Monday 29 June 2020

Blue lacy mohair jumper


This is made using second hand mohair from Ebay and cost under £12 to make. And when I say second hand I mean its been in someones loft or airing cupboard for years - quite possibly since the 1980s. It has never been knitted up till now. 

I just cannot believe the price of mohair currently. Definitely if you want yarn have a look at Ebay and if you do not mind buying second hand you can save a fortune and get an affordable jumper that is just as good as those currently being advertised. I got the pattern from this 1980s magazine.

https://d3rfhm6ilkew5i.cloudfront.net/spree/images/attachments/000/022/391/large/Toto-Sweater_TCM_Cloudy-Blue.jpg?1591019585

It seems to me its the same stitch and design as this jumper.


It was on offer as a kit for £61:00 down from £88 at Wool and The Gang. Link here if you want to check it out: https://www.woolandthegang.com/en/products/toto-sweater-discounted-colours

Well, WOW! Its so similar - though I prefer my darker (or maybe more intense is the right word) blue colour.

When this landed in my inbox I was just sewing this blue jumper up. It took me a couple of days. I hate the sewing up and as usual I have started the next jumper before i even attempt to sew it. Its done eventually though it is hard to get motivated to sew a warm juper up when its as hot as it is today - 32 ℃ apparently! I definitely do not need a jumper today.


The pattern said I need 50g more than I had. It was a totally different yarn to that intended by the pattern so I decided to play safe by using a different yarn for the borders/ ribbs. So I used a different blue for the ribbing. As it turned out I could have got it out of what I had without the slight contrast but never mind. Better safe that have to unpick half way through. I can use my left over yarns later for a multi coloured fairisle type of knit or for gloves or something. It will not be wasted.

I changed the slashed neck on the original pattern to a normal crew neck. If I had known about the kit before though I may have stuck with the slash neck detailed becuase this is just a little too similar. I like to have my stuff a bit different to what is on the market so to speak.

Also my pattern says 7mm needles and the Wool and The Gang on has 6.5mm needles. Normally I would size down to make it thicker but being lace I decided to go with exactly what the pattern said. It works fine and I like this jumper very much though its far too hot for it right now even though its lacey.




Come this winter I am going to be very wealthy when it comes to hand knits it seems.

I think I should be able to wear this one for work too because its very nice and ordinary - as proved by the virtually identical one appearing in my inbox.






Oh and just one thing though, if you do want a very, very easy lace pattern this is the stitch, with just two pattern rows and you just reverse on the return rows. By half way through the back I was already bored but I actually do not like to wear cables as much as I like to knit them so it will make a lovely change in my wardrobe.

Roll on winter so I can wear this
Bracken

Saturday 27 June 2020

Vintage Trousers by Rebecca Page


These are the Vintage Trousers from Rebecca Page patterns. 
I do like this wide legged style. I have made several similar pairs before from different patterns.
These are really a wearable muslin because I did not pre-make these to try the pattern out. And they do not quite fit me. The trousers are the same suiting fabric of unknown fibre mix (but probably contain wool since they itch slightly), as I used for the wrap trousers.

 


Going on previous Rebecca Page patterns I added 3cm to the length. I am 170cm tall.

Sadly, the dart on the back right hand side is just dodgy. I restitched 3 times ad cannot seem to make it lie right.

In the end it seemed to be getting worse not better so I live with that.

I top stitched the side seams to keep them flat because this is very springy fabric and the  previous trousers showed me seams do not lay down flat well. I found that out with my last pair of trousers made from this. 

I like the top stitching and may have to incorporate that into all new trousers I make.



I reckon the zip looks crooked too. I measured it and its slightly off so the picture is right. 
 




According to my partner, the rear is a bit "baggy-arsed old lady wearing a nappy",  He is soooo complimentary about my sewing! Its true though. They do not look right at the back.

Despite this, I hope when we are finally back to normal that these will be good as work trousers. I reckon the baggy arse won't matter then because I will be wearing tops and jackets that are relatively long - unlike this top made from the Mood free Ginko pattern. I need to make another of these Ginko tops in fact because I love this top during the hot weather. You can read about the Ginko here:
https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-ginko-shirt-mood-fabrics-free.html


I actually quite like these, though prefer all of my previous patterns for wide legged trousers including my wide legged work trousers and my sailor style trousers which are both patterns from Burda and the free Jamesia pattern from Mood which I have made several times in both stretch knit and non-stretch woven fabric. To be fair I think the other patterns are all more stylish and fit me better without my having to play around with anything- and they do not give me a baggy looking arse.

I followed the construction directions for these exactly and found them quite confusing because they differ from my usual trouser construction method. Normally I sew each leg then join at the crutch seam. The directions do this differently and sew front and back rise at crutch separately then join down the legs. I found the new ( for me) method makes it far harder to line up the crutch front and back seams - well they don't line up here, they are miles off. Though I will be the only one to see this. I also think these will have more chance of splitting doing this method. I prefer a continuous crutch seam. Still its good to try out new  ways to sew things up. I will be returning to my usual trouser construction method after these though. The pattern just seems to make costructing trousers more difficult than I usually find it.

My personal hatred for facings not fitting properly was not realised this time because it actually fits the trousers waist properly without me having to recut or add a bit on or otherwise find a way to bodge it. It seems that with most patterns the facing does not quite work. Burda patterns are usually fine, but the big four have problems it seems with making facings that fit their trousers / skirts etc. Anyway wthese trousers worked really well and everything fitted together right.

I should have finished these much quicker than I did, but I had a problem with not having the right sized zip and having to wait ages it seems, for one from Ebay. Never mind. Lockdown has much to answer for! Anyway I finished them in the end.


What will I change next time or if I make these? The back zip. I will move it to the side. I hate back zips. Thats just my personal preference though. Also I think I will use a normal zip because I find invisible zips keep breaking on me. I need to use up the current zips I have first though. I did everything as pattern directions this time, but I reckon next time will consruct in a different order. I like to do the crutch seem as one seam not in two parts. Again though just my own preference.

I might well have to have a go at making the version with zip pockets as well because I think they are really cool and could work really nicely. I am not good at welt pockets though so need lots of extra fabric to attempt that. The zip pocket version needs a similar technique to the welt pockets and last time I did welt pockets I made each front of my egg coat several times. I did not have enough of this fabric to risk it going wrong so I stuck with the basic pocket-less version this time while I decide if this is a good pattern for me. Yes, kind of a cop out, but I do like this fabric and wanted to make sure I make something useful and functional from it.

Mind you going on my fit issues with this pattern, I might just add zip pockets to the Burda or the Jamesia patterns, but using the directions for doing that supplied with this pattern, because the directions are pretty compehensive and full of pictures, which is very helpful especially when you have not done something before.



So I am not really sure about these trousers.

I am tempted to take them to bits to reconstruct entirely with a side zip and using my usual method which will mean all my seams will line up as they should. On the other hand I stitched in the ditch at the waist between waist facing and trouser top as well as top stitched the facing to the seam allowance. And they are completely overlocked inside as well as normal straight stitched seams.

Thats lots to unpick without damaging my fabric. And they are wearable after all. Just not as good as my previous wide legged trousers. I suspect I will not bother with this pattern again (other than the directions for zip pockets), because I have others that fit me better, but thats not to say this is not a good basic trouser pattern, because it is. I am coming to the conclusion I am too tall and the wrong shape for Rebecca Page patterns. They just do not seem to fit my body as well as some other patterns.
Ah well onward to the next item................
Bracken


Thursday 25 June 2020

Vegan Lemon, Raspberry and Coconut Polenta cake

This is a recipe for a very frugal cake made using polenta. Its eggless as well so its also vegan and so in these times of lockdown and shortages this may well be of use to people who normally make cakes using eggs but have not got any. Its pobably useful after Brexit as well since I suspect we will ahve food shortages then!

Just before lockdown we invested in two catering sized bags of polenta with the idea of making chapattis. Well what a disaster they turned out to be! Totally inedible.

We can make decent chapattis using normal wholemeal flour though, so we are now sticking with that. But what to do with all this polenta?

I used BBC food to make some chilli corn bread ( and veganised that as well). You can find the recipe from BBC food but probably also all over the internet in different but  very similar forms.
The corn bread recipe is basically a batter similar to making cakes so I decided to invent a vegan polenta cake. This is a variation on a vegan basic sponge cake that I make regularly.

Oven temperature about 180℃ (the knobs on my cooker have no marks cos they wore off when I used stainless steel cleaner, but its where I set it for anything needing 180℃ and it usually works OK)

For this recipe I used:

Dry igredients
175g of fine polenta
175g of plain flour
 2 tea spoons of bicarbonate of soda
1/2 cup of vanilla sugar - I make my own but a bought sort wuld do or just use ordinary granulated or caster sugar

Wet Ingredients
1 cup of sunflour oil
1 cup of soya milk

Other ingredients
 2 lemons - zest and juice
 1 generous tablespoon of dessicated coconut
A small handfull of fresh home grown raspberries - these are the first of the year that I picked this morning and because its been so dry and only just rained they are quite small but I do not think it will matter how big they are or if they are shop bought. I had about 15-20 small raspberries.

You need a large bowl to mix or a mixer. I used a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon.
Add all dry ingredients together in the bowl (except for the coconut), and mix well to ensure your bicarb is well mixed in. Sieve if you want to or if there are any lumps. Its always best to sieve but to be honest I never bothered.

Make a well in the centre of the dried ingredients and add oil and soya milk and mix well to make a batter like consistency. I beat with a wooden spoon. Add the dessicated coconut and mix in well. Fold in raspberries trying not to break them up.

Now grate the lemon to get the zest ensuring you do not get any pith and add to the mix and mix well in.

Squeeze the juice from both lemons but DO NOT ADD to the mix. The lemon juice reacts with the bicarb in an acid-base reaction to give your carbon dioxide which is what raises the cakes without using eggs. But you have to add it at the very last minute before putting in the oven.
Now you can either make cupcakes in which case get the cases into the tins ready, or you can make a sandwhich type of cake in which case grease your tins well with margerine. Mine were 17cm or 7 inches in diameter. I used two cake tins and also made 3 cupcakes but this will probably vary a bit.










So, when you have you pans greased - you may be more organised than me and have done this already before you started cooking - add the lemon juice and mix in well. Now get those cakes in the oven quick because the acid-base reaction has begun and you want the cake to rise like the cakes people who make using eggs get. Lots of vegan cakes are very heavy this one isn't but it depends on you getting that cake in straight after you add your lemon juice. Ofcourse though do make sure you mix it into the rest of the mix properly.

I reckon about 10-15 minutes using a fan oven and this is done but to check us a scewer - eg one of those wooden ones used for BBQs. If it comesout clean the cake is done. I its sticky then give it a bit longer. If it starts to go too dark stick a bit of foil on the top whilst it finishes cooking.


I never decorated this because it got eaten very quickly but I will try decorating my next one. You could lemon drrizzle or chocolate icing and a bit of jam between sponge layers would also be good. Never mind!
Enjoy your eggless vegan polenta cake!
Bracken





Tuesday 23 June 2020

Basic Thong pattern from Rebecca Page


 
Sorry folks, but I have to draw the line at modelling these!

I actually had on my New Years to-do list to make underwear and thongs were always part of this at least in my head. Then I found this pattern from Rebecca Page and I started with a basic pair from scraps from my Cerena seperates. I already had some blue picot elastic and this tones really well with my blue animal print.
 

I am very happy with these. 

So They fit great but I am a little unsure if I should go down a size. I will see how they fit after wearing a  couple of times. Recent adventures with Rebecca Page has proven I am in RP patterns an XS when usually I am a S or a M. These are S which according to the measurements should be correct.


This is the inside:


For the blue pair I never overlocked the outside edges since the pattern says its optional which being a  knit that doesn't fray is true. 
Not very neat really! 


I did sew the gusset to the main part of the pants but you do not have to. 
My other 2 pairs I have not done that. 

You sew these up at the gusset seam with the right sides together but with the gusset alighned wrong side up to the centre seam so you sew all 3 bits at once. I overlocked this seam. Then you flip the gusset to the right side/ inside of the pants and fasten in place at side seams so its very easy to make these. Rebecca Page patterns include very comprehensive instructions making it very easy to make her garments.
 
 Then the seams  side seams are overlocked

 And then attach the elastic.






I sewed elastic with slightly stretching it to th right side then folded over and topstitched with the same stitch.







I attached elastic using that zigzag stitch that is made of lots of little stitches rather than a normal zigzag.






These blue pants are made from new fabric scraps from the RP Cerena Romper / separates but after that I had a clearout of my clothing because my wardobes are bulging with all this stuff I seem to make. I actually have far more new clothes than when I bought RTW clothing and its become a big problem storing it all. And my wardrobes are still bulging even after this clearout and after vacuum packing my winter clothes, which is a pain but I refuse to eliminate anything else. I do wear it all and all that will happen is I will then have to either buy or make some new stuff. Having very different looks for work and play does mean I have more clothing than many people.

Well during my clearout I decide to alter many T shirts into either vest tops for summer or into underwear so not actually eliminating that much but it will be smaller to store. I also get a few new fabrics to spice everything up in my stash!

These two pairs of knickers then are made from Sainsubury's Tu ski or running base layer tops.



I loved the colours but these tops never really fitted well.  Stupidly I never took pictures of the starting materials here, but if you can visuallise long sleeved tops which are made as a seamless tube with no seams and some texture at strategic points like sides and CF and CB then thats what these were made from. Because the front and back of the tops are different textured patterns I just cut as best I can.

I tried to make a feature of the textured bits which remind me of the mermaid mock swim costumes described in the Awakened Fate books, by Skye Malone, where the Dehain ( mermaids) all have like fake swimsuits of scales when they go onto land and mix with humans. I have had Alexa reading me the first two of these books while I knit rcently. They are a bit different to normal paranormal/ fantasy books. I think though they are aimed at teens. I got the first book free as a kindle book. For some reason these have made a nice change to my usual book choice while in lockdown. I normally either read horror or detective types of books.

Anyway back to this project - both tops were some kind of synthetic fibre with lycra. They feel like nylon but who knows. I made the first pair I using bands instead of picot. This works though there is no extra elastic in my bands so I am unsure how these will be to wear. They are fine right now but after 5-10 wearings who knows. But then essentially these are free so I do not care. Really I could have got a third pair by having different  coloured front and back but I decided not to bother. I have just been donated several T shirts by my Mother who has also had a clearout, to make into even more knickers and I only have so much space in my wardrobe, so best to stick with these 2 pairs for now I think.




Mermaid scales?
For both of these pairs I used a normal zigzag.

After a bit of messing around I found a width of 3.5 and length of 2.5 works well so I have stuck with that for both pairs.

I never made a note of the width and length of the first stitch I used, which is a shame because I have found blogging a very useful tool in recent years to record what I do and when I remake a pattern it works a bit like a reference book or note book and I can check back as to how I did this or that and how to make things better or repeat things that worked. And ofcourse avoid the previous mistakes.
 
 For the second pair I decided to edge with some white picot which I bought very cheap a while ago.

I have I believe around 10kg of this white picot elastic. Its surprisingly good quality although a basic white. I think I need to get into white now rather than buying more in more upmarket colours.

I cannot remember the actual length I bought. It came in a huge box. I actually bid the minimum which was I think £8 starting price with free shipping (Ebay). Since that compared with a couple of metres from other sellers (though prettier colours) I decided it wa a bargain. The box had been water damaged so it is possible some of the elastic could be discoloured. When I opened the box it all seems fine and there is so much of this stuff it really does not matter if I end up throwing some away. I did not win the auction, and then heard from the seller I had been offered it as a second chance offer about a week later.

Great thinks me, and buys it. I did not visualise just how much of this stuff I won until it arrived. I suspect I will never use it all before it decays even if that takes 20+ years, but it will keep me in basic picot for years to come. Storage of this is the main issue really.

So here are my new fluorescent yellow knickers made with this cheapo picot. I suspect you will see lots edged with this stuff in the next few years if you visit me regularly, which I hope of course that you will.







I only overlocked the edge of the gusset for these two upcycled pairs and never attached the gusset to the main but they still work making this attachment step a bit un-necessary I think. I supose it depends on the material and if you edge the gusset. On my first pair I just folded the raw edge under the stitched to the main so there was no edge.

I think this is so far the best knicker pattern I have made. Of course thats if you want a thong. I do. 
Now I need to find a pattern for big pants and for shorts.
So, I am now also excited to try the Megan Neilson free Acacia knicker pattern next. You get this free by signing upfor the newsletter. 
Acacia is not a thong pattern, but I do need more normal, big knickers as well. More on these later. I have yet to sew them up though did cut out earlier today.
Well I love this pattern and recommend it.  
Bracken



Tuesday 16 June 2020

Danielle dress - Burda

 

 


I have owned this pattern since about 2010. I printed it then as well. Just never got round to making this. Its the Danielle dress from Burda which used to be free. Its the first pattern I ever printed and was printed very bady on an old printer which died years ago, so was quite hard to put the pattern together since some of the pages were not printed straight.

Free Pattern-- I saw this dress sewn without the sleeves and in a cotton fabric-- looked better than what is pictured here. Without the puffy sleeves it would be a cool summer dress.
I found a picture of the Burda original on Pinterest but cannot find it on the burdastyle.com website now.This is the link to the Pinterest picture:

https://in.pinterest.com/pin/441282463460531811/

I decided since we are in lockdown why not actually make this at last?

I cut it from a  piece of Ikea cotton fabric which I had used for a couple of previous projects. I need to stash bust and I have, to be honest, gone off this fabric but despite that the dress turned out really nice.




I lengthened the sleeves with an extra bit i  order to make a frill.  Now at this point I also added a ribbon to the inside of the sleeve where the frill joins the original sleeve in order to have a puffed sleeve but with an extra frill.







It looks so good just as it is that I actually left out the elastic and do not really need to ribbon. Though if I fancy a change at some point it will be easy to add some elastic and make puffed sleeves with a frill edge instead.




 Never mind. I like the extra long sleeves much better than the tattoo dividing shorter ones would have been. I prefer to either cover or show my tattoos and not half cover. Just a quirk of my nature.



I had some problems with the neckline. I tried understitching but it just did not quite lie flat so in the end I topstitched it dow all around the neck.

 As usual my invisibe zip is not quite invisible. The foot I use never quite gets close enough. Pobably cos its a cheap copy from China rather than a proper expensive Janome foot.
 An admission here: this is not quite a proper Danielle. I sewed it all up, overlocked to make it nice inside then realised there is another bit. Its meant to have a narrow band under the bodice - like a wasitband although ts high waisted so not on the natural waistline anyway. I missed it out.


 Well rather than take this all to bits - after all it fits and looks quite good despte the ommission, I decided to just make a belt from the border fabric which I also used for the sleeve add-on.













 I have worn this with and without the belt and like both looks so I think its going to stay as an option.


Next time I make this and I expect I will - maybe as a winter dress in velvet like the original Burda version - I will try to remember to make it with that missing waistband.
 

 For now though I am very happy to have made this dress. I do not think its quite my usual style but the printed pattern has been lurking in my loft for years waiting to be made. And for the record despite my initial dislike of being locked in I am very much enjoying lockdown despite the impact on our finances due to loss of wages etc, because I am finally getting all these lovely dresses I planned to make done. I have not had so many summer dresses since I was a girl at home with my Mum buying my clothes.
Shame we have to all go back to work. 

Bracken