Which mistakes can you live with?
We all make mistakes. (Obviously.)
And fortunately in knitting, (almost) every mistake is fixable.
(Apart from things like lighting your sweater on fire.)
But that doesn’t mean all mistakes need to be fixed.
I’m not advocating sloppiness,
because there’s no need for that.
But pure perfection is boring,
and usually unattainable.
Wafian has a spot where the boarder is garter instead of i-cord
– when I got distracted for a row.
Eirwen has a couple loose stitches near the beginning
– where the magic loop pulled a yarn over too large.
Izar has a couple stripes completely out of order
– where I forgot what I was doing for a bit.
Tumbling Deco was supposed to have a smooth boarder (like Mrs. Peacock)
– but I didn’t have the blocking wires.
When it comes to mistakes in my knitting my thinking is…
: if it’s structural, fix it.
(an incorrect stitch count, an off-center repeat, funky shaping, extra rows)
: if it’s cosmetic, it can stay – or get fixed – usually depending on my mood.
(a misordered stripe sequence, a different blocking method, an incorrect stitch that your eye glosses over)
So, which mistakes can you live with?
The Self-Made Wardrobe Week 5
The Self-Made Wardrobe is a project where I only wear garments I’ve made, for one year.
You can read more about the project here.
It was a mostly straight forward week, some sewing and some knitting, when I wasn’t melting. It would seem that August decided to throw us a swelter-y farewell party, which made for some really gross knitting weather.
And wrote some reminders to myself about what I like wearing and what I don’t.
But in much more exciting news, I spent yesterday conducting my first experiment at sewing jeans.
I took a rub off of a pair of jeans I have that fit pretty well (not perfect) but well enough, worked up a basic pattern, and sewed up a pair of long shorts.
I don’t have photos, I was too much in the head-space of figuring things out to remember to grab the camera. Next time I’ll try to remember the camera.
They didn’t have pockets, or belt loops, or bottom hems, or even a button when it came down to it.
Mostly I just wanted to check the fit and see if I could figure out the steps for putting them together.
I think I figured out a sewing order that I like:
Back legs to yokes. Front legs to back along the side seam. Back legs together. Fly. Front crotch. Inseam. Waistband.
Next time I’m going to try sewing the front of the crotch seam together, then inserting the fly, then top-stitching the front crotch seam.
The fit is sort of ok. I can get them on, walk around, and sit down in them, but really, no one needs to see that much panty-line detail.
Plus the fly is a little bit funky. Totally functional. But funky.
I think though, if I add a bit of ease, back pockets, and switch up the order I sew the fly/front crotch in, the next pair will be wearable.
Overall it could have gone worse. (A lot worse.)
I need to make a trip to the garment district to pick up metal zippers, some more pattern paper, some hardware, and top stitching thread.
But I’m a little bit thrilled about the prospect of wearing jeans again!
sweater weather, rainstorms, and a sassy-tinkerbell-mug
Each Wednesday I post little snippets about the projects I’m working on.
You can see all of the Wednesday posts here.
I cut the waistband & hem band to the skirt I was working on last week, while catching up on podcasts. Then attached them Thursday morning, before wearing it for the rest of the day. You can see the finished skirt in last Friday’s Self-Made Wardrobe update.
The solo lace shawl of my needles is getting worked on, but I need to remember to set myself time to work on it. Otherwise I’d just keep knitting my sweater.
I did end up running out of the black Forest Hills yarn I’m using in my Versio sweater, and had to pick up another ball. But this time I’m remembering to wind it before trying to knit from both ends of the skein.
The beginning of fall mean the return of sweater knitting weather (yay!) and drinking tea from my sassy-Tinkerbell-mug. Although August is throwing us a swelter-y farewell, complete with rainstorms and humidity.
I love the fabric you get when you hold multiple strands of lace weight yarn together. The fabric is soft and supple, but you can use a larger needle than you normally would for lace weight yarns. It’s a technique I call for in the Xylia, Yuki, and Idril, to create interesting stockinette shawl that don’t take an age and a half to knit.
