Operation New Dress Success!

Guess what!!! I did it!!! I am so happy to say that I have successfully completed "Operation New Dress (revisited)!  I put the finishing touches on this afternoon (finishing touches being buttons - everything else was already done).

Love this print and look what arrived in the post last week?!?!
My new Lottas!!! Yippee!!

I ended up choosing the Sew Over It's Doris Dress.  I love the easy feel of it.  Because there's more ease in the silhouette there was a lot less fitting to worry about in the bodice.  I did sew up a muslin because I wasn't sure and didn't want to waste any of my good fabric by messing up, but I didn't make any changes to it other than to add an inch to the bodice and take an inch off of the hem of skirt to compensate. Otherwise this baby fits right out of the envelope (or off the printer as is the case).

The fabric is an easy care, easy wear rayon from Fabricland in the city and after sewing Doris and wearing it I want to make a closet full of rayon dresses.  It was beautiful to work with! I was a wee bit nervous about how I would like the print because it does veer off quite a bit from my usual florals that I gravitate towards, but I really like it quite a bit!  Thanks Agnes!! (she's my go to gal at Fabricland.  She never leads me astray on fabric choices!).

Doris is a fairly straight forward sew and even more straight forward because I opted to leave the concealed side zip out.  I know!  I live on the edge...

I did test it out first of course by basting the side seam and then pinning the front bodice closed and it was easy enough to get on an off  unpinned so whoot, whoot!!!  No concealed  zip for me!  It's an upside of having a less than huge bust/waist ratio. Also an upside of me not liking my clothes to be super fitted as a general rule. Anyways.  I was pretty pleased to skip that step even though it meant I couldn't skip the button holes because they needed to be functioning now.  Lesser of two evils and all - especially given my buttonhole function on my old new to me Pfaff works a treat.

Doris Dress, Vianne Cardi and Low Braid Lottas 

I am so thrilled with this dress and have already started envisioning another.  I have a few other projects I want to do first but rest assured another Doris dress will be appearing here sooner or later!

And would you look at that!  N's pop up restaurant is still three days away and my new dress is DONE!!!

 I am just this happy about my new dress!
(apparently my excitement causes me to take weird angled selfies!)

Summer Sweater KAL Sunshower

I'm happy to report that I've got one finished object done for the Very Shannon Summer Sweater Knit Along.  The KAL was to officially end yesterday, but it looks like most everyone voted for a two week extension, which is all kinds of awesome, because it means there's a good chance I'll get to finish my second sweater before the actual deadline!  Whoot! Whoot!

The purpose of the summer sweater knit along is to keep knitting through the hot months of the summer so that you have a shiny new something ready to wear come the cooler temperatures of fall.  It turns out that finished project number one for me goes with absolutely nothing in my fall wardrobe, but no less than four dresses in my summer wardrobe.  Ooops!  But that's ok.  My fall wardrobe needs some boosting up anyways.  I'm sure I'll come up with something that will work with my new bright red Sunshower cardi!

(as an aside... I'm looking for inspiration in the fall sewing department!  I'd love to hear any suggestions you might have for me!  I've had a couple suggestions for Tilly and the Buttons Coco dress.  I'm thinking of Closet Case Files Ginger Jeans.  What else do you have for me?)

Anyways, back to our regularly scheduled posting about my new cardi.

Like all of Andi Satterlund's designs I've knit so far (Salt, Miette, Hetty, Myrna, Marion, Vianne and now Sunshower) it is an easy to follow pattern.  I love the way her patterns are written up, and I love the vintage vibe of her cardigans.  They're perfect for popping on over a dress too.  Did I mention this latest one goes with four dresses in my closet?!?  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that!  My only modification to this pattern was my usual one that I do on Andi's cardigans which is to eliminate some of the waist shaping so it doesn't have quite so much negative ease.

I used Ella Rae Classics in Monarch red from Webs for my Sunshower.  It is a bit scratchier than I remember Ella Rae Classic being - but then I've not used this particular yarn in about six or seven years and that was for a pair of mittens so maybe I've just forgotten.  Or maybe it's not actually that scratchy in reality and the hives that suddenly appeared on my arm this morning (what the heck?!?!) are just making me a bit more sensitive.  Who knows.  I normally wear Briggs & Little without batting an eyelash, so c'est la vie.  Scratchy or not, I think this cardigan will be getting lots of wear in the future!

Knitting of this one was a bit of a challenge for me.  Not because of the pattern mind you, but because sometimes I'm just a bit daft about things.  I posted a week and a half ago about my fudging the pattern and then having to go back and re-knit it.  Well, things like that just seemed to keep happening.  Maybe I've been distracted or maybe I've just taken leave of my senses as of late.  I am not sure, but whatever the case I was glad to finally make it to the sleeve cuffs without further incident!  I had initially planned to do the sleeve caps individually then continue the rest of the sleeve two at a time, as I normally do, but my circular needle was both too inflexible and too short for it to be a convenient method.  I was driving myself batty dropping stitches and trying to keep sorted where the centres were.  I gave up a few rounds in, put the sleeves back on separate needles and zipped through the first sleeve up to the cuff in an evening.  The next evening I tackled the second sleeve, then put them back on the too short, too stiff circ for the cuffs.  I hate trying to keep track of ribbing and I figured it was easier to suffer through the TAAT with a bad needle then count rounds.  It worked and I finished it up pretty easily a few days ago!

Next up is going to be finishing up my Antrorse!  I'm so close - six more rounds of the bottom band, then onto the sleeves.  I have a beautifully long and flexible circular needle so it should be no problem to two at a time them!

I had told myself that after Antrorse is finished I would focus on holiday gift knitting exclusively, but Andi's gone and thrown a big ol' wrench in that plan.  (Yep.  I'm blaming her.  Not my lack of will power in the face of a new pattern.  Nope. Not that at all...)  She's gone and published another cardigan pattern this week and I'm completely smitten with it.  Not only that.  She's planned a Knit Along for it.  I resisted for about 30 seconds and then decided I'll spend the rest of this month focusing on gift knitting so that when the KAL starts the beginning of October I can knit, somewhat guilt free, on Penelope.  Take a look at those gorgeous scallops and tell me that you would have been able to resist.  I didn't think so! If resistance is as futile for you as it is for me, you should join the KAL on Ravelry.  It'll be fun!  (and Andi's even got a discount for the pattern going on right now!)  I'm dreaming of colour combinations right now and thinking that I have a nice caramel coloured DK for the main colour and if it works a really nice wine colour for the scallops and the button band already sitting in my stash... Fate?  I think so!

Another Day, Another Dress

Living where I do on the prairies, where my legs do not see the light of day all winter long (or rarely do anyways), come summer I love spending my days living in skirts and dresses.  That's not to say I don't appreciate a nice pair of shorts or capris because they definitely do have their benefits.  Gardening and yard work in a dress, while do-able, is not always the most ladylike and who wants to get mud and grass stains on their pretty frock?  Not me! Strong prairie winds are also often not a friend to dresses either - some day I will sew weights into the hems of my dresses and there'll be no stopping me.  There is just something about a pretty skirt or dress that makes me feel good.

So to that end, and the fact that we are still in the Sundress Sew-A-Long time frame, I sewed up another dress.  It's the tried and true Sis Boom/Scientific Seamstress Jamie Dress.  This is my third one, and although I've not sewn it in a few years, I still really enjoyed the pattern.   The only change I made to the pattern was to add pockets and a half circle skirt.

I am, apparently, all about the circle skirts this year!  I love how flattering and flowy a circle skirt is!  I've made four new dresses this summer so far and three of them have half circle skirts. The only reason the lone gathered skirt dress didn't get the same treatment was due to a lack of fabric otherwise it too would have been a circle skirt.

There's not much to say about this pattern that I haven't already said when I last made the Jamie dress.  It's a great pattern that sews up quickly.   By the way, you can get this and all the other Sis Boom patterns in their new Etsy shop - and if you use the code WELCOME you can get 50% off right now!!!

My fabric is the cotton sateen from Gertie's collection, available through JoAnn's although I see it's currently out of stock online.  If you happen to have a JoAnn's nearby that you can shop at in person, I highly recommend this fabric.  It's smooth and has a bit of a sheen to it - feeling almost like a rayon, but without the scary washing hazards rayon can possess.  It sewed up like a dream!

Now I'm off outside to enjoy the sunshine and maybe do some knitting while the little guys play in their pool!  See you next time!