Two for One

Two more FOs today, one of which you've never even seen!

First off, here's the "real" maxi dress:

I've mentioned that this fabric is pretty thin; if you look, you can see that I'm wearing a full slip underneath for modesty's sake.  I'm still not sure what to do about the bra strap situation with this dress.  When I wore my blue one, I did wear a racer-back bra which didn't show in the back, but was visible at the front neck.  Here I'm wearing a plain old bra, which isn't visible at the front but can be seen, along with the slip's straps, at the back.  I know people do this all the time and it's not too shocking, but it kind of bugs me!

Interestingly, I had a hard time figuring out how to accessorize this dress.  In the end, I went with bronze metallic sandals, gold earrings and necklace, a bronze beaded bracelet I made years ago, and this olive green shrug I knit years ago.  I really like this shrug:  I made this pattern 3 times!  This one is pre-Ravelry, but here's a link for a brown one I made.  And here's a picture of my bracelet, which I don't wear nearly enough:

And here's FO #2:  I finished my Adrift cardigan a couple weeks ago.  Since I've made this one before, and since this is supposed to be my "winter" version, it felt kind of anti-climatic.  I just took one picture of it yesterday, so you can see how gorgeous the color is, but if you want to see many different ways in which it can be worn, see this post.

And last but not least, today is the last day of my Seamless Pledge.  I haven't written about it since I made the commitment on Jan. 1 to refrain for 6 months from buying any new clothing or shoes, because it's pretty much been a non-event!  I wasn't sure I could do it, clothes horse that I am, but I was able to complete the six months relatively painlessly!  So as of today, I'm committing to another 6 months of Seamlessness, to make it a full year!

Making some headway

. . . on my knitting list.  But I think I won't be able to finish all the December items before it's time to start Spring Knitting!  Although now that I live in Chicago, I have about an extra month of winter knitting.  In St. Louis, I always used to start Spring Knitting on Feb. 1 - here it's more like March 1.  And now that sewing is back in the mix, who knows how things will go this year?

Anyway, I began 2012 with another little piece for my favorite boy - some socks for Hubby:

Hubby loves handknit socks in the winter, but ONLY if they're made from yarn that has lycra in it.  This is some Paton's Stretch Socks I picked up at Michael's on sale in the fall.  These are going to replace the other grey socks I made him years ago that don't have stretch.

I quickly realized that I wasn't going to be able to be monogamous to one knitting project, even socks (which only take me about 8 hours in total), so I also started my Still Light dress.  But I'm calling mine Northern Lights, because of the colors:

This is DROPS Alpaca in a color called Dark Petrol Mix - the perfect name for it.  It's a dark blue-teal, with bits of turquoise and magenta.  The above picture was taken in bright sunlight, up close.  Most of the time it looks like this:

I chose this color because I think it will look great with the cognac colored boots I bought a couple years ago and hardly ever wear (can you say Seamless?).  But unfortunately, it's one of those colors that requires a fair amount of light to knit, which has limited my work time on this piece. Still, I've managed to get it to the point of removing the sleeve stitches - I was up to 368 stitches on the needle at that point!

Before I started, I did a fair amount of research on Ravelry about sizing.  I fall between the XS and S size, so I decided to do as others have done and increase to a number halfway between the two.  Not quite sure what I'll do when I get to the hip area, where I could really use the extra room of the size small.  I haven't read ahead in the pattern yet!  Fingers crossed!

Next Up

While you all were distracted by temari balls, I was quietly working away on the next item on my sewing list, Hubby's long-sleeved guitar shirt.  I spent a good while yesterday working on it, and got quite a bit done; all that remains is to do the collar, buttonholes and buttons:

Checkout that ray of sunshine!
It's 53 degrees in Chicago today!

I've been keeping track of the steps I do on the sewing list page.  I traced the pattern on Sunday, cut the fabric on Tuesday, and made and attached the pocket on Wednesday.  The pocket was a little tricky; although the pattern repeat looks uniform, it's really a little random, so I wasn't able to match it up exactly:

Hubby has short arms, so I did my first sleeve shortening.  I wasn't very scientific about it though, in that I didn't measure his arms or the pattern piece.  I just shortened them by a half inch, and I think it will be enough.

The sleeves went in differently from what I'm used to.  On all the blouses I've made for myself, the sleeves have been set in, using easing stitches at the sleeve head. This one didn't use any gathering for easing, and the sleeve head is sewn to the armscye first, and then the entire underarm and side seam is done in one go.   To help keep things lined up and neat, I hand-basted the sleeves in before machine stitching, and I'm very pleased with the result:

This pattern is McCall's 6044.  I think it's pretty similar in style to the Colette Negroni shirt.  I made Hubby some short-sleeved shirts about 12 years ago with a different pattern which had a more relaxed fit; this one is slightly shaped on the sides - a more modern look, I think.

I've been working slowly and carefully on this shirt, and so far I'm really pleased with the results.  I've been feeling that I've turned a corner a little bit with my sewing, at least in terms of attitude.  Looking at all the things I made in 2011 for my sewing round-up made me think about each of them, and I realized that the pieces I love most are the ones I really spent a lot of care and attention on.  I've been thinking that this year my goal is to have the attitude that I want each piece I make to be the best thing I ever made, at least in its workmanship.  I want to focus on quality, rather than quantity.  The feeling of finishing something is great, but that can be deflated a little bit if the quality is not up to snuff.

This ties in with my Seamless Pledge too.  I've always loved good quality, well-made clothes, but I've felt for the last couple of years that the quality of workmanship in the things I've bought from some of my favorite stores has declined.  I'm feeling less and less willing to shell out money for something that I could make a better version of myself.  So - there you have it:  my two cents!

I've been doing knitting this week too.  I started two new items from my knitting list.  Can you guess which?  I'll be back with those tomorrow!

Entering 2012 Seamlessly

I've been thinking about this for quite a while, and I'm going to take the leap . . .

I, Gail of Today's Agenda, am taking the Seamless Pledge until June 30, 2012.

For this six month period, I will refrain from buying

any new clothing or shoes 

and instead turn my attention to using what I already own.

My reasons for doing this are the same as a lot of the participants:  Because I have closets full of clothes and shoes, and "nothing to wear."  Because I dislike feeling that I'm swayed by marketing.  Because I would like to be more thoughtful and less impulsive in my purchases.  Because I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with excess and consumerism.  Because I'm beginning to prefer my hand-made items and want to focus on creating garments of quality.

So, we'll see how this goes.  What I know about myself is that I generally lose interest in doing something as soon as I've stated an intention to do it!  But I think this could be a really worthwhile experiment, so I'm going to do my best to stick with it.

If you're interested in doing this too or learning more about it, you can read the original statement on the Seamless blog.  Andrea at Stitch Parade also wrote a very lovely post about it a month or so ago, which is where I found out about it.


Happy New Year!