Fashion: Yarn Style

Striving for the Ultimate Chanel Skirt

 

As y’all know, I have long been a fan of Karl Lagerfeld. Ever since I saw his Chanel Spring Summer 2017 collection I have been obsessed with the A-line zippered tweed skirts.

 

Some of the tweed prints were even based on circuit boards, which, since I'm the wife of a computer programmer, particularly appealed to me.

 

 

I mean, only Lagerfeld could have made a circuit board so fashionable! Anyway, I’ve been pining for one of these skirts for years knowing that I could never afford to even purchase one resale. Considering that new, the skirts were priced at around $6,000, even at 1/10^th of the original cost, a used skirt would be $600! But now that I am taking sewing classes, it occurs to me that one day this skirt might be in my reach.

 

For this reason, I am starting my sewing adventures with skirts! My first pattern was Gertie’s Short & Chic Aline skirt. Overall, I liked the Gertie pattern but felt that it was not made for a beginning sewer. The patterns were all overlapped on top of each other so that it was confusing to tell where one ended and the other began, and so I ended up cutting the pattern out to the wrong shape and wasting $25 of fabric.

 

I feel that the money the author saved in avoiding adding additional pages to the patterns may have been a false economy. As a user, I would much have preferred to pay more for the book than to lose at least double that money on fabric I cut into the wrong shape. I even traced the pattern ahead of time as I’d never tried to follow one pattern superimposed in top of the lines of others but still I got confused. Oh well. I ended up with a wearable skirt in a different piece of fabric.

 

 

However, this half circle skirt was too full to reproduce the Chanel skirt I adore. So, inspired by cleocmc’s video podcast, Stitching Over the Days, I sewed a Hollyburn skirt. It's pictured below with my Karen Cardigan by Sarah Hatton. 

 

 

I made a muslin of the skirt first, to ensure a good fit, and ended up adding in a dart to the back pieces of the skirt so that it fit better at my waist. I had tried adding a back dart to the Gertie skirt and it worked so I just copied over the same dart I’d added. Overall, I feel the Hollyburn skirt is more figure flattering for me than the Gertie pattern because the Hollyburn has a waistband to define my waist and the skirt is less full. The Hollyburn is a super easy and fun pattern to use and I highly recommend it for the beginning sewer. Like Constance, or CleoCMC on ravelry, I can definitely see myself sewing another one of these skirts for summer! I’m thinking of a red linen skirt with a red and white checked top!

What do you think? If the pieces work out, I could knit a white Myrna cardigan to complete the outfit:

 

As happy as I am with the Hollyburn skirt, I still feel it still has not achieved the correct shape of the Chanel skirt I am longing for. I am now looking for a simpler, A-line skirt pattern with a front zip to practice with. Perhaps by the time I find it I will have acquired the necessary sewing skills to create my heart’s desire. In the meantime, I am continuing to knit happily away on various projects

 

1) Willowwood by Caitlin Hunter is in progress

 

2) I’ve finished my Hermione’s Everyday socks in Junkyarn which I loved:

 

3) I’ve knitted my second version of the Bargello Beanie by Vickie Howell in Malabrigo Mecha:

 

Is anyone planning to participate in MeMadeMay? I just signed up here with my pledge. But more about that next time…..

 

Wardrobe Style: Integrating Knits with Sewing

Short & Chic A-Line Skirt by Gertie + Emma Tee

 

I recently finished sewing Gertie’s pattern, Short & Chic A Line Skirt from her book, Gertie Sews Vintage Casual. It was the first skirt I’d sewed myself from beginning to end in years, and I was proud of the accomplishment.

 

However, I realized that the skirt shape I’d chosen wasn’t super easy to pair with sweaters that have any positive ease. The skirt is so wide, as a half circle, that it really needs to be paired with a top that is not bulky. At first, I thought the A line skirt would be perfect to pair with my Emma Tee, because the fabric and knit share a pink and black color scheme:

 

 

I think the outfit is generally cute if I pair it with a black belt. But the sleeves look a bit loose on the arm and that stands out when the Tee is paired with this skirt. On the other hand, the Emma Tee looks great with my black lace Maje skirt. I think it’s because the loose lace and grommets of the skirt flare out and that goes better with the flare at the sleeves of the Emma Tee.

 

 

Who knew that there were so many details to keep in mind when trying to put together an outfit made by hand?????

 

Since I’m a rather inexperienced sewer, I’m going to keep my wardrobe focus on knits and try to sew complementary wardrobe pieces. But now, after my first few efforts, I'm starting to realize how much I DON'T know what I'm doing and how much there is to learn. So I will start by imitating people with experience. My thought is to look at how knits are styled in pattern photos. For example, the cropped pullover Willowwood that I'm knitting is paired with a rather fabulous looking dress in a floral print:

 

 Willowwood by Caitlin Hunter on the right is from Pom Pom Quarterly #27

So I’ve decided to sew a print dress to wear under my Willowwood, and casting around for an easy sewing pattern, I found Simplicity Pattern 8231

 

 

It looks like it just uses elastic to draw the waist and bust in, and I should be able to handle that. So as soon as I finish sewing my Hollyburn skirt, which I will blog about in my next post, I will sew a wearable muslin of this Simplicity pattern. 

 

Here is the cotton fabric I’m going to use to sew my practice dress. I found it at the Discount Fabric Warehouse of San Francisco yesterday, and it was $6 a yard, so I hope I can make it into a dress I will enjoy wearing on its own, even though it is my “practice run”!  I know some of my readers have been sewing for a long time. What strategies do you use to find sewing patterns that will work with your knits? I would truly be grateful for any advice you want to share!!!!

 

 

Gransmoor by Lisa Richardson

 

I sewed the pieces of my Gransmoor sweater together on the plane! I was determined to wear the pullover to Interweave’s Yarnfest in Loveland and I got my wish! You can see my husband teased me about my mad deadline knitting until he caught me in a silly photo:

 

 

Gransmoor is designed by Lisa Richardson using Hemp Tweed. The design is from Rowan Magazine 62. I have been longing to knit it, but working a whole stranded sweater in pieces is not for the faint of heart. Adding another level of difficulty, the sweater has raglan shaping so you have to track many decreases for the body and sleeves on both front and back while stranding on knit and purl sides. Since it was so complicated anyway I decided to add waist shaping as well. However, I feel the raglan structure is the trickiest part of the pattern. All of the side decreases for the raglan shaping means the pattern is constantly shifting over one stitch on each side and so I did end up making a mistake as I was working on the purl side of the garment where I couldn’t see the pattern:

 

 

This is the correct version of the top panel, which converts from a grey leaf to a white leaf with the stems of the leaves aligned in the center. I hadn’t realized this was the anchor point when I was knitting the motif the first time. As I decreased the WS edge for the raglan and purled across, I accidentally shifted the center point of the leaf motif over by one but I couldn't see the pattern as I was on the purl side. I didn’t discover the error, actually, until I knitted the front piece. At that point I went back and unraveled the whole top panel of the back. Now the pattern is correct but the raglan sleeves may be just a bit too long. I hope they will not lengthen even more with wear!

Paired with this sweater is the pencil skirt I sewed with Maxi, my mother-in-law’s help several years ago. She left me to finish it on my own and you can see that I put it off for quite a while! But I think this skirt is super versatile and I plan to wear it with many different knits. Such as…..GASP…. the gorgeous sweater Maxi gifted to me during my visit!

 

 

The gorgeous stranded creation I am wearing is Magnolia by Marie Wallin knitted in Rowan felted tweed. Maxi purchased the kit and altered the shaping across the shoulders for a better fit. This cardigan is really a masterpiece! Maxi decided to give this sweater to me and I will treasure it FOREVER! You can find her notes on the project here.

 

 

I think with this gift I have won the knitting lottery of all time!