My Knitted Empire

super fast sewing

myknittedempire — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 05:30:51 +0000

A few weeks ago my little boy needed some more long-sleeved shirts, and the winter stock hadn’t hit the shelves yet, so I needed to get out the sewing machine and run some up. As you all know I’m not one to take anymore time than is absolutely necessary for anything… so.

A few years ago I had an argument with Jason about the premise that you could make a shirt by just tracing around someone and then sewing it up. He was sure you could and I was sure you couldn’t (I was sure you needed things like ease and darts). Well long story short, one prototype shirt later, I was proved wrong! as long as its stretch/knitted fabric and enough extra space is left around the person then it works. It’s not elegant but it works and we called it the ‘I was right shirt’.

I remembered this fact when i wanted to sew the shirts for my little boy.

Heres what I did:

1. laid out the fabric (with the stretch going across the body of the shirt)

2. traced around a current shirt

3. allowed about 2 inches extra all round ( you need to allow plenty of extra in the sleeves, as the stretch isn’t going in the optimal direction)

4. cut it out

5. overlocked around it

6. overlocked round the bottom

7. cut a head hole and overlocked round it

8. repeat with second lot of fabric

two tops in less than 45 minutes, pretty good?

wrap me up

myknittedempire — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:01:58 +0000

I finally bit the bullet and unravelled the cropped hoodie that I haven’t worn much since I made it. I have this bad habit of knitting things I like, rather than things that will look good on my ‘large frame’.

Since it has been unravelled it has had several incarnations. I really wanted to reuse the noro and I wanted to make something for myself.

First I tried the cross stitch scarf from 101 designer one skein wonders, but in order to retain the black the fabric was just too firm for what I wanted, I suppose I could have gone up a few needle sizes but decided that I would be too cumbersome to work with considering the stitch maneuver.
I then thought it would be good to knit a Moebius for myself, why oh why did I do this?

as has happened to me once before, as i cast off my Moebius, my hard disk crashed!!! how does this happen? two Moebius’ and two hard disk failures!!! hmmm

After all this saga and saga it was, as my other blog is on iweb and guess what if it’s not backed up you have to start from scratch! there is no get it back from the web. sigh! many, many hours lost.

I decided just to knit it up as a straight knit on large needles but its sooooo boring to look at now, so I’m going to try one last time and try the cross stitch pattern again on the biggest needles I’ve got. will let you know how that gets on.

socks….

myknittedempire — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:26:42 +0000

here i go again….

I picked up the sock I cast on for mum in april 2008!

I tried knitting them september 2008 to no avail.

I got this project out again while I was waiting for some yarn for a cardigan for myself (thank you so much happy spider: happyspider6.blogspot.com) , and discovered the cast on I had done for the toes was completely different!

so the horrible tragedy of it all, I had to rip out 2 inches of sock. oh the horrible tragedy!!!

so then I built a bridge and got over it.

cast the toe back on and have almost got the foot section done for both of them. more progress than I’ve made since I cast them on.

Not knitting

myknittedempire — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:52:39 +0000

So with this breast feeding caper I have discovered a need for cardigans rather than jumpers in my wardrobe, so ever the ingenious one I decided to make one of my jumpers into a cardigan. This was a commercial cardigan knitted with a heavy cotton. i measured up the front, pinned some interfacing to it ran three lines of stitching into it with my sewing machine and then took a deep breath and cut. I had binding to finish the edge but i am very happy with the ragged edge I think it gives it some interest.

Trying again

myknittedempire — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 05:49:18 +0000

I bought this lovely pattern from Cheezombie on Etsy. I think that he looks like Nigel from Creature comforts.

It was a well written pattern and he worked up nice and easy, it feels great to do a little knitting again. Hugo my little boy just loves him, he has the added benefit of being able to poke him in the eyes while he chews on his lips…

Not Blogfade…. Pregnant

myknittedempire — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:10:01 +0000

I gotta say the thing no one told me about with being pregnant is the completely overwhelming exhaustion.

I don’t have the energy to do much anything, let alone knit.

Thus I am signing off for the time being.

The baby is due in early December so maybe next year 2009 I will be knitting again?

Thanks to those who read my blog, I will be back soon I promise.

sewing

myknittedempire — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 02:13:04 +0000

I found these neat instructions for turning regular jeans into maternity jeans. I don’t know about the 30 minutes of sewing it as more like 2 hours for me! The finished result is very good, although i have a bit of a problems with the jeans riding down a bit, but i can put up with this for what is essentially a pair of maternity jeans for free!

http://patchworkprincess.blogspot.com/2006/02/how-to-tuesday-maternity-jeans.html

this is not her current blog but she links to the new blog from this one.

UFOlympics DNF

myknittedempire — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 06:49:55 +0000

So I was a DNF in my own personal UFOlympics.

As I said before I knitted a pair of baby socks and a scarf for my mum, had i not done that i might have been more successful.

I finished the Zodiac grow bag, by putting on the press studs along the bottom (instead of a zip) and sewing buttons on at the top. I did a pretty bad job of knitting this item as the cotton shows the few places i had a brain fart and twisted a stitch or did a bad decrease, but I suspect the baby wont notice! I love the yellow buttons they are so cheerful and came from my grandma’s button collection. I did dint the floor with my hammering on of the press studs (it might be best not to mention that to DH…)

I sewed the handles on to my everlasting bag stopper. I used it on the weekend and I am super pleased with the bag, I should have finished it sooner!

I finished the knitting and sewed up the all in one baby jacket from my LYS’s pattern. I used another of my Grandma’s Buttons to finish it and I am very happy with the result, it is a shame my baby will probably be too big to wear this jacket next winter.

My DNF item was the socks for my mum. I did however, find the pattern I was using and had separated from the item, and I managed to do about 2 inches on the foot, so that is better than nothing. I am going to try and have these done before mum gets back from overseas in 7 weeks.

time is short

myknittedempire — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:40:16 +0000

oh dear, why did i not realise the Olympics were so short…..

don’t like my chances on the UFO’s i have finished the knitting on one item, but i have to do the finishing on three…

attack of the USO’s

myknittedempire — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 05:08:17 +0000

my Darling Husband put it nicely: “you seem to have been doing USO’s not UFO’s” A USO is apparently an un-started object, something I have the yarn for but have not yet started.

I thought that it was aptly put.

I have a small plan to finish 4 UFO’s for the UFO Olympics and what do I do?? I start a scarf for my mum and a pair of baby socks for my impending baby…..

oh dear.