Sunday, March 10, 2013

Productive Weekend

Well, here's what I accomplished on the alpaca sweater. I read an article in a magazine about seaming knitted items on the sewing machine, and voila, it works! My machine did not even think about eating the sweater.


This shoulder seam looks a million times better than the one I did by hand.


Here's an extreme closeup of the stitches that you can barely see.


And then I ran out of yarn. Yep, not enough to even start on the neck ribbing, and Clara's Loom in Foley was sold out, so I placed a frantic call to In the Making in Birmingham, who is shipping me one more skein. Check out their cool website - they apparently have a blog where they post a pattern every week that you can make over a weekend. (Note to self: The Yarn Cottage in Fairhope did not even return my call - no link for them!)

So instead of knitting, I worked on my pants muslin from the Betzina class. I'm making shorts to work on crotch adjustments, etc. Can you say smiles? This means a short front crotch length, and the advice is to let out the crotch seam, which I did by 1/4".


Okay, much better, but I'm thinking now I need a full thigh adjustment possibly. I left it alone for now.


I was happy with the back crotch, and there wasn't any obvious bagginess, so I didn't do the flat butt adjustments yet.


Just to show you how hard it is to get a back shot without twisting, I had to hold the mirror and line up the phone perfectly. If only I could be so talented at lighting...hey, maybe Drew will let me borrow his light stands he bought for his filming! Also, don't worry about the big wrinkle at the waistline - I didn't press or trim that seam yet.


I'm happy with these so far as shorts, but I know pants will be different because I'll have to figure in knobby knees with the flat butt. Anyway, there are some cool construction things with this princess seam pant. She talks about topstitching the seams, so I did that just for fun, and guess what's right under the front waistband?


Two pockets that I can fit my whole hand into! Clever design.


Since I didn't have a zipper to finish the shorts, I started an official queue for when these are done. I'm going to read up on these patterns at PR and see if one is favored over the other, but I'm thinking the Butterick sheath for my new cotton purchase. I don't think the fabric would be drapey enough for the McCall's. What do you think?


And I've had this black silk charmeuse for years (it was the very first thing I bought at Fabrics.com) and thought it might make a nice sleeveless version of view B, which is the blue velvet drawing on the bottom. Any other ideas of what to do with 2 yards of charmeuse?


Hey, did you go see "Mama" yet?

6 comments:

Liba said...

Glad to know that the local girls treated you right! By the way Target is open and I have two words for ya' - cart escalator! Your neice is hooked.

marysews said...

You're having better luck with pants than I ever have, so I'm happy for you! I prefer skirts and dresses, anyway!

Dr. Fun (AKA Sister) said...

Liba, shut UP! I've got to come back!

Mary, let's don't jump to conclusions yet. They can still go wrong!

Pam said...

I didn't even realize that I could even sew knitted items on the machine - thanks for the tip! Great job on the pants class - I can't wait to see your final results.

RobbieK said...

Lynn, the pants look good! They don't looktight around the thighs to me. My crops had extra fabric across the front at the bottom of the zipper, after taking off 1-1/2 inches at the center front tapering to +1 inch at center back. I've unsewed the inside legs and I"m going to try making the front smaller and leaving the back as is....

Dr. Fun (AKA Sister) said...

Pam, I'll get a link or the reference for the sewing article for you in the next post.

Robbie, that sounds like it'll work. She addressed that extra fabric there, but I forgot what she did - I think exactly what you did. Can't wait to see what they look like!