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I bought Knitter's Handbook by Montse Stanley, and it is great! I started that cotton cardigan I wrote about a few weeks ago, and used the book to make a hem at the bottom. I made a provisional cast-on, which means a cast on in another yarn, that's meant to be pulled out. Then when the length of the hem had been knitted, I pulled out the provisional cast-on, put the loops at the end on another needle, and knitted both ends together. It felt weird at first to knit with three needles, but I got used to it. And voila, a neat, seamless hem!

The pattern said to just fold the hem over and sew it up after finishing the sweater. I don't mind sewing on a knitting project when it's the best approach, but the instructions in the book to knit it up seamlessly were so much tidier. I even marked the fold by slipping every other stitch in one row, instead of purling a row as the pattern said, so the fold wouldn't have a ridge. This is my favorite kind of finish for the bottom of a sweater, and I'm thrilled to have figured out how to do it so nicely. Maybe this is old hat to experienced knitters, but I felt like a knitting superstar!

I'm sorry to bore the people who don't knit again, but I'm in the thick of this project so it's kind of on my mind. Besides, it's not like knitting is the only limited-audience topic I ever write about. My blog has something to bore everyone at one time or another. (or maybe all the time!)

Thanks to Raynor Grace and Bummble, I have online advice on an alternate cast off method, which I think will work much better for me. Unfortunately I didn't get that far last night for two reasons: first, I had to work. Bummer eh? What can you do, we had an idea late in the day which would resolve a problem for a tense meeting first thing this morning.

Aside from that, I wouldn't have gotten to the casting off anyway because I got stuck on the buttonholes. The pattern calls for making buttonholes by casting off four stitches, then on the next row casting them back on. This makes a buttonhole which is parallel to the edge. Which you would rarely do in sewing. A buttonhole like that would gap and be unstable. In a sewn garment you would always make the buttonhole perpendicular to the edge, so the button pulls against the corner of the buttonhole and it doesn't gap. I also like to make keyhole buttonholes for added stability on that outer edge.

I looked online for knitted buttonhole variations, and all of them were parallel to the edge like my pattern. Maybe this is just the way it's done in knitting. But I'm having a hard time forcing myself to make a buttonhole like that. Especially such a large one. It just looks like it's going to gap open and the buttons are going to pop right out.

It seems to me that it would be easy to make a buttonhole perpendicular to the edge. Just knit the area in between two buttonholes for as many rows as you need, leaving all the other stitches on holders. Do that for all the buttonholes, and then join them all together at the top. You'd end up with a slit in the fabric for each buttonhole. Does that explanation make any sense? Is there a reason I don't want to do that?

I think I'm going to try it tonight and see how it turns out. I'll only have to pull out a couple of rows.

One more knitting question: Once a circular needle is removed from its packaging, how do I figure out what size it is? There doesn't seem to be a marking anywhere on the needle.

So I'm finishing up a sweater. Not the one I wrote about last week; this is the striped cardigan I started back when I had surgery. And I feel like I need to finish it before starting on another.

I've never made a sweater before, just simple hats and scarves, so I used super cheap yarn in garish colors. That way, if I mess it up, I don't feel like I wasted a lot of money. Just time. Of which I have so much to spare! (that was sarcastic.) In fact, I did not mess it up and it wasn't a waste of time. On the contrary, it seems to be turning out well! I like the way it fits in the body. The sleeves are big though. Not too big to wear, but if I make this pattern again I'll do the sleeves at least an inch narrower, and a bit shorter too.

Over the weekend I had to learn a couple of new techniques: sewing pieces together and picking up stitches to make the ribbing on the edge. Both of which went well. I was worried about matching the stripes when I sewed the pieces together, but it turned out to be easy. Easier in fact than sewing striped fabric. Because when you (or more to the point, when I) sew on a machine, the top fabric always shifts a bit. Not enough to mess up the seam, but enough to throw off the stripes. But since I hand-sewed the sweater, I could match up all the stripes as I went. In a way it made it easier to make sure I was sewing the pieces together evenly.

My next concern is casting off. For some reason, when I cast off the finished edge always ends up loose and messy looking. I don't want the whole front edge of my cardigan to have that messy edge. Am I doing something wrong, or is casting off just like that? Are there multiple ways to cast off, and how do I find instructions for a neater method? The only thing I could think of was to switch to smaller knitting needles for the cast off. I wonder if that would work. I'll be ready to cast off the sweater soon -- maybe tonight! -- so I hope I figure this out.

I like knitting, but I have the proverbial "beer budget and champagne taste" when it comes to yarn. In other words, I can't stomach the prices at good yarn stores, and I can't stand the horrible plasticky feel of most yarns at the big craft stores.

I've been meaning to ask the experienced knitters I know how to find decent yarn at a non-obscene price. Meanwhile, I was running errands yesterday, made a quick stop at Michael's, and discovered that they now carry a cotton blend yarn that doesn't cost a lot, feels nice and comes in colors I like. Jackpot!

I want to make a light cotton cardigan for my office, which vaccilates between really cold (when the a/c is running) and a bit warm (when it's not). Something I can throw over my shoulders when the a/c kicks on, and then easily pull off when it warms up. Spent a little time browsing patterns last night and came up with these two:

Any opinions? I like the style of the Mandarin collar one better, but it would be more complicated for two reasons: first, I want long sleeves, or at least 3/4 length, and the pattern is short sleeves. Second, the gauge is off so I'd have to recalculate everything. The blue one isn't as stylish, but the gauge is exactly right so it would be easier to do.

On a closer look, I also see that the Mandarin collar one is gapping over the model's bust, and she's not that busty, so that would be more of a problem for me. Maybe I should make the blue one, and wait until I know what I'm doing before trying a pattern that needs so much adjustment.

Y'all are probably as tired of reading my complaints as I am of making them. So how about a more cheerful post.

The sewing went much better today. Thanks largely to Mod_complex' suggestion of using my teflon presser foot on the lace. Actually she suggested a rolling presser foot, which I don't have, but I do have a teflon presser foot, and that helped a lot. No more of the lace getting stuck or catching in the machine.

And while I'm looking on the bright side, the lack of stability in the lace, which was so crazy-making last night, made for the easiest easing of sleeves I've ever done. Seriously, it was great.

(If you have no idea what "easing of sleeves" means, and you care, go look at the shoulder seam of a woven shirt or jacket. The seam probably isn't totally flat; the sleeve probably stands up a little bit. That's because a set-in sleeve is bigger than the armhole it goes into. It has to be "eased": first the sleeve is gathered, and then sewn carefully so that none of the gathers get sewn into the seam. It's hard to describe it if you can't see it. But you end up with a smooth seam if you do it right, and a sleeve that puffs gently out from the armhole. If you mess up, you end up with little puckers or creases in the sleeve at the edge of the seam. I confess that I find sleeves challenging, and do mess them up more often than I'd like. So it was a relief to find it so easy with this lace.)

I got way more done tonight than I had expected. The bodice is entirely put together. Tomorrow I'll do the skirt, and then the lining on Wednesday. Then Thursday I can relax and hem while watching TV. It looks like I'm not going to end up in a crazy rush to finish sewing, like I usually do.

Best of all, a scheduling conflict later in the week that has been causing me major stress resolved itself all on its own. Talk about the bright side.

I ought to be in bed now, and an hour ago I was pretty tired. Then I had the brilliant idea to eat some coffee ice cream. I didn't have much, but man, I feel a little jittery. It didn't even have sugar in it.

So I'm too wired up to sleep, but not focused enough to work on my new sewing project, so I'll talk about it instead. It's a bag for carrying my camera. I've been looking all over for a good camera bag, but the only bags I can find are horribly unstylish. I've been using a Cafe Press messenger bag with some foam inside, which isn't at all safe. The foam slides around in there and I'm always afraid my camera is going to get banged up. The Cafe Press bag is also lacking in the pocket department. There's only one huge front pocket where you have to keep everything, and my keys are always getting lost in the bottom.

I found a messenger bag pattern with lots of pockets that will work I think. Also found some cool upholstery fabric on sale. Because I can't do anything the easy way, I decided to add piping. That's what the light green fabric is for. Also got some heavy-duty interfacing to give the bag stability. (the pattern doesn't call for any interfacing at all! ugh, the bag would get all crumpled up!) I'm going to use fleece to pad it but I didn't need to buy the fleece. I have tons of it lying around. For the lining I'm using a raincoat fabric I bought on super-cheap sale last year. It's hideous but waterproof, which is a good thing for a camera bag. I think I'm going to use another layer of the main fabric to line all the visible parts, and keep the ugly raincoat fabric hidden in between layers.

I'm a little concerned about how many thick layers there will be in this thing. There's the 2 layers of main fabric, the waterproof lining, the fleece and the piping. (I trimmed the interfacing to just inside the seamline, so it won't add to the bulk that has to go through the machine. I guess I'll just baste it to one of the lining layers.) There's also the strap, which will be that nylon web stuff and will have to be sewn in. I've never worked with that before. The pattern called for a strap made of the same fabric as the rest of the bag. But I think the nylon web will be more comfortable, more durable and look better too. I better make sure I have upholstery thread, & I might have to get a sturdier needle too.

All I've done so far is cut all the fabric and interfacing. Since everything is lined I probably don't need to zigzag all the edges, but if the fabric frays a lot I probably will anyway. I'll post an update when I start sewing.

I have tons of yard work to do, so I spent the whole weekend sewing instead. The change of seasons is a good time for new clothes, and having finished the halloween costume two weeks ago makes it a good time to start a new project.

Friday was the fun part: pulling out my pattern and fabric collections and deciding what to make. It's so nice to have a stash of raw materials and not needing to go to the fabric store everytime I want to make something. It's like having a free fabric store at home! Well not free of course, since it's already paid for, but it feels free. Those of y'all who do crafty things know what I mean.

I picked out a coat and two dresses, and started on the coat first because I've been feeling the lack of a warm coat the past few days. It's a cute little A-line, high waisted coat with a standing collar. I'm using a really funky blue and white fabric I picked up last year, with a nice soft flannel lining. I'd also like to make a fleece shell lining that could snap in for extra cold weather, but the "home fabric store" didn't have any fleece that worked so I'll have to buy that. Hey, JoAnn's is having a sale on fleece!

The only problem with buying fabric in advance is that you never know how much you're going to need. I almost didn't have enough of the blue and white fabric. With some careful rearranging I was able to fit everything, but I couldn't even try to match the pattern. I'll see how it turns out! It's an irregular pattern so it shouldn't be too bad.

Laundering and cutting the fabric took all day yesterday. Well actually I spent several hours cooking a nice big pot of chili for dinner, and the fabric took the rest of the day. I had a scare this morning with my sewing machine jamming up, and thought for a while I was going to have to take it in for repair tomorrow, but thanks to the internets I figured it out. Word to the wise: if you get a giant tangle of thread underneath that jams up the bobbin, the problem is actually with the top thread. It turned out there was a bit of crud stuck between the tension discs, holding them open and making the thread behave as if the tension was set to 0.

Spent a long time this afternoon practicing buttonholes, and it looks like bound buttonholes aren't going to work with this project. I don't know if's the fabric, or if I was just being clumsy, but all my practice buttonholes came out awful. Ugh. I hate to do plain old machine buttonholes on my special coat, but at least they'll be neat and even. I might try the bound buttonholes again in a few days when I'm in better spirits and see if I do a better job of it.

Anyway, I'll post photos when I get a little further along. I can't wait to wear my new coat!

(Not my real hair. Or my real waist.) I think the Scarlett O'Hara costume turned out well! As corsets tend to do, it completely changes the shape of my torso, and also makes my hips look enormous. The baggy drawers don't help with that either.

Georg helped me tighten it, which we did in three stages: put it on snug, waited about a half hour and then tightened it as much as possible, then waited another half hour and tightened it again. If you put it on and immediately try to tightlace, you are in for a world of pain. But doing it gradually like that lets you get used to it. I could still breathe comfortably, though not too deeply. (I have deep admiration for women who could ride a horse or do physical work while wearing one of those things!) It did make my back hurt a bit, and finding a comfortable seat was a challenge. Still, I wore it for about 5 hours before it started to feel seriously uncomfortable.

Did I ever write up the completion of the sewing? I don't think I did. Well, I finished the corset. Everything went smoothly at the end, except for the 1/2" bones at the back. They have you use wider bones at the back edges because there's so much pressure on the grommets. I was going to use the white steel bones from my old corset, just so I wouldn't have to deal with cutting and tipping. But the white steel bones were made for a Victorian corset, so they were too long.

Did I mention that Civil War corsets are smaller than Victorian corsets? Victorian corsets cover more of the bust and curve over the abdomen. Civil War corsets typically don't provide much bust support, I've heard complaints about that, but I'm so short that it worked out perfectly for me.

Anyway. The white steel bones were too long for the new corset. Lucky for me the corset supply store had mistakenly shipped me 1/2" boning, otherwise I wouldn't have had any. It turned out to be more difficult to cut than the 1/4". The bolt cutters didn't work at all; instead I had to use the wire cutters on each wire individually. The problem was working the wires loose without distorting the shape so much that the tip wouldn't fit. I did get both pieces cut and tipped eventually.

After that the only thing left was to sew the edging on the top and bottom. It was supposed to have lace on the top, but I skipped that because I wanted a simpler look. Really I should have reinforced the ends of the bone casings. I thought about cutting little strips of the canvas and slipping them into the bone casings, but I decided that it was okay to skip this for a costume that would only get infrequent wear.

The chemise and bloomers came together pretty well, although they took longer than I had expected. (Isn't that always the way?) The fabric was already cut, but I did all the sewing on Friday. Started work at 9 am and finished at 4 am. I did take a couple of breaks, to drive to the store and to eat dinner, so I figure that was about 16-17 hours of work probably. That was even with skipping some of the fine detail work that wouldn't show. All the seams were supposed to be flat-felled and there were supposed to be facings inside to cover the underarm seams. I think that was to protect the skin from raw seam edges while the corset was on. I skipped it because the fabric was so soft.

I did make one major goof with the drawers: the pattern had to be shortened, but it had been so long since I'd made a pair of pants that I'd forgotten how to alter them. I tried to alter them the way I would a dress, and ended up cutting off way too much above the waist. Basically I turned them into low-rise drawers, the waist ended up very low on the hips. It looked ridiculous but thank goodness it was covered by the corset.

The other weird thing about the drawers, which I didn't realize at first, is that they are totally open between the legs and over the backside. This is, of course, so the wearer can go to the bathroom without having to completely undress. (It's also, I have heard, the reason why the can-can was so scandalous.) Obviously this wouldn't do for a halloween costume. I thought about just sewing the legs together, but decided that the ability to go to the bathroom would be a good thing. So I added snaps. Very authentic. It didn't even work anyway, because I had normal underwear on under the drawers, so I still couldn't go to the bathroom in the corset. Oh well, it was a good idea. I should have put snaps in the underwear too. I'm going to stop talking about underwear now.

OK, after the grommet problem was resolved next up was the boning and bone casings. I already wrote about making the bone casings, and sewing them in place was fairly easy. Just place the bone casing centered over a seam, then sew it down on both sides, close to the edge. I did have to go slow to make sure the stitching was nice and even on both sides. Not only for neatness, but also if the seam drifted too far in, there wouldn't be enough room inside the casing for the boning.

The photo shows one half of the corset with the bone casings all sewn on. If I do say so, the two colors look pretty nice together. Even with interfacing these bone casings are a bit on the light side. I'd be worried about the boning popping out if it were going to get any heavy duty use, but it's just for a costume so I think it will be OK.

Next was the boning. There are two kinds of boning used in corsetry: white steel and spiral steel. White steel is a strip of steel that has a white coating, so it won't scratch I guess. It comes in various lengths, and you just buy the lengths you need. Spiral steel is made of tiny coils of steel wire, with a metal tip on each end to prevent scratching. I thought the tip was to prevent unraveling, but actually the coils are crimped together pretty well and don't unwind. It also comes in precut lengths, or you can buy a 10 yard length and tip it yourself.

(There's also plastic boning, which I think is used in clothing where lighter support is appropriate, like prom dresses. But plastic wouldn't hold up in a corset, everyone uses steel.)

I already had a bunch of white steel from my old corset, which I originally planned to reuse. But then I read that the advantage of spiral steel is its flexibility. White steel, being a flat strip of metal, only bends one way, while spiral steel bends in all directions. Apparently if you're trying to create a nice hourglass figure with your corset, spiral steel is the way to go. Also it's easier to move while wearing the corset if it has spiral steel. Which is a good thing!

So I ordered spiral steel. For cost reasons I bought the 10 yard length instead of precut. Most of the boning in a typical corset is 1/4" wide, but I lucked out and also got 10 yards of 1/2" wide because they sent me the wrong thing. They let me keep the half-inch and sent another roll of the quarter inch. The delay of a few days was no big deal, so it worked out great for me.

Cutting and tipping spiral steel requires a lot of tools. The corset supply company sells a very expensive boning cutter, which I did not buy because I already had a bolt cutter. In fact I had a funny exchange with Lisa when she was here helping me tear down the paneling in the bedroom: I was looking for the extra pry bar, and didn't find it, but did yell out "Hey, I found the bolt cutters! I need those for my corset!"

Unfortunately the bolt cutters didn't slice right through the boning like I thought they would. It was more like wiggling the boning back and forth against the bolt cutters to snap the individual wires. Sometimes I also needed a pair of wire cutters to finish them off.

Once the boning was cut, getting the tips on was a bit trickier. If you squash them flat with pliers, the sides splay out. But if you pinch the sides, the top and bottom puff out. The only way I found to do it was to use two sets of pliers at once: wide ones on the sides, and then needle nosed on the top and bottom. Alas, I did not get a photo. It was hard enough just to do it, I didn't want to fool around with making Georg take a photo too.

The boning fit into the casings just right. A bit snug, but they went in there so all is well. And with that, the corset is almost done! All I have left to do is finish the top and bottom edges. Then the chemise and bloomers have to be made, but those will be easy. Actually the corset was easier than I expected. It was time consuming and tedious, but there weren't any tricky seams or anything. I've made dresses that were more difficult.

Well I was working on the art gallery site redesign tonight, but frankly the presidential debate was so depressing I couldn't concentrate on my work. I'm filled with a sense of dread and creeping panic about the election. Why did I even watch that stupid debate? Damn sense of civic duty.

Now the debate is over and we're watching tonight's Survivor. Ahh, much easier on my mental state. Armchair analyzing the strategies of a bunch of losers on an island is so much more fun than analyzing the strategies of our evil overlord and his would-be successor. I'm so cheered up that I can finally write up the progresss on my corset.

Okay, the first thing I did was replace the piece I had done backwards. I had to remove that whole end piece, cut new fabric and sew it back together. This time I sewed the layers together, but didn't sew the piece onto the corset until I was sure the grommets were in right. I did get a photo of the grommet setter. Which, let me repeat, is a waste of money which no one should buy. As you can see, it looks like a hole punch, with a place to put each half of the grommet.

The problem is that unless your hands are strong enough to crack walnuts, there's no way to exert enough pressure to set the grommet. I had to hold it against the makeshift anvil (dumbbell) with one hand and whack it with a hammer with the other. Very awkward. Note also the cutting board, which I used to make sure the hammering didn't mark the coffee table.

The grommets did go in OK this time, I managed not to put them in backwards or anything, and sewed the piece on. Next up, boning!