I've just come off of a really great weekend, and I'm almost in the middle of what I think is going to be a really great week. Saturday night at work was a lot of fun, I just lucked out and ended up working with some of my favorite people, it really makes work seem not like work at all! Then on Sunday I spent the morning shopping, which was a huge success and the beginning of my inspiration kick. While shopping I found a pair of cowboy boots in a second hand store that were my size (size 5, hard to find second hand!) and they're perfect and were cheap and totally would have made my day if I hadn't had so many other great things happen on Sunday. Next I stumbled into Preloved, a shop I rarely go into just because it's in an area of town that I don't really go shopping in. I found a lovely dress there that was big time on sale, that's always great, but what was even greater was that the store provided me with a big dose of inspiration. I can't imagine that anyone can walk in and not feel moved to find old unused clothes in the back of their closets and want to cut them up and reconstruct them into something useful and beautiful. That's exactly what it left me wanting to do, and that's exactly what I did on Monday, but more on that later. Finally, the high-light of my Sunday was that I spent the afternoon at a friends house with 9 great girls eating a gourmet brunch and laughing and just having an all around great time. I really wish I could do that every Sunday! Hopefully because this one was such a hit, we will do that sort of thing more often.
Anyways, so now to my restyling adventures. In the Fall I knit myself this gorgeous Kureyon striped cardigan.
It's using my favorite colour of Kureyon (if it's even possible to have a favorite, they're all so beautiful!) colour #156. I used Elizabeth Zimmerman's percentage system to knit this cadigan in the round from the bottom up, joining after the sleeves to knit the yoke and decrease raglan style. I was really careful to try and match up the stripes where the sleeves and the body meet without making the sleeves match, I wanted everything to just kind of flow into each other. It all worked out perfectly and I absolutely love it!!! Except for one thing... it's too small! I did a gauge swatch and all the math and worked the whole thing out perfectly, and then somewhere between fondling the Kureyon and rushing to cast on I totally disregarded my gauge and cast on for a sweater based on 4 stitches an inch instead of 5 stitches an inch. Honestly, I don't know how that happened and how I managed to knit the entire thing before realizing what I had done! I was so upset! I let it sit for a while, then I decided that since I had intended it to be a cardigan anyways, I would steak up the front and add a generous button band and maybe that would help! I cut up the front of my sweater and then optimistically tried it on, but there was nothing I could do, it was just too small. I toyed with the idea of cutting steaks down either sleeve, picking up stitches, and knitting in a kureyon stripe to widen the sleeves, maybe I would do the same down the back... but it was just so far from my original vision of the sweater and not what I wanted that instead I just put the sweater away until I could figure out what to do with it. Well, months went by and finally on Monday, thanks to my trip to Preloved I decided to once again take my sewing machine and scissors to it and turn it into something completely different. I knew that it would never be the cardigan that I'd wanted, so instead I made it into a custom doggy sweater for Stella! It took a couple of hours of work, a very patient dog model and a bunch of creativity, but I've got a really cute dog sweater out of it! I'm just missing some velcro, and I haven't taken a finished photo yet, because it's not exactly finished, but after I get a little input from my mom some velcro, I'll post a full report. Just trust me, it's neat, and Stella looks hip.
I'm inspired by a lot these days, I just keep stumbling across new things I want to try, like sewing my own clothes (I've already ordered this pattern, I can't wait to make it, something about a flashy contrasting pleat really gets me excited.) I'm just in the mood to make things! I even made a little painting last night, I don't like it, so I'm not going to share it here, but I tried some new techniques that worked out well, so I'm looking forward to working on it some more. Hopefully I'll be able to use all this inspiration and make lots of new things and have lots to share soon!