Slow Jumper

This is another ageing FO- one which I actually finished knitting in March 2009!!! I fell out with it, and only got around to taking pictures in May 2010. More embarrassingly, I then decided I liked it after all, and have worn it quite a lot in the last year- but only got around to blocking it last week. (These are the May 2010, pre blocking photos...)

I used Elizabeth Zimmermann's Icelandic yoke sweater pattern for the yoke, but I took the measurements and the shaping of the body and the sleeves from the tatty old jumper I was replacing (which was not yoked), so it didn't quite work out as intended. That's what I get for disobeying the Zimmermann!

It doesn't quite behave itself over the bust and shoulders, or in the upper arms, but I've decided I don't mind. Blocking did help too, once I eventually got around to it...
It is the only garment I have ever made with a view to wardrobe planning. I made it to replace a black polo neck jumper I wore for work with either a tan, black and white checked skirt, or a bright orange one. The original jumper eventually became too bobbly and tatty to count as respectable work wear, so I planned this jumper to go with the two skirts (hence the colours in the yoke).

As it happens, I since got the yellow skirt shown here at a clothes swap, and I now also wear the jumper with a short tan corduroy skirt. And with some tweed trousers, also from the same clothes swap, so it is a bit of a winter workhorse!

It is ravelled here, and there are a few more images on Flickr too.

Messy sunny Tuesday

Following on from yesterday's post, and given that it is Tuesday...

The scraps, and the pattern piece for the self fabric belt for yesterday's dress has been sitting on top of my sewing machine since last May...
My engagement with Messy Tuesday (which is meant to be a reaction against the excess of the unattainably perfect in domestic blogs by being open about the grubby, ugly, mess which is often just out of shot) has so far been somewhat cheaty. I want to boldy embrace the concept, but I take huge pleasure in pretending to live in beauty- and I'm unashamedly houseproud- so I found it impossible to photograph my sewing dregs in situ, and felt compelled to put them on a well lit chair. So it goes...

I have also been embracing messy Tuesday through LAUNDRY. Today is the second glorious drying day in a row- a rarity in South East London, which is to be celebrated by load after load of laundry

Thank you Felix and Lara for messing up Tuesdays!
PS- all those lovely socks in the foreground were knit by housemate Alice, and the stripy jumper is this one.

It's that time of year!

The daffodils are out, the clocks are going forward, and I'm blogging- it must be spring!

I'm cheating wildly by posting a dress which I made last spring, in May, using both a vintage pattern and vintage fabric from my grandmother's stash (I think- the pattern could have been a lucky charity shop find...)

It's Simplicity 5668 and has a 1973 trademark. It makes me feel a little like an air hostess (which I clearly quite like- as I wore it very often indeed last summer)

As promised by the pattern envelope, it did indeed go together in a Jiffy, very pleasing. I made view 1- in red on the envelope, and quite clearly the envy of misses views 2 and 3. I'd been saving the fabric up for ages, and had all sorts of plans, involving tracing off Burda patterns and altering them. Fortunately I came to my senses and realised that if I wanted a dress this side of 2050 Jiffy easy cut easy sew was where it was at...
I also appear to have taken exception to the photographer- pesky paparazzi!