Geek-Decke

 Vor langer, lsnger Zeit (2013, wenn ich hier im Blog etwas zurück blättere) habe ich einmal begonnen, aus Baumwollgarn in der Doubleface-Technik rechteckige Paneele mit Motiven aus der Popkultur zu stricken. Die Motive kamen aus meinem doch etwas nerdigen Hobby-Bereich, weshalb ich das geplante Endergebnis für mich meine "Geek-Decke" nannte. Als ich etwas mehr als die Hälfte der geplanten Größe erreicht hatte, ging mir die Luft aus und die einzelnen Paneele wanderten die nächsten 10 Jahre mit mir von Wohnung zu Wohnung. 

(Eine Freundin, der ich dir Stücke irgendwann Mal zeigte, meinte, sie hätte gerne eine Babydecke in diesem Stil, wenn sie Mal Kinder bekäme. Als sie einige Jahre später schwanger wurde, strickte ich vier neue Stücke mit zu ihr passenden Motiven. Meine bereits gestrickten Stücke verblieben im Schrank) 

Schließlich wurde ich selber schwanger und musste einsehen, dass die Decke wohl nicht mehr größer wird. Andererseits hatte ich jetzt auch Verwendung für eine unterdimensionierte Decke. Ich holte also die Stücke aus der Schublade, entschied mich für ein Layout (wobei die Schildkröte, die die Scheibenwelt repräsentieren sollte, leider außen vor blieb) und häkelte alles zusammen. 

Da die Decke durchgehend in Doubleface gestrickt ist, ist die ziemlich schwer geworden, eignet sich dafür aber fast als eine Art Gewichtsdecke. Den Mädels jedenfalls scheint sie zu gefallen. 

Cotehardie

Falls ich das noch nicht erwähnt habe, ich gehe ganz gerne auf Mittelaltermärkte. Am liebsten mit Kostüm. Die Freundin, die oben auf dem Foto links neben mir steht, kommt auch sehr gerne mit, muss sich aber bisher immer ein Kleid von mir leihen (in diesem Fall das GGK, das sonst ja auch nicht mehr getragen werden würde ;) ). Also sind wir auf die Idee gekommen, dass ich ihr anhand eines Mittelalterkleides mal eben das Nähen beibringe.

Wie ihr an dem Bild oben sehen könnt, habe ich schon vor ein paar Jahren eine Cotehardie genäht, damals nach einem Schnittmuster aus dem Buch "Patterns for Theatrical Costumes", die aber nie richtig gepasst hat und, nachdem ich in letzter Zeit zugenommen habe, jetzt noch weniger. Da ich das Gefühl habe, in den letzten 3-4 Jahren einige Fortschritte in meinen Fähigkeiten gemacht zu haben, war das der perfekte Zeitpunkt, auch für mich ein neues Kleid zu nähen, in meinem Fall etwas historischer orientiert.  

In case I haven't mentioned it so far, I quite like going to medieval fairs, preferably in costume. The friend standing next to me in the picture likes to come as well, but so far always had to borrow one of my dresses (in this case the GGK, which probably wouldn't be worn anymore otherwise ;) ). So we got the idea to have me teach her how to sew while making a medieval/fantasy dress.

As you can see from the picture above, I already made a cotehardie some years ago from a pattern in "Patterns for Theatrical Costumes", but it never really fit right, especially not since I gained some weight recently. Since I also feel that I made some big steps in my sewing skills in the last 3-4 years, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to make a new dress for me as well, albeit a bit more historically oriented.

Als ich diese Skizze gemacht habe, dachte ich noch, dass ich das rostrote Kleid weiterverwende und nur ein Oberkleid nähe, aber nachdem ich relativ billigen Leinenstoff online gefunden habe (9€ pro Meter) und festgestellt habe, wie wenig mir das alte Kleid noch passt, ist der neue Plan, das Unterkleid in pistaziengrün zu nähen, das Oberkleid bleibt blau.

When I made that sketch I still thought I'd keep using the rust-coloured dress and simply make an overdress, but after I found some relatively cheap linen fabric online (9€ per metre) and realized just how badly the old dress fits the new plan is to make the underdress in pistacio-green and the overdress in royal-blue.

Damit das Kleid diesmal besser passt, habe ich versucht, das Schnittmuster an meinem Körper zu erstellen, was ohne Hilfe ziemlich schwierig war. Nachdem knapp 2m Ikea-Stoff für Mock-ups draufgegangen sind, habe ich jetzt aber ein Schnittmuster (inklusive Ärmel!) mit dem ich einigermaßen zufrieden bin.

Because I wanted the dress to fit better this time around, I tried drafting the pattern on my body this time, which was kind of a pain without any help. But after using up about 2m of Ikea-fabric for mock-ups I now have a pattern (including sleeves) with which I am reasonably happy.

So weit, so gut. Dieses Wochenende besuche ich meine Freundin und dann gibt es hoffentlich ein paar neue Fotos. Bis dahin noch ein Foto von dem Moebius-Schal, den ich gerade auf den Stricknadeln habe:

So far, so good. This weekend I'm going to visit my friend and then I'll hopefully hopefully have some more pictures. Until then here's a picture of moebius-scarf I have on my knitting needles right now:

Christmas presents

For some reason, I decided some time in october/november last year to gift my family knitted christmas presents. I had just moved to a new city that was a four hour train-ride away from my parents, so I figured I'd have enough time on my hands for that. Also, moving to a new city after the start of semester meant that I had neither friends nor many courses to take up my time, so knitting three different projects in two months seemed doable.

The other thing that certainly helped was that I found three projects that seemed perfect for the three respective family members I wanted to make them for, which is also why I didn't make anything for my father (yet) - he doesn't like knitted garments.

So, in order of their finishing, here are my three handmade christmas presents:

• Gradient cowl for my younger brother. I really liked the subtle colour change in the "sweetgrass palette" (scroll down a little on that link), and after I googled what seed stitch was it seemed like an easy and quick project. Mind you, I didn't actually order that bundle, but went to my local yarn store and picked out some colours that I thought would work well together (and got asked if I was expecting, because I chose a soft baby-yarn....). After that it was just a question of deciding on an order, a width and using my mother's kitchen-scales to know when to change colours.

This was the order I decided on in the end. The best part: my younger brother went away over new year's eve and forgot the cowl at my parents', so my mother took to wearing it. She liked it so much that she's currently knitting one for herself, albeit with a slightly different colourway ;)

The actual cowl. Couldn't get my brother to model it for my, though...

• Hilda Mittens for my mother. I didn't strictly follow the pattern (when do I ever?) and, again, used some very soft wool - I know that my mother doesn't mind, but I can't even wear normal sock-wool, because it feels so scratchy. The red base of the mittens is a bit tight, but wearable, and I ended up making them a lot longer than in the pattern - which in turn meant more repeats for the lace-pattern on top, but that worked out just fine. The important part is, my mother likes them, and has already worn them :)

Once on my hand and once flat on the table. They're kinda thin, I think, for the temperatures we've had these past couple of weeks, but should be good for early/late winter.

• Mountain Range sweater for my older brother. I stumbled across this pattern on tumblr, and really liked the idea of it. Not so much, however, that I'd be willing to pay 12$, especially considering that I'd have to find the yarn and needle size and so on to get the gauge right for the picture chart.... Instead, I used this pattern on how to knit a top-down sweater, and my trusty knitPro web app to turn some black and white mountain drawings into a knitting chart. Lo and behold:

It's all in cotton to make the washing easier, also, it's too short. My brother prefers long sweaters, and I couldn't ask him to try it on before christmas (naturally), so after christmas, I took it back and am currently lenghtening everything. Well, you live and you learn, I guess :)

Also: so many ends to weave in!

Well, these are the christmas presents, while writing these up I realized that I'd recently finished another sweater and a poncho for myself that I've written nothing about so far, plus I bought fabric for and am in the ealry stages of two different carneval costumes. Look forward to these as soon as I am done with my exams ;)

Hello world

Look, I'm back! I'm sorry for being off the grid for so long, but I put myself under the obligation not to sew (or rather: bring out the sewing machine) until I had finished my thesis, and that (unexpectedly, I might add) took until the end of August. In order to stay sane during those long months, though, I did a lot of knitting (which did involve some handsewing for finishing, I admit). I still have the problem of getting things properly photographed, so here's a list (and sometimes, blurry photos) of things I worked on/finished in the last 9 months.

• finished the Ramona Mittens in January

• The green-metallic sweater spontaneously gained some lace sleeves (the medici pattern again, by now I can do it by heart) and was finished sometime in early April. Here's a not quite finished picture:

• Started and finished the Sofia Shawl, I'm pretty sure it took me less than a month or so and was finished in the middle of August. Here it is being blocked (excuse the beachtowel beneath, I didn't want to get my parent's couch wet)

• And, last but not least, I am working on a cardigan to go with my dirndl , using yet another of Nadelspiel's patterns - slightly modified to be worked in rows instead of rounds. It's only missing a sleeve, which is currently on the needles, and some kind of closure.

There's some more projects I'm still working on, or tried and abandoned, or simply didn't take any pictures of, but all in all this is my creative output over the last 9 months. Considering the struggles I had writing my thesis and the fact that I started a full-time internship in June, I still think it's pretty good. My life is slowly getting back to a more settled rhythm, so I think there'll be more time and energy to sew in the future - it's not like I haven't had any ideas in all this time ;) 

Well, it's been a while...

... although I assure you, that has nothing to do with my unproductivity (considering I have a Bachelor's thesis to work on, I've been way too productive textile-wise recently), but with the fact that I can never seem to find the time, inclination or help to photograph my projects. So here's what you won't get to see properly until I get the time, inclination or help to properly photograph it:

• Nadelspiel's Medici-Socks in white, knee-high, already wrapped and given away because I might not see the person they're intended for again before Christmas. Once she's got them, I'll ask her to photograph them, though.
• White and blue Ramona mittens in double face, with a beautiful slow colour change in the blue. The white is what's left over from my first pair of knitted socks. (I also just realized that I'm talking about the exact same mittens in the post just linked to. I've gotten a lot further ;) )

• A sweater made out of some shiny green metallic yarn that I bought using a gift-card I had gotten for my birthday. Pattern self-drafted (cross your fingers ;) ). I'm thinking about going back and buying a ball of the same yarn in silver to knit in some patterns. We'll see.

• And, last but not least, I tried out VeraVenus's skirt drafting tutorial (if you follow that link, scroll down a bit) to make a pencil skirt. Ever since watching Suits for a couple of seasons I fell in love with the pencil skirt and wanted to have/make one, and since I had some black denim left and another rockabilly concert coming up, I drafted the pattern and made it up. Pro-tip: forget what you were taught and don't measure with ease (the pattern has you add two centimeters to the hip measurement anyway), especially when your fabric is a bit stretchy. I ended up taking in the sides for about 3cm each, which absolutely nixed my plans for pockets. Ah well, next time, I suppose. At least all the darts fit pretty much right away :)

I know it's blurry, but it shows best what I ended up wearing. If you wonder about the sneakers and t-shirt, I knew that there'd be a lot of dancing, and dancing jive is a full workout. Happy to report though that dancing (excepting one jumping figure where you kind of have to straddle your partner for a moment) works surprisingly well in such a tight skirt. Only don't wear tights. They're only gonna shift and move downwards as soon as you take a step. Stockings work perfectly, though :)

For now, there's a Masquerade coming up on New Years Eve, dresscode Cocktaildress or Eveninggown and I'm considering giving VeraVenus Little Bias Dress a try. Have to see if I have enough fabric, though... Until then! 

Current Works in Progress

Just so you don't wonder why I'm not posting anything, here's what I'm working on right now:

• Piping a ~5m circumference full circle skirt by hand because I didn't feel like putting up the sewing machine:

 

• These doubleface mittens:

•  And, to knit something other than doubleface for a change, I'm starting a blanket with this pattern:

I also recently finished some things:

• Socks!!! I've been knitting for years, but this is my first ever pair of socks!

• And, of course, more doubleface blocks:

I'll make another post once any of the above is finished, I promise ;)

More Doubleface!

I recently read that if you want to accomplish something, you shouldn't talk about it, because simply telling other people of your plans gives you a similar sense of satisfaction as actually finishing it, thus diminishing your motivation. I've had that happen way too many times, so here's my recent knitting without telling you (yet) what I plan to do with it ;)

The first picture is always of the front, the second of the back, at least unless I change my mind later on. The patterns for these four blocks I made myself using this tool and images I found on the internet. (I didn't remember to bookmark the source. I know, I'm bad. I'm so sorry.)

These patterns actually came from ravelry (they have a lot of doubleface-usable patterns, if you look into the filet crochet patterns ;) ) and I expanded them so they would have a 50 stitches x 50 rows size, because that seemed like a reasonable size for my blocks.
I transfered all patterns into excel (by hand) and am currently working on some more. If I ever finish what I had in mind for these, I'll upload a couple of files with patterns etc. Until then, I'll be knitting ;)

One Ring to Rule them all...

Hey look, I finished something!

I've been a little obsessed with doubleface knitting lately, and back in january I started this monsterproject. +55 hours of knitting later, I finally finished this beauty:

While I like The Hobbit better than The Lord of the Rings (read the former 10+ times, the latter once) I'm deeply fascinated by all things middle-earth and the thought that went into creating all its languages and scripts, so when I found a double-face knitting pattern for the inscription of The One Ring on Ravelry, I had to try it. Of course I used the most expensive yarn I could find (a silk-alpaca blend, you'd be amazed at how soft it feels), so with 5 balls of yarn per colour at ~8€ each, I'm at about 80€ for the entire scarf. Still, having worn it as a stole (way too warm for scarves right now) for a couple times now I feel that it's totally worth it.
Final thoughts: I finished about 7 rows early, because I ran out of the yellow yarn, but have about half a ball of the red yarn left over. That's because the yarns always ran over my left hand in the same formation (red lower, between my fingers & yellow higher, wrapped around my index finger), so they had a different tension. This had the additional welcome effect of making the yellow writing on red background (i.e. the right side) much better legible than the wrong side, so that's something to keep in mind for my next projects.

All in all, I'm absolutely happy with my new scarf, and kind of impressed by myself for sticking with it for so long. I also haven't grown tired of knitting doubleface yet, I'll just try to keep my next project a little smaller for better transportability while working on it ;) (fyi, the scarf measures more than 2m).

A Little Handiwork

This week I took some knitting and handsewing with me, and while I made some progress, I probably could have gotten a lot farther if I hadn't brought my new guitar with me as well. As it is, I played until my fingers hurt and then didn't feel much like sewing anymore, so here's the little I have done:

I used graph paper to figure out if this would fit for the "One Meter" challenge of the HSF, and it did! While it doesn't look like it in the drawing, my fabric was actually 10 cm wider than the 140cm I had calculated with, so I had enough left over to cut underarm gussets without touching the two long rectangles in the upper right corner that are now meant for hip gussets (gores...? You know what I mean, and if not, it will all make sense in time :) )



In any case, that means that I have to have this done by the deadline sometime in december,
 which should be doable since the stuff I did so far went together pretty quickly. 

 I made a sleeve! And it only took me a couple of hours! Even though I made flat-felled-seams, can you tell?! This is the first time I have successfully sewn flat-felled-seams, I'm so proud of myself :) Still gotta hem it, make the other one, make the body, attach the sleeves etc, but so far it's a good start :)

And in case you were wondering, how the hell buttoned legwarmers were supposed, wonder no more:

One down, one more to go. I really love the colours :)
You'll hear from me next week, until then :)

Buchlinge

Short post, so you guys know I'm still alive. I finished my corset and will put up some pictures soon, although I'm not completely happy with it and consider changing some things. Other than that, there hasn't been a lot of sewing possible the last few weeks since the room (and cupboard) I keep my sewing things in have been occupied due to my parents' remodeling our kitchen. So I turned to knitting - a scarf for my mother, possibly as a Christmas gift - so shhh! :)

Gotta love the colour.

This is the pattern I used.
Because I (obviously) can't work on the scarf when my mother is in the room, I started another knitting project for when we're watching TV together: knitted sleeves. The dreamstress made a blogpost about her regency sleeve mitts, and, unlike her, I knit, so I figured this would be a nice and easy project. It won't be historically accurate at all, and I'm using rather thick wool, but this way I a) don't lose patience halfway through and b) can even wear them with my modern day clothes this winter (or at least I hope so). So far, I've got about half a sleeve, so I haven't taken any pictures yet.
Things I did take pictures of: Buchlinge! For the absolutely confused among you: Buchlinge (booklings) are characters from a novel by one of my favourite authors, Walter Moers. I started reading his books after a friend's recommendation, and since then, usually got that friend something Moers-related for his birthday. There haven't been any new books recently, so what to get him? I was getting kind of desperate since his birthday is this weekend, but then I got the idea: make him a couple of booklings! Freehand-amigurmi worked pretty good for the tiny minion, so why not for a bookling? The shape is pretty basic, but recognizable, so today I sat down with some blue and purple yarn and tried it. Lo and behold, the booklings:

I made the purple one second, so it's neater, but as the book says they come in all shapes and sizes, I don't sweat the difference. That's actually a tiny book they're holding, made out of cut up paper, cardboard, fabric and lots of glue - but if you want my advice, refrain from tiny bookmaking without having the proper tools, I ruined a needle while sewing the pages together ;)
I'm pretty proud of them, I hope he'll like them (and if not, I'm gonna keep them for myself! :) ).
Since our kitchen is now almost done, I think I can take hold of my sewing room again soon and will get some things done. So many ideas!

This was supposed to be a "finished things" post...

...but I haven't really finished anything recently! Well yes, I finished the yellow minion (weeks ago, before I even came home) and the stole (also weeks ago, when I went to my grandparent's) but I just didn't get around to blogging until now. Also, I don't have any nice pictures of the minion since I conveniently left it in my apartment, so here's the only snapshot I took before hurriedly packing my things and leaving for my parent's:

I gave up on finishing the purple one before Lilly's birthday, but I made a "free-hand"-amigurumi minion for one of the kids I worked with:

That's a thermos and my mother's laptop behind
him, just to give you an idea of the size

I also finally got around to taking pictures of my stole, I like how it turned out although I would have liked it a bit longer - I just gave up when my third ball of yarn was finished.

I really like how it looks from behind

Well, that ought to have caught you up to what I have finished so far. I would have loved to show you the finished green corset, but guess what: I'm about one seem away from finishing it (and have been for about a week now) but still haven't done it. Want to know why? I have two brothers and the three of us share a car, or rather a van. So when my older brother wanted to fix up the car to take it to a camping trip to Spain, of course his siblings jumped in, and since I'm not that good with the technical stuff (we have a bluetooth-connectable stereo in our twenty-year-old car, yay!) I offered to take over renewing the curtains. My brother ordered the fabric and I set to hours and hours of ironing, sewing, and ironing again. Did I mention I was ironing a lot? So, in order to pretty things up a little (and motivate myself) I created even more work for myself by deciding that every tie for the curtains had to have a little crocheted flower attached. Yay for flowers! 

Pretty little daisies... :)

My younger brother was against the flowers (probably not manly enough for an eighteen-year-old ;) ) but my older brother and I liked it, so we kept them. But crocheting, and then sewing each of the flowers onto the tie and then the tie onto the curtain by hand took time, and afterwards I didn't really feel like sewing some more for my own amusement, hence the lack of progress.

BUT!


Some progress there was, and (even if I can't show you the finished result) I'd like to show you some pictures. Before risking bright green checkered nightmares, I worked on my darker green corset. The last thing I told you was that I made one row of eyelets, here's how I did it:

I made the holes with a stretcher I usually
wear in my ear...

...then widened them with an awl i found
in my father's toolbox.

I then stitched around the holes using a thicker, dark green thread I found in my grandmother's sewing box, I think it's supposed to be used for mending socks, but I find it quite handy for lacing- or buttonholes. I put in the hooks and eyes - I know, I'm cheating -

- and tried it on. In hindsight, I really should have listened to The Laced Angel and put in some more room at the hips, but for a first try, it's not that bad, I think.

Phone-camera in a badly lit hallway...

...where could that ever go wrong?

Now all I have to do is finish the top and bottom edges, and then it'll be wearable! :) But as I said, motivation for that last seam still eludes me. Bear with me, it will get done! (someday ;) )