Jeans!

This week, I have pretty much exclusively been knitting my Heavenly sweater.  I'm like 4 inches from finishing the body, then I'll just have the sleeves to do.  It's one of those sweaters where I keep having to stop knitting and start petting it, because it's got such a great feel to it, especially considering it's knitted in inexpensive acrylic yarn. It's Wendy Fleur DK, which I bought at my LYS...4 balls for like £20.  Not bad for a sweater's worth of yarn!  It's a gorgeous TARDIS blue, so it will match the TARDIS shoes and solar system necklace I got for Christmas.  It's got a little hint of shine and a bit of a halo, without the cost of silk or the itchiness of mohair.

I wanted to share a cool little tip for the Heavenly sweater, or really any knitting...this pattern has you do an increase, knit a few inches, do an increase, knit a few inches, do an increase, etc.  However, the increases are designed to not be really visible, which can make measuring kinda tricky.

See?  Believe it or not, there are multiple sets of increases in that photo.  You can see them if you really study the photo, but they're pretty well hidden, and the actual garment isn't much better.

There's the obvious answer, of counting your rows, but I lose count when I'm counting to 3.  (Hello Family who likes to come in and talk to me every ten seconds.)   So, I stuck a bobby pin through the increases!

MUCH better!  Now I have an easy line to measure from, no counting needed.  You could do the same thing with a darning needle, a cable needle, a different tip from your interchangeables, a tooth pick, a piece of grass, a locking stitch marker - whatever you can get your hands on when you need it.  I happen to have 2 daughters, so we are up to our eyeballs in bobby pins, so that's what I used.

Sewing wise, I am tiptoeing towards the edge of making my own jeans.  I've lost 10 pounds following Weight Watchers, and have dropped a size in jeans.  Yay me!  Not so yay, skinny jeans become fugly when they're baggy, and this is, of course, my year of no buying clothes.  So I've purchased the pattern (Ginger from Closet Case Files), printed it, taped it, and cut out the pieces.  I've been binge watching Angela Wolf's Craftsy Class, Sewing Designer Jeans.  I've ordered, received, and pre-washed denim from eBay.

I should be ready to go...except, you know, for getting over the nervousness of it.  I don't know why I'm intimidated at the thought of making jeans.  There are literally no techniques used that I haven't done before - I've even done a zippered fly before.  So what am I scared of?  Who knows.

I'm also kinda browsing embroidery websites.  My sewing machine does small embroidery as well, and I love the idea of embroidered pockets on my jeans.  Just need to decide what I want.  I have kind've adopted Wonder Woman as my mascot for the year, so maybe the WW logo?  I dunno.  Still thinking on it.

I bought some brown corduroy like five years ago, when I first started sewing, and never did anything with it, so I'm going to use it as a wearable muslin.  I already know I'm short, so I'll have to alter the pattern to accommodate not having long, beautiful legs from here to there.  I'm okay if the fit isn't 100% perfect with the cords, because I don't see myself wearing them that often - certainly not as often as I wear jeans!  Also, hopefully, they will be too big before too long.

That actually reminds me of a question a few people have asked me when I've told them my resolution to have a 100% handmade wardrobe by next January.  No, I'm not going to throw out my existing clothes.  I will continue to wear them until they're worn out, or I've shrunk out of them, but I will be replacing them only with handmade items.  I will probably keep my t-shirts, because I have a very nice collection, and either upcycle them into something that fits me when I'm 2/3s the woman I am today, or I'll turn them into a t-shirt quilt.  It will depend on how I'm feeling when the time comes.