Llama, Llama, Whose Got New Pyjamas?

Me! That's who!

Ok.  Disclaimer here.  New is a bit subjective. I've actually had these pjs for a few months now and been absolutely living in them.  I just haven't been able to share them here because they are my next make for the Minerva Crafts Blogger Network and I had to wait until now for the post to go live.  It feels a little silly showing off flannel jammies at the end of May, especially when you can clearly see snow in some of my photos on the Blogger Network, but such is life.  (I assure you there is no snow here - let's hope it stays that way.  Prairie weather is weird.  You never know...)  But I really love these pjs and really do wear them ALL THE TIME - now that it's warming up a bit I often just pair the bottoms with a t-shirt for bedtime instead of the flannel top, but if the temp drops down cool enough, that top comes back out again too.  No matter how many times these go through the wash, the flannel is every bit as soft and fluffy as it was when I first made them, which is impressive.

For my Llama Pyjamas I chose to make the Nina Lee Piccadilly pattern. It was my first time with a Nina Lee pattern, but I can tell you it's not likely to be my last.  I really appreciated the careful attention to detail, the clear instructions and the easy to put together PDF pattern.  I'm still on the hunt for the perfect fabric for a summer pair of Piccadillies.

For all the details on the fabric, pattern and my sewing experience as well as more photos hop on over to the Minerva Crafts blog!

Knitting!!!!!

Wait, what?!?!  Knitting content on a blog named "Prairie Girl Knits"?   What is this sorcery???

It's been so long since I've been able to show off a finished knitting project here on the blog and today I have two!

The first I want to show off is The Golden Hours Shawl from Andrea Mowry of Drea Renee Knits.  I started this shawl back in the deep dark days of January.  Of course I was thinking a worsted weight shawl would fly off the needles and I'd be cozy warm in no time for the rest of winter.  I was excited to start and chugged along at a good pace at the start, but then, as seems to be par for the course lately, I found it to be a struggle to keep going. I wanted the shawl but the knitting took significantly longer than anticipated.  Once thing I did do was to weave in the ends as I went so it wouldn't be such a daunting task upon completion of the knitting and boy was I glad when I finished the cast off to only have a few ends left to go.

I actually finished this shawl mid-April on the drive into the city for the little boys skills camp morning put on by the Blue Bombers.  The boys had to be on the field at 8:30am, there was still snow on the edges of the field and a crisp breeze was making the 0 C temps feel even colder.  I was ever so glad to be able to throw my shawl on as an extra layer of warmth while I watched from the stands.

... and then it took me more than a month to actually block it.

Despite my struggles, The Golden Hours is a straight forward, easy to knit pattern.  I chose to use stash yarns for mine and I love how it came together. The teal blue came from my Mom actually, left over from a sweater she knit a few years ago (that also came home with me!).  The purple was a random skein I'd picked up at the LYS at some point and the light blue/green was very old stash from about ten or more years ago.

My other newly finished project is the Dubois hat by Andi Satterlund of Untangling Knots.

This one I started in February as soon as the pattern was released.  Being a hat I honestly assumed it would take me no more than a week to knit.  I wildly underestimated how long it would take, and had to completely rip it out and start again a month ago because between my lagging knitting mojo, my inability to focus and a pattern that had a few different cables going on left me thoroughly lost where I was and a with a whole lot of mistakes.

I felt pretty discouraged that I had to rip it out, but once I got going again it went much easier.  Still slow going, but at least with no confusion and the cables seemed a lot more intuitive the second time. I cast this one off on Saturday evening and set it to blocking first thing on Sunday morning! (having, of course, learned my lesson with the shawl blocking procrastination! LOL) I'm going to really love the warmth of my Dubois and it'll be so nice to have a fresh new hat to make life more bearable when the temperatures plummet again next winter!

I'm going to continue to try and knit regularly.  My favourite "along"  the Untangling Knots Outfit Along, has been announced recently and will start June 1st.  Instead of having an "official" set of patterns - although we were always welcome to choose our own anyway - this year's OAL theme is Works in Progress.  I don't have any sewing WIPs, but I have my Populuxe Cardigan that just needs sleeves and my Mary Mead Cardigan that is part way through the body.  Both cardigans were started during previous Untangling Knots knit alongs over the past year so I'm hoping to finish both during the OAL.  I'm not sure what the sewing component will be yet, but likely a dress of some sort.

Here's hoping for more frequent wooly posts in the future months to come.  I'm really hoping that these two finished projects will really kick start my mojo back to where it once was.  Maybe I'll even start spinning again one of these days...

Samara Pants

I've been very much on the fence about palazzo pants and culottes.  While the rest of the sewing blogger universe has been rocking them for ages, I've been very hesitant if I'd like them for myself.  At first the answer was "Nope.  Not for me."  But then Kennis did what Kennis does and came out with the latest Itch to Stitch* design, the Samara Pants.

Pants make me nervous.  Let's be real here for just a moment.  There are a lot more potential fit problems with pants than I care to think about most days.  I know I can make pants.  I've made jeans for goodness sakes and my Lander Shorts of last summer turned out pretty well.  Still... the thought of pants.  Eeeek!  Plus I've been so busy lately, I was worried whether or not I'd have time for sewing pants. But with the disclaimer that you could shorten the Samaras to any length you chose, the suggestion that they were easier to fit thanks to the flowy style of them, not to mention the promise that they were a quick sew, I was starting to be tempted to give it a go.  I was still wavering up there on my pants making fence, but then I started thinking about a cropped pair... a floral cropped pair at that and there you have it.  I was in hook line and sinker.

For my first pair, that I hoped would be a wearable muslin, I used a drapey rayon poplin.  What my overtaxed and overtired brain didn't alert me to at the time was that my poplin had stretch to it and not just an insignificant amount of stretch at that.  I sewed them up minus the zip and waistband and tried them on.  They fell off.  Oh the disappointment and the "see, I told you pants were too much work" self talk going on in my head.  Then I remembered that stretch would make a difference to fit and that with stretch I'd probably want to size down.  It's not like this is my first fabric rodeo.  How do I forget these things?

The good thing was, despite the loosey goosey nature of my stretch Samara's, I could definitely see what I needed to tweak - a swayback adjustment of 1/2", a touch longer hem and smooth out the side seam just a touch where I blended it between the size 18 waist and the size 16 hip.  That was it.  Nothing else was needed.  I was confident enough that I decided it was time to abandon the stretch pair for the time being with the intention of taking them apart and making my adjustments at a later time and move straight onto the good fabric.

But first I had to find the good fabric I had in mind.  I bought the floral rayon from Minerva Crafts two summers ago with intention of making a dress, but hadn't bought enough so it had gone into stash and my stash was relocated from the sewing room into bins in the crawl space a few months ago when we cleaned up the basement.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I love the clean, clear space to work in, without having to manouever around bins and haphazard piles of fabric spilling out all over the place, but getting in an out of the crawl space under the stairs is a pain in the butt.  Trying to dig around bins even more of a pain.  But I was smart.  Most of the bins got labeled when they got put under the stairs.  So I plunged headlong into the crawl space and straight for the bin that the rayon should be in.  Thankfully it was a bin close to the door and fairly easy to access.  The fabric was not there. So I shimmied and wriggled my way further in amongst the bins and checked another.  Nope.  And another.  No.  And another...  Finally I had to drag all the bins out into the sewing room and check.  Nope, nope and nope again.  Eventually after wasting more than an hour searching  I checked the first bin again for about the third time.

Spoiler alert: I found the fabric.  In the bin.  Right where it was supposed to be.

Some bad words were said as I repacked the bins into the crawl space and then finally I was able to start on the second pair.  Cutting them out and sewing them took a fraction of the time that hunting for the fabric took.  They really are that easy to go together.  A couple back darts, a few seams, a zip and a waistband and they're done.  I tried them on before closing up the waistband and hemming them and they were so comfy.  I was happy to see that my tweaks I did were all that were needed.  I'm going to love wearing these floaty Samara's in the heat of the summer!  I paired my floral pair with a Cartagena Cami, but I'm planning on making a black Isidro to make it a bit more work appropriate. My mind keeps wandering to making a matching cami or top of some sort that I could then wear with the pants as a sort of "faux jumpsuit" look.  (Who am I?  First palazzo pants.  Now jumpsuits?  What is happening???)

After finishing up the floral ones, I did go back and re-do the first pair.  I think they'll be in high demand this summer too.  I love wearing skirts and dresses, but they are just so impractical on windy days.  I think the Samara Pants will be the perfect solution! For the blue pair I paired it with my Plitvice which makes it easily work appropriate with the ditzy floral print, but am thinking I'll make either a Cartegena or Isidro in a bright bold print just to punch things up a bit.

If you'd like to get a copy of the Samara Pants, now is the time to take advantage of the pattern release sale!  It's currently 20% off over on the Itch to Stitch site and don't forget even with the discount you can still take advantage of the bundle pricing discounts if you've had your heart set on a few.

As for me I'm feeling bold after my Samara Pants success and I'm now eyeing up ALL the pants patterns!