Agnes Sweater Vest

 Such a fun project combining crochet and knitting for a very hobbitcore look!

Quarantine Leisure Suit: Mel and Rio

Another work from home ensemble, but of a very different variety from the one I made last week!

Selvage Designs Soleil Dress

I can't remember how I stumbled on Lauren Dahl's blog and her brand new sewing pattern, the Soleil dress, but I do know that it was love at first sight: how cute is this dress?!  I love the little opening in the back and the pockets.  Check out all of the cool versions from her pattern testers.  I snapped up the pattern immediately after it was released and set about making it for Anna, whose birthday quickly approaches.

I used two fabrics from Joann, both of which I've used before (both Bimaa sweaters: hearts here and purple rib here).  They don't exactly match, but go well enough!  The purple was all I had in my stash for ribbed fabric and I haven't seen any ribbing around Bangkok (not to say it doesn't exist, I just haven't found it yet), so that's what I went with.

The pattern was pretty easy to put together; the directions were very good!  My only complaint: I found the guesswork about how much or how little to stretch the ribbing to be a little perplexing.  Without a kid at hand to try the dress on, I'm not sure how successful I was, but we'll see!  I ended up putting in the arm binding flat, but the neck binding in a circle.

I did have some trouble with attaching the skirt: my serger was overwhelmed by all the gathers and decided to retaliate by eating the dress.  Uuuuugggg.  After I carefully picked the dress out of the machine (it was wrapped around both loopers!), I was eventually able to re-serge it.  I think I may have stretched out the waist band something awful, though.  We'll see!  Hopefully it's still wearable for Anna!  Looks pretty cute on the hanger, eh?

Evolution of a Top-Down Knit Cardigan

A couple of months ago I saw that the Lion Brand Yarn blog was hosting a knit-along for a top-down raglan cardigan that was already queued up in my list of to-makes, so I decided to join in.  While I didn't exactly keep up with the knit-along or really customize the pattern in any way, I found it helpful to turn to the blog entries for guidance as I got to each turning point in the pattern.

The top-down raglan approach is similar to that used for the baby cardigans I have been crocheting- you start with the collar, increase the number of stitches each row at 4 strategic spots around the shoulders/armpits (creating that line of lace), then pinch the armpits together and keep knitting down the bodice until you get the length you want.

I ended up frogging (apparently knit-speak for unraveling) a crochet project I had been working on before, a tank top, after realizing it was somewhat ridiculous and I would never wear it (it helped that Colleen made fun of it when I mentioned it over Skype last fall).  I used the yarn from that project (which I had purchased with a Groupon at DC's Looped Yarn Works), Berroco Comfort, for my raglan cardigan instead.

I'm pretty happy with how my first adult-sized cardigan turned out!  There are some twisted stitches here and there (I'm not so good at fixing mistakes, so I just try really hard not to make them in the first place), and my seaming is horrendous (but there's not much of it and it's under the arm for the most part) but it doesn't bother me enough to try to fix them.  I would definitely consider making this again... as the knit-along demonstrated, the cardigan is infinitely customizable.  I think it might be nice in a finer yarn, too, if you could get the right gauge... the worsted weight yarns is a little heavy for Jakarta even though the sweater itself is short-sleeved.