Knitted Socks

A bright, colourful pair of hand-knit socks.  Socks are great to knit while watching movies.  They are kind of mindless once you understand the structure of a sock. It took me a while to get it, but now I understand the heel flap and the method of increasing and decreasing.  These could become addictive.

McCalls 7811

Inspired by Sew Manju, I bought McCalls 7811. I have many shirt patterns but this one featured a princess seam in both front and back, which allows for fine-tuning of the fit.

I should have taken her lead and made an FBA  but instead, I cut size 18 at the shoulders and armholes and sized out to give enough room over the tummy and hip area. My tummy is the fitting problem, it used to be the bust but time has changed things. Now I need that extra room over the expanding waistline and area just below it.

So the shirt was too tight to button in this area. Since the fabric was a very busy print, I figured I could add a wedge on both side seams, adding 1" at the bottom and reducing it to nothing at the underarm. This worked just fine.  And I have now adjusted the pattern, so that future versions will be large enough in this area.

My fabric is a 100% cotton that I bought from Blackbird Fabrics, I think, although I am not entirely sure.  They often have very nice cotton shirtings and I have never been disappointed with their fabrics.

This is a nice pattern, it is not my favourite for a shirt. But I think another version in a plain, somewhat dressy, fabric would be very nice to have to wear with black pants.  I rarely wear skirts anymore, so dressing up consists of black pants with a nice top. I could see this in a quality polyester or a silk if I can find one.

Starting Anew

Both of my blogs have been locked down as I haven't used a certain email address in two  years.  So this is an opportunity to start anew and put everything into one blog from here on.

Since my interests are sewing, knitting, gardening and cooking but not necessarily in that order, I will post on any of those topics in this space. This is kept for my own records and not necessarily for public consumption. Although most people who blog are thrilled to get any comments. But mainly this will be used as a diary of my projects.