Outfit Along : all done!

You've already seen my dress...now here's my (almost) finished cardi!

This is a Hetty. Nothing particular to say about the construction. I put loads of markers to mark the lace repeats and everything went fine. As I often do with Andi's designs, I just added one lace repeat so the length fit me better. It took some time to finish because of the heat wave - not the kind of weather that makes you want to knit!

I used these gorgeous black glass buttons which I got on A Little Mercerie. They're beautiful but quite fragile - I broke one as I was sewing it, thankfully the lovely lady who sold them to me added 2 spare buttons just in case. I'll try to be very careful, but I hope they'll stand the wash!

And may I say, I think Hetty really pairs perfectly with a dress that's meant to show off a bit of skin!

Outfit Along : Finished dress!

For the Outfit Along 2015, I chose to make a mashup between Colette Pattern's Lily (it's currently Colette's Pattern of the month, so head over to their website if you want to grab a copy for 15% off!) and Tilly and the Buttons' Picnic Blanket skirt.
As I didn't have to underline my fabric, this dress was much quicker to make than my first version!
I used the pattern I had tweaked after my first version, but it was too big...so I had to take the bodice in at the side seams by 3cm (1.5 on each side). I still think it could stand to be a little tighter, but it looks OK this way and at least my dress is not uncomfortably tight!
I used a black stretch cotton sateen for the bodice and pockets, and a watermelon print cotton for the skirt and flaps at the neckline and pockets.

I added a notch at the neckline flap and made halter straps instead of regular straps.

My zipper would be more invisible if I had bothered to give it a press...but one part of it is black on black, and the other is hidden in the skirt's gathers. Soooo can we say it's *almost* invisible?

This pic gives a better view of the pockets. I used the original pattern piece but made my pockets 5 cm shorter so they're not so deep. Even though, they're still roomy enough to contain my phone and keys! 

Here's my faux waist stay. I even made a facing of sorts to hide the zipper edge and center back seams.

And here's the hem!

I've just finished knitting my OAL cardi, but it's still waiting for its buttons and reinforced button bands. I hope I get them soon enough, and I hope the temperatures are going to drop ...it's currently far too hot to wear a cardigan, even just to take a picture of it!

Outfit Along is back!

Well...I'm in!

I'm going to knit Hetty in black Drops Paris, and sew a Lily in watermelon print (for the skirt and neckline flaps) with a solid black bodice. I also plan to modify the skirt and make it gathered, with patch pockets, instead of the pattern's slim skirt.

Fabrics, sewing pattern... and my Hetty, already started! I've knit the back, right and left front, and I'm about to tackle the body.

Head over to Andi or Lauren's blog if you want to know more about what's going on!

Outfit Along : completed!

Hi all, I've finally completed both my cardigan and dress for the outfit along!

I look slightly stupid on that pic. Dunno why but my boyfriend wasn't very inspired. He could at least have told me I was looking that dumb!

I won't go over the cardi once more as you've already seen it in a previous post, but here are a few facts about the dress :
This is Colette Pattern's Hawthorn dress and I've made the sleeveless version, in a navy swiss dot cotton underlined (for the bodice) and lined (fort the skirt) in a navy cotton voile.

Sorry for the crappy pictures, didn't have the time to snap anything better...

But, you guys...THIS MUST BE MY FAVORITE OF ALL THE THINGS I'VE MADE SO FAR!!!
I mean, this is the first time I sew something (relatively) complicated and manage to get perfectly finished seams everywhere! My facings have been finished with a mock overlock stitch and then catchstitched to the (under)lining, same goes for my hem, I made a faux waist stay, finished my armholes with piping, used French seams everywhere I could...it's almost as beautiful on the inside as on the outside! (check my FlickR if you want to see the details!)
On top of that, the fit is spot on (although I was unsure about it after making 2 muslins, I finally cut a size 6 with no alterations) and this is a perfectly office-friendly garment.

However, even if this dress, due to its color and clean lines, is definitely cake material, it would be very easy to add some frosting to it with the right accessories and make it a perfect outfit for an evening out or even fancier occasions! I can already imagine wearing it with green or pink...I'll have to knit more Myrnas to pair with it! And I think it's definitely going to be worn a lot!

To conclude, I'd just like to thank Andi and Lauren for organizing the Outfit Along, it was fun!

Outfit Along - Dress Progress

Hi folks, hope you had a lovely weekend! 

I personally had a lovely 3-days weekend (July 14th being our national day here in France) and coud really make some progress on my Outfit Along dress.

It's not easy to photograph a navy dress on a purple dress form, but there you have it! The only things left to do are finishing the armscyes, creating the buttonholes, making my fabric-covered buttons, hemming and catch-stitching the facing on to the lining/underlining fabric. I think the 15 days ahead should be enough to do this!

Look, I'm making a faux waist stay (thank Anna for her tutorial!)

Stay tuned for the final Outfit Along posted, it should come soon (or so I hope)!

Outfit Along : one down and one to go!

Hi folks, I'm done with Outfit Along Part1!

I'm only showing it on my dress form for the moment, I'll make an outfit post of sorts when I finish the dress.

I'm not 100% happy with how the keyhole looks, too many holes for my taste. Maybe my bind off is too tight?

Sleeve detail. Notice something funny? Read on ;)

On the whole everything went pretty well. I'm not super happy with the keyhole, and the shoulders look a bit weird, but nothing to prevent me from wearing this sweater, and after all I've been knitting for less than a year!
You may have noticed some differences in the stitches on my sleeve, so I'll try and explain why it is so. I had started on the short rows and was knitting "normally" (that's what you see on the right, on the picture above). Then I got to the part when you join in the round and I found that the stitches didn't look the same - they were looking perfectly parallel and there was a gap between the two parallel sides of the stitches (that's what you see in the 5 or so rows on the middle of the picture) - instead of looking like a little braid with alternate criss-cross as before (I don't know if that's clear, I hope it makes more sense if you look at the picture!). I was too lazy to rip the whole thing off to have everything look the same, so I ended up knitting through the back loop for the last rows before the decrease round, and my stitches ended up looking a little bit more like what you see on the rest of the sweater. 
And, of course, I did the same on the second sleeve and decided to call it a design feature ;) 

As for my dress, it's still not going quite as fast as I'd like too...After making a second muslin and deciding that the first one finally looked better, I traced all the pattern pieces the weekend before last, and left my fabric on my ironing board, which is about the only place in the house where I can put my fabric out of the way and have it lying flat.
Incidentally, the ironing  board is ALSO one of my cat's favorite resting place. Needless to say that when I came back to my fabric last Saturday to finish cutting, it had gone from smooth and navy to white and fluffy!
However, after using 11 sheets on my sticky lint remover, I finally restored my fabric to its previous navy color and I have now cut all the pattern pieces, basted my underlining to the bodice's shell fabric, interfaced my collar and facing and pinned the darts on the bodice pieces, woohoo!
I'm looking forward for the long weekend to come, hope I'll be able to go a little faster!

Outfit Along : an update

Hello folks!
Here's my little OAL update :

Bad picture, but it's lucky it's dark, otherwise you would see what a mess my flat is ;). As you can see, Myrna is growing quite well (I'm currently halfway through the waist shaping). However, the same can't be said about my dress...the pile of fabric on which I put my ball of yarn is actually going to become a Hawthorn, but for the moment it's only been prewashed. I made a first muslin of the bodice, which proved I'd have to make it a bit longer, I started tracing the other pattern pieces...and that's as far as I went for the moment.

I hope I'll be more productive next week-end!

Finally joining OAL!

When I first read about Andi and Lauren's combined knitalong/sewalong, I was interested, but not sure I could do it as I still had unfinished projects, and future projects that originally involved neither of the patterns they wanted to make.

However, now that I've finished my Miette and almost finished a 3rd version of Wearing History's Smooth Sailing pants (see versions 1 and 2 here and there), I'm free to join the Outfit Along party!

The principle of the Outfit Along is basically, to sew and knit during the same period 2 garments that are meant to be worn together, the knit garment being Andi's new pattern, Myrna, and the sewn garment Simplicity 1803. That being said, as Andi says in her presentation of the challenge, you don't have to sew or knit both patterns if you don't like one or both of them, as long as you sew one garment and knit another!

And that's fine by me, because I'll be choosing another dress pattern (not that I don't like Simplicity 1803, but I don't have it in my stash and I don't want to lose time having to order it and wait for it to get in my mail box).

Soooo...Here's what we've got : On the one hand, credited as "the Dress Pattern", is Miss Hawthorn, coming straight from the Colette Patterns studios in Portland Oregon, which I'm going to make in navy swiss dot cotton (underlined in navy cotton voile) :

And on the other hand, credited as "the Cardi Pattern", is Lady Myrna by Andi Satterlund, which I'll knit using Cascade 220 in the 7827 colourway (aka Goldenrod).

If I have any left, maybe I'll make a Summer Belt too!

A few more details : the Outfit Along starts on June 1st and ends on July 31st, and you can get the code for the button on Andi's blog.

Well, now that everything is settled, I'm off to order my wool ! See ya!