Poppalina

Vintage pattern cache

A Kapinny post

My aunt found a bunch of '50s and '60s sewing and knitting patterns in a second hand shop. I have the choicest ones on loan, so I can copy them.

It's perfect timing: I've been so loving the Mad Men aesthetic (if not the culture) as we make our way through the DVDs.

Here's the first pattern I have copied and actually made up.

And the result. I'm not entirely happy with the way the sleeves sit (hard to show on the dummy), but this is only the first trial version; I'll be making some adjustments. I've made it up in a stretch woven, since it's more closely fitting than the illustrations would suggest. Also, I don't have that kind of figure any more.

I love the print on this fabric; for some reason blue and white always does it for me.

And here's a gorgeous coat pattern that I'm in the process of making up.

So much fun.

Happy Hookers' crochet club

A Kapinny post

Every third Sunday of the month, if I have the time, I go to a meeting of crocheting cronies.

We sit on an assortment of old sofas, at an organic food market, and crochet.

Bernadette helps anyone who's in need of technical assistance.

She was wearing a rather lovely hand-knitted jacket, her own, natch.

I'm making a crocheted jumper in a fetching watermelon colour. I'm doing it in a wool and silk blend, a discontinued yarn, of course. I say of course, because once I started it, it became clear that I would run out before I was done.

I did a search, and fortunately, I think I may have found some more in a tiny store in another state. I'll just have to be thoughtful about where in the garment I place the mismatching dye lots.

By the way, here's my husband's jumper with the brand new collar line, on its recipient. He says it's quite comfortable now, and very warm.

Treasure Chest

A Kapinny post

My beloved Grandma will be 91 years old in August. She's very much alive and kicking, in fact she'll kick your Scrabble-playing arse any day you care to take her on.

 

This year, she sold her home and moved to the only actually cool retirement community I've ever heard of. This meant downsizing her formidably large collection of gorgeous STUFF.

And look what ended up in my clutches.

It's a beautiful chest full of crafting things ...

... fabrics, knitting needles, buttons, laces, ribbons and braids.

Fine, hot pink silk; natural linens; batik cotton. A tiny floral print (blue) that she made the dress of my favourite doll from, when I was little. She'd also made the doll, Amelia, whom I loved dearly.

Do you have any gorgeous 'inherited' things in your stash?

  

 

Knitting Conundrum

Not sure what to say to that introduction. Now you've all seen my cleavage, is there anything left to share?

Yesterday I finished - ta da! - the jumper I'm knitting my husband for last Christmas. Shut up. Here's the pattern. I've knitted it in the round, and grown on the sleeves (why sew seams?). I also had to reduce the number of stitches going around the body; my gauge was correct, but when I started knitting (the smallest size) it looked like it was going to be enormous.

It's knitted in 100% Alpaca from Bendigo Woollen Mills and feels very soft and beautiful. It's a nice colour, too.

So I finished it and he tried it on and promptly complained that the neck was too high. He's got a thing about feeling clothing pressing against his throat. (Maybe he was strangled by clothing in a former life. Maybe he was Isadora Duncan!)

I'd already lowered it from its original position, since two tiny triangular gussets at the sides of the neckline don't make much of a difference to a front neck that just goes straight across from the shoulder. But not enough, it seems.

So I unpicked the collar, and was then faced with unpicking the front. Not so simple. It's bound off together with the back at the shoulders, plus I knitted on the sleeves by picking up stitches along the armhole. So unpicking the front would involve cutting the sleeves off (and grafting them back on again later). Pooh to that, says I.

Lying in bed this morning, I pondered the problem. I have decided that I will cut straight down through the centre front neck about 3 1/2 cm, keeping the side triangular gussets in place, then unpick and bind off just the stitches that need to go, in a nice curve, and somehow weave in all the ends of rows at the edges of the neck line. Then I can pick up the stitches along the neck and knit the collar as normal.

Wish me luck.

Has anyone seen my...um...zipps?

Oy vey, what a week. Hot enough to consider the serious possibility of Armageddon; discovering what actually happens when the power grid fails (or is deliberately switched off); people dying from the heat; the inevitable haemorrhaging of Melbourne's neglected public transport system as trains fail, tracks buckle and trams collide; the state burning, as usual, because it's so BLOODY DRY; people losing it, completely, and tossing their kids off the Westgate Bridge....

Gotta make you wonder about the human race.

I kept quiet for most of it, so quiet that I didn't speak, lest I lose even more Vital Bodily Fluids. I sat perfectly still and took a bit fat trip down memory lane, scanning and archiving the family photos online, memories of the last 90 years. My eyes are completely square, but my name sits high on The Rellies' Christmas card lists, today.

Amongst the photos, cards, recipes, sticky notes and assorted other random pieces of memorabilia in the boxes was my year 10 report card from Shithole Secondary College. Now, I defy anyone to say that they wasted their time more definitively, more comprehensively, than I did by attending East Doncaster High School. It goes down, without peer, as one of the most stupid and pointless experiences of my life. And people wonder why I'm ambivalent about Formal Education...

I scored 'A's, mostly, not because I was a particularly good student, or even gave a shit, but because the bar was set so breathtakingly low. The school, caring only for it's image and reputation - but not a fig for it's culture of violence and racial intolerance - didn't hesitate to fudge what were, in fact, woeful academic standards. In truth, most of my teachers - I do not exaggerate - could not string together a coherent sentence, much less control and teach a class.

However, every so often, just as arbitrarily, I'd turn up an 'E' or an 'F'. I never did manage to fathom the logic behind the assessment process. My money's on raucous, late-night committee meetings, heavily lubricated and employing the oracular judgement of dice.

Anyway, here is one of my more memorable results. One last read.....

 

Before I liberate it, and it's pompous embecility,

on the Bonfire of Oblivion.

No Way!

Way.

 

 

Daring!

Beauty!

Finally.

I thought their time would never come.

    

Is it just me, or does Paris bear a spooky resemblance to Martha Stewart in the illustration?

Via Nic.

Some Clouds Have Woollen Linings

The Bad News?

My studio is not fitting together like I'd hoped. I may have to jettison a table.

   

Malabrigo Kettle-dyed Superwash Merino

Cascade - The Heathers - Peruvian Highland

 

If I do, I will be left with an alarmingly small amount of horizontal workspace.

I'm not happy about this. In fact, the prospect is freaking me out.

 

Lang Silkdream - merino/silk

 

The Good News?

In the studio boxes, I found a Christmas present from my Fairy Godmother. Unopened.

 

Debbie Bliss Donegal Tweed - wool/angora

 

Turns out she'd visited Yarntopia for me, the one on Amsterdam Ave, in NYC.

The darling.

The sight of all that exquisite yarn saved me from a Meltdown of such Transcontinental Proportions,

 

Cascade - The Heathers - Peruvian Highland

 

That in all likelihood, the Godmother herself would've heard it.

A Little Preliminary Crafting

Years of experience with Creative Geniuses should have taught me by now 

that when one starts driving you murderously bonkers, 

it usually means that they're about to do something constructive.

 

After which, they're generally very good-tempered.

Meanwhile, I wanted to show you this, because never again will it EVER be so tidy...

 

Makes me feel all Zen, it does.

Wish I could say the same for the studio, which is still COMPLETELY in boxes.

Moving: The Big Questions

 

Q:     How many craft books does a girl Really Need?

 

A:     After detailed examination, and ruthless culling,

 

Um........ about 10 boxes full.

The Mother of Invention

Inspired by a girl in the city wearing Interesting Sandshoes,

and constrained by a profound lack of available cash,

the Creative Genius was obliged to DIH.

The result, in my humble opinion,

is even more attractive than the shoes that inspired them.

Good to see someone crafting, around here.

I have post-bear burnout.

 

Though if something doesn't happen soon,

I may be obliged to papier mache us a house to live in.