Around the block

 I have worked on the fit of my two Connie Crawford bodice slopers, and made up a basic shirt from each, but now it's time to try to replicate a slightly different design using my basic block. I like to give myself every chance to succeed, so I picked something I thought would be an easy make -- and also something I wanted to wear.

Like a lot of folks, I get catalogs from lots of retailers. One of the ones I get is from a clothing company called Poetry. Have never shopped from the catalog, and I expect I'm not their targeted demographic. While not high fashion, their clothing has simple, clean lines which appeals to me. As a side note, they also seem to offer more natural fiber items than a lot of others in their price range. One of their shirts from the Fall catalog caught my eye, and I decided I'd like to do an interpretation of that. Here's a pic from the catalog page in case the link disappears:

As you can see, it's a fairly simple shirt - loose fitting, with gathers in the back and a deep yoke, uneven hemlines, 3/4 length sleeves. It is listed as collarless, but it appears to have a shallow collar band.

The block I used had a darted front, one piece back with shoulder darts, and short sleeves. So, the changes I needed to make were: divide the back for a yoke and add width to the back 'skirt' to allow for gathered fullness. Add length to both front and back pattern pieces and add extra to the back for an uneven hemline. Add length to the sleeves to make them full length rather than the 3/4 length of the inspiration garment. I used the collar stand from Butterick 5678 to make the band collar.

The back yoke appears deeper than a standard shirt yoke. I went with a finished depth of 7.5" (19 cm). The one measurement of the original garment I had was a finished length of 29.5" (75 cm) so it was easy to lengthen the back skirt to reflect that, and then 6" (15 cm) was added for additional width.  The front was lengthened to finish at 2.5" (6 cm) shorter than the back.  I went with 3" (7.5 cm) for the hem turn up on fronts, back and sleeves.  All depth measurements (other than finished back length)  -- yoke, difference between front & back, hem turn ups -- were guesses. Hopefully educated guesses, but if I do something like this again I will probably go full on math and measure proportions from the photo.

And here's what I ended up with:

The fabric is a brushed cotton flannel from fabric.com (Kaufman Shetland Flannel Net Pepper) and the buttons were rushed to me (seriously, I got them the day after ordering without any additional payment!) from Wawak -- Mussel Shell Buttons, Dark Smoke color.

So, I am happy with the finished product. I learned a few things, and definitely could have done some things better, but I feel it's a pretty good first effort. I'll definitely be trying this again, and hopefully will have the confidence to up the difficulty level. 

Winter is coming

 Although the weather here is still quite balmy, it's guaranteed that eventually cold weather will be arriving. So, in an effort to avoid endless exposure to "you-know-what" on social media and the news I've been doing a fair bit of knitting.

How about a cozy cap? I've knit this pattern before, but this version is for me. It's the Orvieto Hat by Nina Machlin Dayton and I knit it in Cascade 220. I prefer a looser fit in a knitted hat (all the better to not mash the hairdo down) and this pattern fits the bill.

The next piece holds more meaning (to me) than simply keeping warm. It's the Dissent Cowl by Carissa Browning. The designer was inspired by the collar worn by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (US Supreme Court) when she dissented from a court decision. It just seemed fitting to be working on this while momentous decisions about the future of our country were being made. A further attraction was the designer's decision to donate  to the American Civil Liberties Union in RBG's honor - I believe the total donation was over $41,000 US - excellent!

But beyond that, I was knitting it with a yarn from very deep stash. A yarn purchased at Stitches East (now defunct) when it was held in Valley Forge, PA -- so, a very long time ago. It is a 4-ply cashmere from Cashmere America - now also not in existence. Why it took me so long to get around to knitting with it I do not know -- perhaps I have too much yarn? No, that can't be it. At any rate, it was a nice reminder of a time long past when knitting expos were a new-ish thing and folks got together and had good times without regard to anything other than the joy of our craft. 

The Cashmere America yarn is the lighter (undyed) color -- the other yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy with cashmere. It has variations in the (mostly) dark green color, but that doesn't show up too well in the photo -- or in real life actually. It was my first attempt at working anything in mosaic slip stitch, and didn't take too long to get into a nice working rhythm. The Dream in Color yarn was a bit lighter weight than the 4-ply cashmere, but didn't pose a problem. 

Here's a closer look at the stitch pattern -- 

And next it's off to the sewing room to attempt to replicate a design from RTW using my shirt block-- wish me luck!