I had a pretty busy weekend – among other things, I made a top out of some knitted fabric I had in my stash. I have tried to make this fabric up several times and I either had too little to make a jacket, or too much to waste it making a long sleeved t-shirt. I finally decided to make up Vogue 8793, a Katherine Tilton top, which I love and which I previously made here. I’m afraid this falls into the category of “what was I thinking?”!

The fabric is really nice, but I calculated that there were 9 thicknesses round the front of the neck that I had to stitch together. My poor sewing machine reminded me of the story “The little engine that could”, in that it puffed along and eventually managed to conquer all that fabric! In fact, it was quite amazing and I was really proud of it.

You can see in the photo above that I didn’t use zips in the collar of this top; I used leather scraps which I zigzagged together and turned into piping. I washed the leather first so that I could be confident that I can wash the top when necessary. I also bound the sleeves and initially bound the bottom, but decided that it was too wavy when bound, so the bottom is now just hemmed with a bit of light interfacing to try and give it stability.

Now I look at the bottom, I might go back to the leather piping and use it to make the bottom a little tighter. The only issue is, if I get it wrong, it is really, really terrible to unpick.

I teamed the top with V8859, a Marcy Tilton design previously blogged here. Please note the shoes – I think I bought these shoes because they reminded me of the ones on the pattern packet!

Other endeavours this weekend included making a mess of socks (what is the collective noun for socks? Mine looked like a mess…)

These were for orders from my husband, Mark’s, parents in Hobart (2 pairs for her, 1 pair for him) and from my Mother (2 pairs). I haven’t quite finished the order, but this “mess” includes 2 pairs for my Mother, and 1 pair for my MiL, a repair of one of Mark’s socks and a pair for me. I also decided to make nametags for my Mother’s socks (she’s in a nursing home) from a length of ribbon from a now defunct shop in Claremont. I used the wrong side and embroidered her name on it using the alphabet function on my machine. This worked brilliantly, I stashbusted some ribbon, had fun, and saved money – all good!

Here they are, all finished, name tags sewn across toes for Mum, ready to be delivered. I will complete the “order” this week, and my in-laws will finish a cold winter in Hobart with yet more of my socks.

The Details:

Vogue 8793 in a wool mix knitted fabric from Potter’s

Vogue 8859 pants

Paul Green boots

All socks knitted from yarn bought at Spotlight – this is the Vera “Noir” and I used it for these socks because it is very forgiving and doesn’t need special treatment when being washed. I have never had to darn a pair of these socks, unlike the socks made from cashmere that proliferate my drawers. The balls are big enough to get three pairs of socks out of two balls of wool.

GCC:

Another trophy – I think it’s because I’ve met my targets. I note that I only have to get one more star:

Average is getting closer to 24,000. We are getting closer to the finish, thank goodness!