Little Purl of the Orient

Sometimes, Sewing makes me happy too

Thanks for your nice comments on the lino top. There seems to be something wrong with the format of the comments on my blog and now you would have to sign in before able to leave a comment. I tried to change the setting but couldn't, maybe because I've downgraded mine from a paid blog to a free one. Let's see how things go from here. And I'm not able to reply individually too, apologies about that!

We celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival yesterday. Nothing much, just lots of eating and merry-making. And today, we get the day off. I'm hoping to get some craft work (maybe some sewing?) done, if possible.

My knitting friends and I had a fun-filled fabric shopping trip last Saturday at Shamshuipo. We closed in on a linen shop that is closing down and we bought so much linen and cotton/linen blends at such attractive prices. We are definitely going to miss it. It should already be closed by now.... I miss it already.

Anyway, I got a bit of guilty feeling from getting too much, not the from the amount spent which was maybe like USD20-25 for for sooo much fabric, but for the lack of space at home to store them. And haven't I just written off sewing for this year not so long ago?

So I decided to consume some stash and make some cushion covers for the home. These are nice brainless sewing to me. No need to worry about the fit.

And so I did last Sunday and made 6. Now at least we got rid of the saggy cushions with their ripped covers and replaced them with these colour-cordinated ones for the sofa. I made them envelop style except for the Echino which I made with buttons enclosures.

The below 2 go to the kids' room. The blue shabby chic floral for JY, the elder one. And orange crocodile for CY, the little one. They have very different styles. I made an extra blue one too, for my chair in the office. That makes a total of six.

Knitting makes me HAPPY!

So, after posting about my failed Leia and the easier sewing projects done earlier on for my children, I decided to go back to knitting.

And knitting I did, with a vengeance. I spent the last rainy Saturday afternoon working on my dark brown Katia Lino top which I've been knitting, seemingly like ages, up to the underarms. I made it all in one-piece up to this point. And on the Saturday afternoon, the armhole shapings were completely, the shoulders assembled, and the neck and armhole bands picked up. And I just couldn't wait to wear it immediately on Sunday, even before washing it.

My daughter, JY, is getting real good with taking FO photos, much better than husband. At least she cares about how I look in the camera. Here you go. The lopsided shoulder is my fault, I was trying to strike a post by putting one hand behind me on the wall but it didn't work :).

This top took only 3 balls of Katia Lino in colour #10 a dark, chocolate brown and I used Clover bamboo #8 needles (4.5mm) for the body and #7 (4.2mm) for the bands. I got the yarn in the closing down sale of Spotlight and still have 6 balls left. If anybody would be interested to have them, I could destash them.

The pattern is from this Japanese book, from which I made this crochet top last year. I'm glad that at least I have one summer top made this year. Although the weather is still very hot here, I've been thinking about knitting more and more.

The rain continued on Sunday and we have no where to go so the knitting continued. I'm hoping that Audrey would be the next FO, I've reached the first sleeve, hooray. But after finishing the crochet scarf and the linen top, I'm allowed to start a new project, am I not? Let me go check on my queue on Ravelry now ... ...

What went wrong and Simpler Projects

So what actually went wrong with my Leia? Simply, it is beyond my level, especially the curved/heart-shaped yoke. Even though Yoshimi posted her great tip of using glue instead of pins, I couldn't figure it out and still used loads of pins.

Then, it's a case of choosing the wrong fabric combination. I used the thin Swiss Dot used for the Simplicity top for the yoke and a blue lightweight linen. Bad choice (mainly in the yoke fabric), because all the raw edgings of the yoke and bodice peeked out along the seam line. And it took me a few tries to get the curves sewn together. The armholes, didn't align when I sew on the facing, etc, etc. There are just too many mishaps to count. Here is how it looks.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, I made the smallest size and it is a tad too tight for me. If I would sew it again, I would make one size bigger. Good thing I didn't cut out the fabric for the skirt yet, otherwise the blue linen would be completely wasted.

Although discouraged with my failed Leia, I did sewed 2 tops for my kids subsequently. Both are from Happy Homemade Volume 5.

I started with the simple peasant blouse in size 130cm for JY. I omitted the pockets because it seems too busy with this polka dot fabric with is a cotton lawn I bought from Shamshuipo. My sewing was so-so, even with this simple design but luckily JY seems to like it.

Then I made the bubbled tank top on the cover, the one on the far right, for CY in size 120cm. The neckline gapping open, I should reduce it by 1cm next time. I bought this floral fabric from Taobao.com, a Chinese equivalent of eBay. And I trimmed it with store-bought cream-coloured bias tape. CY likes it too. And I might make another one.

As for myself, Tamanegikobo, where I got the Leia pattern, has a pattern called Novita which might be doable for me. I'm not sure if I should try it or not. It seems that the sewing bug has left my body of late... ...