Tag: aqua

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Aqua Butterflies

So this story begins in my favorite “second hand” store, the Scrap Exchange in Durham NC. (Second hand is in quotes because most of the materials are new, just pre-owned).

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Okay guys, this is too far away to see detail…

I introduced my parents to the space a couple visits back, and now it’s always on the agenda when they come down (Hi Mom and Dad!), and they visited back in January. So naturally we visited the store.

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Too close, you can see the focus issue…

Checking out the yarn bins, I hit gold in the greens bin with this Malabrigo sock yarn for $5. It had never been caked, and it still had the original $18 price tag. I snapped it up, and I got super excited.

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I guess it’ll do. Dear Reader, please do not try to zoom in!

I should mention that the ‘rents were visiting to help me move. So when I was unpacking I obviously wasn’t originally interested in finding my swift and winder, but still somehow I managed to cake it up within the first two weeks or so of moving, and then looked for a shawl pattern to match it with.

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On Ravelry I found the beautiful Dancing Butterflies shawl, by Carfield Ma, and it felt like a match.The pattern is well written, and working it up was great! I did have to alter it near the border since I only had the one skein available. I played multiple games of yarn chicken  before finally finishing it maybe 10 rows before expected.

Then came blocking, where I was able to block it to a rather huge size, but it did show me that I was not loose enough binding off, so I got curly edges. Not that it matters, because I now have Butterfly Wings!

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I take all my photos with a camera and tripod, and this is one shoot where I should’ve asked a passerby to stand in for focusing… Lessons hopefully learned!

I love this shawl, but I’ve found myself only reaching for it when I’m wearing blue or green. Good thing that makes up so much of my wardrobe!

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Blue Winter Susanne Cardigans

I’m obsessed with cardigans.

As if you couldn’t tell… and those are just the sewn ones. And not even all of them.

And I’m always in search of the perfect cardigan pattern.

The Susanne cardigan from Compagnie M. certainly hits many of those marks.

I had these sweater knits that have been burning a whole in my stash for about a year. And I wanted drapey cardigan to go with them. I had thought about the new Grainline one, but it wasn’t perfect for what I wanted, and I searched the internet far and wide.

When I found this one from Compagnie M. I immediately purchased it as the short version hit exactly what I wanted for these knits. Then the problem became finishing the seams.

Sweater knits enjoy unraveling, in my experience, and my serger isn’t really in working order.

When the new makerspace opened up in my building on campus, I was pleased to find out they have a serger! (Among other fun things, such as the laser cutter that I’m incredibly obsessed with. As in all the Christmas gifts…).

My sweater dreams could finally come true.

The aqua was first, and the pattern made a sweater that was wearable, but big. I serged around every piece, and folded over the edge and tacked the neckline/pocket edge. The armscye was a bit large and loose, and it was too big along the back shoulders. And a bit long.

After wearing it a bit, I decided to take in the back and raise the entire cardi. I did this haphazardly, at the serger (which I don’t recommend), and I lopped off the top of the sweater at both the front and the back, and I cut into the back to create a smaller back. Overall, it had the effect that I needed and it’s a lovely cardigan to wear.

So when I brought out the navy knit, I made those changes to a traced pattern, to normalize them a bit. Otherwise, construction was the same, with serged edges for each pattern piece, except I used a marine blue bias binding around the neckline and pocket tops. It definitely makes the cardigan more stable, which makes it super comfy, and the pockets are potentially more useful. Not much, but they can hold the weight of my keys in one, and my phone in the other, so that’s a plus.

I’d like to try the other variations in the future… and maybe the long version, if I live in a cooler climate next.

Altogether, between the Susanne and the Julia cardigans, I have patterns that will probably serve me the rest of my life.

With a few others sprinkled in of course. Constant pursuit of perfection and all…

**Coming in with part 3 of get projects posted in 2016 when they were made… Part 4 (My coat!!! Squee!!) should be up sometime tomorrow, and then I’ll post my review of 2016!