An Engineer's Guide to Handwork

 It's done! Lenox Shirtdress from Cashmerette. Not perfect, but finished and pressed and hemmed. I made this in a linen from Joann's, I think it's 55% linen and 45% rayon. It's got a nice feel, not as stiff as some 100% linen but still that slubby look. White buttons also came from Joanns - I think the pattern called for 13 but I only had 12 so that's what I used. The buttons are fine but not excellent - I might need to find a new button source. I didn't put a button right on the waist band, the pattern didn't call for it (though it did specify to put a button right at the bust apex which I didn't), but in the future I probably will put in a waist band button because that's a place that I get gaps. Looking at the samples again they all do have a centered button, but the sketches in the instructions don't. I have a nifty scale thing that lets me evenly space buttons which worked great. If I had 13 buttons I could probably get 4 between the neck o

Trying on the finished sweater Cockatoo Brae is a Kate Davies pattern, with a plain body and shetland style yoke of stars and trees. I fell in love with this pattern back when the book was first published. I bought the yarn for my version at Kathy's Knits in Edinburgh Scotland, while on a trip to walk the West Highland Way and spend a few days in the city. I used the pattern yarn (not something I always do) but switched the colors - light heather grey for the body, white for the yoke background, and a truncated rainbow in purple-blue-green for the patterning. I chose colors in fairly similar values, so the whole thing would read similarly from far away.  I am different from the pattern as written in pretty much every dimension, as well as not getting the intended gauge. So I basically mathed out the starting number of stitches and figured I would work out the rest as I went. And then I got it wrong - my gauge for the sweater was tighter than I had calculated, so my 300 stitch sweat

I've been wanting to sew a shirtdress for a while (actually years) and finally decided to bite the bullet and make it happen. I'm using the Lenox Shirtdress by Cashmerette. My measurements standing are High Bust = 41, Bust = 46", Waist = 38 1/2", Hip = 46". When I sit down the waist and hip measurements increase to 41" and 48 1/2" respectively. (This is pretty common, people are shaped differently sitting than standing) Since I'm planning on making this out of a non-stretch woven, I want the finished waist measurement to be at least 41" or the garment will feel too small when sitting. I'm not worried about the hip measurement since the pattern is a free hip. Based on this I chose to make a size 18.  The measurements for the finished garment are 48 1/2" bust and 39 7/8" waist, so the waist is going to be a bit tight as written without adjustment. I ended up adding 2" to the waist, to get up to the size 20 finished waist measu

 At least this one.  For more than ten years, Ravelry has been a wonderful resource for a whole lot of people in the crafting world, with it's one stop shopping for knitting and crochet patterns. Even if the actual patterns are available from another source, I would always go to Ravelry and see what other people did. How does this pattern look on people shaped like me? Are there proportion issues? What changes have people made? That all informed whether I wanted to make a thing, and often gave me good ideas for how to make my version successful. I also was motivated to provide clear notes on what I did, both as a reference for myself and for other people. Giving back to the community that I got so much from was helpful. It did kind of stifle my blogging energy though - posts about works in progress and finished projects ended up in groups and on the project page instead of a separate blog post.  In June of 2020, in the middle of a pandemic and the slow slide of the united states go