my creative space - norie

Here's the little autumn knit project I spoke about. Its the Norie slouchy beanie I came across wandering on Ravelry the other day (dangerous place that!).

A spur of the moment project I started it with a ball of Cleckheaton Alpaca/wool mix from the stash knowing I only had one ball and would have to find more. (I often buy a ball if it takes my fancy without any project in mind but I think I might need to start buying two at a time when I get this urge!) Luckily I tracked down the band which had come detached and found the wool online at blacksheep wool. Look what arrived in today's post!

I'm a bit haphazard with some things but I have a system that I'm pretty good at maintaining when it comes to wool labels - when I take the band off I tie a small length of the wool around the band and so I have a record of what ply, colour, dye batch, manufacturer it is. Do you do this? I often wonder how other people keep track.

This is my first time knitting from a lace chart and I've had to undo and reknit it again and again it seems. The first time I knit the lace band I didn't do my research and knitted from the top left corner of the chart down. I couldn't work out why it didn't have the nice lines in it like the pictures on Ravelry until I researched and found it turns out you knit from the bottom right up! But I bet you knew that!

Its much better the second time round, though I still made little mistakes and had to go back and forth which is frustrating. I have two more lace bands to go and I'm going to try to concentrate a bit closer for those!

Today's links for my creative space doesn't seem to be up just yet, but there's always lots to look at at ourcreativespaces.blogspot.com.

autumn light

The light is changing here and there's a slight chill in the air. Its that in between time of t-shirts with slippers, long walks and lie ins, full blown roses and turning leaves.

Autumn is one of the nicest times in Sydney, though the contrast with our mild, rainy summer isn't as distinct this year, usually its a huge relief when the hot humid days turn crisp and bright. I love the autumn light that comes at this time, I've talked about it before. The garden seems suddenly lit with slanting shafts of light which dapple through the trees making everything look magical.

We are busy here, it seems like every day there's something on. This weekend sees the sport season start and our annual school fete (and Mr F's annual boys trip!) and then on Monday its our beautiful boys double birthday!

So we're all looking forward to Easter and some time to do nothing. I have a new knit on the needles, another autumn tradition, I'm just waiting for some more wool to arrive so I can finish it. Might have to start another while I wait!

my creative space - tova

Still struggling with taking photos of myself in my new Tova shirts as you can see, but here's a quick shot in the bathroom mirror to give you an idea of how it looks! Its grey here today too, so apologies for not great photos all round.

I finished version two of the Wiksten Tova pattern in a black and white gingham over the weekend. The first green version was made as an XL (I know?) working from my chest measurement. Everything I read says the pattern runs fairly true and I didn't want it to be too tight but it was way too big. I've taken the sleeves off once and taken it in but I'd still prefer it narrower on the body so when I can get the enthusiasm I'm going to do that again. I'm going to put a little button on the placket too because the yoke sits too low and it can be a bit gapey.

At Suzy's advice I then tried a medium, first laying a non-stretch top over the pattern pieces as a guide. The fit is much better, though I think I need a little more space around the chest and shoulders, so the next one will be just slightly larger. I might try these instructions from Jenny herself in the Wiksten flickr group about altering the pattern. There will be another Tova, I love this pattern, so easy to wear and perfect for autumn. Its taught me a lot about top construction too, and I love how neat and well finished the different parts are too.

I didn't have quite enough fabric for the full sleeve length second time round, my fault for buying the fabric in two gos. But I like the sleeves shorter like this and I'll probably push the other sleeves up to this height anyway.

I think the trick with sewing for yourself is finding your shape and sizing and learning to sew for it. I'm just at the beginning of that process and quite happy experimenting. I think its quite an easy pattern, very well explained. The hardest part for me in the pattern sewing round the yoke at the start. I'd like to get better at that, hints welcome.

More spacey creatives here.