knitting neels

Oh, these November days. Even if you are lucky enough not to be affected by the rapidly diminishing daylight, there is no escaping the permeating gloom of a cloudy November afternoon. These are the days that we need good, simple things such as hot, fragrant tea, little tealights, cushions and… colour! I noticed during the last lockdown that what I chose to wear each day, each item’s colour and the overall palette had quite an effect on my mood. In the past, I’m not sure I would have put much sway on such a thing, but these days, it really does seem to make a difference. I have since become much bolder in my colour choices, because why not? I have even started to dip into my languishing jewellery box. All those fun, dangly earrings that I was saving for ‘special’ occasions! Isn’t today a special occasion though? Tomorrow, even more so!

With these ideas in mind, I thought that today, I would share with you a sample of what is on my sewing table and knitting needles these days.

I think that this selection is pretty representative of what’s going on around here! From the top down, the clouds and cheetahs have been made into two raglan long-sleeved t-shirts. I only got a metre of each and used plain navy jersey that I had in my stash for the sleeves and neckbands. The pineapples and the broccoli guys (!!!) are destined for two jersey dresses – nothing fancy, simply further iterations of the ‘Lady Skater Dress‘. I have had this pattern for quite a few years and I think that I have made about 7 or 8 of them by now. I wear them out! The bottom fabric, the one with raindrops on it, is from Maeve at Dress Fabrics. I have this cut out to be a ‘Union Street Tee‘. When I have it made up, I will share it here because I have accumulated a few thoughts on t-shirt patterns!

I also have these two lightweight needlecords lined up to cut out. The pattern I decided upon for these is Burda 6627. (Here‘s a link to an image search for the pattern.) It is a very straight forward shift dress with princess seams. I made it up the winter before last in a dark pink wool tweed and it’s such a wearable little dress! I think that in bright pink and turquoise, they will brighten any day.

So that’s what I’ve been working away on. The raglan tops and the dresses, because they’re just the same thing repeated in different fabrics, I have been sewing them factory-line style. This means that, say, for the dresses, I sew each stage of all three dresses at the same time – the shoulder seams, then the neckbands, then attach the skirt, and so on. It is a bit more time consuming, but still much quicker than sewing them one dress at a time. It sounds a little counter-intuitive but it definitely works! Any time that I want to sew a few of the same thing, like t-shirts or leggings, I work this way. I suppose that it is more oriented towards the end-product, as opposed to the process, but with t-shirts, there isn’t all that much to the process anyway!

Wishing you all a lovely weekend and I’ll be back soon with some pink knitting.