April showers

Blue Socks
These socks were knit from my oldest sock yarn stash. The yarn and pattern were bought on a visit to my sister in 2003. Yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Jeans color. The pattern is Fiber Trends Walking Away Socks. The pattern has 3 designs, all with patterning only on the back. This version is called Reflections.

Secret socks
I'm working on socks for Plymouth Yarns. The yarn is Sockotta Limited, a cotton wool blend.

Skew socks
I seem to be a lemming, following a large group of other knitters and not really knowing where I am going. I saw this interesting pattern in Knitty.com. The SKA challenge for this month on Ravelry is to knit from an online magazine. Now was the time! I heard that the sock was a little tight and hard to pullover the heel, so I chose Kroy yarn, which is a little heavier than some sock yarns, and went up a needle size from 2.25mm to 2.5mm. It has worked well. The first sock goes on easily and fits. The pattern takes more concentration and counting than I gave it. There are a lot of stitch count adjustments in that one. It is finished now, and still looks strange off the foot. Sock #2 is on track through the toe. I'm working with the idea that my problems were user error.

Judy Garland Dress
Hong Kong finished seams were mentioned in the last post. A 1" wide bias strip of lining was used, stitched to the edge of the seam, turned under and stitched again.

To the left is the sleeve edge finish. Chiffon was used for this, bias cut 1 5/8" wide, folded in half and machine stitched to the outside, and turned inside. Hand stitching was used to finish the edge.

A 9" side zipper was called in the instructions. That turned out to be a little short, so I replaced it with a 12" zipper and hand picked it. The sleeve's bottom edge is gathered by hand and stabilized inside with seam tape. The lower sleeves has an outside tuck which is gathered. The sleeve head is organza, which supports the puffiness even better when a real arm is inside. These details were in the pattern instructions.

The belt buckle is a vintage one that I had in the shop. I gave the customer a choice of two buckles, or no belt at all. Working to a tight deadline and having no belt backing, grosgrain ribbon looked like it might work for a backing. This was a good thing as the belt is gathered a little in the buckle. There seems to be enough resistance to make it stay put. This buckle was not meant to have a prong.

The skirt was sewn with the lining separate from the chiffon, so that each could be hemmed by itself. Each layer has a tiny machine stitched hem. The skirt had hung for a couple of days before marking, and is basically cut on the straight grain, so it should not sag. A rolled hem was called for in the pattern.

On to the next "big" thing
This week, I'm putting new linings in winter coats. These have been shoved aside for a while. Two are finished and one still to go. I feel like I'm catching up on my backlog.

Teaching
Saturday was spent at Knitter's Fantasy in Youngstown, OH. I taught basic cables and chart reading. The responsibility for the event rotates around 3 guilds. This year it was my guild's turn to run it. As far as I know everything went smoothly.It's a great one day event! Knitters get 2 classes, lunch and vendors for under $50.00 for the day. Total attendance including walk-ins was almost 600 people.

March Madness

I must have been crazy to start so many projects with a March 31 deadline.

Green socks
These were a Mystery Pattern from the Ravelry SKA group. Green is the March color for Ravelry Solid Socks group. Yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit Cotton.

Black scarf
Ravelry's Project Yarnway group had a challenge for March to knit with something not sold as yarn. I used black tape usually used for hanger loops in garments. My contrast is rayon seam binding. I would have made it longer, but the knitting was hard and time was short.

There is another pair of socks on the needles. Lace socks called Reflections from the Fiber Trends pattern called Walking Away Socks. SKA says I have until April 30 for these, but they are almost finished.

We won't talk about the sweater I'm knitting. Garment and design are due April 2. Oh by the way, could I do a machine knit pattern? Chosen yarn doesn't work on the machine, so I'm doing it in another yarn. Just need a pattern and technique illustrations, not a complete garment.

On the work front, I am making a "Judy Garland" dress from a 1940 pattern. My customer is a singer doing a Judy Garland program. She bought the pattern on eBay.

The dress is silk chiffon over lining. The bodice is underlined with the lining. I had considered doing a traditional lining, but the pattern construction seemed to make that difficult.

I decided to finish the shoulders with a Hong Kong finish using a bias strip of lining. I'll be using it on other seams, so do a how to then.

The neckline is finished with a chiffon binding. The bias strip was folded and the raw edge sewn to the neck. The fold is hand stitched to the lining. The lower hand stitching is the neckline edge of the front piece, not a separate piece.

The pattern is interesting. Perforations mark seam allowances. The pieces were pre-cut. Notches have more information than we get today.

Assembly instructions are printed on one side of a sheet of paper, but appear to be complete enough. I do think that the print and pictures are smaller than seen today. I will show that next time.