Keeping busy during COVID-19

A chilly -6 degrees Celsius here this morning and with a brisk wind.  April is a fickle month, it feels as if it should be spring, but the sun deceives you and lures you outside just to blast you with winter temps.

Plenty of seedlings popping up. At the top are pansies, then snap dragons, shasta daisies. At the left are cherry tomatoes and in front are two containers of sweet peas and one of coleus seedlings.

Then on the shelves are tomatoes, more snapdragons, a flat of petunias.  Middle shelf has nicotiana and giant asters in the first tray, then zinnias and lupins in paper pots in the second tray. And on the bottom shelf are cosmos and more sweet peas on the left, and African daisies on the right.

As for winter sowing, I haven't seen a single sprout yet.  The soil seems frozen so perhaps something will happen, but I am doubtful. I think there should be some sign of life by now.

Then on the knitting side (lots of things going on during this pandemic lockdown), I finished a second version of an Aran cardigan. I don't even remember when I started this.  But during this quarantine with coronavirus, I finished the two sleeves and am blocking the back and one sleeve in this photo below.
                                       

All that is left to do once the sweater is blocked, is to sew it together and knit a collar which should be fairly quick. The buttonholes are already made and there is no band to knit down the openings on the fronts.  I have made this pattern once before but it was too snug on me and I gave it to one of my daughters.

This is a photo of the first version as copied from a Ravelry post.  It's rather nice, if I say so myself. Can you spot the error in the finished cardigan?  hint - it's one of the  cables on the right side of the buttons. Oops, held the cable needle in front when it should have been behind.

                                     

Gardening starts

I am going to start a blog just  for gardening posts. I can no longer have access to my previous garden blog, http://juliesontariogarden.blogspot.com/ as I haven't  used that email in two years and Google decrees that is the limit.  So the blog is closed, even to the owner of the blog.

Oh well, such is life!  here are pictures of where we are at with spring in central Ontario. Seeds begun in flats, and snow melting on the raised beds in the garden. When things start to warm up, everything moves fast. Hard to believe that in about 3 weeks time, we will be complaining about the blackflies and thinking that cold would be preferable to bugs. 

Three raised beds, one has garlic planted in it, now covered with straw. The other two beds will be for potatoes, tomatoes, carrots and peas.

Latest Makes in Blues

This is a summer shirt from Butterick 3895. The fabric is 100% cotton, I guess you would call it oxford cloth.  It has a tiny blue stripe and the fabric has a slight texture that is very appealing.

     

The front has four tiny pin-tucks on each side of the button band. They are sewn down to just below bust level and then they end and give added fullness to the shirt without making the bust and shoulders larger. The pattern has a shirt-tail hem with a nice gentle curve at  the side seams, so that it is easy to sew a small double hem without fighting it at the top of the curve.

The next is a shirt-dress from Butterick 6099.  This is also made in 100% cotton. I started this in early winter and intended to bring it to Texas. But it wasn't finished in time. So it hung until my return in early March. But the Texas weather was never quite warm enough to wear a dress without tights. So it will get its first wearing here in Ontario if our weather ever warms up.

        

I particularly like the pleat at center front and back. I made the tab in a contrast cotton. At first I made long sleeves with cuffs but didn't like them, so hacked them off to 3/4 sleeves.  Inside the sleeve is a tab with a button sewn to the outside of the sleeve to keep the sleeves rolled up. This is my preferred way to wear sleeves, not short sleeves but long ones rolled up to just below the elbow. The tabs are made in the contrast fabric as well. And the buttons are some beautiful ones I bought years ago from Suttle and Seawinds in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. They are almost like mother-of-pearl.

This pattern is a tunic pattern, but given my short height, the tunic length is a knee-length dress for me. Unlike the shirt above, the curved hem is too curved on this pattern to make hemming easy. If I make it again, I would sew the hems on front and back pieces before joining the side seams. Then I could get  the curve and the hemline width perfect.

Mrs Lee's Daffodil Farm

We  are currently in Texas and I visited Mrs. Lee's Daffodil farm last Friday.  How nice  that I get along so well with my son-in-law's mother! Linda offered to take me to see the flower  display. We missed it last year, as we came down in late March and the  daffodils had already peaked.  Also, if it is particularly wet, the farm is closed as the road through it is a dirt road and gets quite muddy. In fact, a bus from a seniors' residence was stuck in the mud when we went there.

Mrs. Lee planted a container of bulbs from Holland (well she had help obviously) and the flowers have naturalized a lot. They now cover 28 acres of the farm (located near Gladewater) in the month of February and part of  March. 

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A  lovely afternoon, thank you Linda.

Burda 6632

In a lovely rayon challis from Blackbird Fabrics, this is Burda 6632 with  the long sleeves.
The only alterations I made to this pattern were to shorten the body and the sleeves of the pieces. Other than that, I cut the size 16 as is, knowing that the pleats would provide plenty of ease in this garment.



I will definitely be making this pattern again. The front piece is sewn double to the neckline but then it spits and opens up to be sewn down the front.  This gives the impression of a center front opening, but there is none.  You can sew buttons to this if desired and I could see that fancy metallic buttons on a nice silk would make this a dressed-up version easily.

I can also see this without sleeves as a nice cool top for hot summer days.
On the front, the three pleats fold towards the sleeve and this, on me anyways, seems to de-emphasize the bustline. On the back, the small pleats fold toward the centre and bring all the fullness into the middle of the back. The back hemline is also slightly longer than the front, which gives a pleasing effect.  The colour in the second photo is more accurate, it is a deep winey burgundy.

McCalls 7889

For grand-daughter  Hannah, this dress sewn with Telio cotton/rayon lawn. A beautiful fabric, lovely to sew and press and also to wear.  This pattern called out for matched stripes, with the hem band and the cuffs being cut on the crossgrain. I finished this in November but didn't post it then as I lost access to my blogs due to an unused email account.  

Red Plaid Shirt

When I was taking a quilting class this fall, I saw a red/black flannel plaid that I just could not pass up. I could see a shirt in this and I did just that.

Using a tried-and-true pattern from Kwik Sew (don't have the number handy at the moment), I cut it out single-layer to ensure accurate plaid matching. I cut the pocket, yokes, collar and cuffs on the bias.  But the inner yoke, under collar and inside cuffs were cut on the straight of grain to prevent stretching out with wear.

Now the question is: should I make my husband one as well?  or is that too kitchy?