sweater knitting, and seeing Manus x Machina
Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on, and where my brain is at.
I’m a little bit obsessed with how quickly my current sweater project is knitting up. Sometimes I forget that knitting a sweater on size 7 (4.5mm) needles is much, much faster than knitting one on a size 4 (3.5mm). Add to that, an easy to remember stitch pattern, some striping, plus shortening the sleeves, and I’m almost ready to split for the front & back.
Apart from knitting away on my sweater project, most of my time this week has been spent in front of the computer.
Luckily a friend is visiting from out of town, and so we took yesterday afternoon to visit the Met’s current costume exhibit – “Manus x Machina” – which is over the top stunning, and explores the relationship between handwork & machine work in creating clothing (both couture & prêt-à-porter). If you have a chance, you should definitely make time to see it.
I also, figured out what direction I want to go in with my no-longer-an-Anna-dress, so I’ll try to carve out some more “making time for making” time, and continue working away on that.
a tale of two bodices – Ditching & Rethinking the plan for my Anna Maxi Dress from By Hand London
Rethinking the dress
I realized a couple weeks ago (while I was asking and answering “why am I sick of all my clothing?”) that I really didn’t want to make an Anna Maxi Dress from By Hand London.
I mean I did/do. And at the same time, I really don’t.
It is true that I want to make a couple maxi dresses as part of my summer wardrobe infusion.
And it is also true that I don’t really/often “do dresses.”
I was initially attracted to the Anna Maxi Dress because there aren’t a whole lot of independent maxi dress patterns, and also it seems to look good on everyone who’s made it.
But I kind of overlooked the fact that I highly doubt I’d enjoy wearing the top half of that dress.
On me – I don’t like dresses hitting at my natural waist, or high necklines.
Luckily I figured this out before I cut the bodice.
But since I figured out that I want to ditch the bodice – I’ve been mulling over what to replace it with, and haven’t quite managed to settle on something.
The Bodice – what do i think I want?
After mulling it over in my head for a couple weeks, and not settling on something, I turned to the magical visual search engine that is pinterest, and tried to come up with some criteria for what I wanted the new bodice to be. I pulled my inspiration together in a “Style | figuring out what dresses I’d actually wear” board.
And based on what I’m taking away from that board, my criteria are turning out to be…
: V neck or lower scoop neck
: flared skirt (check!)
: raise or lower the waist (aka doesn’t sit on my natural waist)
: sleeveless
: thin spaghetti straps or wide-verging on kimono sleeves
And here, I think, is my dilemma.
I can envision this dress with two, quite different, bodices.
The Two Bodices
I can see this dress with a dropped waist, a V neck, and kimono sleeves – built super simply with 4 rectangles (two for the front, two for the back), a center front seam, a center back seam, and two side seams.
OR
I can see this dress with an empire waist, a scoop neck, and spaghetti straps – based on a super simple camisole.
So the question becomes, which direction do I want to go in?
The Skirt
I cut the skirt based on the Anna Dress pattern, and sewed it together with 1/2 an inch seam allowance (rather than the 5/8th seam allowance called for in the pattern – which gave me a little more skirt to play around with).
So I know I have enough length and width in the skirt to raise the waistline.
I also know that I don’t have a whole lot of fabric left over to build the bodice out of.
The pattern for the Anna Dress calls for 3.8 yards (3.5 meters) of 60″ wide fabric, and I have 3 yards – so the original pattern would have been a pretty tight squeeze (which I knew going in).
On top of that, I added length to the skirt (just in case I wanted to raise the waistline), and so I’m left with even less fabric for the bodice than I would have had if I had actually cut the skirt as written in the pattern.
Back to the contemplating bodice
So I have two directions I could go in for the bodice.
I think I’d like (and wear) either direction.
I have limited quantities of this fabric to work with. And I definitely don’t want to use a different fabric for the bodice.
If fabric weren’t an issue…
If fabric weren’t an issue I think I’d go with the dropped waist, V neck, kimono sleeve version of this dress. Because I think it would add a nice bit of variety to my wardrobe – and I think this print is subdued enough that the maxi skirt plus full bodice wouldn’t be overwhelming.
However…
Since fabric is an issue, and I do have another bodice option that I like, that I will go with my second bodice option – the empire waist, scoop neck & spaghetti straps.
At least that’s what I’m currently thinking.
And of course the lining…
In addition to mulling over the bodice, I’ve also been mulling over what I want to do for the lining.
I’m leaning towards a lighter blue cotton (definitely not a white), but haven’t run into the perfect thing – so I think it’s time to go hunting for it.
Now that I know what I want to do for the bodice. And I also know that I need to go hunting for the lining, I can keep trundling forward with this project. (And also with my whole summer wardrobe infusion plan).
a sewn skirt, finished sweater, hand-drawn graphics, and a Lady Bat
Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on, and where my brain is at.
In the world of my summer wardrobe infusions – I got the skirt of my no longer going to be an Anna Dress sewn together over the weekend. Still not 100% sure what I want to do for the bodice, but I am loving the skirt so that must be a good sign.
And I finished my well traveled sweater! Finished & posted, because is a finished garment really finished if you don’t have photos of it?
I finished the sweater, took photos of it, and then yesterday, I promptly ripped out the decrease bind off at the neckline to replace it with an i-cord bind off. When I was originally knitting this sweater, I knew it was quite possible I wouldn’t have enough yarn, so when I was altering the neckline the first time, I decided to do a standard decrease bind off (instead of my go-to i-cord bind off) because it consumes less yarn. But ever since I finished the neckline, I’ve been wanting to alter that, so I’m really glad I had enough yarn left to do so.
The Shawl Geometry Update is progressing, I’m laying out + creating graphics for the third book (I’m sure I’m not the only one, but I find it so much easier to sketch technical graphics by hand before creating them on a computer), and editing the photos for the first and second. My hope is that once I get into editing, I’ll be able to put together a more definitive timeline for wrapping this project up.
And because I finished my travel sweater, I cast on for a new project. I’m knitting someone else’s pattern for a change – Lady Bat by Teresa Gregorio. I’m knitting the thing on size US 7 needles, and after a whole sweater on US 4s, am loving how fast it’s knitting up.
