me in the Target Dress

As often as I go to thrift stores, and as much of my wardrobe is from thrift stores, I still buy clothes.  This dress is an example, from the sales rack in Target. I really really love the fabric!  The colors are all in my favorite palette, and floral prints are something I am loving right now.  The fit of the dress is not great, and I had to take the shoulder seam in.  When I cut the straps open, I could tell this was not the greatest quality, so the hefty $13 clearance price tag was for the look only!  Sad, yes, but it does look cute.

Dress: Target, $13
Sweater: had-me-down (I don't mind!) from Mums, free
Tights: Kohl's, Simply Vera Vera Wang, Christmas gift
Shoes: thrift store, maybe $3 or $4
Bag: gift, originally from thrift store, $5
Hat: made it, this pattern, which is a free Ravelry download
Belt: Thrift store, Levi's, 10 cents (I'm not kidding!)

The jewelry is two necklaces.  One is made of the kind of chain that has the square gem things, in this case black, which I got at a yard sale, like, years ago.  The heart on the chain I made myself; the heart is of polymer clay, and the chain is from a spool of chain that I got at Michael's.

And that's it!

Christmas Gifts

I did a lot of knitting this Christmas.  Like, I think I must have been crazy.  Here's a couple of things.

 This vest for my Gramps was knit from recycled cotton/wool blend yarn, and I happened to get lucky with it because I had two thrifted sweaters that were both from Old Navy originally and both had the same content.  This was my first try at intarsia knitting - pretty happy with it!

 This vest for sissy was my own pattern that had the bobble stitch from this pattern.  It is cotton recycled yarn, a thrifted sweater, and there was so much of it (I had 2 of the originals) that with this and a sweater for my brother, I still have enough to make something for myself...haven't decided what, though, and I hate being matchy matchy.

 

It's a little baggy, especially for my sister's taste, but the thing took so long to knit that there's no exchanges - sorry sis.  But she's been wearing it all day which is a great success with her!

This is me, in an old picture, but I pulled this sweater and reknit it in a different size for my mom.  Unfortunately it came out too big, and she has an IOU for a smaller size - that makes four IOUs leftover from Christmas.  Luckily this one is a very fast knit with the big yarn and needles.  Yeah, some can be exchanged.

Happy new year!

Bicycle Wheels - Free Pattern

A simple, cute, extremely warm hat for winter weather, which will only take a couple of hours to knit!

There is an optional short row shaping that can be applied to whatever hat you want that has a ribbing band,  and the thick yarn and simple pattern make learning this technique with this hat simple and easy.  Many hats that have wide ribbing that looks cute in front, but in the back it stands up and I don't like the way it looks.  The short row shaping helps eliminate it by making the back narrower than the front.  You can easily skip this step.

There is also a little trick at the top of the ribbing to help get rid of that funky thing that the purled stitches do, how they seem to widen out on the top.  The bulky yarn would have made this even more noticeable.

Skill level:

beginner

Supplies:

One skein Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick &  Quick

One 10.5 circular needle, or size to obtain gauge

One set four dpns, a smaller size than the circular (I happened to have US 8 and nothing larger, which worked out fine, but pretty much any size between 8 and the size you use would be okay)

stitch marker


largish crochet hook (exact size not important)

 3" pompom form or cardboard to make pompom form

Gauge:

11 sts 17 rows 5"

Pattern

CO 44 sts.  join round, don't twist stitches.  Pm.  k2, p2 for 3 rounds.

(This is the short row shaping, you can skip it and work 2 rounds instead) Work in patt to 7 sts before marker.  The last stitch you worked was a knit, and the next one is a knit, right in the middle of the knit rib.  Move the strand of yarn to the front, and then slip the next knit stitch purlwise.  Put yarn in back.  Slip the same stitch back to the other needle.  Now the yarn is wrapped around the stitch that you slipped.  Turn work.

purl one stitch, k2 , p2 around to 9 stitches before marker.  Do the short row shaping again, but this time it's with purl stitches, so instead of bringing the yarn in front, you put it from the front to the back, then do the slip, wrap, slip, and then turn.

You are back on the right side.  work in pattern (knit 1, then p2, k2 around) to marker.  work 2 rounds.

Now is the little trick to keep your purl ribs from being too wide on the top.  The next rib is knit: k1, then pick up one stitch from yarn between the stitch you just knit and the next one, and knit into the back of the loop you just picked up (this is m1).  K1.  So you just did the rib, and put an extra stitch in between the two regular ones.  Now is the purl rib: p2t.  You should have 4 sts from marker.


k1, m1, k1, p2t around.  No change in stitch number - 44 sts.

Now you work the body.  *k 6 rounds, p 3 rounds* 3 times, making three purl ridges.

K 2 rounds.

Crown shaping

k3, k2t.  *k4, k2t* 6 times.  K3.

k 1 round.

K2t. *k3, k2t* 6 times.  K5.

k 1 round

p 2 rounds.

*p3, p2t* around.

k 1 round.

This section is knit on the dpns.  If your needles are the same size as or only one size smaller than your circular needle, than skip these two rounds.  If they are two or three sizes smaller, then k 1 round, with the needles, which puts all of the stitches onto the dpns.  K 1 round.

Basically, changing to a smaller needle counts as a decrease round.  If the needles are not significantly smaller, you don't need to knit the two rounds.

K2t 1 round.

K ! round.

Repeat these 2 rounds till there is only 6 stitches.  Pull yarn through loops with crochet hook, and tie off. 

make a pompom with a 3" form, and tie to the top.

There is one last step besides weaving in the ends that you don't have to do, but it makes the top of the hat sit closer to the back of your neck, instead of up on your head.  take a 6" or so piece of yarn and tie to the inside of the hat right between the ribbing and the first knit section, in the back where the rounds start, and pull through so that the yarn is sticking out to the front.  now, weave in and out at each section, so that every knit section has the yarn on the outside and every purl section has the yarn on the inside.  When you reach the top knit crown section, bring out as usual, but bring back in only one or two rows away, so that the yarn on top is only like a half an inch.  Turn inside out, pull the yarn tight, and tie end to one of the ends used to tie the pompom on.

Weave in ends.

chilly morning

No, it's not morning anymore, but it was earlier when I was wearing this and took this picture.

 

I am wearing: a Boston Proper wool jacket from the thrift store, Anne Taylor Loft trousers from  the thrift store, and a shirt that I sewed quite a while ago - back when I actually bought fabric new on a regular basis. And a scarf that I knit last winter from recycled yarn.   

That was a lot of yarn!  The sweater that I pulled for it was a long cardigan/coat thing, and there was no yarn left at all once I had put on the fringe.  Actually, when I first knit it, I didn't like it very much.  But that was last winter at least and now I think it goes pretty well with my style.  I really like the look of it with the navy and stripes.

I am also wearing some navy Keds, but you can't see them in the picture...oops.

a sleeved poncho

As a rule, I usually don't go for the poncho look. But when I saw this pattern on Ravelry, I actually thought it was kinda cute. The sleeves and vine pattern give it a much different look.






This is actually my first knitting project that I didn't modify, at least for the most part. There is one thing with the bobbles that I think I did do wrong, and something funky with the neckline, but that's a whole lot of technical knitting mumbo jumbo, and I won't get into that.


Even though I like the result, I'm actually considering pulling and making a pullover version of it. I can't help but think of how much more convenient it would be like that. But that won't be for a long time.

the size 14 to size 6 shorts

This is a pair of shorts that I resized, once a 14, now my size. Just a pair of shorts from a thrift store.
I took them in on the sides and center back seam, ripping the waistband enough to take it in from the inside, and then top stitching it in place. This is a little tricky, trying to turn it around enough to keep the taking-in even and strait - but it's doable, anyway.

There's a couple of options to where you can take them in - the sides are the simplest place, which is good if you have a pair of pants that are just a couple of inches too big. The biggest problem with this is that if you take them in too much, you'll make the pockets too tight for your hands.

This isn't so good (trust me, I've done it more than once!), so if you need to take it in more, you can slide the back out so that there is a bigger seam allowance in the back than in the front, which you can use to control how much you want to take in without taking too much from the pockets.

Or, you can take in the back seam too. You have to make sure that the new seam has a nice, smooth curve down to the inseam, meeting the old seam before you reach the inseam.

Since my shorts were so much bigger, and I like big pockets, I had to do both the slidy thing a lot and the back seam thing a lot - the end result is shorts that are kinda baggy with wide legs, which I think I like better than if they had been my size to begin with!

The jumper is from the thrift store too, a vintage lambswool sweater for a dollar - It's like my favorite sweater.

skirt refashion

The original skirt was large and very long, and had waist darts for shaping.  All I did was cut it short from the bottom to reuse the hem and added the casing and elastic.  I was pretty stupid and didn't line it, so it rides up with tights.  For summer that's fine, but I wear tights and leggings all the time right now, and a slip would be so nice!  It's one of those things that I really need to make (my mom has a ton of slip fabric) but isn't exciting enough to make instead of a cute top or something.  Oh well, I'll get to it eventually!