Thursday 18 November 2010

Scratch that idea.

The dress is off. I have somehow managed to sprain my back badly enough to warrant the good stuff from the doctor, and there is no way I am going to be able to crawl around on the floor pinning and measuring. Oh well. I'll have a new dress someday, and it's far more important that I let my back recover.

In other news, I have decided to frog my laceweight cardigan. I'd rather use the yarn for something else, and nothing in my wardrobe goes with that particular shade of green anyway. That leaves me at 5 WIPs remaining!

Thursday 11 November 2010

And now for something completely different:

... a sewing project! Next month I am attending a ball, SCA-style. I only have one set of court garb, and it needs a complete refit before I can wear it, which means that I am also garb-making this month. I shall be starting by cutting up my wedding dress!

Well, not completely. See, there's this book called The Tudor Tailor, containing many patterns for making (shockingly) clothing from the Tudor period. One of the gowns is a late Henrician-period French gown, with a fancy petticoat and lots of trim. I've admired it many times, but haven't attempted it because boning and lacing and complicated fittings are not doable on oneself. I realized, however, that the shape of the dress was very familiar, and I eventually twigged that it was the same shape as my wedding dress*. My dress has funky swoopy ren-faire sleeves instead of proper fitted ones, but apart from that, I think they might even be from the same template.

So, I'm going to take the sleeves off my dress, cut out proper ones, reattach the sleeves and sew on a load of trim. I'm also going to acquire some fancy brocade to do a stomacher and petticoat. And I need to make a hat, which will require pearls and more thread. I can totally do this by the first weekend of December. Sure I can. Maybe.

I'd better get sewing.

*I have two wedding dresses from two ceremonies, since we've got family in multiple countries and had a wedding in each. This dress is deep blue velvet and was bought with the intention of eventually using it for reenactment purposes.

Friday 5 November 2010

State of the WIPs, Bonfire Night edition

So, now that I'm caught up posting about my finished projects, let's talk about the ones I'm still working on! I'm feeling pretty good about everything right now.
  • Blue Posh lace shawl - priority 1. This is now my oldest WIP. I've finished the first chart, and since this is a bottom-up number that's about 25% of the knitting done. It's getting a lot quicker too, since every successive row is shorter.
  • Ripple blanket - priority 2. I've packed all the yarn for this one and moved it to my office for daytime working. It'll get done much faster if I work on it every day, plus I can't overdo the crochet if it's not in my flat.
  • Red Posh cobweb shawl - waiting. This will be my next at-home project once the blue shawl is finished. It's probably got the most remaining work on it, but I love it so much that it's ok.
  • Laceweight cardie - hibernating. I'll get this out once the above 3 are finished.
  • Noro mittens - pretty low on my to-do list, since I have a pair of perfectly good Posh mittens already. Still, they are easy enough, so once the blanket is done they'll get moved into my handbag for lunch hour knitting.
  • Pink woven scarf - I'm working on this when I'm too brain-dead to pick up anything else. It's ideal for tv watching!

I can't believe I'm down to only 6 yarn-based WIPs. That's the lowest total I've had in years! I have some other projects either on the go or in the planning phase, so more to follow...

FOs

26/10 - A productive Saturday gave me the chance to finish off the pillow. I'm delighted with it! It's made of zillions of scraps, but I managed to sort them into a pair of colour-themed sides - orange:

Naked chef 002

and blue-green:
Naked chef 003

Some earlier works are the garters I'm donated to the Yule gift exchange:

Genny's knitting 014
and the dark woven scarf I made of two coordinating skeins of sock yarn:
Genny's knitting 004
Feeling pretty pleased with my progress right now!

05/11 update - Didn't get around to finishing the above post, and since then I've finished two more projects. :D

Coppery scarf:
8 shawls project 010


Carnevale shawl, so named because the yarn reminds me of the festival:
8 shawls project 008