Painted Circles Pensée Dress

August 20, 2020 Becca

Hello Internet Friends!

Today I have a special treat of a make! My lovely Painted Circles Pensée Dress by Deer and Doe! If you’ve been following my Instagram you’ll have seen this dress on my lovely dress form, Zadie, way back in May. I had hopped for some good weather to finally wear it out but alas, due to a Vancouver ‘June-uary’ (when it’s June but it really feels like January because it’s so rainy) and a general covid lack of social events I never got a chance/excuse to wear it until recently.

Plantain Tee Vs. Union St. Tee

April 22, 2020 Becca

Hello Internet Friends!

If you’ve been lurking my instagram you’ll know that a few weeks ago I received a luscious stack of cotton knits from Blackbird Fabrics and I asked for some T-shirt pattern suggestions. My go to pattern for T-shirts the last few years has been the trusty (and ever free!) Plantain tee from Deer and Doe, it’s a very simple T-shirt design with some simple waist shaping that always seems to do the trick! This time around I decided that I wanted to branch out a bit from my go to and see if there were any other patterns that I would also love. I had previously tried the lark tee a few times but ran into issue of it really bunching at the hips and being overly too long, so rather than try to adjust that pattern I asked #SewistsOfInstagram if they had any suggestions. As usual the online sewing community was super helpful and pointed me in the direction of the Union St Tee by Hey June Handmade, which I ultimately decided to purchase and use! I like the fact that it has several neckline options and that the fit was more of a classic tee with minimal shaping made it an attractive option. Sidebar: I didn’t realize I had worn my fluffy slippers for all the photos until after they were all done, but I think it adds to the ‘work from home vibe!’

Floral Sirocco Romper

March 18, 2020 Becca

Hello internet friends!

Today is part two of my Bali trip makes, ironically enough yet another jumpsuit (here’s the link to my Linen Zadie Jumpsuit!)! Well this is more of a romper technically but you get the idea! I wanted to make something that I could wear to and from my surf lessons as well as to pop on post pool sessions for meals.

My 2017 Christmas Outfit

December 24, 2017 Becca

HAPPY HOLIDAYS INTERNET FRIENDS! :D

I hope that you are all snugly and warm this holiday season with your friends/family :) I thought I would sneak this holiday themed outfit into your blog feeds right in time for Christmas Eve, a perfect blog post to read while sipping some hot chocolate (with Bailey's optional but highly recommended!)

Today I'm sharing with you my Christmas outfit, a festive Galloway sweater and matching large plaid Arum dress. Let's start with the Galloway shall we?

I was smitten with this pattern the moment it came out in the latest wool people and I knew that it was going to be my Christmas sweater this year. I have never done such an ambitious colour work project before (or any pattern with a steek!) so I was a bit hesitant but it's soooo pretty that I had to try this pattern out. Even though I knew I wanted this cardigan for Christmas I was still a little stumped for colour choices, I wanted to do justice to incredible colour work. Luckily for me Jared included several colour suggestions which made life much easier for a newbie to colour work :D I was lucky enough to snag some Brooklyn Tweed Shelter from Beehive Wool Shop during Knit City this year (they brought over a huge tote bag of yarn for me from Victoria!). The colours I used were Storm Cloud for the main body colour (7 skeins) , Cinnabar (1 skein), Fossil (1 skein), and Long Johns (1 skein). I even had enough of the storm cloud and fossil colour ways left over to make myself a pixel hat with a massive faux fur pompom which you can see in the images below :D

I knit size 38 and shortened the torso by about an 1". I did this by removing one full ten row repeat of the body lice pattern and redistributing the decreases evenly across the remaining repeats. Overall I think this cardigan fits really well size wise, the knitted fabric with shelter has a nice drape, stiff enough to hang nicely open but not so stiff as to not have any movement. It's a very cozy, relaxed cardigan, perfect for siting around a fire with friends or family or wearing under a warm jacket to go the Christmas market or skating :) The only thing that I think I would change, if I could, in a future one would be to narrow the sleeves a smidgen, they are bit baggy on me. However I have no idea where you would even begin with the math to make that a possibility! I even had enough of the storm cloud and fossil colour ways to make myself a pixel hat with a massive faux fur pompom which you can see in the images below :D

If you've been on my Instagram you'll know that I actually knit the yoke of this cardigan twice! I inadvertently cast off the wrong number of stitches for the underarm which resulted in my counts being completely off for the entire yoke and I didn't notice until I was almost done :( (this is what happens when you knit while watching season 2 of stranger things!) But I'm really glad that I took the time to unpick everything and re-knit it because the end result is fabulous. It also meant that I go really good at colour knitting, I was even able to teach myself how to hold strands of yarn in each hand and knit continental style! There were a few puckers here and there, mostly where stitches were slipped from rows below in order to avoid three stranded knitting, but these all blocked out making a nice smooth fabric :D

I'm still drooling over this colour work

I hadn't knit with shelter until now, but as with all of the Brooklyn Tweed yarns it was a dream to knit with and the resulting fabric feels amazing to wear, warm but not bulky and not heavy, and I adore seeing the little flecks of colour that make up each colour way in the yarn. I haven't included pictures of me cutting the steek because no one needs knitting induced anxiety on Christmas Eve but suffice to say that it was a nerve racking experience :S but also kind of exciting because it meant I was super close to wearing the finished cardigan! To fit with the Christmas colours, I finished the seek with some velvet red ribbon which you can kind of see peeking in some of the above photos. I'm now offically a steek knitting/cutting master!

Moving along to my Aurm dress! I got this fabric last year from Caroline at BlackBird fabrics during a pop up shop she had in Vancouver. I actually sewed this dress last year but never got around to posting about it, even though I've worn it a bunch! It works for both formal and informal functions and it's super comfy!

The Aurm dress is a simple, shift dress pattern with flattering back shaping which helps avoid any of the lower back pooling of fabric some shift dresses have. I love the over sized plaid print of this fabric, and I think it goes really well with the simple lines of the Arum dress. Due to the large print, however, I did have to be cognizant of the pattern placement when I was cutting out the dress. I wanted to match up the lines of the plaid as much as possible to ensure consistency, and in the end I think I did a pretty good job! :D I cut a straight size 40, with the only alterations being my usual short person adjustment of about 2.5", and everything fits great! I may make the sleeves a smidgen looser in future makes since there are a bit tight on my biceps (I've been working out yo!) but other than that this is definitely a simple dress pattern that I will be turning back to time and again.

That's it for this post! I hope to have one more blog post for your guys before 2017 is done! I hope that you guys are having an amazing holiday season!

Much love friends!

-Becca & the fluffy blond monster