Sock yarn at last

 

I really meant to post this before but never got round to writing it. Life has been a bit hectic since we got back from holiday. Or maybe it just feels like that when you have had to start working again. A few weeks ago we had a short break - just a few days- in beautiful Krakow in Poland. So I started to tell you about this but never had time to finish writing this post until today.

Well, I have successfully knitted 3 pairs of socks in the past 6-9 months. But all were made with yarn from my stash - specifically lace weight kid mohair doubled - so I used 2 strands held together to get a 4ply weight, for two versions 

 

and for the green pair I actually used 3 strands which I would not recommend because it was too thick for the needles and hurt my hands so won't be repeating that one. 

 

Though it did produce a very thick pair of lovely green socks. So worth remembering for the future if a very thick pair is ever really needed. But these are so thick I am not able to wear them with my walking shoes only with my big heavy walking boots. They simply do not fit inside comfortably. 

Anyways I really wanted to knit a pair of socks using proper sock yarn.

If I have done it right you should be able to click the individual socks above for the links if you want to know more about each pair. All are Winwick Mum patterns and thats what I am going to use again because the tutorials make it so straight forward for me to understand how to knit socks so I am sticking with Winwick Mum sock patterns for now. In fact for the ones I have started I am using the Sock-along again which I used for my purple and green pairs because these should have a self stripe in the yarn making them fancy without much effort. 

In the UK - as in online its all very expensive for sock yarn. Plus you have to also pay for delivery and I really cannot afford to pay £10 for a single pair of socks and its not been possible recently for me to invest in 4 pairs of socks at once plus the postage which would make the pairs cheaper because they would only have one lot of postage. Postage is usually it seems £4 - 4.95 so you are talking £10-12 and upwards for a pair of socks! And that includes Ebay prices as well as Love Crafts etc etc.  So I have been a bit stuck. The cheapest yarn I found was £8.99 a ball (+ postage) though there was some on Ebay for £6.99 a ball making it about £10 for the ball with postage added. Thats just too expensive! Hence I used my stashed kid mohair instead but although it works well its not proper sock yarn and I do want to see how different real sock yarn is in wear and lifetime etc. After all a yarn made for socks should work better than any other yarn knitted up into socks you would think wouldn't you?

But we went for a few days to Krakow and there is a brilliant wool shop there. There is also a pretty naff shop in the central Galeria shopping centre by the station. If you ever go I would avoid that one. They will not let you look or touch and they just are very rude and nasty so I left without buying.

But in the good shop it was completely different. Its still in the centre but further out on one main road. The lady was friendly but didn't hassle me and let me just look, touch and then buy without constantly getting in the way. 

So I bought 4 balls of sock yarn - 4 pairs of socks to be. Its going to keep me happy for months!

I already started one as you can see. You need to unwind the wool from the centre of the ball till you get to a white bit. This is long so its easy to find the right place and then you have two identical balls to give self striping socks without having to join colours. You can see half of the white central bit around the wound ball. The other half I shoved back inside the other ball. I was not so sure if I was meant to continue winding from the centre to make a second ball but decided to just start knitting from the outside of the remaining yarn instead. Hopefully thats the right thing  to do. Its a learning curve for me. I think knitting from the original ball from the outside matches the ball I wound though. This pair will be the most colourful of my choices. There were many many more colours in the range but I tend towards purples mostly and this ball is the extra one my partner told me to buy since we will probably not go back to Krakow. Its my colourful option. I might look for this shop online though.

Its so exciting so I actually never got the photos of the whole ball before I started to do this. I just had to get going with winding this and starting to knit more socks. Sorry for that but you can see the other 3 intact balls. The unwond ball has stripes of green, pink, blue and grey, I think from when I was winding it whereas the ones below go more towards purples. The ball on the right I am intending to do the Winwick Mum lacey sock pattern - of course this could change but I reckon for summer that could be a nice one to attempt. Its a marl rather than striped yarn and I think was the most expensive of the 4 balls. But only buy a couple of Zlotty so not much in GBP.

 The lady behind the shop counter also gave me a free project bag and as you can see it has her website on there so I will have to check that out. This is 70% wool/ nylon and is superwash wool so can be machine washed unlike my previous 3 pairs. 

Oh I am so happy!

Though these 4 balls of wool made a surprisingly big difference to me fitting everying back into the cabin bags we took! I had to disperse between my partner's and my own and even then it was all a bit squashed to get everything I took in. We were travelling just with cabin bags since we only went for a few days and there really was no spare room. I did not want to leave anything behind since its all me made and loved and mostly quite new so I ended up wearing an extra layer on the plane home for this yarn! Really its surprising how much space 4 balls of yarn can take when you are travelling light! Good thing I only bought 4 balls!

The 4 balls cost 144 PLN so about £24 depending on exchange rate. Still not cheap but that difference in price to UK yarn makes this possible for me and of course also I had some Zlotty ( polish money) so I had money to spend that I rarely do in the UK. And you should buy a souvenir from your holiday after all. This is mine.

There are also absolutely no wool shops where I live so I have to buy online and thats a pain cos you cannot touch the yarn or see what its really like till it arrives and then really its just too expensive to send it back because they rarely give free returns if they give returns at all. Yes the internet is wonderful but certainly has its downsides. The website for this shop is on the bag if you wanted to check it out or visit it.

 Its a large well stocked old fashioned yarn shop. Ah bliss!

Ah and the lady also spoke english which did help. There is a also a third yarn shop ( according to Google) but I never managed to find that one and did not really have more money for yarn anyway.

If you did want sock yarn and cannot get it where you are and happen to be visiting Krakow or choose to buy online its worth having a look here though it could turn out it costs too much to import so its something you would have to look into but they have such a massive range of sock yarns and thats without everything else they sell. Wonderful shop!

Have a great weekend

Bracken

Black lace My Image top

I have had this pattern printed out for years - literally but just never got round to making it. And thats even considering I have known for 2-3 years I wanted to use this fabric out of my stash to make this. 

 

I seem always to have far more plans and ideas than time to make what I have plans and ideas for. 

 But its worked well and I like it though I do think next time I will go down a size. Its just a bit big on me. I am not used to My Image though and its only the second pattern I have tried from them so might be I need to check the sizing again.

This top has a very gothic feel to it,- partly down to the knitted lace fabric but not just that. I think maybe its the cape-like collar as well. I am not so sure how this might look in a completely different fabric.The original shown on the pattern is shown in quite a similar fabric to this.

Ignore my hair - not sure what was going on there!

Probably better worn with a different top under it too. Here its worn with a Noelle top (Madalynne Underwear pattern) and you can see the straps from the racer back!

I must admit not something that usually bothers me but does not quite work with the overall Goth look.

I think the next top, which I will make in a smaller size, will be better, but its ok to add to my wardrobe and fits well into this season's Faery theme. Though again - I have wavy hems. Got to sort that!

I wore this top for work yesterday with posh wide leg trousers, and felt good in it despite my wavy hems and I think its going to be a good spring layer. 

Thanks for popping by my blog and hope to see you back here soon. If you have any ideas regarding stopping hems going wavy when twin needle stitching please do help me out here.

Bracken

Dark Faery Hoody cowl dress 2 and black Asymetric dress

 I made two more black dresses. Both with a Gothic Faery theme.

The first is another hoody cowl but its a different pattern. I have made a version of this before because its actually based on my TNT pattern McCalls 6612.  Last time I made a top and tbh it was not well made and did not last long which was a bit sad because it was a nice top. I never invested in a ballpoint needle when I made it and it gained holes. Its weird because I since never use ballpoints either and have never had the same problem despite they tell you you should use one, but in the case of my red hoody top no, it definitely caused holes. 

So using the same idea as my last Burda style hoody cowl dress, I used black cotton lycra for the body and heavy weight black lace for hood and sleeves and I think it was a great idea because this is lovely.

A

 I only had 1m of lace fabric so had to piece the lower sleeve so I ruched this to cover the join and then had just a tiny piece of fabric left so this dress has mitts too!

I love built in mitts and I wore this to the dentist and it felt so good. 

 

I really do like this version even though, like my last hoody cowl dress, I have a wavy hem problem going on. Not too sure how I sort this. 

 

Maybe there is some sort of interfacing that would work to prevent this??? 

 

I seem to remember reading something years ago about that. 

 

I need to do a bit of blog hopping to see if anyone has any suggestions. 

 

Do you know how to stop this ? 

 

Please tell if you have any ideas. 

Definitely feel pixie-ish in this dress!

Now I made the second dress by accident. 

I meant to cut a Burda hoody cowl like my previous Dark Faery dress but I somehow picked up the wrong pattern - and cut it - before realising, so of course I just made this up because I cut it out and do not want to waste the fabric. 

Its the same size as the velvet dress but as you can see it looks much tighter. 

 

Though does not feel so but defnitely looks tight. I need different undies anyway - either that or shorten it, ruche the sides or something maybe, and that should hide the tightness. Since its actually meant to have side ruching on one side I may do that and ruche both sides this time though but I have not decided just yet.

Its a bonus dress. I would like it to look good though because the fabric for this was not cheap. And right now I am not too happy with these photos.

Its is also longer than I had intended to be making because I simply never wear these longer hemmed dresses I keep making so yes I think probbaly I will just go back and ruche both sides of this amnd maybe update this post once I have done that to show you if it makes this dress any better. I suspect that it will.

The neck line is good though and I do love Asymetrc weird shaped dresses.

Take care and see you soon

Bracken

Mens grey joggers

These are to go with the Hoody Cowl sweatshirt I made for Mick last weekend. I wanted to have a go at making some joggers for him but I am using the womens free jogger pattern I used for my own joggers.

I made myself several versions of these in sweatshirting and velvet and they go much bigger than my size so I sewed up a muslin in this rather nasty yellow polyester to check the sizing and they seem to fit so I have decided to press ahead and actually cut these from the precious sweatshirting we have left from the top. Because they are from a womens pattern I really do not know if this is going to work but its a decent pattern and when measured against a pair of mens RTW joggers they are identical in size. Mens and womens clothing when it comes to things like joggers are really very similar too. I have cut the lower waist version for Mick though which I never did for myself. Thats seemed more to fit with what he already wears whe I measured the pattern against his existing clothing.

Other than the problems from my overlockers which both decided to break whilst making these they went together well. I realised at Christmas I needed new blades soon but despite this never got round to ordering any. I had finished sewing these and was just attaching the wasitband to the rest when the things decided to stop cutting. I decided to swap to my older overlocker to carry on and that one then nearly recked the trousers by doingt he same thing. I did manage to get the fabric out of the blades ok but there was a right mess. I should have taken a photo to show you realy and to show everyone how you can actually rescue such a mess but I didn't think at the time. I spent a few hours feeling sorry for my self and telling myself I am an idiot because I did know even at New Year when I was making sewing plans that I had to get some new cutters asap. Now I have both my overlockers out of action. Since they were last fixed at the same time as each other, about a year ago, its not at all surprising really. Just stupid of me not to plan better.

So I get out my Janome sewing machine and use a ziga zag to attach the rest of the waistbane and with soem careful sewingmanage to get all that mess I made enclosed inside it. But its more bulky than my usual waistbands. Its does all look OK though because of the different thicknesses inside where some have been cut off and overlocked and the rest just folded under this did make my stitching a bit irregular but I sewed very slowly round the waistband it got it all to work. 

 

I am reasonably happy with the end result and Mick is fine about it and cannto tell there was a problem. I can though. Its not really as good as I want but because it could take 4-6 weeks for the cutters to arrive from China I wated to just finish these so he canwear them. Yes I could buy from a UK seller but I got two sets of top and bottom cutters for less than the price of one UKset and I really cannot afford to spend £40 on one set of blades when I can spend £15.

So anyway the trousers had to be finished by normal sewing machine. I usually do the elastic and final sewing up on a normal machine but attach the waistband with an overlocker to reduce the thickness where they meet. He says they are a bit tight on the shins though. The muslin I made of these were in cheapo poly so probably thats accounts for that because the muslin fabric was much thinner and is actually more stretchy too.

But for a first version these are I think pretty good and it will be easy to make the shins a bit wider on my next pair of these. In fact my original black joggers were also a bit tight on the shins for me but I changed them on subsequent versions. I am actually not so sure they are not a bit too long but he insists they are OK. Length is nt something I want to play with unless I am sure it needs doig because of course once chopped there is not going back. He also does tend to wear everything very low ont he hips so it could be when I took the photos they trousers were ot sitting quite where they are meant to be!

 

Mick has been lounging around in them anyway, and I had to get the photos done quick before they go out of shape. 

Take care, have a great weekend and see you very soon

Bracken

PLANNING: Noelle inspired active bra top

 I was browsing active wear the other day and came accross this rather expensive bra top from Mountain Warehouse. What struck me is the extreme similarity to the Noelle Bra. 

  

I made loads of the Noelle a while back now and love these tops but they are all a little too loose to work right.

 

Differences:

1) Bra straps replaced by sewn on straps with bound edges. I did this with the Rebecca Page strappy cami so know I could achieve this look relatively easily and no hassle bra straps to have getting twisted every time I wear the thing - like the Noelle.

2) No Darts. Its easy enough to eliminate darts after all. 

Since all my Noelles came out a bit too big I think I should make some better fitting ones anyway and eliminating the darts may well help with that. Also I have always queried why they need a dart in the front at all - well 2 darts actually?

 

Maybe for the larger sizes this is a very good idea but I personally cannot see the point of the extra step of sewing darts in the smaller sizes. I did sew them as you can see but the stretch fabric when its stretchy enough that is, should not need darts. But I followed the pattern and have been very happy with it. Other than the fact all my versions are a little too loose. I read thats actually a common problem so maybe I should just go down a size.

3) Mesh triangle panel - well this would be easy enough to add from my various mesh offcuts I have lying around so yes thats doable too.

4) A wide elastic border rather than the double fabric panels on the Noelle. Or it could be elastic inside a covered band? I actually quite like this bit of the Noelle so will haveto experiment and decide.

All very easy alterations though so why not make some of these from my offcuts of lycra fabric? Made to match leggings as well this should be a great summer bra I think. Well and Winter, Autumn, Spring bra. And in the right fabric of course its a proper exercise top which would be nice if it actually works. I really have had very little success with exercise tops previously though - you can read about my disasters here if you want to know more.

 Anyway, this is just an idea now. But I was so inspired with this little top I just had to share my idea. It will also go well with my current ballet and faerie inspired clothing that I decided to make back in January. Well exercises tops specifically are not on the list but they would fit and I do need undies as well as outerwear and this basic top with no underwires etc would look good under my most recent fae inspired makes.

Feel free to try it yourself if you have time and fabric available, and please do let me know how they turn out if you do. I am off to empty my stashed offcuts box for a few choice bits for this. In the meantime I have several other items already cut out that I really must get on with sewing up.

Have a great weekend

Bracken

Mens Grey Hoody Cowl

  

This is the same Rebecca Page pattern I used last time.

 

This is the original version:

 

It has been such a hit with Mick and he kept asking for another one so this is it. 

Though I made the front pocket taller on this one because it seemed a bit small or shallow last time. I think its a good change.

Its dark charcoal grey polyester/ cotton basic sweatshirting. Not the cheapest around but not expensive either. I think around £7 a metre. This time I never needed to bodge the back hemline either. I ended up cutting a piece the wrong direction last time to get enough. This time I bought more and should have some to make him some joggers too.

So photos:

Apparently this is such a comfy top. He now wants more of them! I intend to make him some joggers now though to go with this.

See you soon

Bracken