Tuesday 31 March 2015

Sewing distractions: Year of the Frozen birthday cake!

I have been sewing, just not getting around to taking photos of anything to put on the blog!  I've made another Moss skirt for myself, and a couple of dresses for Emily, but chances are I won't manage to blog about them until after the Easter holidays now.  Also, there have been distractions! Our darling daughter's birthday fell at the end of March and, of course, a Frozen party was requested!  This caused a bit of head scratching as other friends within the group had already had birthdays through the year and had already had Frozen parties.  What could we do that was any different?!  Thankfully we managed to talk her into a cinema trip with friends to see Cinderella (including the Frozen Fever short!), followed by birthday tea (with a surprise visit from Elsa herself!).  

However, we couldn't very well get away without making the requisite 'Frozen birthday cake', and I was quite keen to give it a bash, although whilst I enjoy baking I don't have any great skill in it, and probably a lot less in cake decoration!  It was a stressful process, with many a late night icing session, and a least one point where all appeared lost.  But despite everything, and much to my own surprise, the cake was a success!   




I think it looks good, but since it's basically just a glorified platform on which to stand some (plastic) Frozen figures it really wasn't that complicated. I baked three sponge cakes, one in a round springform tin and the other in silicon 'giant cupcake' moulds. I covered the round sponge with a layer of buttercream and the two colours of fondant icing.  I hacked at the 'cupcake' sponges until I was happy that I had a 'mountain' shape, although this was immediately and henceforth referred to as 'the molehill' by my husband.  The 'mountain' was also covered with buttercream first, but then spread thickly with royal icing which I tried to swirl around in a snow-like fashion!  It really did just look like a molehill as it was with Elsa standing on the top.  Either that or, as my husband pointed out, it looked like she was perching on an eyeless, noseless Olof head.  Great!  I had intended to make some blue 'ice shards' out of sugar glass to top it, but after one attempt that went badly wrong (think murky green solidified goo) I changed tack and made this curved backdrop out of scraps of blue fondant.  




I used blue shimmer dust on the snowflakes, lettering and backdrop with varying success, but didn't really get to grips with it very well.  Even so, this is definitely the best looking cake I think I've ever made, and I'm so relieved to have crossed 'Frozen birthday cake' off my to do list!   Emily loved it and the bonus is she gets to keep the figures.   Phew!


Other sewing distractions have been through end of term school activities, not least preparation of the obligatory Easter bonnets.  I managed to shoe horn a bit of sewing into making them this year.   One involved 'sewing' chocolate eggs onto wool to string around the rim of a Tilley hat Aussie fashion (in place of corks!).  The other involved an afternoon making felt flowers with my daughter, followed by an evening of continually pricking my fingers whilst trying to sew them all onto last year's straw hat.




We pretty much made this up as we went along and it was a lot of fun.   It was nice to make something a bit more long-lasting that can now be added to the dressing up box.  Needless to say the other hat was not so long-lasting and lost all of its eggs before the day was out.  I guess that's bound to happen when you sew with chocolate!




Monday 23 March 2015

Agatha



This is Agatha, an Andi Satterlund knitting pattern.  It's the second (adult-sized) cardigan I ever made, and definitely the first time I attempted anything this complicated.  It's an unblogged make that I completed in May 2014, but I thought I'd blog about it now as it was a bit of a 'eureka' moment and sparked a year of intensified knitting! 




I had managed to make one cardigan before from the February Lady Sweater pattern but it took me 18 months to complete!  Inspired by Lladybird who took on Agatha for her first cardigan I thought I'd give it a try and cast on.  Gahhh!  Establishing the pattern was so tricky I thought it might break my brain.   Once I got past the first 20 or so rows it got easier and I managed to knit the whole thing up in 2 and 1/2 months.

I knitted it in Hayfield Bonus Aran in 'Spruce' (ravelry notes here).  I like this yarn because for a beginner like me (who never knows if a garment's going to turn out well) it's cheap to buy but still has some wool content so it feels nice to knit and to wear.




My Agatha is not perfect by any means, and I learnt a lot knitting it.  The lace pattern was impossible (for me at least) to memorise so I had to keep the instructions close by at all times.  I knit a Small and followed the pattern except for the sleeve cuffs.  I wanted long sleeves that would sit over my hands rather than the turned back cuffs specified in the pattern, but that was an easy enough adjustment to make.    




Things I really like about this cardi...

  • The lace pattern is awesome! 
  • The colour of the yarn is lovely.  These photos don't really do it justice but it's a jewel-like emerald colour with lots of variation of shade within it.  It works really well with the lace pattern.  
  • I like the long sleeves - my other knitted cardies have 3/4 length and it's nice to have a cosier option.  Also the lace pattern is really showcased on the sleeves.
  • The buttons.  I used a selection of vintage glass buttons - similar sizes but different designs - that look great against the colour of the wool and the lacework.
  • I made it!  Making it has given me the confidence to try other projects that I wouldn't have attempted before. 

Things I'm not so happy with...

  • The length/fit.  Although it fits very much as the pattern is intended, this style of cardi is both a bit on the short side, and a bit close fitting for my taste.  I wouldn't normally wear it done up like this. I think if I made it again I might cut down on some of the decreases and add at least an inch to the length.  
  • The scoop neck.  Although it looks lovely when the cardigan is done up, when worn undone the neck flops around a bit because the scoop is so low.   Since I normally wear it like this it does get a bit annoying.
  • The bind off.  I used a slightly stretchy bind off at the waist (it was so long ago I don't remember which one), but I should have used Jeny's Suprisingly Stretchy Bind Off.  The negative ease in this pattern means you really do need the extra elasticity because the hem will need to stretch out when you do the cardigan up.
  • The buttons!  Although I love them I'm wondering whether to take them off this cardi and save them for another project as the weight of them adds to the tendency of the scoop neck to flop around. Boo! 




Despite any niggles though, this cardi does get a lot of wear and I love it.  It will always be the cardi that made me realise that if I just keep following the pattern and plugging away I can actually make (and finish) something wonderful!  



Thursday 5 March 2015

Indigo skirt and a Yellow Brick Road



Well, I finally made a denim skirt!  This is the Moss Mini from Grainline, although I made it up in the not-so-mini version with the hemband.  It's a fly-fronted, slightly A-line skirt with pockets and a back yoke, and it's fab!  The instructions are extremely clear which seems to be the case with all of Jen's patterns.





You will see a lot of this skirt, either if you read the blog or if you know me in real life, as I could happily wear it every day (and have done, virtually, since I made it!).  It fits my lifestyle perfectly!  I've had this denim for a couple of years, bought from the stall in Coventry indoor market.  It's a lovely deep indigo, although I imagine it will fade a fair bit over time.  Despite being a stretch denim it's still quite a stiff fabric, but that works well with the shape of this skirt.




I took a lot of care with the seam finishing so it looks nice on the inside (for a change!).  I flat felled the yoke and front/back centre seams, and bound everything else with bias binding.  I used this IKEA botanical print fabric for the pockets and waistband/hemband facings and I love the contrast.  It also meant I probably used less than a metre of the denim.  Yay!  I have enough left to make another!  

Overall I love this pattern.  It sits lower on the waist than the Miette or Kelly skirts, neither of which I got on with terribly well, and it's nice that the length is variable.  If anything I could probably have done with making it a little smaller - I always err on the side of caution when it comes to sizing.   Also, I think I would add more interfacing to the waistband next time, but otherwise I am very happy with it.  The only problem is finding something else to wear so I don't wear it everyday!




The cardi is also a recent make.  This is the Yellow Brick Road cardi by Ela Torrente, found on Ravelry.  l made it in a bid to replace another beloved yellow cardi (shop bought not handmade) that a friend gave me, but which I stupidly left in a park.  I was gutted, although also secretly pleased to have an excuse to knit a yellow cardi (after all, how many yellow cardigans does one girl need?!).  








It knit up fairly quickly and was exactly the style and shape I was after.  The expanding arrows patterns was very straight forward, and the sleeves have an interesting pleat design which curves them forward slightly as if you've pushed them up at the front.  I went for a shorter length than the pattern stipulates, and also a looser fit, again to try and match my inspiration garment.  The only difficulty I had was with the button bands which I did over and over again and which still have a tendency to twist inwards.  Not enough to make me want to do them again though, and I'm hoping that I might be able to sort this out if I block it a second time.




I love this pattern and I've already cast on again to make another in navy blue.  It's very comfortable to wear and the colour goes with practically anything.  Gotta love a yellow cardi!