Knitting - Hermione's everyday socks

I needed a simple knit for a long car ride to a library conference last week. I was a bit jittery/stressed and I knew this could help calm me down. I was hoping to perhaps meet other knitters - librarians have an affinity for knitting. Unfortunately, I didn't really meet up with anyone else this year. There was one librarian who had the most amazing cardigan but I didn't work up the nerve to ask her about it. My inner introvert shines in crowds.... Anyway, I cast on Hermione's everyday socks with Serenity Sock Weight by Premiere Yarns (Deborah Norville).

The yarn is merino, bamboo, and nylon and it is very soft. For a self-stripping yarn, this one isn't too bad. This is a budget sock yarn from Joann's and if you watch you can pick it up for just a few dollars a ball. There have been a lot of complaints on Ravelry about this yarn, but so far, I haven't run into any big issues. It is a bit splitty, but I'm using my Inox double points and that seems to minimize that problem.

The pattern is pretty easy but because of the self stripping yarn, it is hard to find where you left off. So if I do work on this, I work at least one full repeat of the 4-row repeat.

Book making - creating books as gifts

Last year I managed to get a jump start on Christmas gifts by making potholders in bulk. They went into a kitchen/cooking theme basket and I think they went over ok. This year I decided to make handmade books from mostly recycled materials. I've been stashing chipboard boxes for over a year. I also found some unused, forgotten drawing tablets in a closet. At the library book sale, I found an old atlas and other travel books. I think the books should be a fun project. I'll throw in some simple pamphlet, jotter style notebooks to make sets. All I'll need to do after that is buy some nice pens in bulk. Easy-peasy and so inexpensive. I decided after last year that giving simple, meaningful gifts is so much better than a bunch of cheap stuff in a gift basket.

So far, I have broken the boxes down and glued two layers of chipboard together. I've started cutting the chipboard down to size and then I'll start covering the boards with decorative paper.

Grading a skirt pattern

It feels so good to cross something off my to-do list that has been languishing for nearly 2 years. I had made a skirt up from a Burda pattern 2 years ago in desperation. I had gained weight and none of my skirts fit me anymore. 6 months later, I dropped all that weight and the skirt was simply too big. I liked the skirt pattern and it fit really well, but I had to grade the skirt pattern down in order to use it again.

In order to grade the skirt, I had to figure out the grade for Burda's patterns. I did this by looking at their measurement charts and comparing the sizes. With a little math I determined that Burda was using a 1.5 inch grade in the waist and hips. After comparing my measurements with the chart, I learned I only needed to go down one size.

So I pulled out my handy Jack Handford grading book and followed the instructions for grading a woman's skirt one size down. There are charts and instructions for a 1, 1.5, and 2 inch grade. It was so much easier to do than I expected. I knocked this out pretty quick. This book is now out of print, but if you can find it, buy it.

And I may be too much of a nerd, but I assigned a style number and created my own cutting spec for future reference. Now all I have to decide is which fabric to use to make up my next skirt.

Spinning - Tardis blue yarn

Things have been really slow in the Design Loft. I did manage to finish up my 1.5 oz of Tardis Blue yarn.

The plying ball.

And the yarn.

I went ahead and decided to participate in the Spindlers Ravelry group monthly challenge entitled Snips and snails and puppy dog tails. While the color certainly references Dr. Who, it wasn't until I read that the original title for last season's Night Terrors episode was "What are little boys made of?" So this yarn is called Tardis Blue for the color and named Night Terrors for the Dr. Who episode.

Yarn specs:
80 yds
9 WPI, Worsted
2 ply
corridale wool.

This yarn bled a lot while soaking. This was the first yarn I've taken from the fluff to finishing and most instructions say to soak in hot water. It bled heavily, so I switched to cold and that most definitely helped. So in future, wash with cold, separately. I thought I was spinning the yarn pretty fine, but clearly I wasn't. The yarn was DK before soaking and worsted after. It fluffed up quite a bit. It was a lot of fun watching the yarn form and I'm definitely hooked on a new hobby.

T-shirt pattern quest pt. 8

I created some drawings to further explain the armhole problem on my t-shirt pattern. Nearly all drafting instructions that I've seen for t-shirts are pretty much the same. First you enlarge the armhole and drop the shoulder. Then the front and back bodice are traced off with identical bodice shaping and armhole shaping. The only difference might be the neck. If you lay the pattern pieces on top of each other, you will get something like this.

This kind of pattern works ok for a boxy, loose fitting t-shirt. If you want a more fitted t-shirt, then it simply won't work. In my case, the symmetrical armholes caused the front of the shirt to be pulled toward the back. The closer the fit, the less symmetry in general. When you look at the human body, you can see there is no symmetry between the front and back so patterns should reflect this. (Most people are not truly symmetrical left to right either). Children generally are more symmetrical than adults and the patterns for them reflect this. But, even there, the more fitted the style, the less symmetry though the differences are smaller. Anyway, the patterns above resulted in a fit that looked like below. The red arrows help emphasize the shape and length differences of the front and back armholes.

To correct this problem, I needed to lengthen the back armhole. I compared the armhole of my blouse pattern, which was not symmetrical, to the t-shirt armhole to determine how much longer it should be. Slash and spread and the pattern should look like something below.

 With a result that looks much improved.

The next thing on my list is to make adjustments for front versus back body width.