I'm blue (floral)

I bought myself a serger as a Christmas present. Best gift ever etc! I have to admit it has motivated me to sew more as I don't have to zigzag every side of the pieces anymore. And it actually works like it should be unlike my mother's one I had.

As a first project I made the dress in the picture. I bought the fabric late summer to make a tiered dress similar to what I have made before. But after half a year without touching the fabrics I just decided to use it to experiment with the serger. Instead of a dress I made a JSK as I need something to wear my knits with. (I made it over the New Years, but been lazy to write about it.)

Since the purpose was to get used to sewing I used the same old bodice pattern I have used few times. It's a simple one with a shirring on the back and a side zipper. The skirt is tiered and the hem is 280cm wide! That's a lot, but the fabric is thin so it doesn't look crammed. The ruffles are done with rolled hem. It makes the ruffles a lot easier and less bulky and I love it! Only problem with it is that I hardly remember to remove the other needle to get it right. Last time I kept changing thread tensions around for 10 minutes until I realized the needle is the problem...

I have to admit it's one of the best sewings I have made. I really like it! And I love the colour!

For a bonus project:

I wanted to try other options too and made a hoodie with ready-made pattern. The panda was my own idea though. It's cute and warm~

A bit more of knits

Just listing down some patterns so I won't forget them

Brown cardigan

https://www.garnstudio.com/pattern.php?id=8366&cid=11

I modified the pattern a bit to have a buttons on the front. And I knitted the sleeves flat instead of ring as I didn't have short needles for it. There's no buttons on it yet as I don't have any. The pattern was easy but as my flat knitting is really uneven it looks horrible.

Off-white cardigan

https://www.garnstudio.com/pattern.php?id=7323&cid=11

I like the pattern and have in mind to do it again with black or other dark cotton yarn (for summer weather). And maybe change the lace to something different for a change.

Hat

https://www.garnstudio.com/pattern.php?id=7723&cid=11

Looks nice.

Cape, hat

https://www.novitaknits.com/fi/elamanpuu-viitta-novita-nordic-wool

https://www.garnstudio.com/pattern.php?id=3668&cid=11

This took a whole lot of time to make. I saw the pattern on the magazine and fell for it right away. Unfortunately there's some mistakes in it so I had to improvise some parts. I had to sew the front shut as the buttons kept having those ugly holes between them no matter how well I adjusted it.

A bit of knits

Lately I've been hooked to wathcing series and movies. As I would feel guilty for just watching them I usually knit at the same time. It's quite relaxing. I hoared some yarns some months ago and have "finished" over half of them. Here's some works I have done.

White cardigan

https://www.novitaknits.com/fi/fi/neuleohjeet/naisen-neuletakki-novita-cotton-mercerized/ohjeet

The pattern is a plain cardigan. As I had made one plain one before I knew it would get boring quite easily and searched for a lace pattern to place over it. It took some calculations to make the lace to fit the pattern but it worked well. The yarn is baby wool so it's relly soft. I like how this looks like.

Black cardigan

https://www.novitaknits.com/fi/fi/neuleohjeet/naisen-neuletakki-novita-nalle-2/ohjeet

I was really worried about this one as it was labeled as hard to knit. It took a while to understand the pattern but afterwards it was really easy. I modified it shorter to be more fitful for skirts. I really like the leaf pattern but I'm not really sure is it elegant enough to be worn with jfashion. The yarn is alpaca wool and a bit rougher than the white cardigan.

Leaf hat

https://www.garnstudio.com/pattern.php?id=7125&cid=19

This was an easy pattern to follow as it had diagram pattern. There's not much to say about it other than it looks nice.

I still have yarns for one short sleeved cardigan and few other hats. I just have knitted for past few months so I want to do something else for a while. But little by little my knitting is getting better.

Clef JSK

I have to admit, I got the clef fabric maybe few years ago and had a jsk from it in mind. I just had some other project on the way. After those I dind't have any motivation to do this. Past weekend I finally got some as I knew this would have tatting in it and got it (almost) finished.

I used the same pattern as in the gingham jsk. I did the same mistake like in the last time and bodices neckline falls too low. I left it as it were in the pattern and had in mind to use some lace to make it "higher", but as the lace is a bit scratchy due to shiny polyester in it that wouldn't be a good idea.

The laces are handmade by tatting. On the edge it's simple one shuttle lace and the front ones are simple two shuttle laces. I had to sew it to bodice by hand.

The base of the jsk is finished. I have some satin ribbon for the back but it's a bit too dark. Waist ties are on their way, but I kinda lost my motivation. Maybe in the next few weeks I get them done.

Overall I'm happy with this. It's almost like I had in mind.

The skirt of miscalculations

Oops, haven't been here for a long time. I had finally some motivation to sew this skirt together.

Half a year ago I was in the city centre and went to a fabric store to pass some time. Big mistake. I found this nice fabric with flowers as borderprint and I had to have it. As the print scallops I decided to try a scalloped hem for the first time. It ended not-so-well. Not to mention my miscalculation and the hem were too short and landed around 5cm above the knee. 

The back side is not that beatiful. I sewed the hem by folding the border of the fabric over the print. Another miscalculation here and there weren't that much fabric after turning it around and the hem became a bit sloppy. Not to mention how the backside of the scallops are just big enough to hide the seam. I had to hand sew those scallops shut as I didn't want a noticeable seam on the front side.

The bottom ruffles weren't meant to be there at first, but because of the miscalculation I had to add something to make the skirt longer. There weren't enough lining fabric for ruffles so I used some other one on my storage. They are kinda okay.

The last bad thing is the waist ties. They're too short for a proper bow. I came to conclusion to use some satin ribbon to tie it together and it doesn't look that bad.

Overall this skirt might look good for the outside but not as good in the inside. I'm not that fond to it. Maybe that's why it took so long to make.

Cardigan Jolina

I have too many yarns I have bought/were gifted and have no idea where to store them all. So lately I've been knitting them away. I had this really thin, almost lacethin, yarn. I searched for patterns from many sites and ended up with Jolina from Drops design.

Pattern Jolina from DROPS Design:
https://www.garnstudio.com/pattern.php?id=9103&cid=19

Needles used were 2.0. Two things were changed from the pattern: the lace at the bottom and gathering in the sleeves. The lace was one I had done dozens of times so I w. Ended up gathering it with yarn.

This pattern was kinda boring to knit. It was just back and forth right knitting (except the lace). And as the yarn was so thin it took forever to make. At least I got many kdramas finished when making this but I wouldn't make one again.

I skipped the con and went to pet fest instead

Tracon was on this weekend. When I finally looked through the panels I didn't find anything interesting and didn't feel like going there just for the dealer's hall and such. So I ended up skipping the whole con.

Instead there were some sort of pet fest in the city and I went there on sunday. There were all kinds of pets there like dogs, cats, lizards etc and you could even pet some of them. Even though I don't have any animals I enjoyed my time there.

I wore the dress I made for Tracon there. It was comfortable to wear. After the fest we had little picnic near by and took some pics. As the dress is a sailor inspired one the lake fits the theme quite well. It was windy and the dress didn't stay put. My favourite picture is the one taken from the back. From the fest I only took one photo and it has alpacas in it:

Really nice day overall. I have some new projects going on, like knitted cardigan and a JSK, and I'm going to work on them for now on.