Loose Ends, New Beginnings, and Beginning Anew

You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned for some time the 

Admiral's Knot Halter top that I started knitting back in the late spring. The reason for that is, once I had it sewn up, I tried it on, and found it was the wrong size for me. Not terrible, but not close enough for my taste. 

 

Fortunately, I eventually got around to checking with my sister to see if she liked the fit on her, and she did like it, so it is now hers. Of course, at that point, I had put off weaving-in ends until I knew for sure if it would be worn (I did not intend to knit it a second time, as it was enough work to do the edging once), and kept not getting around to getting it back from my sister to weave-in the ends, and by then I had a blanket to crochet and a sweater to knit.

 

 

Having knit the sweater, I finally finished up weaving-in ends (just in time for cooler weather. Sigh). So, here I am, modelling the tank-top with the nifty cabled edging. It was a neat project, fun to knit, but a bit of a bother to sew it together, and, particularly as I had worked the edging portion with two strands held together, it had roughly a gazillion ends to weave-in. Or something like that. Too many to bother counting, anyhow!

I've started two more projects this week. One is a revival of the St. Moritz sweater that I had started over a year ago in a size too big, which I am re-starting in a size smaller now. It's in a very similar colour to the tank-top.

The other new project is to sew a dress in time to wear for Saturday. Butterick B5209 (view A) is a quickish and easyish retro (1947) dress to sew, so if I can only organize some more time to sit and sew it, then anything is possible. Otherwise, I'll just go with a dress that I already own.  I cut out the pieces on Wednesday, and did a fair bit of sewing on Sunday. I'm nearly done the bodice, and am hoping to start the skirt today.

I think the plan was to save some money by sewing a dress for myself, but in all honesty, it is costing me a fair bit more to do it this way. This is particularly true since the original dress I had planned to sew proved incompatible with my measurements, so I had to buy a new pattern (trust me, it wasn't worth trying to alter it; too many changes would make it a different dress altogether in this case). At least I could still use the main fabric, but I now have a few supplies just sitting around that I won't need for this dress anymore. 

At least in terms of learning more about sewing though, it's great. I just learned about understitching, and also how to do it by hand, and Gertie's Blog for Better Sewing is turning out to be an excellent resource! Here's hoping that I worked out the correct fit for this dress. If not, I'm totally willing to give it another try sometime. It's great learning about how to change things for a better fit, and learning more finishing techniques to really improve my work.