’s cheap and easy – so here goes…

• 2 parts hair conditioner (180ml)
• 3 parts vinegar (270ml)
• 6 parts water (540ml)
• Mix and use in fabric conditioner thingy of washing machine

This makes 11 parts altogether, and I have a 1L bottle to fill. So each part is 1000ml divided into 11 (90.9ml) – hence the bracketed figures.

Photo of sweet-smelling laundry follows… but how will I share the heavenly scent online?