The Self-Made Wardrobe Week 6 – I just want a pair of damn pants
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’s the end of Week 6 of the Self-Made Wardrobe!
Most of this week was spent working from my couch in my pajamas, which has made me realize that I have very few run-out-to-the-corner-store pieces in my wardrobe…
Which has added some fuel to the made-some-damn-jeans-already fire.
So. Some much needed jeans hardware is on the list to pick up this week. And some time has been set aside to futz with the first sample, and fiddle with the pattern. And I hope to hell I’ll have a pair of jeans soon.
Because as someone who lived in jeans before this project, a month an a half of nothing but skirts is quite enough, thank-you-very-much.
I just want a pair of damn pants!
(Also, I’ll try and remember to shoot in daylight from now on, so there’s no more crazy yellow photos.)
an almost finished sweater, and an experiment in sewing jeans
Each Wednesday I post little snippets about the projects I’m working on.
You can see all of the Wednesday posts here.
I finished the body and sleeves of my Versio sweater the other day, and started on the hood last night. Maybe I can finish the hood in a day or two?
My first experiment sewing jeans happened last Thursday.
The conclusion: it could have gone (a lot) worse.
And that’s what I’ve been working on knitting & sewing wise.
There’s been some writing – about sweaters that morph as you’re knitting them, and asking what mistakes you can live with.
Some editing – The Self-Made Wardrobe Project page got an update, and so did the about page.
Some thinking – I’m working on a wrap up post for the first month of the self-made wardrobe, but the words that say what I’m trying to say are proving somewhat elusive.
But mostly, I’m hoping to finish up the hood of my sweater so I can come back to knitting my lace shawl, and some of my old sweater works in progress.
(I’m still amazed that I have 5 sweaters in progress… how the hell did that happen?)
The Versio Sweater – a body, sleeves, and a change of plans
The weather is (finally) cooling down again here in New York, and it’s starting to feel like fall (again), so I took the opportunity to finish up the sleeves of my Versio sweater.
The pattern is Versio by Ankestrick (here on Ravelry.)
I’m using a 4 different lace weight yarns:
1 skein of Julie Asselin’s “Merletto” – the blue
1 skein of Sweet Georgia’s “Merino Silk Lace” – the red
1 skein of Fiberspates’ “Scrumptious” – the gold
2 skeins of Cascade’s “Forest Hills” – the black
Holding 2 strands of yarn together throughout the entire thing, and knitting it on a US 8 (5.0 mm) needle.
I’m also adding the hood modification that Rililie on Ravelry wrote up.
The pattern is knit top down, seamlessly, and using the contiguous set in sleeve method. I had never head of this method for creating set in sleeves – but I might have fallen a little bit in love.
The armscyes are a little bit deep on me, so it does some funky pulling/puckering under the arm, but not badly enough to make it unwearable.
The striping sequence has evolved a bit during the knitting process.
The original idea was to just use the blue, the gold and the red, working the stripe sequence you see on the yoke, for the entire sweater.
Turns out, I was going to run out of yarn really quickly if I did that – so I added the black, and planned on working the stripe sequence you see in the middle section of the sweater, for the entirety of it.
But I was still probably going to run out of yarn – so I switched to solid black for the bottom portions, and reintroduced the gold for the hems.
I’m a little ambivalent about the project right now.
I like it, but I originally wanted this sweater to fill the role of an easy to throw on – but not boring – works with jeans or a skirt, sweatshirt type sweater, in my self-made wardrobe, and that’s not what this is anymore.
Now, I’m seeing it as more of a sweater to wear with heels and dark wash jeans, still casual, but a piece that needs a little more effort to wear (and not end up being worn being worn by.)
I’ll see how I feel once I add the hood. But this sweater has definitely morphed into a sweater that is different than the one I originally planned.
