A WordPress Site

Restingmotion

Easy knitting ahead

I apparently worry too much.

The sweater is coming along just fine. My gauge is consistent and right on target. It just looks bigger slipping along on those circular needles that I tend to use. I should know this by now.

The actual kntited fabric has a good bit more stretch than this piece of fleece and I don't think the fit will be a problem. I did rewrite the instructions for the front of the pattern to add that extra inch on the right side, which makes the center front opening appear balanced on my body. Any other tightness should be accommodated by the stretch of the sweater. The sleeves also fit perfect.y. I did increase the depth of the armhole in the front of the sweater by half an inch, but I did not change the sleeve shaping, easing that extra half inch around the front pulls the excess in around the sleeves, compensating for some of the forward roll of my shoulders.

The fleece looks pretty good now. I am happy I did this. I have a good idea of how this will look on and I think the process of making a rough muslin like this is good when I am not sure about the fit of the sweater. Perhaps sometimes I worry too much, such as in the case of this sweater, but I would still rather spend an hour or so at the beginning of the project working out the details than spend many hours knitting only to rip later.

Now I can move on to other things.

January 21, 2008
Japanese Pattern Book Update

Thank you Rhonda for inquiring about ISBN numbers on the Japanese books. I have gone back and added the ISBN numbers to the discussion of the books in my January 16th post. I will try to do that in the future whenever I discuss a Japanese book. I know from experience how hard it can be to find a book I have seen on someone’s blog without the ISBN.

January 20, 2008
New Knitting

It is time for a new knitting project:

This pattern was purchased as a kit from L'Atelier yarns in Redondo Beach, CA in October 2007. The yarn is Highlander from Alpaca With A Twist in color Dark Thistle.

I wanted to start this so that I could have it to knit on the train to NYC on Friday night, although I was actually torn between whether I should knit or read, as I am really wrapped up in my current book at the moment.

I really like the look of this sweater in the drawing, but I don't look at all like the illustration and I have some concerns about how this sweater will look on my own curvier body. I don't want to spend a lot of time knitting it only to discover that it is a disaster. So I had an idea, not an original idea, I am sure I read about this somewhere but I don't recall where at the moment.

I went to my local JoAnn Fabrics and picked up some plain simple cheap fleece — whatever was on sale.

Then, using the pattern directions as a guide, and drawing directly on the fleece with a marker, I drew the shapes of the sweater pieces directly onto the fleece and cut them out.

Then I stitched them up quicky with my machine. I used 1/4" seams. I did not add a seam allowance to this pattern because the sweater is knit at 4 stitches to the inch with 1 stitch at each side as a selvedge stitch, which is the equivalent of a 1/4" seam. If the seam had been much smaller I would have added a seam allowance to make it easier to sew.

Here is the result, without the sleeves:

Drawing the pattern on the fleece actually took longer than stitching up the pieces. The pattern calls for 3 inches to be taken up at the upper back below the armhole openings. In the pattern the decreases are spread evenly across the width of the sweater but I just took 3 tucks, which are actually kind of nice looking. It is not exactly the pattern, but it gets the basic fitting issues across.

This pattern is not written so that the back and front are the same size. In my sample, the back fits pretty well, as far as I can determine without the sleeves, but the front is too small, as you can see from this photo:

Actually, it is not too small through the shoulders, or at the hip, although I could get away with a little extra at the hip. I think the knitted fabric is actually a little stretchier than this fleece, but not so much that I think it will compensate for this much pulling across the bust.

It is difficult to see in this photo, and I was working under pretty tight time constraints so this photo will have to suffice, the front is actually much smaller on the right than on the left, and more snug at the right hip than at the left.

So I need to draft a new front. I seem to need about another inch at the left bust, and 2 inches on the right, tapering down to 1 additional inch at the right hip with nothing added at the left hip. The shoulders should probably be left the same.

Once I have done this, I will need to alter the sleeve as the current sleeve draft will not fit the sweater once I am done altering the front pieces. When I look at the sleeve pattern, as I have drawn it from the directions, I think it was going to need alterations anyway:

I don't think I like the really short, sharply angled sleeve cap, and the sleeve as written is both too narrow and too long for me.

But first, a new front. And I haven't gotten back to the cutting table yet today.

I did start knitting last night although I spent more time reading than knitting.

I don't yet have enough length on the needles to actually reflect how this is going to hang but at the moment it looks a little big. It is definitely stretchier than the fleece. So I might not need to add as much to the front as I originally thought.

First I need to knit another couple of inches and see if my gauge is the same as the swatch. I must be tense when I knit gauge watches because my tension is often tighter than it is when I am actually relaxed and knitting. Luckily I have the fleece pattern to use for comparison purposes. Once I compare the knitted piece to the fleece, I will move on with redrafting the front piece, and perhaps ripping and restarting the back.

And so, despite all my good intentions I now have three projects sitting on the cutting table waiting for something to happen before they can progress.

January 19, 2008
Butterfly Brain??

courtesy of the Alexander McQueen Spring 2008 collection at Style.com

January 18, 2008
These Socks are made for Working

The socks are finished and they are perfect!

These were knit with ArtYarns Reality, a wool/acryllic blend, which I chose primarily for the colors. I also wanted a thicker than usual pair of socks to wear with my steel-toed garden workboots. The finished socks ended up being about the same thickness as the thick wool double-knitted socks that I purchased with the boots, but of course they are so much nicer because I knit them myself in colors I love.

I didn't really follow a pattern, just cast on stitches that I guessed would be about right for my ankle circumference, and worked from there, trying on as I went.

I looked at the pattern for the pedicure socks on knitty, because they were the basic inspiration. I knit my pedicure socks using this yarn and love them so much that I needed another pair, with toes this time. I didn't follow the pattern though, except for looking at the heel and heel gusset because I needed a little refresher course.

The really neat thing was that the heel suddenly made sense to me, whereas before I had been somewhat mystified, having to look it up each time. I haven't knit that many pairs of socks mind you, and most of them have had short-row heels, which I still think I prefer, but I suddenly "got" how a heel flap and gusset work and how to adapt the instructions to my narrow heel. Now it all makes sense. Only took me a couple a few pairs of socks.

I am glad I made the ankle portion as long as I did. I wanted them to extend up past the top of the boot because my other socks don't (I tend to like short socks if I must wear socks at all) and sticks and things keep falling into my boot and driving me crazy. These are just perfect.

January 17, 2008
Japanese pattern drafting and sewing books

Part of my ongoing plan this year, and the past couple in fact, has been the process of eliminating and consolidating. In the past I went through much of the house, but of course, the difficult things have been left to last, and one of those areas is the area I call "the dreaded piles". These consist of piles of boxes of patterns, piles of sewing and knitting magazines, and generally piles of stuff that I thought I might use someday, but for which someday has yet to arrive. It also means that I am trying to stop piling everything that "I can’t get to but hope to someday" on my sewing table or in my sewing room. This may not sound like much, but if you are a person of many enthusiasms it is amazing how quickly they get out of hand.

And so I have been cleaning off the cutting table, but I have been trying to do it in a thoughtful way, not just shoving things aside into another pile to be dealt with another day. I have found many things: the travel jewelry pouch with my favorite heavy sterling silver ring, a pair of slacks that needed mending, the patterns I took to San Francisco in September. In fact, I found everything I took to San Francisco in September. I apparently got busy, stacked the contents of my suitcase on my sewing table, and left it there, where it only formed the foundation layer of ever increasing piles.

I also found the remainder of the order of Japanese Sewing Books I received the week before last:.

The Green book, titled Pattern Drafting, is one of my favorite sewing books. My mom gave me this one and I remember watching her use it when I was a child. I do not have ISBN information on this book but my copy is 8th edition printed in 1969). Even though I have many other books, I am always amazed at how much help I get from the little book and it is one of the first books I turn to when I have a pattern fitting or drafting question. It has a section on fitting problems, and also patterns for some basic garments, which are granted, somewhat dated but still interesting. Here a couple of sample pages:

The green book inspired me to get the red book called Pattern Making (ISBN4-579-10714-4) . It does not have English translations, like the green one, but I can see that it too is going to prove very useful. The day it arrived I spent a fair amount of time looking through it, and I took it with me today after unearthing it this morning. I can certainly say that I was the only person in the waiting room at the doctor’s office reading a Japanese pattern book. Here are a few sample pages:

.

I also purchased two books about sewing jackets and I am thrilled with both of them and they are quite different. I had not been certain when I ordered them what the differences would be but I am so glad that I went ahead.

The book on the left (ISBN4-579-11016-1), is basically about drafting patterns for jackets and other garments. It explains, in a very visual way how to draft a base pattern and then it goes on to build an assortment of patterns, including the ones on the cover from that base. The layout of the book is very methodical. There is also a pattern sheet that includes the base pattern from bust sizes 30 to 42. I think this will help me with many pattern alterations and with working from my collection of Mrs. Stylebook magazines. Here are some sample pages:

The second jacket book, the one on the right with the orange and brown jackets on the cover (ISBN4-579-10962-7), is not about pattern making at all, but is about constructing jackets, and it looks like it is a treasure. You might wonder how a garment construction book in Japanese would be any help at all. I don’t read Japanese. But this book is fully illustrated, almost like a picture-guide to building a jacket. Here is a sample:

I am sure there are important details that I am missing by not being able to read the text of all of these books, but there is also much to be learned just from the fabulous illustrations and photos. There are times when I am reading sewing instructions where I can’t really wrap my head around what I am supposed to do until I actually see it in front of me. These pictures, and the great illustrations in the pattern drafting book really help me with that. Even though a lot of the techniques illustrated are for things I already know, I have made jackets before, there is always something new to learn and these books look very promising.

** Edited on 1/29/2008 to add ISBN information.

January 16, 2008
Tiny Steps

When I was quite young, definitely under the age of 10, I remember my mother chastising me for starting more projects than I could reasonably finish and exhorting me, for once at least, to stick to something long enough to get it finished. Obviously, 40 some-odd years later, this is a lesson I have yet to learn. There remain piles of projects yet unfinished and ideas teaming around in my brain all just waiting for the opportunity to give birth to the next project.

Although I refuse to make lists of promises at the beginning of each new year, I remain determined to whittle down the project pile, and they are not all fiber-related projects. And actually, I feel like I have a good grip on the situation. But still I am torn. It is not that discipline is completely foreign, but that there is no pressure from outside forcing me to stick to some strict regime of one-project-at-a-time. And the biggest hurdle, for me at least, is actual mindfulness, at least where my projects are concerned. The idea that I should have a plan, and approach my projects in some kind of orderly and informed fashion, rather than just dropping everything and running breathless after each pretty idea that flits through my brain, remains a struggle. My thoughts get ahead of my hands, and truthfully even my words, or my ability to express my ideas. More times than I care to think about this year, I am working on one thing while my brain has moved on by leaps and bounds and I have no idea what I am working on, or even, awkwardly, what I am speaking of or writing about, and the ideas become all jumbled into some incoherent tangle which wasn't at all my original intention. I become a fool, an exuberant enthusiastic fool, but still a fool: this is not the desired goal.

And so perhaps the best course remains to take baby steps and work slowly, finishing small things, and working in manageable bits.

I have not progressed on to the cutting or sewing stage of my gray and yellow tee project.

I am nearly done with a pair of socks to wear with my heavy work boots, a project that was supposed to have been started and finished last fall. Had I not seen fit to rip a half-done sock and start over due to a silly mistake, these might be done. But mindfulness seems to be an ongoing problem. I have been out tramping in the garden and the woods several times this year already so the call of the mud and grass and trees is strong. A pair of thick cushy socks that actually fill in the gaps in my boots becomes an increasingly urgent need.

At least I have made a small dent in the stash, a little appetizer before the bigger projects that must come.

January 15, 2008
Blinded by the Light

I have been out driving late the last three nights and I am being driven to distraction.

When I was learning to drive, way back in the dark ages apparently, I was taught that one should turn off one’s bright headlights when oncoming cars approached, or when one came to close to another vehicle on the road. I have always done this, and when someone forgot to turn off their lights, as I too have occasionally done, I would flash them, flipping my high beams on and off, with the expectation that another driver would do the same to me and I would respond, and that the person being flashed would reduce their beams in response.

But lately, more and more people drive with their brights on and do not turn them off. I live in an area with a great many winding hilly roads without adequate street lamps. High beams are often a great boon at night, especially as there is a lot of open countryside and a substantial deer population. But what I am finding is that I dread driving at night because I am often blinded by some oncoming fool’s lights. Not only do people drive with their high beams on all the time, they don’t turn them down when I flip my brights back at them. And it is not jut the oncoming traffic. Another driver was behind me going up to Rhinebeck tonight, following too closely, with his or her high beams on, practically blinding me from behind. When I got to the wider part of the highway, I gratefully moved to the right hand lane and slowed down just to get this person from behind me and regain my vision before I got into the village itself.

Whatever happened to courteous driving?

And I would think this would go beyond courtesy. If the driver of an oncoming car is blinded by your headlights he may not be able to see the road or may so be distracted that he swerves directly into the oncoming lights, not intentionally of course. Has anyone correlated frequency of high beam usage with accident rates?

January 12, 2008
Tracing a favorite tee

Remember this fabric?

I purchased it a couple of months ago and the moment I saw a photo of it I envisioned what it would become: a v-neck vest/shell based on a favorite sleeveless tee that I purchased at Chico’s some years ago.

I love this Chico’s tee, it fits well, the V-neck is very flattering and the cut lies very nicely against my neckline. It is a little lower than most tees, low enough that I can also wear it as a vest with a blouse or button-down shirt, but not so low that it shows too much skin for everyday wear.

As you can see in this photo, the neckline is somewhat interesting: The front piece extends over the shoulders and form a back yoke with an angled v-shaped opening at the back of the neck.

Although I love this top, I never really thought about how this was made until I decided to copy it. I knew it had a back yoke and opened at a v in the back, but I suppose I didn’t think much about it until I was preparing to copy the pattern.

So how do you copy something like this if you don’t want to cut apart the shirt to use as a pattern? I still wear this top and I would really prefer not to cut it up and have to resew it. But it is just a tiny bit more complicated than folding it half and tracing the outline, which would probably work for a standard tank with shoulder seams.

When I really looked at the top, aside from noticing that there was no shoulder seam (duh!) I noticed that the top is cut with a double layer in front and a single layer in the back, below the yoke. I also noticed that the extended shoulder/back yoke piece is cut on the straight of grain with the front, but when the yoke piece is seamed at the center back they are pulled around on the bias, which is probably what accounts for the way this top seems to hug the shoulders in such a nice way.

So how to trace this? This is what I did, it is not the only way, and it is probably not even the best way, but it usually works pretty well for me.

Often, on a simple shape like a tank or sleeveless shell, one might trace only half the pattern figuring that the piece will be cut on the fold. Tracing off half the pattern makes it more likely that the side seams will match. On this piece however, I would have to flip it to line trace the back shoulder extensions and I thought that working with the extra layers of a folded top might lead to further inaccuracies.

Since I have a seam, and it is hard to trace off an accurate copy of a seam, I began by putting pins in the seam line. Inserting pins into the edges and side seams will also give you a nice, well-differentiated line for tracing as well.

Next I spread the garment out very carefully on my table, making sure that the grain line was straight and that the garment was not stretched or pulled out of shape in any way. I was careful to keep it as straight and even as possible.

Then I put my tracing material over the top of the garment and used tailor’s chalk to make a rubbing of the seam lines which had all been marked with pins. There are several ways to do this, some people prefer pencils, feeling they get a finer line. For me, since I have the pins in place, I get a very clear mark where the pins were positioned, so even if there are other chalk marks on my paper, I can still tell exactly where the seam was positioned.

There are many options for tracing paper. You can trace the garment directly onto muslin, cut it out and sew it up and you have a test garment. Or you can use pattern paper. I used "soil-separator" paper that I bought at Lowe’s some years ago when it was being discussed on one of the sewing boards. I don’t really like it for pattern paper as you can’t see markings on it, although it is sheer and good for tracing, and you can also sew it up like fabric.

If you are using something sheer like soil separator-paper be careful what you use for rubbing as certain things can bleed through the very sheer soil separator paper and mark the garment. This is OK if the marker is washable and the garment is one you own, but I would not recommend this for a borrowed garment for example.

When I traced this garment I first traced the front, and marked the fold lines at the shoulders, then I flipped the garment, making sure I lined each of the back shoulders up with the corresponding fold lines. I also checked the grain line of the fabric to make sure I had positioned it on-grain, then I traced each shoulder extension.

Once I had a rough copy of my garment on the soil-separator paper I could copy it to pattern paper. This is the nice part about the soil separator paper.

First I laid a sheet of pattern paper out on the table. Then I put my soil-separator paper rubbing on top of the pattern paper. I made sure I could see all the proper lines and understood where I would be tracing, as there were a few wider and rough areas of my rubbing.

Then I simply took a washable Crayola marker and traced the lines on the soil-separator paper with the marker. The ink from the marker soaked through the soil separator paper, marking the pattern paper as well, much easier than tracing. I use a washable marker because I am incapable of doing this without getting it all over myself, the cutting table, and anything else that might happen to be in the way. After I have traced over all the lines on the soil-separator paper, I remove it and copy over the lines on the pattern paper to be sure they were all clear.

Now I have a first draft of my pattern. It is not yet finished. The lines on this pattern would represent the seam lines — the seam allowances have not yet been added. I also need to check the pattern pieces to make sure that everything is correct.

To do this I must make sure that all seams that will be joined together are the same length — for example matching the neck extension seams to the top back seam that will form the yoke and making sure that the front and back side seams
are the same length. It is also a good idea with a pattern like this, which is a full front, to ascertain that the pattern is actually balanced from side to side by folding it and making sure that the right and left sides are mirror images of each other.

Once everything has been checked and I am sure that all the pieces are correct and properly aligned, I am ready to cut the fabric.

January 12, 2008
What makes it?

A couple of quotes:

"When you are born a woman, you must live as a woman,". . . . "The quicker you understand that, the easier it will be to accept."
                                 Ayaan Hirsi Ali Infidel pp 49

"because I was born a woman, I could never become an adult. I would always be a minor, my decisions made for me. I would always be dependent–always–on someone treating me well."
                                 pp 187

"It was Friday, July 24, 1992, when I stepped on the train. Every year I think of it. I see it as my real birthday: the birth of me as a person, making decisions about my life on my own. I was not running away . . . I was just a young girl who wanted some way to be me"
                                 pp 188

How fortunate was I to be born a woman in the United States, in a non-muslim family, with other options and other perspectives.

But even within the constraints of any given culture, why do some submit and some rebel, even from a very very early age.

I cannot conceive of not thinking that a person is not a full person because she is a woman. I don’t think this would have ever occurred to me, even as a very small child. On some basic level it would probably not occur to any person, so how and when is it programmed out, and why, in some does the programming fail to "take".

Even as a small American girl I dreamed of becoming a princess — standard fare — but I never dreamed of being rescued. Even when I was as young as 4, which is as far as I can confidently remember, it was always I who rescued myself and, often, the prince as well.

I am not offering comparisons here; there is no comparison between my life or my strength of character, and Ali’s. I cannot imagine the life she led, the choices she had to make. I applaud her strength. I am merely wondering why and how. Why does one question when another does not? Why does one one succeed and another fail? Or as someone dear to us used to ask "What makes it?"

January 10, 2008