A Wintry Owls Sweater and Sewaholic Hollyburn Skirt

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! 

I hope all my American pals had a fantastic Turkey Day. (And I hope my international friends had a lovely Thursday!) 

Mine was super low-key and relaxing, which was just fine by me. My Black Friday, though, was slightly more exciting. 

Greg and I have been taking ballroom dance classes for the last few months and the place we take classes, Workhouse Arts Center, is insanely awesome.

The arts center, which has everything from yoga, to glassblowing to comedy shows, was a prison until 2001. It's called the Workhouse because it's a prisoner-built prison. Is it a bit creepy that we take dance lessons in cell block 11? Possibly. Is it also cool as hell? Most definitely. I'm a super nerd for old buildings with interesting history and the Workhouse complex certainly fits the bill! 

Anyway, the Workhouse had an open house on Black Friday, which included an hour-long ballroom dance practice session/exhibition thing. (I swear they don't pay me -- I just think this place is super cool.) So I convinced my dad that he should come with Greg and I. 

Of course, I had to wear a new outfit for the event and have Greg photograph it at the Workhouse. A change of venue is always nice, right? I'm sure you all get sick of seeing my front yard. 

This is the Owls sweater by Kate Davies and the Hollyburn skirt by Sewaholic. 

I'll talk a bit about the Owls first. 

I knitted the majority of this on a train trip Greg and I took from Washington, D.C., to Seattle in August for his sister's wedding.

We were on the train for four days and I knitted the entire body and one sleeve on the train trip.

(Funny story about how the day of the trip I sent Greg to the yarn store with a list because I finished my previous project and wanted to start this one but didn't have the correct size needles! I swear to god my husband is the best sport ever.)

This sweater is made with bulky yarn, so it is an incredibly quick knit. I used Billow from KnitPicks, which is a 100 percent cotton and it is SO soft. Sadly it doesn't do a great job holding its shape, but its softness totally makes up for that.

This was also my first experience with cables, and I found them surprisingly simple! I opted not to sew on the button eyes, though, to make the design seem a bit subtler so the sweater would go with more outfits.

I also left the body short so I could wear it with my high-waisted skirts. I don't really wear pants that often, so I usually want my sweaters to go well with skirts.

The most difficult part of this sweater for me was trying to figure out how to connect the body to the sleeves in order to knit the yoke.

I'd never knit a bottom-up sweater before, so I was a bit at sea. I ended up first getting everything set up backward. Ravelry sorted me out though: I posted a thread asking why I couldn't use the instructions for the yoke (I was set to knit in the wrong direction.)

The eventual solution?

I was reading the directions and thinking about MY left and not the SWEATER'S left. Oy.

After that, though, it was fairly easy to finish! Ha!

This past week, I decided to whip up a quick Hollyburn from black twill I got from Mood. It's a Theory fabric and it is lovely. 

These pictures were taken on second wearing -- I wear most of my full skirts with a very minimal cotton petticoat and tights for warmth, so there's no point to washing after every wear -- and despite the twill's slight stretch factor, the skirt still looks great. The recovery is great.  

I also put in my very first centered zipper on this skirt. I don't know how I've never done one before, but I hadn't. Surprisingly simple! I usually put invisible zippers in everything, but since I've made this skirt several times already, I decided to challenge myself a tiny bit. 

 Here's a pic Greg snapped of the outfit in action, as I was trying to waltz with my dad.

And an outtake my dad snapped of Greg taking pictures of me. So meta.

What did you do for Black Friday? Hit the stores? Hit the dancefloor? Something else entirely?

Outfit Along: Myrna Sweater and New Look 6184

For the most part, I don't join sewalongs. But when I saw that Andi Satterlund and Lladybird were joining up for an Outfit Along, I was sold. The idea behind the challenge was to knit a sweater and a sew a dress. 

Andi Satterlund has a lot of sweater patterns designed to be worn with retro, high-waisted dresses. Sounds like me, right?

I didn't start working on this until almost a month in because my wedding happened right at the beginning of the challenge, but I still managed to finish it, helped largely by the fact that I now commute on the metro and get an hour for lunch every day. Lots of daily knitting time!

This sweater was  just as easy as promised. I managed to knit the entire thing in just over a month, despite the fact that I'm still a relatively new knitter and knit fairly slowly (well, I purl fairly slowly anyway -- a row of purling takes me twice the time a row of knitting takes!)

I made this with KnitPicks Comfy Worsted cotton yarn in Whisker. Isn't that the cutest color name? My poor old light grey J Crew sweater had just about died, so I was super pleased to find my perfect light grey yarn.

I bought buttons for this sweater at my local yarn store, Uniquities, but I have been unable to find matching petersham. I've also worn this sweater twice now and have not missed the buttons yet -- I almost never wear sweaters buttoned. Maybe I will just leave them off forever?

The back of the sweater has a cute keyhole detail; it gives a little peekaboo of my dress. Saucy!

I definitely made a few mistakes in this sweater (like not picking up enough stitches in the button band, which apparently means the band is a little small -- who'd have guessed?! -- which I suppose I should have known.) I fully admit I'm still learning. But I definitely think it will get a ton of wear.

The dress is New Look 6184. I adore this dress. It has a pleating detail at the neckline and the armscyes are nice and deep. No alterations there necessary! 

I cut an 8 at the bust and a 10 at the hip -- my standard New Look alteration.

The skirt is lovely -- it's a half circle cut in seven pieces, which was perfect for my 45-inch-wide fabric. The fabric is Michael Miller Madrona Road Wild Carrot in blue. It's a really soft and drapey quilting cotton fabric and I just adore the pattern. I didn't bother to match the pattern at all, but I did place carefully to make sure I didn't have any questionable yellow dots in inappropriate places on my bodice front.

Instead of lining, I went with facings, as directed (for once!)

This dress was super quick to sew up. I cut all the pieces, fused my interfacing, serged all edges and then sewed it up all in one night!

Greg's comment on this outfit was: "400% you!" which, in terms of compliments, is really the best I could ever want.

I feel so good in this outfit -- I may never take it off!

Knitting: Brick Sweater

A few months back, I decided that I wanted to take up knitting. 

My mother taught me to knit a few years ago, and I made some scarves, which was fun. But really, what I wanted out of knitting was sweaters. 

I love sweaters. I'm always cold and a sweater is usually my answer to that problem. 

Unfortunately, I cannot wear wool at all, even in small percentages, so sweaters can be very difficult to find. I really prefer sweaters that are cotton or silk. 

Enter knitting. 

The yarn I used is a mercerized cotton yarn by Tahki Yarns. I bought it from my local yarn store, Uniquities. It's nice and soft and mercifully itch-free.

 
This is the second knitting pattern I've ever used (the first was a Miss Marple Scarf). I researched online a bit and discovered that a top-down raglan sweater is about as easy as it gets for sweaters. Sold!

This pattern is a free pattern called Brick.

I appreciate that the pattern was free, though I will say, it has some issues. For instance, those sleeves? They're done to the pattern specifications -- exact number of rows and everything. They're supposed to be long sleeves. Bit short, eh?

Luckily, I prefer three-quarter sleeves (though usually I prefer them just above the elbow.)

The sweater itself I left short on purpose to wear with all my high-waisted skirts (like here with my denim Hollyburn skirt.)

I used a TON of online tutorials and YouTube videos to make this sweater -- and it still took me two tries. The first try was error-riddled and when I got to the bottom, I bound off and realized I couldn't pull it over my head.

After unraveling the entire body of the sweater, I started over.

The second try went much better. And this time I used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off, which I'd seen online a few times. Worked like a charm!

I mean -- don't get me wrong. The sweater still has a lot of mistakes.

But for a first try, I feel pretty good about it!

Here are my Ravelry notes (though this is probably more detailed.) Feel free to friend me. :)

Next up, I'm already about 75 rows in to the Miette Sweater by Andi Satturlund. I'm addicted!

A Quick Jaunt to New York!

I had the best time in New York this past weekend.

Lladybird Lauren, whose meetup I attended last year, was heading to the Big Apple this weekend and decided to make an event of it. 

Photo from Madalynne

Originally, I wasn't intending to go, since I ended up planning an earlier trip. But when that trip was canceled for bad weather, I immediately jumped on the meetup train, and I'm so pleased I did! 

We all met up at Mood at 1 p.m. and there was QUITE the group. Lauren was there of course, as was Marcy (in one of her Project Sewn dresses), Lisette (who is super sweet), Jennifer (who recently traded me a pattern that I still need to sew up!), Fleur (who has a really good Instagram account), Amanda (I met her at Male Pattern Boldness day), Suzanne (also met at MPB day!), Clare, Nettie, Madalynne (she brought us all vintage silk thread -- so sweet!), Juli (I read her blog, but I didn't recognize her in person, lol), Cindy and Elaine (who don't have blogs but are still really cool), Angela (she just moved back from Japan and has the cutest blog ever) -- oh gosh, and who else? 

Several people I saw, recognized and didn't get a chance to talk to (Sonja and Amity). And several people I talked to and didn't write down their blog names. So I'm totally depending on the rest of roundups to link to them so I can figure out who they are! I try to make sure I follow every person I meet at these meetups, so if you're not listed, you should hit me up in the comments. ;-)

Hilariously, about three or four of us wore our Sewaholic Minorus. Most people seemed to be wearing at least one homemade clothing item, which, can I just say, is the coolest thing ever? I made a new dress just for the event (which I'll share later on -- after wearing it for an entire day, I decided the armscyes need fixing.)

It is so nice to meet up with sewing folks. I don't know anyone around here who's into sewing, so it's neat to be able to get in-depth opinions on things like sewing silk and lining wedding dresses. 

... Speaking of which, I bet you can guess what I bought. 

Yes.

Wedding dress fabric! Eep! 

Not only did I spend a wonderful day luxuriating in the wonder of Mood and the company of lovely and talented ladies. I also found the perfect wedding dress fabric! 

The top fabric is a silk charmeuse to use for lining. The bottom two are a delightfully soft silk-cotton blend. I got four yards of each, just to be safe. 

I also got some light purple cotton sateen to make a dress for Greg's sister's wedding (I'm a bridesmaid) and some light pink silk for Greg's mom. 

In other news, I finished my first sweater (pictures to come) and started a second one, which I worked on during the bus trip home. 

What a fun way to spend a Saturday. :)

Work-at-Home Chic: Another Hollyburn Skirt

Well, we had another massive snowstorm last night. I'd originally planned to travel to New York today with Christine to buy fabric for my wedding dress, but, of course, we had to postpone -- which means we're going to Lladybird's meetup in a couple weeks instead! So we'll get to hang out with some lovely blogland babes AND get our shopping done. 

Anyway, instead of an awesome shopping trip, I took advantage of the beautiful scenery to photograph one of my favorite recent makes!

This is a grey corduroy Hollyburn skirt. I love my first Hollyburn so much that when I saw a lovely soft grey corduroy at Fabric Mart in Pennsylvania, I snagged a couple of yards for a Hollyburn. It's very slightly stretchy, which makes it super comfortable.

While I did button tabs on the waistband of my first Hollyburn, I decided a plain waistband would be best here.

This pattern takes no time at all to make up -- I finished this entire skirt in a single night. Instant gratification!

The most difficult part of this was pressing the corduroy so that I didn't squash the lovely cords. I read somewhere on the Internet about someone using a piece of corduroy as a press cloth, so I tried that. I also ironed from the wrong side.

As per usual, I cut the pattern pieces and then serged all the edges before sewing. I love the clean look of serged edges.

I wear this skirt at least once a week -- it's perfect for working at home because it's nice and free below the waist. I can run around with the dogs and sit with my legs crossed comfortably.

Plus, I always think it's nice to wear actual clothing when I work at home. Too many days of yoga pants and sweatshirts and I start to feel grody.

My current favorite way to wear this skirt lately is with fleecy tights, a long-sleeved T-shirt and the shawl my mom made me. (Usually I wear slippers instead of snow boots!)

You may have seen this shawl before -- I wore it tons during Me-Made May last year. It's a favorite of mine. It's so easy to wear and it's super warm. I think she knitted it from an acrylic yarn? I adore it and really want a second one. Maybe after I finish the sweater I'm knitting.

I definitely love the Hollyburn pattern and will probably make several more of this skirt. It's super versatile, very simple and -- of course -- it fits perfectly.

Hope all my fellow East Coasters are enjoying the snow! (At least a little bit.)