What if, my wardrobe and I are grand adventuresses?
I had a thought about wardrobe planning the other day, and since Friday was the birthday of Winnie-the-Pooh,* this (probably kooky) thought seemed pretty appropriate – since adventuring is quite a Pooh Bear thing to do.
*or at least one of the birthdays – February 13, 1924 was when the poem “Teddy Bear,” which featured Pooh, was originally published in Punch magazine. The original Winnie-the-Pooh teddy bear was actually given to A.A. Milne’s son on August 21, 1921.
A small (but rather insistent) part of me has been feeling like I should be better at planning my wardrobe. That I should be sketching & swatching, picking out patterns and matching up fabric. But I have a pretty good record of NOT doing that for my self-made wardrobe – and so far things have (mostly) worked out.
And then I had a thought.
What if, my wardrobe and I are grand adventurers?
Or grand adventuresses?
My wardrobe and I are adventuresses.
On a grand adventure. Together.
And what fun would a grand adventure be if you pre-planned it?!
How would you even go about pre-planing an adventure?! Unexpected things always happen on adventures! That’s kind of the point of adventuring!
Is it a little anthropomorphic? Yes. Is this a kooky idea? Probably.
Does it feel a lot more fun than sitting down, plotting my entire wardrobe out, and sticking to a carefully laid plan? To me – hell yes!
“When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.”
―from Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
So, here’s to the rest of a grand adventure!
The Not-So-Straightforward Basic Purple Sweater
I have a new sweater! Just in time for more snow.
This should have been the most straight forward of knits, but it wasn’t – at all.
It started as a straight forward enough knit, a top down raglan pullover with long sleeves – just keep knitting, just keep knitting.
But then I decided I didn’t like the neckline, so I cut the whole yoke off.
Which led to a whole slew of complications, out of order knitting, and ends to weave in. (More about that here.)
And on top of that, I spent the whole process wondering if I was going to run out of yarn. It was close, but between the two yarns, I had 7 grams leftover.
Materials
The yarn is two skeins of Madeline Tosh Lace held together (which they’ve discontinued! That makes me a super sad panda.) The colors are “flashdance” and “magenta,” which when held together make an amazing marled purple color that sends my camera into fits of confusion.
I used a needle size 9 (5.5mm) because I wanted thin fabric, so that the sweater could work as a layer under other pieces, or on it’s own, but I wanted to hold the yarn double to make the knitting go faster (because lace weight sweaters take forever, as confirmed by the Boring Black Sweater) so large needles were a must.
Pattern
I didn’t use a pattern, since it’s just a straight forward top down raglan (or at least that’s what it was when I started), and it’s all stockinette, with decreasing for the waist, increasing for the hips, and decreases for the sleeves. I really let the yarn do the work to make the final sweater interesting.
The body & sleeve hems are just bound off using a regular bind off and a relaxing cup of tea. At the neckline I worked an i-cord bind off, which is quickly becoming my favorite finishing for sweater necklines. It’s fast, painless, and looks good – I’m sold.
What Worked Well
Sleeves!!! My sleeves are well and truly long enough! They come down to my knuckles and I love them! Most of the other sweaters I’ve knit have had no sleeves, short sleeves, magically shrinking sleeves, or sleeves that were not quite as long as I’d like them to be but would do.
My unconventional knitting order worked out, and you can’t tell from the final garment. I guess provisional cast ons and knitting from live stitches are techniques that really are seamless.
What I’d Do Differently
The stitches along the raglan shoulder shaping got kind of wonky & wide, probably due to a combination of the loose gauge & the direction I leaned my decreases, don’t love that, but can live with it.
There’s some funky bunching at the underarm, I think caused when I was reknitting the yoke, but hadn’t reworked the math. Don’t love this either, but can live with it too.
I’m really glad to know that the knitting out of order sweaters works in real life and in my brain. However it did lead to a lot of stops and starts, while I waited for enough time/brain power to start a new sweater piece, work out some math, chop the yoke off, etc.
Next time I’d rather go with my gut from the beginning and have a smoother knitting process. Because the funny thing is, that this is the sweater I wanted from the beginning. But I second guessed myself and cast on a different neck, which I then didn’t like, which led to me cutting it off, which led to knitting the sweater in a wonky order, and you know the rest of that story.
I guess there’s something to be learned there.
Aside! How in the world do I only have 5 long sleeve sweaters?!?! No wonder I’m cold & want more. (Sweater 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 is this one.)
The Blue Kimono – one of the first pieces I made for the self-made wardrobe
This blue kimono was one of the first things I made specifically for the self-made wardrobe project. It’s one of the pieces I wear most often, and it’s definitely one of the pieces I get complimented on the most.
The fabric is a sheer navy (probably polyester), with embroidered squares that have been glued on, sort of a “novelty chiffon.” It was a complete impulse purchase from A&K Fabrics, and cost pretty close to nothing. 2 yards of fabric got cut up into 6 rectangles, and 5 of those rectangles turned into a kimono.
The pattern is my own, but I’m not really sure it could be called a pattern.
I laid out the fabric and portioned it out into 6 rectangles. 2 front pieces, 1 back piece, 2 sleeves, and 1 neckband (which didn’t get used, and which isn’t in the photo.) The fronts are approximately half the width of the back, and the sleeves are pretty close to squares.
(left to right: french seam, flat felled seams, sleeve hem)
Since the fabric is sproingy and unravels easily I used a combination of french seams, and flat felled seams. Then I did deep hems & cuffs, with stitching at the top and bottom edges, the stitching was to keep the hems flat, and the depth was to give the hems a bit of weight, so the kimono would hang nicely.
It works with dresses, skirts, jeans (even if they aren’t self-made), and is kind of the perfect light layer to throw on.
I wore it all summer, a bunch of this fall, and I sort of doubt I’ll put it away entirely this winter. Self-Made Wardrobe Win!
