Finally completed - grey green mohair jumper

 I started this jumper ages ago. Well February 2023 to be precise. Its taken me absolutely ages to finish this. Or even to get into knitting this.

It was started as a summery beach jumper but its evolved into a winter one instead.

I got a bit bored towards the end so finished the sleeves just in a grey band at the top. That was after I added stripes to the baby bunny jumper and I liked it so much, so this time I just kind of did it in reverse on this green one.

I did not actually try this on until we took the photos so I never knew if it was going to fit.

I decided on a roll neck which is so easy I must do this one again. I think it will be nice and soft and comfy to wear as well.

Its a lovely jumper, though as I often do, I made the sleeves a bit long. Not really a bad thing but they do tend towards not looking as smart as they might and I do like to double my clothing for both work and play to get as much wear as I can from things. Thats new actually. I used to keep the two worlds separate. Maybe its an old age thing to just become who you truly are all the time? 

Still its a lovely comfy jumper now I finally finished this.

The issue with this one was its just so boring to knit. I just could not get interested in it. I actually prefer this kind of plainer knit to arans etc but doubt I will even attempt another for a long while. 

I find arans so interesting - absorbing- is probably the right word. And so they are easy to knit ( for me). This kind of supposedly easy knit is a real bore. As such I just took an absolute age to finish it.

But now it is actually finished and I love it. When my parter took the photos he even commented on how its nothing like I usually make. Its just not. But it is what I would buy in a shop should I choose to pay for a hand knit. I do like arans and lace but this is just an easy to wear top and so its perfect for my current mix of clothing. It will go with most things. But will I start another? Not I think for 20 to 30 years. Its just too boring. So the next jumper will definitely be another aran. My own design I expect and this time I want to sort out the pattern properly so it makes sense to other knitters and maybe then I can even consider adding it to Ravelry. 

In the meantime I will very much enjoy this new plain jumper, savouring its plainness and loving it for its low key colours. But onwards I think to something more inspiring and bright. I have a storage chest full of interestingly bright mohairs/ fluffy yarns so thats what I will be knitting. 

Though I have also started a top down kids jumper which I hope will get finished. Its my first attempt at a top down so we will see how that one pans out.

Have a great week

Bracken

Blue brocade flares

I cut these out last Spring but never sewed them up. 

Does that make them a UFO?

Maybe! They have sat around for ages really. How long do you need to store a cut out half finished item for it to become a UFO? After all it is still an unfinished object!

The fabric is actually bengaline so it has stretch and so these ought to be comfortable.

I added a yoke to the waistband because these are made using a yoga pants pattern and they are low waisted if made in a woven. They come out with a higher waist if using jersey.

I did similar with my grey (bengaline?) trousers I made a few months ago and they have turned out to be very comfortable and I have enjoyed wearing them.

 These will be good for Autumn on nicer days and add a small bit of glamour to my otherwise pretty boring winter wardrobe so far. And of course they are also ok for work which is a bonus.

 

The grey trousers are trimmed with the selvedge fabric from this brocade so they are quite similar though look very different to each other.

I am hoping this pair is as much as a success as the grey ones. They will update my Autumn wardrobe a bit anyway and this blue almost looks like denim so should be easy to carry off while the fact they are brocade adds a bit of luxury and style.

Thanks for visiting my blog and hope to see you again soon. Have a great week,

Bracken

Armlets free pattern

 

These are really a pattern trial. I have owned a (free) download of this pattern for several years and never got round to using it. It's from Feyr Trade and is still free. Anyway I decided rather than just make tube style armlets for this winter I would try out a pattern for them. I have successfully made these previously with no pattern, but it does mean fiddling around more to get them to fit. If you have a proper pattern it's much faster and far less faffle to make this kind of thing - as I have now found out!

These armlets are going to keep me warm when out and about in winter and I have short sleeves on.

They really do work!

You can see them here with my green dress, and they will, I think make it much more wearable and easier to layer this autumn and winter. 

The fabric was a pair of ill-fitting leggings I bought off the local market about 10 years ago and because I only wore them a couple of times due to the truly terrible fit the fabric is as new. These leggings really were an example of bad clothing found in the worst markets. The sort of thing people think represents market clothing, though in my own experience there are lots of really nice decently made clothes found on market stalls, but anyway these leggings are a perfect example of the bad stuff you find in such places. So why keep them so long I hear you say?

Well the fabric is really nice and it's a nice fabric for my armlets so finally those leggings were worth keeping.

 

I have actually overlocked the edge off one of these since the photos were taken when I realised one mitt was slightly longer than the other. They are now the same length but you will have to take my word for that. I doubt I will get round to more photos of these very soon.

Have a great week, and thanks for popping by. Hope to see you again soon, 

Take care

Bracken

Hand knit socks for aged 2-3 years using the Winwick Mum pattern for childs socks.

 

These are my latest version of socks from the Winwick Mum sock patterns. This is a free pattern for childrens socks and its really good. When I finished these I was convinced they would be huge on our small person but actually they are only slightly too big, so as the Winwick Mum says in this pattern -  children often have bigger feet than you think they do!

These were really knitted so small child can go out on a toddler trundle to a local country park and keep warm this winter. He tried them for the first time this week and they seemed to be good. Its not yet very cold but will be over the next few months and his Mum wants him to do outsidey stuff not just to go to indoor play groups. He seems to enjoy outdooŕs stuff as well, and is currently obsessed with going out in the garden every day, even when it rains. 

Because these are a little big ( and so are his wellies!) he has worn them over normal socks so far but they make the wellies a better fit so he falls over much less too, so thats an added bonus.

I am afraid there are no photos of said small person because he is not going on any social media until he decides to himself, but you can see the size difference with my own socks here:

The yarn is "Silent Night"4ply from West Yorkshire Spinners and is left over from my own socks. It has glitter but is otherwise shades of blue and a very nice yarn.

Our own small person is male but he seems to love the glitter and because he is so young he is as yet uninfluenced by nasty people telling him boys cannot wear glitter! 

So sad how our children get conditioned even when we try so hard not to do this. 

I now need a new knitting project. I knitted these at the same time as my green jumper which was started so long ago.

It's finished except for the neck and sewing up. But I finished the last sleeve just yesterday. Hopefully I will get the rest done before it gets much colder. 

Take care and have a great week,

Bracken.

Two black high low tops - copying RTW

This story begins back in 2013 when I went back to UNI to do my PhD. I had not been a student for years and felt really out of place in my officey work clothes, so what to do? 

Go shopping and buy some new stuff!

Well I as usual bought mostly black, but amongst the new clothes was a very nice high low dress. At that time the term "high-low" and the concept of it was relatively new. Although this style had been around at least since the 1970s, but that was before my time, and for me also this was new, and I loved it. So anyway, I bought this (then) very nice new dress.  

So these tops are a copy of a RTW dress I bought back in 2013 ( for £20) and that is now in holes. The original dress ended up used as a winter nighty more than a dress, but it has been much loved. And is now really rather worn out as you can see from these photos.

Its got a kind of burn out cross in the original fabric. 

This is the old dress:

 

And this is one of the new ones:

I could not find any cross or skull fabric for these so went just with plain very thin black jersey. The fabric is £1.00 /m and both pieces have a slight slubbed look. I can make more of these or maybe just plain Ts from the rest of this fabric, because there is still about 3m left ( in 2 bits) they are actually slightly different fabrics but thats fine. Both are from Pound Fabrics (UK) and in both cases there was a minimum order of 3m but at £1 a meter who cares. 

 

Its easy to sew though has puckered slightly down the back seams but that it irons flat and I think should wear in eventually once I wear them. And of course I will probably also wear these in bed so who cares.

I could have gone with a CB fold and that would have been neater and less to sew up, but you get much more out of the fabric garment wise with the CB seam and the original had a CB seam so why not?

Well, maybe cos it would hang better without a CB seam?

I actually hurt my self a few weeks ago - well I dislocated and broke a toe - so sewing has been difficult hence I made virtually nothing over the last few weeks and thats why my blogging has been so sparse lately. Really I am amazed how much a small digit can get in the way of normal life. I would not have believed the smallest toe on one foot being broken would mean I find it too painful to sew. Its my machine pedal foot though and it was shear agony so I had to just give up for a while. I find it very difficult to sew using the other foot.

Anyway it still hurts but I can do things again now so I made these two tops. They have been on my to do list for a year or so but I was looking for a pattern. In the end I ad libbed. There is no actual pattern. I simply folded my RTW top and cut round the relevant parts. The sleeves were the most difficult and I had to cut quite a bit off the sleeve head to make them fit but having sorted one I just cut the other 3 to match ( using the bit I cut off as a guide for the other sleeves) and then sewed up both garments and here they are:

I am really very pleased with these dresses. I only actually hemmed the one and it did need pressing to look right.

This one has no hems ( yet - I have not yet decided whether to hem or just leave as it is). Its just overlocked on the edges.

The other is currently just overlocked but I may yet add a hem. I am undecided. I really like plain overlocking, but it would probably last longer with an actual hem.  Both have T shirt necks with a small strip to finish them. I did the neck different widths on purpose because I am not sure which I will prefer. Depending on how they feel when worn will probably dictate future neck widths on other tops. I doubt I will bother to alter these though.

 The two new tops also have much longer sleeves so I can pull them over my hands when I want to. I tend to get arthritus in my hands so sleep recently with them covered and have really taken to wrapping up my hands in tubes such as old socks so its probably time to just make some very long sleeves. I do own mitts but I find I wake with the thumb over the hand anyway because that is warmer and the difference in how my hands work in the morning if I sleep with them covered is immense so this is for now the way to go I think.

 

Have a great week and thanks for popping by,

Bracken

Camo hoody Tshirt dress hack

  

I feel I am going back towards a Fae theme with this green camo dress. That's not at all a bad thing for me. I need a little magik right now. Well who doesn't?

I don't really kwo why it feels so faerie but it does. There is no classic pointy hood or uneven hem its just a basic hoody dress but I do just feel fae when I wear this. That Fae feeling might be down to the waning year. And its camo so shades of green and khaki!

This dress feels right for Autumn - to me anyway. I think the fabric is a viscose ramie mix from what I remember but I bought it a year or so ago. Its very drapey and soft and almost silky but not too much that its fragile so it should last a while. Its a nice soft warm dress to wear until the real cold comes in. And I feel happy in it!

The dress body is the Peppermint dress which used to be free - I added a hood to my original version but the pattern comes without one. That version was also quite a bit longer. I shortened this version by loads to get a mini. Possibly a bit too much but I have not yet decided for sure. I used to wear very short skirts but it really does not feel right now I am older. It should of course make no difference and yes I still own a surprisingly large number of short skirts but I feel I cannot get away with them as short as I used to. This shortie length seems ok so far and will work really well with leggings later.

In fact I have a pile of short ( very short) denim and 90s combat styles I still own which I love and I am currently experimenting with adding a lower frill / strip of fabric to lengthen them. Some I can just let the hem down and have it as a raw edge ( demin skirts that is) and it will look good and be about 6cm longer. I still want them mini but maybe a few cm longer. Then I can keep them and still wear them and not ( hopefully) look like "mutton dressed as lamb" which is an expression I have not actually heard in a long time but was used by my grandmother to describe older women wearing teen clothing. I am not actually that bad as yet and gave away a few clothes this year I decided I was pushing it wearing ten years ago. Now really feels like a no-no. But they went to people who wanted them and will wear them and hopefully love them as much as I did. 

Sadly, despite I wish it was different, I really cannot get away with some of what I wore 20 or 30 years ago. Maybe I have suddenly started to feel my age? But some things; yes, I still can, so I am. And if adding a strip of fabric to the hem of my ancient studded denim mini means I get another few years of wear out of something I very much love, then that's worth the effort. The main problem with the denims is finding suitable fabric. New denim really would not look right. I have some in the stash but I just think I will be wasting my time so using that is a last resort. I must be able to come accross so used worn in denim in the right colours. A few years ago I added some sequined sparkly fabric to one and have spent the last week unpicking that. It really does not work for me. I need a second hand denim dress or skirt or very wide trousers in both blue and black denim so now I am looking out for some. It does not need to be the same exact shade and a different one will add to the worn look but I really do not want new denim either. Maybe a second hand long skirt I can hack to sort out my several minis I want to keep. I will keep you posted on my efforts here because it deserves its own post I think. Unfortunately, I recycled several pairs of jeans a few weeks ago, before this idea came to me. They would not be so good as a contiuous strip and the shading would probably not quite work,  but I am sure they would have workedsomehow even if cut the opposite way. Never mind. Life is so easy with hindsight. Not so easy in the real world.

Also I digress from this weeks topic. This camo dress:

Above: the mitts are turned back so doubled cuffs.

The sleeves are the Remy Raglan gathered sleeve add on from Sew House Severn. Being a raglan I decided to see if they would work with the raglan Peppermint pattern and yes they do. So that gives me a gathered wrist sleeve for a change. I actually was not keen on the Remy itself (only ever made one of them) but the sleeve is nice on the Peppermint dress. It also fits the raglan seam amazingly well so no adjustment needed to do this at all!

The hood is from Burda Style hoody 103, 01/2017 which I seem to add to just about everything when I want a hood. The hood does overlap at CF a bit more on this dress than on the original sweatshirt but it does work and is very warm in the cold winter going by my other dresses made using the Peppermint with this hood.

The mitts are a longer version of the Feyr Trade mitts from the Make Your Own Activewear book by Melissa Feyr. I just made the cuff part longer to add length to my gathered sleeve. I may next time make the sleeve itself longer but I do like this solution. I had already cut the sleeves when I realised the problem that the sleeves were slightly too short for my arms, and I think a normal cuff would not work for me either. I did not think I had particularly long arms but there you are. This solution works with this dress anyway. 

So this is part of my Autumn look for 2024 and yes it also feels like a very Fae dress which I am liking. Fae was my theme for last year ( well several times over the years!) but I would be happy for it to be a theme in 2025 too. I am thinking far ahead here of course. Even winter 2024 is quite a way off right now. It's not officially the start of Autumn for a couple of weeks. But you can feel the chill today and the last week or so.

I made the mitts a bit wider than previously because I found many of my older tops with mitts a bit tight round the hands. Thats a mistake. Or at least they needed less widening than I gave them! I will make the next pair slightly narrower but wider than the pattern pieces. That should sort it.

So really I suppose you could say this dress is a wearable muslin. Its an experiment and thats something I enjoy.

The super soft fabric also means I got tunnelling round the hem with the twin needle stitching but despite I sewed it twice I just could not get it better so I will live with a slightly dodgy hem. Pressing it will probably help 😀

I know I should really iron more but I hate it so much.

I am going to make another of these anyway. But possibly I will try a different raglan sleeve and see how interchangeable these are because if they all work, I suddenly have many, many more possible patterns from what is already owned or traced so I just have to try these out. I am thinking of the smaller puffed top sleeve from this top:

Its also a raglan sleeve but here its not the best fabric to see this design but its just a puffed sleeve at the top and then a long cuff and very easy to wear and I wonder if it will work on these kind of dresses?

I have yet to find out that pattern from the loft (where I store my traced patterns), but it's now high on my list of what to have a play with next. Thats after I finish the few projects I currently have on the go. I have changed my sewing regime recently due to the fact I often have a small child running round and its just not safe having things like scissors and pins lying around for days so instead of a large cut-out pile ready to sew up, I only have one or two ongoing items that can easily be stashed away. Its not ideal from a sewing perspective, but this is not an ideal world. Its real life. 

Thanks for visiting my blog. I have not recently had much time for visiting blogs but now the summer is virtually over I should get to catch up on a few visits around the blogosphere and I look forward to seeing what I have been missing out on the last 6 or so weeks.

Have a great week and thanks for popping over,

Bracken

Bunny jumper with bobble tail for age 2-3 years.

 

I have had this pattern for many years. I do not know where it came from but it was from the internet so apologies if this post does not credit the right person or company. If I come across the pattern again I will add a link here but it may be it is no longer online.

Its just so cute I really wanted to knit this. I did not want it in pink though which the original is knitted in  ( its for a boy) and I came across the snuggly bunny yarn reduced because its discontinued at Wool Warehouse so I ended up knitting in what is sold as green yarn though its more turquoise really.  The white yarn is actually a different brand (RICO) but works just as well. I could not get the correct yarn in white. 

Incidentally I originally bought an extra ball to what the pattern says is needed in the green yarn but still ran out. My tension is correct. I ended up needing an extra ball of the green despite adding stripes to the sleeves. Because I bought extra yarn to finish this jumper ( I was so happy they still had some!) I now also have spare left over, but I might just knit a hat to go with this from the spare yarn.

It was surprisingly difficult to knit this yarn because its so fluffy you cannot see the stitches so I ended up only knitting it in daylight. Thats a pain because I mainly knit in the evenings. Luckily its been summer so we have longer days. I knew I needed to finish it for September because of the age of its recipient and the fact children grow so fast. That was a challenge. Or at least the knitting part was ok but the sewing together of loads of pieces has taken far longer than I was hoping. In all there are 9 pieces to this - 4 ear parts, one hood (which I very much like the directions for the shaping I have to say! Its a really nice shape and is better than other hoods I have knitted. More shaped!), it also has two sleeves and the front and back. 

I decided due to lack of yarn to add white stripes to the sleeves and I actually think they look really good. This top reminds me of the teen goth/ emo tops you see with ears and stripey sleeves. Of course its not black but the basic concept of it is there.

You can just about see the pompom tail here. I made the old fashioned way and had to make a second one because the pattern said 5cm pompom. That came out huge. Maybe pompom makers measure the pompom differently? I went with diameter of cardboard circle. I ended up with 2.5cm diameter.

 

 

 

Anyway, I now wait in anticipation to see this on the small person I made it for.

Thanks for visiting my blog, have a great week,

Bracken

Grey circle top

 This is actually the second half of the dress I messed up that I also made my shortie top from. 

The dress was meant to have a circle skirt. Well that dress was a complete disaster and I gave up on it but many years ago when Burdstyle.com had loads of free patterns donated by designers and the public there was a top made from a circle like this one. I never kept the pattern but its been there in my head since I saw it, so I decided to make use of my messed up dress and use the skirt part to make one of these tops.

And I really like it.

Its a nice loose flowy top for a hot day when you would rather be covered up not stripped off. Like in the office or going shopping etc. Its almost a poncho top but its a T shirt.

I really was not so sure this would work out but it has.

The neck is off centre which helps to make this work I think. I wore it over a vest top that day when the photos were taken because it was a bit chilly but its actually a really nice top in its own rite on a hot day.

Here you can see the curve of the hemline.

I ended up making the armholes by sewing along the hem - otherwise this becomes a poncho and would show everything you've got to all and sundry. 

 

The sew along the hemline solution works well. It makes a very good armhole this way. I could not get sewing an actual sleeve shape up the main body of the top to work well at all. It was just messy to look at. Anyway just sew along your hemline if you make one and no one can see how its joined at the armhole.

Its a totally A-symetric top and I have to say its a really nice addition to my wardrobe because its something I would never get round to making. Or not unless something else goes wrong and I try to save the fabric anyway.

Someone once told me there is no such thing as a mistake - just something you did not intend to do thats all, and you need to be flexible to make such things work to your advantage. This top is one of those occasions.

Have a great week and thanks for popping by.

Bracken

Grey A line Ric-Rac skirt and shortie twist shoulder top

 

This is the same skirt pattern used for the 90s inspired set I made a few years ago. Luckily I kept my pattern tracing so did not have to trace it again.

This skirt is made from a scrap of grey suiting type fabric I had in the stash left over from my flapper dress - well thats what the pattern says that dress is anyway! 

The ricrac brade was an inspiration/ need. I never intended it to be there but I ran out of grey thread and only had this blue which happened to match the ricrac I have been keeping for just such a moment for about 10 years. So the top of the hem is in blue thread - hidden by the same colour ricrac and the underneath is grey to match the skirt. I did feel that small detail was a minor achievement I have to admit.

The top was actully a dress I attempted that just did not quite work. I ended up making that half made dress into two tops and this is one of them.The shoulders have a single twist. Not so sure this top might be better without the twist. But right now its summer and this does make a cute summer top. 

The fabric is the same as my green twist back dress but just a different colourway.

So this last week I feel I was relatively productive sewing-wise. 

Ah I also knitted the white jumper. It was actually the most difficult pattern I have ever managed. I have not so far repeated it despite I love the jumper. I should have made it longer but since I had unpicked pretty much every pattern repeat over and over it was just so nice to get to the length specified in the pattern that I stopped there. Its ok for summer but I do prefer my woolies longer. Though on this occassion its actually 100% cotton yarn not wool.

The top is definitly cute despite its a bodge from a pattern I messed up made into something else. I did feel I have wasted this fabric though!

Its made using Burdastyle 122 12/2011 which I had imagined making for years and when I finally got round to it it really just was not me at all. I have yet to wear top two but that could also be a fun top. At least my fabric was not binned and this is a wearable top for summer.This is the "top" of that pattern.

Its currently thundering and rainy while I write this but hopefully the weather will improve soon and I can get back to enjoying the rest of summer. 

Have a lovely week.

Bracken