Finished Knits!

So, I've been doing a lot of knitting over the last several weeks, ever since we moved into our new place and started to get settled in.  Autumn seems to jump-start my knitting enthusiasm after being pretty meh about knitting during the summer.  This worked out really well because I have a ton of knitting to do for Christmas and for various babies that are happening in my social vicinity.

Baby hat for RP's baby  in KP Stroll Wonderland Heather

Baby socks for RP's baby in KP Stroll Wonderland Heather 

I've owed RP some baby knits for awhile, his baby was born back in October.  All I have to do is give these a bath because I was super sick while I was knitting them and I'm not about to give a new baby germy knits.

 Sydänmaa Mittens in Mystery Wool

My former mittens got pretty dirty at the season opener this past spring, and I never got around to making another pair until around my birthday.  These were sort of a present to myself - a quick pair of cabled mittens to work on while Josh and I worked our way through the Gilmore Girls on Netflix.  Despite the detailed instructions in the pattern on how to block them, I never did because they're mittens and it got cold and I just started wearing them.  I'm sure they'd look AMAZING blocked, but the knitwear is there to be worn not looked at so there you go.

TTL Mystery Socks 2009 in KP Wonderland Heather Stroll 

This pattern has been my nemesis for ages.  I originally cast it on in the KP Stroll Firecracker Heather way back in the day when I was learning how to knit socks, and lets just say that trying to teach myself to knit socks, knit from charts, and proficiently knit in the round was not a great combination.  It turns out that several years of practice later, I'm handily able to knit the pattern though I don't like the gauge indicated in the pattern.  I still knit them exactly as written, but I prefer for my socks to be more firmly knit than the pattern calls for, so idk how much wear they'll get.  Like, I'm sure I'll wear them at home, but I don't think these will hold up well in shoes.

Curam in Paton's Classic Wool Merino Worsted 

Loved knitting this hat, wanted to do the pom pom, but once I finished it I tried it on and it was quite a bit too small.  Upon checking the pattern, I learned that I just suck at measuring.  Like, I picked the wrong size because I measured another hat and my head like an idiot but figured everything would be okay because ribbing.  Nope.  This one's gonna hop over to the frog pond around the time I decide I want the yarn back for something else.

Alleunmer from Knitworthy 3 in Marr Haven Organic Sport  

Alleunmer again 

I loved knitting this thing, and I love the yarn, and I definitely should have given it a block because I know from experience that the yarn blooms a lot when it's washed.  It's a pretty oatmeal color, and it's squishy and awesome.  10/10 would knit again (as indicated below).

Alleunmer in Gala Mix Fiber DK 

I usually try to knit my mother a pattern that I enjoy knitting because she doesn't really care what I make, so long as I make something rather than buy something.  I've never bought her a gift that was satisfying to her.  She just kind of likes knowing that her gift was a time sink for me, so I try to at least make it enjoyable for myself.  Also, she's "allergic" to wool, so she gets the mystery acrylic from the deep stash.

Grellow Love socks in Barn Door Tweed Stroll and Dove Heather Stroll 

These are for my sister, who I love a whole whole lot.  She has size 9.5 feet.  I ordered the red yarn awhile back and I assume I was high on the wool fumes when I did because this is totally not my color.  And I'm not really a huge tweed fan.  So I'm not sure why I ordered that colorway, but it worked out because it's definitely Tori's color, and she asked very nicely for socks so that's what she's getting.  Grellow Love is a toe-up shortie sock pattern with contrast toes and heels and it's quick.  I'm knitting a lot of these, actually.

Baby socks for Shay's baby 

Same baby sock pattern as used above, but in Rose Marl Kroy, for Shay's baby due in January.

TTL Wispy Aspen in KP Stroll Firecracker Heather 

The cursed KP Stroll Firecracker Heather strikes back with the 2015 TTL Mystery Sock pattern.  This one's in hibernation until I finish knitting Christmas gifts.

 Hogwarts stripey scarf in KP Wool of the Andes

Cross asked for a stripey scarf when we started dating, and I started knitting one in Caron Simply Soft, then set it aside because I was meh about the yarn and project.  Four and a half years later, I ordered some decent wool in colors he likes and decided to make the thing.  The length in the picture represents two or three nights of effort, so I don't think it's gonna be a problem getting it done.  I'm doing 20 rows of each color and it's alternating black and white with some of the black stripes replaced with a kind of teal (Spruce).  

Grellow Love in Lion Brand Sock (White) and KP Stroll North Pole Heather 

Socks for Grandma for Christmas.  Love her and her size 9 feet.  Sigh.

Garter St Baby Kimono in KP Stroll Dandelion 

This is an overdue baby knit for Ed and Crystal's baby.  We'll see when I get this done. x.x

 Neon Vanilla sock in Plymouth Yarn Neon Now

One plain vanilla sock in progress.  Can't remember when I even started this guy, but I love the loud-ass yarn and I'll probably get back to it when I finish everything else.

I also am currently working on a pair of Grellow Love socks in orange Cascade sock yarn for toes and heels and blue/gray/brown Kroy sock yarn.

And I cast on a pair of socks for myself in the wake of the election because the world was getting really ugly and I was avoiding social media.  On election day I picked up some ugly Kroy sock yarn at Joann's (colorway clover colors) and dug some shitty one-ply Mary Maxim sock yarn in black/gray for toes and heels and cast on ANOTHER Grellow Love sock, but this one's for me.  It's kind of a symbolic thing - I'm taking ugly stuff, making something useful out of it, then I'm eventually going to walk through them.  Then I'll throw them away.  Like you do.

New Garb Wardrobe

I'm in the process of designing my new alt character for Dagorhir.  Her name is Vithia Lora, and she's part of the Belegarian army who Major Toland discovers can manipulate light energy.  She's a paladin, and since all of my Dagorhir characters up until this point have been evil characters, I decided that a garb overhaul was in order.  

Palette

I made the choice to go more MOA-legal with this kit.  Most of my garb from the past isn't strictly MOA-legal, but I typically got away with it because of the fantasy elements.  I refurbished a few pairs of pantaloons from my former kit, and made a few new pairs to help cement the new color palette (which focuses on blues and purples).

The above pantaloons made the cut, color-wise, but they needed some serious help to get them up to par for my new garb requirements.  All of them got new elastic in the waistbands, and all the guts are serged now to help prevent fraying/extend their lives.

These three pairs of pantaloons are the new additions.  Braided non-roll elastic in the waistbands, all the seams and edges are serged.  Also, all the pantaloons are 100% cotton which helps them be more comfortable to wear during the summer.

I traced a pattern off of a garb dress that I bought on Merchant's Row at Ragnarok a few years ago, shortened the length, and added a cowl collar to produce my absolute favorite garb top pattern to date.  It's easy to conceal a sports bra under this style top, it can be easily pulled on (no closures) over my head, it's crotch-length (or longer), and the sleeves are a great length for fighting.

The black one isn't the first one I made.  I muslined the pattern in a polyester suiting that's featured in the pile of tunics below.

While the poly suiting would be hell to wear during the heat of summer, it will be perfectly tolerable at night and will dry quickly if I get caught in the rain.  Also pictured here is a black tunic I made using a different, and way less satisfactory, pattern, a white linen tunic using my preferred pattern, and a white cotton cowl-less tunic (again using my preferred pattern).  I made one lightweight collarless tunic to go with...

...this bomb coat.  This is also made from 100% cotton from the quilters cotton section, and was intended to be a wearable muslin for a much fancier white coat that I'll be making at a later date.  I used a leaf-and-vine embroidery stitch on my sewing machine to reinforce the center front hem, where I'll add hook-and-eye closures eventually.  

It's also worthy of note to mention that I finished this coat well before Cersei's new black coat on GoT was revealed.  I'm definitely going to draw inspiration from that costume in the future.

Here's how the new tunic design looks on my dress form.  I made this tunic to match a pair of pantaloons I finished recently (they'd been sitting in my unfinished project pile for a couple years), but neither of them match my new color palette.  I'll probably hang onto them for events where my character wouldn't necessarily be present, but I really don't care for this tunic or the matching pantaloons.

Lastly, I found an ancient linen cloak in my garage while I was hunting for my box cutter.  The hood was mostly falling off, and the inside seams were fraying like crazy.  It hadn't been washed before it was stored, so it was musty and muddy and kind of gross.  I ran the seams through my serger, reattached the hood, and ran it through the washer and dryer, hoping for the best.

Not too bad.  I'm probably going to remove the silver closure from the front and replace it with grommets, so I can attach it to my new armor with hooks.  Regardless, a cloak is a good thing to have in your garb arsenal.  I'm more of a coat person, but cloaks definitely come in handy.

That's it so far in terms of new garb.  I found some purple linen/linen-look fabric that I bought at a garage sale forever ago, and I'm trying to decide if I want to make a wrap tunic (like the Asaka robe pattern) or another cowl-neck tunic with it. 

I'm also throwing around the idea of making a black linen wrap-robe using the Asaka robe pattern lengthened to floor-length, with some kind of fancy trim.  I'm just unsure how much wear I'll get out of it, and it's kind of a lot of work to alter the pattern and cut out pieces that large.

Some knits, mostly socks

Here's a round-up of some stuff I knit.  

Tombreck 

Izel

Hapish

And here's a bunch of socks!

Kai Mei

Ash and Sapphire socks

Plain cuff-down socks

Kai Mei

Monkey

I'm currently knitting a baby sweater for the Magnuson baby, a pair of BFF socks, a pair of TTL Mystery Socks 09, a pair of Wispy Aspen socks, a tiny antlers hat, and a Blank Canvas sweater.  The next finished project will probably be the BFF socks, since they're closest to being done, but after that it's anyone's race. 

Papercut Patterns Ohh La Leggings

So, I've owned three Papercut Patterns patterns for a couple years now, and two of them (Anima pants and Undercover hood) are big-time TNT patterns for me.  The third pattern is the Ohh La Leggings, and I finally got around to making them around a week ago.

Bam!

My first pair are made from a poly/spandex dance-wear knit.  First time out, I made the 3/4 length, then shortened them about 3-4" (didn't measure, just pinned where I thought they should end while wearing them and hacked some fabric off).  Later, I realized the length I wanted was the knee length.  This is why I should actually, you know, read the pattern at all before just jumping in.

Of course, I was so tickled about making these that I wanted more.  Immediately.  These are just barely not instant gratification, and I adore the seaming.

BAM!

The black fabric is the same poly/spandex knit from above, the light blue is a different dance/athletic fabric.  Both fabrics are from Joann's, so they're kind of on the thin side and shiny.  Fortunately, I love almost tacky shiny things.  

Also, both fabrics were slippery, roll-y, and stupid, so I had kind of a shit time getting the curves to fit together correctly, so they're a little off in places.  I'm gambling that no one will want to examine my crotch seams while I'm wearing these to do athletic things.  

The pattern's awesome, my problems with getting things to come together entirely resulted from choosing fabric that wouldn't cooperate.  Still love them, still going to wear them.  

Archer and Knits

First things first, this project stalled my sewing mojo for a solid four months, but now that I've finished it I feel a lot better about moving on to other projects that have been on the back burner for awhile.  Introducing, the Grainline Studio Archer:

Due to the long time-out period, I don't distinctly remember the details of this project.  I think I assembled it up through the sleeve plackets before tossing it into the basket where projects go to think about what they've done.  Then, in a misguided attempt to try to motivate myself to finish it, I decided not to start any new projects for myself until I finished it.

Four months later, I decided I no longer cared about this thing coming out super nice and pulled it out of the bone pile, ironed out the worst of the wrinkles, and got to work.

And remembered almost immediately why I didn't care for this project.  After sewing up the side seams, I faced putting together the collar.  While the instructions were clear about what to do, for some unknown reason my collar and the neck hole were two totally different sizes.  Like, the collar was a whole inch larger than the hole it was supposed to fit into.  So I eased it, swore, and eased it some more until it fit somewhat, then sewed it in.

The cuffs went by easily, and the button holes were probably the easiest they've ever been even though I had to figure out how to do button holes on my still-new-to-me sewing machine (a Janome Skyline S5).  Turns out, they're super freaking simple, and I'm definitely not going to shy away from patterns with buttons anymore.

The hem, if you can see it in the picture, shows how little I gave a shit by that point in the process.  Despite my lackadaisical attitude toward the thing after my prior frustrations, it turned out well enough that I wore it to work the other day and none of my coworkers (all of whom know I sew a lot of the clothes I wear) noticed the wonky-ness of the thing.  Goes to show how little attention non-sewers pay to how clothes look.

On to the last things I made before the Archer:

Those are two Cloth Habit Watson bras, which came in handy after I had a pretty bad skin reaction to the sticky stuff in a strapless bra I wore for a wedding at the beginning of May.  The blue bra is made from leftover knit fabric from the bridesmaids dresses for my sister's wedding, and the bottom one is made from black power net and black stretch twill for the bridge.  The black bra fits better than the blue one, mostly because of the sturdy bridge.

Alright nerds, here comes a bunch of handknits:

Plain sock pattern from the Yarn Harlot

Ragnarok stripey socks

Gemini Mittens

Tombreck hat

A shawl

I've been trying to remember to take pictures of my hand knit projects for the Eryndor Artistry Guild, and as a handy side-effect of that I have pictures for the blog.  Socks are a constant project of mine, and I'm shifting away from making toe-up contrast socks in favor of cuff-down heel-flap socks.  I've memorized both patterns at this point, and they're nice knitting to carry around with me for waiting in lines, playing DnD, or watching TV.

The Gemini Mittens were knit for my brand-new brother-in-law for Christmas.  He loves them, and has thanked me numerous times for knitting them - which is exactly the right way to behave to get even more hand knit things in the future.  

The Tombreck hat was some treat-knitting for me.  I'd been hoarding the yarn I used to make these for years.  There was just barely not enough to knit a scarf or shawl, and I despaired at knitting a set of things out of it because it's a little too bright for me to wear multiple items made from it at the same time.  Then I remembered that the stash is there to be used, and I cast on a hat.  And to be honest, it was a great choice.  I loved the whole process of knitting it, and I adored wearing it.  

I had four huge balls of Lion Brand Wool Ease in Seafoam left over from when I knit my grandmother a lap blanket a few years ago.  I'm in the process of de-stashing in preparation for a move to a new house sometime this summer (Cross and I are planning to buy a house before summer is over), and I stumbled upon those balls of yarn during the process.  

I've wanted to make a huge, snuggly shawl to wear during nightlife at Dagorhir events for years, but I don't really have a ton of patience for shawl-knitting.  So I decided that come hell or high water, I was going to knit a shawl, and I was going to keep knitting until I used up all four balls.  Then I did that thing, and that behemoth of a shawl is the result.  It legitimately saved my life during Friday night at HCII, my local realm's May campout last weekend.

Speaking of HCII, my buddy Ronin asked me to make a pair of pantaloons for him.  He provided fabric, and I charged $20 for additional materials (thread and elastic) and my time to make them.  

Pantaloons are pretty simple, and it takes me about 40 minutes to make a pair of them from start to finish.  One of these days, I need to get around to making myself a few new pairs since I've gotten far better at making them since I first started making them several years ago and I personally don't own any that utilize my new technology (better elastic casings, serged/finished edges, a better crotch curve/depth).

So on the cutting table right now is some black lycra to make some Ohh Lala leggings from Papercut Patterns.  I personally own three patterns from Papercut Patterns: the Undercover Hood pattern, the Anima pants pattern, and this leggings pattern - and the leggings pattern is the only one I haven't sewn.  I've made the other two multiple times, and I adore them.  

I also have a pair of short pantaloons on the table to finish up.  I cut them out years ago to show someone how to make pantaloons, then never assembled them.  Acecia has a matching pair, and it's about time we were able to be twinsies on the field.

Alright, I'm going to get to work on that stuff.  Have a good weekend!