Fix it ? Friday - New Hem

When I wrote about finishing my cotton striped Vogue dress, I mentioned that I didn't like how the hem line pulled in. I thought it was because of the Kitchener seam.

I knew it would be a tedious job, but the other day, I sat down and pulled out all that stitching.

One stitch at a time was removed and the freed live stitch was put onto a needle.

Once they were all on the needle, I bound off:

Once bound off, I sewed the hem down with a herringbone stitch, like I did the facings (no pic).

When done, I had this nice looking hem:

In case it's not clear, in the bottom of the picture (purple)
is the front of the dress. At the top (pink and red) is where
the dress is folded over to show the inside of the dress. The
hem is the bottom stripe of pink that looks different than
the rest of the pink.

Nice looking from the inside, but let's see about the front side...

So here is the original hem:

And here is the new hem:

Wah wah waaaaah, They look the same, don't they!! I've convinced myself the second finish is a little better, but certainly not a lot. It also improved the look of the hem at the side seams, but they're still a little wonky too.

BUT, I am still satisfied that I did it because if I hadn't, I would have always thought that I should have. Now I can enjoy wearing the dress knowing I did what I could and that I am not going to do any more.

Here are some more pictures I took after the hem was done since the lighting was better than the first day I went out.

Also, no striped tights. Better, no?

Thanks for coming along on the journey!

Facing It

Let's face it.

That's what I told myself when I thought about how to finish the edges of my Vogue striped dress. The pattern called for a crochet edging but I knew that wouldn't tame the edges which became messy when all the yarn ends were worked in.

After the dress was done and put together (several times as you may recall), I knit a swatch with one strand of the blue yarn. One strand would be less bulky and there was no need for the facing to be as thick as the dress fabric. I used a smaller needle so it would still be a sturdy fabric.

Once that was done, I measured the armhole openings and the sections around the neck. Working from the gauge of my swatch (stitches/inch) and the measurements, I could figure out how many stitches I needed for the facings.

A little different than my usual method of just going for it and ripping it out if it doesn't work! (Planning - it's not just for civil engineers anymore.)

As usual, when picking up stitches, I picked up one stitch in each selvage stitch and then increase or decrease as needed on the next row to get the necessary number of stitches. It's easier on the pick up row and it's much neater.

One thing I would do different next time is not to work in any of the yarn ends in the half of the selvage stitch that I picked up the stitches in. It was hard to find the stitches and they were bulkier. Since the facing would cover all then ends, I didn't need to stitch them in as much and could have left a longer end. But I made it work.

Once I got the right number of stitches, I knit eight  more rows so I had a little more than an inch and then cast off. I pinned the facing back and sewed it with a herringbone stitch. This backward stitching with forward stitches allows for the seam to stretch.

I used a sharp needle so I could skim just part of the stitches on the back of the dress fabric. I didn't want it to show through to the front at all.


And look how it turned out!

Isn't that a beautiful finish!!

Here is how the neckline turned out:

And the armhole again, but this time while I'm wearing it.

The facings lie really, really well. I did make increases to allow for the "corners" at the shoulders of the neck edge, the V point, and the curve of the armhole shaping. I did wing that as I went along and it worked out. (Placed a marker at the sharpest part of the curve and increased one stitch on both sides on rows 4, 7 and 9.)

Ok and now I have made you wait long enough. Here is an excessive number of shots of the finished dress:

I calculated all of the shaping.

For the most part, I think it worked well. The bottom is a little too loose but I did err on too loose because I sure didn't want it too tight. (Apparently I erred a little too much.) So it looks a little sloppy.

I'll certainly be able to use these results to shape future garments to fit better.

Considering how OCD I am, it's a little surprising that I wanted to mismatch the stripes, but I like that break you get at the side seam. I kept the colour patterns similar but not the same while changing all of the stripe widths. The only place I really wanted anything to match was the green stripe at the waist. That took some re-stitching. (Thank goodness for crocheted seams!) That was another case where the ends from the stripes being worked into the selvage stitches didn't help. It was hard to match the front and back row for row (which should have been pretty easy).

The only thing I'm really not happy with is the hem.

The foldover hem is a good option and I'm still glad I went with one strand instead of two, but I sewed it down by Kitchenering through the live stitches of the cast on and a row of knitting. You can see how it has pulled on the fabric of the dress. It'll be a pain to take out, but since the sewing on the facings worked so well, I know I can get a much better result if I redo it. I think I can also fix the bit of crazy at the side seam hem.

I wore it for the first time last Sunday. It was a cool day so I styled it with a jacket:

(Don't worry, I did not wear those boots. But I wasn't going to wear my nice shoes in that terrain.) Now that I see the pictures, I might skip the striped tights next time. (But again--chilly day!)

Being cotton (and a lot of it), the dress is pretty heavy. It took two trips through the dryer when I washed it and it still wasn't quite dry. One danger with cotton is that it has no memory. (This means that cotton dresses or skirts keep the rounded shape of your sitting-down-bum even after you stand up.) I didn't find that happened with this dress--I assume that because of the shaping, the dress didn't have to stretch out of shape. It's also knit at a fairly sturdy gauge so that would help too.

Project Stats
Started: 10 Mar '17
Finished: 29 Apr '17
Pattern: #02 Sleeveless V-neck Dress by Greta Corens
Materials: 653 grams of cotton from six different raveled sweaters.
The dress was knit as part of a knit-along in the Ravelry Vogue Knitting group to celebrate VK's 35th anniversary. This is project 1 of at least 2. Patterns must be knit from 1987, 1997 or 2007 and 2017. This project has me covered for 1997.

Striped Dress Comes Together (and Doesn't)

In the three weeks since I have shown the Vogue striped dress, I have gotten a lot of knitting done. I took it along when I went to my mom's for the Easter weekend. At some point, I had the front done, and the back very close:

I can't remember if I finished it during the visit or shortly after I got back. In any case, the back is now done as well.

I pieced the front and back together along one side. I seamed it with a crochet chain for some reason instead of a needle and thread. I'm sure the idea was planted by all of the sweaters I take apart. I think I didn't want to cut lengths of yarn to seam with and have more ends to work in. (There were a lot of ends from the stripes.) Later I thought I could have used those ends to sew the seam together in short sections before working in the ends. That was a thought too late in coming.

So I sewed the seam with a continuous thread and a crochet hook. I had to redo the bottom section where I used one strand of the yarn for the turned up hem. I needed to do more careful work with a mattress stitch (and matching yarn) so that it couldn't be seen.

After one side, I moved onto the shoulder seams. After careful work and a redo to improve on the first try, I held the piece away from myself to look at it. Um, something didn't seem right...

Yeah, I managed to sew the front left shoulder to the back right shoulder! So that was not going to work.

Since then, I have done both shoulder seams (correctly) and the last side seam. Before I raced onto facings and finishing the hem, I decided I had to stop and try it on.

Sorry, I didn't take a picture (you'll have to wait) but the fit was good enough to continue. But I did notice that I didn't match up the front and back well enough. There's a green stripe right at the waist that should match up at the side seams and it doesn't. (Apparently I didn't remember that while sewing the seam.) So I'll be taking advantage of the "quick rip" qualities of the crocheted seam and redoing the side seams again. I didn't make it easy on myself when I decided not to do identical stripes on the front and back. That would have made it easy to keep them matched up.

Once that is done, I'll decide whether to tackle something straight forward like sewing up the hem or tackle something that will require more figuring--the facings around the neck and armholes. Of course it's an illusion of choice because they both have to be done eventually!

Vogue Challenge Restores Knitting Mojo

Do you know I started knitting again? Like really knitting. Not just working on a pair of socks just because they're there. (The knitting's done on those, by the way. I haven't done any more on them. Like finishing. Or the embroidery I thought about doing.)

But I was reading around on my Ravelry boards and noticed that there was a new active thread on the Vogue Knitting group. Someone had the bright idea to celebrate the magazine's 35th anniversary with a knitting challenge. Could you knit two, three or even four projects from the "anniversary years" of 2017, 2007, 1997 and 1987?

The thread was a few weeks old by the time I got into it and reading about everyone else's projects got me more and more interested. And then I couldn't take it any more. So I jumped in.

For one thing, I had just received the 2017 late winter issue and there were a pair of knee high (ok, thigh high) socks that fit exactly what I had been wanting to knit for Squam. So I ordered the yarn--the very yarn the pattern called for, which never happens--and started swatching right away.

And that's as far as I got because I got a little distracted by the magazines I ordered from ebay from 1997 and 1987. And then I immediately started on a cotton sleeveless dress done in irresistible stripes. Oh here, I have a picture:

Isn't it great!

Even though I'm not crazy about knitting with cotton, I knew that's what this dress needed. And I started pulling out the cotton I had from raveled sweaters...like this red one:

 and this purple one

  and this blue one

  and this green one

  and this mustard one

  and this pink one

and, oh my!,

how did a person who doesn't like working with cotton get so much cotton yarn!! ?

Since all of them were already disassembled, raveled, and balled, all I had to do was pick and choose. And I chose all of them of course. Unfortunately the green is very limited because I've used it for a few projects already. If I had more of it, I would have dropped the red.

I did a swatch.

(close enough)

I did some figuring on how to make all these different yarns work together.

Some will be used as is, some will be doubled and the green will have to be tripled. This will get them all at 10-12 strands which will be close enough.

I auditioned some colour arrangements:

 Ok, I tried one and stopped there. (That middle colour really is more purple than blue.)

And I started knitting:

Quickly I had the first stripe sequence done and by now I am already up to the bust. (Did you notice that after auditioning a stripe sequence, I went and made a mistake in following it on the very first sequence!? That's alright, things are not going to be so predictable in this one anyway.)

And I did much much measuring and calculating to make sure the dress would fit me, not the "standard body type" (or average least-bad size) that patterns are made for. I measured the key points (waist, hip, bust, etc) and figured how many stitches I should have at those points, and then measured how far I have between those mile markers (vertically) to make the stitch adjustments, which told me how quickly to increase or decrease.

I even decided to go so far as to make the back wider on the bottom half (because, you know, it is) and to make the top wider on the top half (because, you know, it is) instead of splitting the difference and using the same numbers for the back and front. Will it make a difference? I don't know but I may as well find out.

And let me tell you, if you're having trouble getting going on a project and keeping momentum going, knitting stripes is the way to go! (It's the crack cocaine of knitting, except, you know, legal.)

Here's the back to about the bust line. (It is a lot wider than that, but stockinette stitch really curls in on itself.) I put the stitches on a string to hold them while I started working on the front. I'll make sure the front waist/bust shaping works ok and then that will confirm how much further to go on the back before the armhole decreases.