Cuteness

You’ve already seen this creation but I just have to share again, pictures like this makes it hard for me to insist being a selfish seamstress/knitster…

My friend’s son turned one recently and they took more photos of him in the hat I knitted for him, which made me so happy!

Kids grow up so fast! I cant believe this little cute guy here is 1 year old already!

On another hand, we finally got around to take photos for a sweater I had been working on for more than a year! I am a slow knitter so I am so happy its finally finished. come back next week!

Zanda in my hood!

The winner for my hoodlet give away was Zanda. She took some very nice pictures of her in the hoodlet and it made me so very happy! If you guys havent checked out her blog, please head on over – I always love her projects and photos!

The Bear Coat

Hello! 2013 has truly started off on the right foot. I have finished making a coat, and I’ve worn it almost every single day for the past 3 weeks. Bless the cold weather!

I have donated/gave away a few ill fitting coats/jackets end of last year. Looking at my closet, I realized that I lack a black coat. I also realized that I almost always pick the coats with a hoodie when i get dressed. I have also had this soft, thick 100% wool from hancock in my stash for a whole year or two, with matching bright green polyester sateen that I intended to use with. I havent made a coat this year yet, and the coats/jackets I made last year had not been worn much as they dont quite fit into the style I like this year. Also, Kaylee decided to give mommy a break and had been sleeping through the night! So everything came together rather smoothly. I finished the coat in 10 days (include two weekends during which Kaylee took 3 hour naps each day!).

I used my well trusted Telea pattern @ 91% from Burdastyle. I added a hoodie, changed the front to a black zipper closure, and made the pocket  in a different way so that its easier and cleaner. Well, there’s not much else to say!

My husband called this the Bear Coat because we shoot this coat up in Berkeley. We celebrated his birthday partly by wandering around the old campus where we spent the early part of our past ten years together. I actually usually wear this coat with a sweater, jeggings and boots, so there’s not that much volume at my hips and it fits perfectly. But I wanted to wear something fun. So I am wearing the white dress I made a few years ago, plus a petticoat underneath. Part of me wished that we can have another wedding, western style, so that I can dress like this for the big day! hmm, perhaps we shall celebrate our X year anniversary in style.

I want to show you some more detailed shoots of the coats. I realized that I really love it when my coat is branded with my handle name, so I took the extra time to embroider my name with matching thread and sewing the tag into the neck area of the coat. I also really love how the lining turned out along and how the zipper turned out. I actually was going to use some fireman hooks as additional closure on top of the zipper, but the coat came out so perfect that I didnt want to risk adding too much elements to it.

And here are my favorite photo from this coat photoshoot.

Multiway Grey Sweater

I made my third sweater on my bond sweater machine and its amAAAAAzing! (Sorry, been watching too much Happy Endings. its  a great show for sewing!) I think I finally got the formula down for that slouchy/oversized look that I like so much this season.

This sweater was knitted up on my Bond machine over the course of a few weeks. All the ribbing takes quite a while on the machine (still not as much as hand knitting). I made it so that I can wear it inside out, or outside out I actually prefers the texture of the “wrong” side of the stockton stitch. It looks like a Garter stitch, which Bond machine cannot do. The only thing is that when you piece two pieces together, it is really awkward if you try to sew it with the wrong side together instead of the right side together. So when I wear it on the wrong side, there are two seams running down the side (not shown here). I made it really neat though, so it doesnt look too bad!.

Note sure if you can tell the difference from the photos, this is wrong side out:

The neck part can be pulled down for the off the shoulder look, which make the sweater a little longer to be worn as a dress as well. I call that sexy mode. When I wear this to work, I wear it like a turtle neck like a sweater, which also makes the sleeves shorter and more convenient for cooking at home. I call this slave/mommy mode.  It is truely a versatile piece!

Lastly, this is made from 100% polyester. I just loved the fact that my first sweater had been washed almost every week during the winter and it never gets damaged or dirty. I am going to have to rethink my position as a fabric snob. I love how the sweaters from this yarn is really soft, and it falls close to my body which shows off curves without being tight or obscene. Though it is quite staticy – my hair goes a little wonky with this dress!

If anyone arrives here looking for Bond Machine knitting patterns, I actually recorded down this one diligently! Though, does anyone even have a bond knitting machine out here? It doesnt seem very commonly used at all!

machine knit sweater – grey:

2.5 tension, 2 out of 4 rods inserted
back:

• cast on 82 stitches with WY, knit 6 rows
• K 90 rows, mark arm holes
• K 36 more rows
• put center 40 stitches on waste yarn
• each shoulder will have 21 stitches
• knitting 6 rows with WY on each shoulder, then take them off the machine
• flip it around, with wrong side facing you, hang the hem, knit 10 times then rib it. then bind off

front:

• cast on 82 with WY, knit 6 rows
• knit 90 rows, mark arm holes,
• knit 20 rows
• put center 22 stitches on WY
• for each shoulder:
• - Knit 4 rows, decreasing 1 st each time
• - knit 8 rows, decreasing 1 st every other times
• - knit 4 rows
• - knit 6 rows with wy
• now each shoulder should have 22 stitches

join one shoulder

neckline:

• bring forward 89  needles
• with right side facing, pick up 89 stitches:
• 40 on back neck, 14 on side front neck edge, 22 on front WY, 13 on the other side front neck edge.
• knit 60 rows, then do ribbing (1 in 4), i made the ribbing at the 2nd stitch and 2nd to last one

join the other shoulder. sew the turtle neck together by hand

sleeves:

• bring out 50 stitches, and hook on between the markers
• knit 90 time, rib the last 8 rows

sew the underside of sleeves and also sides of the bodice together

2012 Sewing Review

I am so late to the party, but I just finished posting my last creation of 2012 a few days ago. This year is a year of unproductivity sewing-wise. Most of the items I made were fast and simple. I did started knitting a lot more, thanks to my pre-birth boredom that made me finally sit down and understand knitting terms.

Well, at least my Project started : project completed : project often worn ratio is pretty OKAY this year:

25:22:17

I got a bit adventurous in the middle of the year and started two dresses with my precious silk. And Murphy’s Law upholds – projects with the most expensive fabric is project likely going wrong. They ended up fitting very weird, and not even presentable as failures here. (Okay, in truth I am so sad about the ruined fabric that I rather not look/think/blog about them).

2013 has proven to be a good year to start though! I have completed another machine knit sweater and it came out exactly the way i wanted! I cant want to force hubby to take some nice photos to show you!

Orange Rayon Jersey Shirt

I wanted to add more colors to my neutral closet. So I made another shirt from rayon jersey! Same pattern, just slightly shorter with an easier pocket. It is very comfortable!

This concludes all the stuff I’ve made in 2012! whew!! Let’s hope 2013 would be a lot more productive sewing-wise!

Forest Green Mommy Sweater

Happy new year everyone!! I am still posting projects I did back in 2012, like this green sweater! This is the sweater that I made on my Bond Machine knitting sweater that I am not too crazy about. But it looks decent as an underlayer so I’ve been wearing it here and there.

For my own reference, here’s the exact rows I used. It is based off their instruction pattern, only slightly modified:

2.5 tension plate, 2 out of 4 rods inserted

back:
cast on 72 stitches with WY, knt 6 rows
K 68 rows, mark arm holes
K 48 more rows
put center 36 stitches on waste yarn
each shoulder will have 18 stitches
knitting 6 rows with WY on each shoulder, then take them off the machine
flip it around, with wrong side facing you, hang the hem, knit 10 times then rib it. then bind off

front:
cast on 72 with WY, knit 6 rows
knit 68 rows, mark arm holes, twist center 6 yarsn every 10 rows (the first one should be after only 5 stitches)
knit 32 rows (continue cable)
put center 18 stitches on WY
for each shoulder:
- Knit 4 rows, decreasing 1 st each time
- knit 8 rows, decreasing 1 st every other times
- knit 4 rows
- knit 6 rows with wy
now each shoulder should have 19 stitches

join one shoulder

neckline:
bring forward 81 needles
with wrong side facing, pick up 81 stitches:
36 on back neck, 14 on side front neck edge, 18 on front WY, 13 on the other side front neck edge.
knit 10 rows, then do ribbing

sleeves:
- bring out 66 stitches, and hook on between the markers
knit this 12 times:
- knit 6 rows, on the 7th row decrease one on both side
then knit 17 rows, rib the last 10 rows, bind off

We went on a road trip without little K and I had to bundle up like crazy! but I like how my outfit looked. I am also wearing a scarf I knitted earlier in 2012. Its a really warm wool scarf in seed stitch. I kept on forgetting to do a nice photo shoot for it, but I recently ruined it by putting it in the washer and totally shrunk it. oops! At least I got a lot of good wear out of it!

I hope everyone had a great new year!