OMG!!

How crazy is this!!

I started this cardigan quite some time ago and I'd been happily knitting away for a while so you'd think I would've noticed but, nooooo I just kept knitting quite oblivious to my mistake. 

Here I was, wondering why this fitted style was coming out so large especially when I was making a pattern with negative ease.  It just looked wrong.  It was too loose.  What was I doing wrong?  I kept checking the pattern and thinking to myself it must be the tension.  (I've never made a tension square in my life - maybe that was the problem.)  I put it away for a while to ponder.  When I picked it up again and started the next piece it became immediately obvious.

Can you see what I was doing wrong? 

Like a complete fool I had knitted two fronts and the back using the wrong. size. needles.  Duhh!!

I pulled it all out and started again only to discover that this time around the sleeve was going to be too long, so once again I started over adjusting the pattern for a shorter sleeve.  Let me tell you, I'm not a very fast knitter and it's beginning to feel like the never ending cardigan but perseverance will prevail.  I am going to finish it 'one day'!!  :)

Have you ever done something like this or had a project that seems to go on forever?

Finally, some normalcy in my life

Hello everyone.  I thought I'd pop in and let you all know that I'm still here.  Even though I have nothing really to show you right now I hope to soon.  Things have been very hectic here for the last couple of months, what with selling our house in Melbourne and having to empty out the remainder of our contents along with starting a new job and getting my head around the training  and all that goes with it - whoa, my head is still spinning!  it left little time for any sewing.

However, on the weekend I did manage to get into my sewing room, though I didn't really achieve much. :(  I stitched the collar onto a blouse I had started making about two years ago that I found when clearing out the old house.  (Stashbusting?  Mmmm... not sure that it can be counted as Stashbusting, but I'm going to anyway.  Well I will when I finish it.)  I did however, make a bit of progress in cleaning up the mess that seemed to have multiplied while I wasn't looking, so feeling much better about that.

During my clean up I was putting away some patterns that were sitting on my sewing table and came across the pattern I was going to make for the Sew for Victory challenge and it left me feeling completely ripped off disappointed that I wasn't able to finish due to an injury when I remembered seeing this on Instagram.

Now I'm feeling so much better and really excited because Rochelle and Tasha have just announced they are hosting 'Fall For Cotton' - A vintage sewing challenge for the cotton lover and I AM soooo in.  Being a lover of the 1940s and especially WWII fashion, and... well... everything 1940s this sewing challenge is right up my alley perfect for me.

I had decided recently that I needed to add some shirts and blouses to my wardrobe and I already had a 1940s pattern in mind, Simplicity 4750, when they made the announcement so the choice of pattern was easy.  I'm planning on making view 3, the white one.  I just wasn't planning to make it straight away, after all it is winter here so I'm not in need of a short sleeve blouse for a while yet.  I haven't chosen my fabric yet, although I have plenty of cotton fabrics in my stash to choose from, I just can't decide if I want a plain or a print.  I'm tempted to make both but don't think I'll find the time to do two before the end of September - we'll see.  One thing is for sure tho', this time I AM going to finish. 

Is anyone else joining in the Fall for Cotton challenge?

On finishing, I will say that I haven't been completely slack.  I've managed to get in a little knitting.  It's much easier to pick up and get a few rows done in five minutes than it is to make a little space in a messy sewing room.  I'm making a vintage cardigan - not sure what year it is but I'm thinking it's 1940's.  A pattern I picked up from a secondhand bookstore.

What are you crafting at the moment?

On a lazy Saturday afternoon

... how do you fill in your time?  Knit of course. 

Our racing carnival is about to kick off next week and I will be attending the Ladies Luncheon with my daughter again.  Now I know I should've made an outfit to wear but that just wasn't going to happen this time around.   I've decided to wear a black dress I already have in my wardrobe and I bought a lovely fascinator but the weather isn't looking to great this year and I think I may need a little scarf to wear travelling to and from the racecourse.

I pulled out some pretty red wool I had in my stash; went and bought some ginormous knitting needles (I don't think I would call these knitting needles, they're huge) and knitted up a scarf.  It certainly wasn't the easiest to knit with these needles, give me regular sizes any day, their size made them difficult to handle.   It took a total of one ball of wool and one lazy afternoon.  Can I really call this stashbusting?  I still have three balls left.

I interrupted my current knitting project for this quick knit and I think it will be one I wear often.  Very often!

A day out

Last weekend I visited a beautiful old property developed in the 1840's, Tarndwarncoort in a small country town called Birregurra about 2 hours from Melbourne.  It's an historical homestead and sheep farming property.   A tour through the homestead revealed some beautiful insights as to what life was like in the 19th century with a wonderful array of furniture and knick knacks.   The Dennis family, who are descendants of the original owners, still own and run the farm.

After having a short talk about how the property was developed, a wander through the wool shop revealed some wonderful eye candy.

The wool which is from the Polwarth Sheep, a breed developed from the Merino sheep by the Dennis family, is dyed using natural organic dyes.  Aren't the colours superb?

There were a few knitted items like this delightful tea cosie.
 

A demonstration was given spinning wool on some antique spindles. 

There was even the old Knitting Nancy.  Do you remember these?  I do, but mine was certainly not this elaborate - just and old wooden cotton reel and four nails with a hair pin to work it.  Aaahh... the good ole days.

I purchased a few skeins of wool.  Hopefully I have enough to make a vintage short sleeve jumper from the aqua and white.  The multi-coloured wool will become a scarf from the pattern I was kindly given when I was trying to choose the colour.  I even got to wind it into the balls myself using this winding contraption.  I don't know what it's called.

It was very easy.  You put the skein over the collapsible wooden clothesline thingy and thread the end of the wool through a guide and onto the spindle which is attached to the other side of the table then you just wind till you get to the end.  Easy as!

Then to finish off the day they were having a door prize and I won this little pack of alpaca fleece and some bay leaves from their own garden.  A terrific prize but I don't know how to spin.  Maybe  I should try to learn one day.

Another childhood memory - I had a swing just like this, chains and all

In the meantime, I promise I am working on my sewlutions and stashbusting but everything went awry and I have to practice my reverse sewing techniques :(   Hopefully I will have something to show you soon.

Hooray! The Postie Came

Look what was in my mailbox today!

When I first saw A Stitch In Time: Vintage Knitting and Crochet Patterns 1920-1949  I knew I just had to have it.  I have a real weakness for vintage designs.  They really inspire me.

It's a re-publication of the 1972 classic "A Stitch In Time" by Jane Waller, a collection of original knitting and crochet patterns from the 1920s through the 1940s.  Sixty of the original patterns and illustrations (sorry, I didn't take photo's of the original patterns) are included in the book along with stunning colour photo's of each design and new adaptations using contemporary yarns.

 

I waited with anticipation for this to arrive and I certainly wasn't disappointed.   Aren't these knitting designs gorgeous!   There are so many beautiful things to make I don't know where to start.  Possibly the pale green frilly jumper, but then again......

The book includes the usual information at the start like tension, crochet terminology etc.  but there are a few techniques I don't know how to do so will have to research them first.  They are explained but I don't understand.  Call me dumb... but I think I need pictures or to be shown how.

It's a great book saving the practical pattern instructions for posterity while providing a social history as seen through the magazines and leaflets of the times.

Do you knit?  What are you knitting?

PS  Sorry about the light glare in the photo's.  I got a new SLR camera a few days, still learning how to use it.