More Sewing!!!

For a brief moment in early April, it was spring skirt weather here in New England. This was, of course, very short lived, but it was long enough for me to eagerly tackle many of the fabric piles I had purchased with the specific intent of making skirts.

Things got a little bit crazy.

First, this denim-type skirt.  The lovely Miss Walsh was over with a delightful jean skirt on, and I reverse-engineered this from my memory of what her skirt looked like.  I added pockets - REAL POCKETS, not those dinky fake pockets - and went crazy with the top-stitching.  It's a maroon duck-cloth and it's mighty comfortable.

So nice, in fact, that I made it twice:

This one is with a Cotton/Linen blend Echino print.  I'm really thrilled with how the piping on this one turned out!  And it was easy.

I changed things up a bit after that:

This is just a simple reverse box-pleat skirt in a much lighter cotton.  No pockets.  Invisible zipper.  

And the last one (for now!) - this is another reverse-engineered number.  It's based on a skirt that I wore CONSTANTLY and is made from a linen/cotton blend.  Again with the top-stitching!  Apparently that's my "thing".  This one is a bit longer, has some more swing and drape.  No pockets.

Next up:  SHIRT MAYHEM

Juneary Knit & Spin

Just as the Juneary weather seems to be coming to an end, I've managed to complete a couple of handknits. The first lovely is something I've wanted to knit for quite some time now, but just now got around to (with a little bit of help from the Webs sale) - the "Shocking!" skirt by Veronik Avery:



This is a very fast, very easy knit. There was some confusion in the tuck row as to which color yarn to use, along with ending up having to do 2 WS rows in a row. This was all worked out by the time I got to the same point the second time around - the pattern is knit in 6 continuous panels - and I was able to breeze through the remainder. The final grafting row, however, was a bit of a nightmare. In completing the Kitchener stitch as written, you would end up with an extra row of Color A. I opted to remove the waste yarn from the provisional cast-on and grafted to my first wrap-row. This proved to be less than ideal; it took a bit to figure out the count using the wraps, and I had to fudge things a little bit to fit things together properly (I was also too lazy to go back and resolve all of what I had already done).

This skirt was knit in Cascade 220 on US 7s. I expect it will get a lot of wear during the cooler months, I'm just hoping that it doesn't pill.

In other feats of completion, here are some socks:



I started these a while ago, and actually completed the first sock - of course, it was the second one that I got hung up on. The solid yarn is Reynolds Soft Sea Wool, and the awesome brown/grey/white is my own handspun 3-ply, from the delicious "Peat" colorway of HelloYarn fiber club. These socks are so freakin' squishy.

There has also been spinning:



200 yards of Romney in the "Pansy" colorway, from the Spunky Eclectic May 2009 Club.



~520 yards of Super Sproingtastic Merino in the "Spring Loaded" colorway (and boy howdy is it spring loaded) from HelloYarn.

I also picked up a Floor Loom! I'm waiting for some parts, so no pictures right now, but soon soon soon. It's the LeClerc Compact model, with a 24" weaving width. It's an X-frame, 4-harness/6-treadle folding loom that I can't wait to get to.