TBT - Remember these Socks?

Let's have a TBT (Throw-back Thursday) for this project that was finished last July and never shown here on the blog. In fact the last (and only) time I showed them here was when I cast on the swatch. That was March 28.

They got pushed aside (as far as writing them up here) as I got increasingly busy and didn't write a lot here through the fall. Then it was due to the lack of good pictures. I rectified that last Sunday and here we go...

As you may (or may not - I wouldn't blame you if you don't) recall, I started these socks, well first because I loved them, but also because the Vogue Knitting group on Ravelry was having an anniversary challenge: knit something from this year (2017) and something from a previous decade year ending in 7 (1997, 2007...you get it.)

So I swatched these not once,

but twice.

The first was too tight a gauge and I didn't want my socks to be too small. The little needles were also killing my hands, so I was glad to work with bigger ones.

I did take a few progress pics that were posted on IG. Apparently this was a big event:

I had completely forgotten about it, but I think I had crossed the two-stitch cable the wrong way. I raveled out those two stitches all the way down to fix it. As I now recall, it took me three times because I kept making different mistakes as I worked my way up.

But here we are:

I take it this picture was taken to show that all was well again!

I finished the first sock in mid June

and the second sock about a month later:

Then began the saga of deciding whether to add pompoms. Once that was decided (in the affirmative), which pompoms? I didn't want yarn ones and was drawn to fur poms. A recommendation on Ravelry led me to Mokuba in Toronto, to which I finagled a trip when I was home visiting family. Not until I went to put them on the socks did I realize I had mistakenly bought two poms instead of four! (facepalm moment for sure)

I was not going to go back to Mokuba so I shopped online and ended up with the cutest little pink ones.

I had in mind to use some sweet ribbon for the tie but that didn't work out. I didn't knit holes in the cuff and the ribbon didn't look good going between the stitches. But I did have some leather cord around so I tried that, a little leather and lace type look. I wove the leather cord through the cuff and glued a pink pom to both side of each end. (So I used eight, in case you're counting.)

Then I waited six months to take pictures. /crickets/

What had become part of the challenge was to take pictures that replicated (however loosely) the pose and look of the magazine shot. It was a lot of fun. So I waited for a day when all of these things came together: I felt like doing it; the weather was suitable; it wasn't so cold I couldn't stand the thought of it; I had the time; I had the energy. So mostly me and the weather I guess.

But everything aligned last Sunday and here are the results:

(C) Vogue Knitting magazine

My version.

(C) Vogue Knitting magazine

My version.

(C) Vogue Knitting magazine

My version.

Ok, not bad, right? Sometimes it pays to have a beaten up front door and concrete porch.

Here is the back of the socks where the cable pattern is decreased (from the top down) for shaping.

I made a few changes to where the decreases happened, but I'm not sure they were any better than the designer's.

Another change I made was to mirror the cables from one sock to the other. I feel it's unbalanced to have them all leaning the same way on both socks.

I also added a gusset so the heel would fit better.

I've learned that this fits my foot better, but I also observed that the socks on the model were pulling a lot across the top of her foot (opposite the heel). (You can see it in the third Vogue picture above-the cables are stretched severely from side to side.) I've had this in socks before and it is not comfortable.

Confession: I have been wearing these over skinny jeans from time to time. Feels like the look is a little young for me, but when I feel like it, I go for it anyway.

The bigger issue is that I don't have any shoes to suit the look. (The high heels were only for the pictures!)

And yes, sadly, they do fall down all the time.

(Although it's not as bad over the pants.)

Project Stats
Started: 7 May ‘17
Finished: 5 Jul ‘17
Pattern: #12 Over Knee Socks by Yoko Hatta (風工房) in Vogue Knitting Late Winter 2017
Materials: 3.5 skeins of Zealana Cozi (58% Merino, 22% Nylon, 15% Possum, 5% Alpaca) $60 (The pattern recommended 5 and I bought a spare, so I actually spent $90!)

I've been interested for a long time in knitting with possum (New Zealand possum, not North American possum - big difference apparently) so when I saw that this pattern called for this yarn, I went ahead and ordered it. I hardly ever go with the recommended yarn so this was a new experience.

I can't say it was an especially glorious experience, but the socks are very warm and I'm glad to be able to cross it off the bucket list. :)

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.