A Bakers Half a Dozen

Gosh.  Where has the year gone?  Here we are, almost in May already.

Due to some recent life changing events, things have changed somewhat around Spotty Dog Towers, and as a result it is pretty clear that I have waaaaay more stash (fabric, yarn, beads etc) than I will ever use in this lifetime.

And so I have been busy.  Lots of clothes to blog about, but also socks.  Aww, c'mon, I love knitting socks, and these are the ones that I have recently made (mostly to gift), some to keep.  Let me introduce you quickly to the first half dozen:

Purple Fabel Billy's

This is great hardwearing yarn and the socks knit to fit men and their somewhat HUGE feet.

Caribic Billy's

Another pair of men's socks.  These will likely be for my father.

Felici Picnic Billy's

Definitely a pair for one of my ladies at work.  I love Knit Picks Felici yarn - so soft and scrummy.  It is a shame it felts - although after quite a few washes, but certainly worth it.  I was going to link to the yarn but currently KP only has it in worsted weight.  Oh well, plenty more in MY stash!!

Turquoise Jacquard Billy's

Another really great hardwearing yarn.  The yardage on this always scares me as it is really low - although the yarn is more of a sport weight.  I have learned to trust a 60st cast on (as opposed to my usual 64st) and just 50 rows for the leg (in comparison to the 60rows).  Not sure if I'll keep these, otherwise more ladies socks!


World Circus Billy's

Yep, more hardwearing yarn.  Are you seeing a pattern here?  Self patterning yarn, hardwearing, fabulous colours!  I picked this up a year or five ago when I went on a knitting retreat to Tofino, Vancouver Island, BC.  Will be great for a funky, male recipient!


Spring Billy's

A cheery pair of spring socks, sized for female tootsies!


More Pairfection

I have already made and gifted these to Mr. SDSC and they are already in rotation!  I love this yarn (hardwearing, patterned etc) and this is the only patterned yarn that I make an effort to actually match up.  I like the haphazard look of mismatched socks, so these made a nice change.

All links are to the relevant Ravelry pages and the pattern (my own) that I use.

So, there we have it.  That's my sock knitting up to date.  Next up are clothes!

Christmas Sewing

By the time this post is let loose on the world, the Christmas sewing that I have completed will have been gifted, and I will be settling down after Christmas dinner with my husband and father, a G&T in my hand and some new sewing books to pore over (please Santa!)  A small but enjoyable gathering and I trust that your day will have been just as enjoyable.

Time to share some projects!

When we were in Canmore in October we passed a small shop that had some lovely flannel nightshirts on display.  Mr. SDSC said at the time that he would like a nightshirt and so I was on a mission.  I used Simplicity 2317, which features regular PJ's, a jersey vest and shorts, as well as a nightshirt.  My local fabric chain was selling some lovely Canadiana flannel at a great price - so I was good to go!  I used the XL size which will be on the large side - but I suspect that this will also be worn as a dressing gown.  I made a couple of changes to the pattern/construction:

• lengthened it by about 5", Mr. SDSC is 6ft tall
• no piping.  Just because.
• serged the collar to the neckline.  I like to top and edge stitch the seams, rather like a faux flat felted seam (I actually have seen it called a welt seam)
• plastic 'poppers' instead of buttons
• pockets added to the side seams - who wouldn't want pockets in the side seams?
• hand-stitched the facings down.  I know that this will not be ironed, and there is nothing worse than 'flappy facings', so it took an hour or so to sew the facings down and I am pleased that I did that.

It is hard to make it look good on my dress-form - but you get the idea!

 

I know that the closures don't look perfectly spaced at the top - I just wanted there to be a couple of options of how high the neckline could be.

I know it is a little bit vain, but I do enjoy adding a label.  I have found that the folks that I do make things for tend to look for the labels and appear to be a little disappointed if I have failed to include one :)

Next up was a pair of socks for Mr. SDSC.  Nothing special about them other than the yarn is rather fabulous.  It is self-striping from Regia and this is the second pair that I have made using this yarn.  It is fab!

Oh no, what is that I can see in the grey stripe?  Yep, a dropped stitch.  Dangnabbit.  Oh well, It is all tidied up now!

My father is quite hard to make/shop for, but when I was at a quilting fair this year I saw a remembrance quilt by a Canadian designer called Corinne Hewitt which I thought he would appreciate, so I bought a kit called 'Lest We Forget'.   Again I made a couple of changes - left out the lettering (I think that it is rather poignant without the lettering), changed the headwear of the soldier to look more British (my father is a retired British Army Officer).  I used the profile of a WW1 memorial in Wales for reference (scroll down the link until you get to the profile photo at the bottom), and am rather pleased with how it came out:

The three poppies in the field (bottom right) are small, red buttons.  The four poppies in the corners are made up of two layers of poppy petals and a black button in the middle.  I kept the Canadian flag as my father is very proud of now being a Canadian citizen and this is a lovely marriage of the two Countries.  I have added a sleeve to the back so that he can hand it if he likes - it is 25" x 36".  Oh, and this photo was taken two or three days ago - as you can see, a nice dry deck.  Would you like to see what my garden looks like now?

Winter has arrived!  I'm not too sure how excited the dogs are, but I am looking forward to a white Christmas!

Each Winter I plan to make some table runners and never seem to get round to it - but this year, I did.  Both are free patterns:

Pole Twist Runner

Ah yes, just look at that lovely, fresh snow.  The light at this time of year can be pretty dull and it therefore hard to get good photos, but this works!  This is a really quick and easy project and I used up some of my Mum's quilting fabric which I enjoyed doing,  I kept the borders very plain - I rather like the modern esthetic of a skinny binding, and that is it.

Trees Table Topper:

There are a few different ways to finish off this topper - I chose to use pinwheels and to go 'scrappy' using red and green fabric although not necessarily Christmas fabrics.  I love this!

The white flecks on the photos are falling snow - it was snowing when I took the photos!

Unfortunately I didn't get chance to sew any Christmas clothing - but I am still off work for another 9 days so I am sure that that will change!  Do you have any Christmas sewing that you'd like to share?

Wishing you all a Happy and Peaceful Christmas.

Green Caterpillars and Bramble Stripes

When I was younger, cotton reels were wooden, and there were lots of crafts to use these.  I remember one was collecting quite a few, painting them green, threading some elastic through the middle and turning them into a snake or a caterpillar.

Another was to make a 'knitting nancy' - remember these.  What a slow way to make an iCord.

Source

Fast forward a few years, I am now an adult, but where are all those lovely wooden cotton reels for me to make into something else?  Yep, replaced by cheap plastic ones.  Argh.  What is a girl to do?  And then I saw a project (I'm really sorry, I can't remember where I saw this first), and this is what my empty plastic cotton reels look like now:

Pretty cute right?  Little scraps of some of my favourite fabrics, wrapped round and glued down.  They reside in glass jar in my sewing room looking very cheery.  I made two or three and I was hooked, so I went through my hoard of threads, got rid of those last few yards that I would never use, and now I have quite a few.  I thought it would be fun to use fabric in the same (or similar) of the thread that was on the reel.  Just because!

So there you have it, not quite green caterpillars or 'knitting nancy's', but I rather like them!  And, a few less items in the landfill!

Oh, and I'll just let you see some more socks that I have just finished.  I love purples and greens, so this Patons Kroy in Bramble Stripes is pretty much perfection!  More details on my Ravelry page.

Caterpillar Green Phi Socks

Caterpillar Green Yarns produce some lovely yarn dyed in Beautiful British Columbia.  Not a million miles from me, and it looked gorgeous.  I signed up for an email to advise me of the shop updates (this yarn sells out FAST!) and bought some Phi last week.

How gorgeous is that?  It is actually dyed in such a manner that you can knit a self striping shawl (the pattern is called Phi for You and can be found here on Ravelry) and as much as I like shawls, I crave socks.  So I 'caked' the yarn and made some socks!  The yarn has cashmere in it and is very cushy, so I knew they would be fabulous socks . . . . .

There is nothing special about the sock pattern - just my standard top down pattern, knit two at a time (I don't think I could knit a plain, one colour sock, any other way!)  More details on my Ravelry page.

All in all, a quick easy project, some new toasty socks and I have briefly satiated my yearning for Caterpillargreen Yarn . . . . . only briefly though!  I'll be watching out for the next shop update!

3rd Day of Christmas - Socks

Socks.  You can never have enough knitted socks.  And having knitted around 200 pairs, I know!  I have been a bit slack of late - quite a few pairs on the needles, so I thought that it was time to finish them off and free up the needles for more . . . . . socks!!

There is nothing special about these socks - I have used my own pattern, Billy Basic Socks, that can be found on Ravelry and the yarn is for both is a self striping yarn.  One is called Rainbow from Knit Picks and is lovely and soft.  I'm afraid I can't remember the name of the other yarn :(  I love hand-knitted socks, especially at this time of the year, so I now have some more to add to my collection!!

As you can see, Nico is new to all of this photo taking and wanted in on the action!!

I also knit some fingerless gloves using a pattern called Cortland.  This was a quick and fun pattern, and they knit up quickly.  I like the pointed cuff - quite unusual - but it was fun to knit and looks great.  The lace pattern was a 4 row repeat and very straight forward, and the thumb is a 'proper' (in my estimation!) thumb.  Much better than a slit/hole to poke your thumb through.  These were knitted in the round, so no seams to sew up at the end.  Like socks.  Are you seeing a patter here?!  

My project is here.  The yarn is lovely soft merino/silk blend and these gloves have been worn a lot recently too.

And finally . . . . . I completed a cowl.  

The yarn is called Sockittome and I made some socks out of a different colourway last Christmas.  It was a pain to knit with using 2.5mm needles, but an absolute pleasure using 3.5mm needles.  How bizarre.  I actually saw another lady had made a cowl using this yarn, so I shamelessly copied her!  I know, I have no shame!

The cowl is long enough to wrap around my neck twice, but as the temperatures are -20c right now, indoor pics on Polly (my polystyrene head double) will have to suffice!

I have found that my knitting often takes a back seat to my sewing, and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed knitting.  My output this year was quite minimal, and I look forward to upping that in 2016!

Do you find that one hobby tends to get pushed aside for another?

New Trousers (Cardis and Socks) for a New Year

Did you manage to get any sewing done over Christmas/New Year?  I was lucky enough to have a two week break from work (woohoo!) and got LOTS done.  I've already blogged about the Christmas sewing, waistcoats and Princess and the Pea (x6), so now it was back to sewing for ME!

I needed to make some more work trousers - I made some this time last year and they are now too big on me.  I like baggy as I like to be able to move, but I definitely needed to go down a size or two.  Fortunately my TNT pattern just needed an inch taken off the side seams and all was well.  I'm thinking thought that I will probably need to make further adjustments as the crotch curve is now bordering on being too large, but that is for another day!  My trousers are based on McCalls 5239.

One pair as made out of a lovely brushed wool (I made my father's waistcoat out of this fabric, and their was just enough in the off cuts to make one for Mr. SDSC - I'll share that once I have finished it!).

The second pair was made out of a woven cotton stripe (yep, Mr. SDSC's first waistcoat was made out of this fabric).  I am finding that the odd shaped leftovers that I have after cutting out trousers for myself tend to leave just enough fabric for a waistcoat, although an agreement has been made that a waistcoat (my father or Mr. SDSC) and trousers (me) made out of the same fabric are not to be worn at the same time - none of this matchy matchyness going on in this house!

Both pairs were lined with some apple green lining picked up in the bargain bin in my local fabric store.  They discount a lot of linings - so it is a matter of buying it when I see it, despite the colour!  I try and use Bemberg wherever possible, but this has a slight stretch to it and is almost a lightweight satin, so along with the cheery colour I couldn't resist.  I have a feeling it may be some kind of lingerie fabric - it is very soft and silky!

I also made a couple more pairs out of a light/medium weight wool suiting that was on sale for just $6/m.  I bought a lovely charcoal grey and black.  I did take pictures of these trousers, but to be fair - they just looked like black/dark grey trousers - hard to differentiate between them.  So here is a down and dirty montage!

I also completed a couple of cardis based upon Burda 8869. The first one was with some very loud pattern fabric that is made up of my colours:

Below I am wearing the brushed wool trousers that I mentioned above:

Lovely.  I put four brown snaps down the front, but this cardi looks much better opened.  The second one I didn't even bother with buttons or snaps - I like it as a 'slip on' casual long-line coverup:

I also finished off my first pair of socks for the year.

There is a story to this pair of socks, one I wish had never occurred, but a story nonetheless.  I started knitting them a month or so ago, had reached the stage where I was getting ready to to decrease for the toes, and tried them on to check for foot length. I have knit this pattern so often, that it is not necessary to try the socks on prior to this moment, but on this occasion, just 20 rows away from completion … . disaster! I had used a different cast on method and the sock was too tight. Sigh. After a trip to the frog pond, I cast on and started up again . . . . .

So, instead of being the last pair of 2014, the ended up being the first of 2015!

Christmas Gift Sewing (and a bit of knitting!)

Well, now that the big man has come and gone, I can share with you some gifts that I made for Christmas.

My lovely Sister-in-Law back is traveling back to the UK next month, and I thought that she could use a hand with her packing . . . . . so I made her a couple of the box bags that I am currently somewhat obsessed with:

And a cute little jewelry pouch based upon this free pattern in Craftsy.  The pattern was a little too big for my needs, so I made it smaller - opened up it is about 9" x 6". There are two zippered pouches, a piece of felt that you can use to hold your studs, and some ties for rings.  Pretty neat right?  It is a very clever design.

Miss Sharon also mentioned the other day that some socks that I had knitted for her (ages ago) keep her toes really toasty, so I managed to get a pair finished for her just in time for Christmas:

The colour of this yarn (Estelle Sockittome) is fabulous, and the dye pattern is very pretty, but boy, this yarn is splitty. I was constantly having to drop stitches, frog back, and then pick them up again as this yarn does NOT play nice with 2.5mm needles. Funnily enough I am knitting a cowl on larger needles in another colourway - and that is fine, but these socks were a NIGHTMARE because of the yarn. Such a pity as the colours are gorgeous.

The stitch definition is good, and has a lovely twist - which is just as well as the yarn is a single ply. I’m not to sure how long these socks will last - only time will tell … .

Next up was a pair of socks my Mr. for Christmas:

This time I used Knit Picks Felici - a lovely soft yarn that Knit Picks are no longer making/selling.  If you can't have Christmas coloured socks at Christmastime - I don't know when you can!

Finally, I made some fabulous little holders to hold your hot bowls when they come out of the microwave:

I'm not sure if you can see in these pics, but there is a dart on each side of the square that pinches in the fabric, making a bowl shape.  The above musical holder was a gift for my Dad, and the Christmas fabric ones are for my brother and SIL.

All the fabric, batting and thread are cotton, so the holders can be microwaved with the bowls on top of them.  I made another black/red/white musical one for Mr. SDSC and he has been using it all week for his Weetabix in hot milk every morning . . . . . much better than a folded up tea towel!

I've also made a couple more waistcoats - a black one with red lining for my father (forgot to get a pic of that, and he now has it at home) and a black/brown houndtooth for Mr. SDSC - photos to follow.

How about you - did you get any Christmas sewing/knitting in this year?