Anchors Ahoy!

I finally finished The Purl Bee anchor hat for my coworker's baby. Hopefully the hat will fit, if only for this season. I wanted to complete it sooner, but didn't want to work on it when I was sick for fear of putting germs on it. I also hit a milestone with this pattern. It is the first time I made a pompom and also the first time I used the duplicate stitch needed for the anchor pattern.

Lucy Pevensie Tam - Completed

I finally finished my Penvensie Tam this weekend! It's not perfect and there are some dropped stitches which I didn't know how to fix, so I just stuck them onto the needles again and acted as if everything was normal. I also ran out of the 02 silver Debbie Bliss Rialto Chunky yarn just as I was nearing the end of the project, so I finished up and hoped for the best (I wasn't about to order another ball of yarn just to knit 2-4 more short rows!). Unfortunately, since I did not have enough yarn to finish the decreases, there was a bit 'ole hole on top of the hat. To hide it, I brought some pom pom yarn and tied together 4 pompoms to hide the gap. In Chinese culture, 4 is an unlucky number, so why 4? Well, 1 seemed a bit too small, 2 didn't quite seem right either, 3 looked unbalanced and 4 seems to be the right size. It doesn't look too bad and kept my head warm enough when I wore it outside for the first time today in 28° F (2° C) weather. Although this is not the first hat I've made (I knitted some cute orange hats for newborns a few years ago for charity), this is the first hat that I've made for myself, so I'm feeling happy about it.

Inspired by this project, I started the Stepped Flower Stole last night. Hopefully it won't be long before I can post pictures. :)

Lucy Pevensie Tam & the Kitchener Stitch

I just completed the cabled hat band for my gray Lucy Pevensie hat pattern. Two new lessons learned were picking up stitches and the Kitchener stitch to join the ends. Also learned that it is important to add yarn and pick up more than one yarn at a time when picking up stitches, or else holes and distortion may appear as a result.

Although I picked up 16 stitches to match the other end, somehow once they were joined, I was left with 2 extra stitches. I took the tail end of the yarn and wove them in as best as I could. I'm pretty sure it is not the best looking seam, but at least I tried and I suppose that for a beginner, it is all that really matters. :)

Butterick 5572

After spending the entire day last Sunday sewing it wrong (the pant only had one leg and the waist area was divided in two!), I finally had a chance to rip out the stitches and redo everything all over this weekend. I finally finished C's flannel pajama pants today. Yay! Also, I believe a new sewing milestone has been reached as these pants have pockets!

Comments About Instructions

I was really tripped up by step 2 when it came to sewing the crotch seam. Somehow, I must have laid out the pieces incorrectly. For those who have never sewn pants before, I highly recommend pinning and checking to see if the seam makes sense before stitching and clipping. I stitched and clipped everything up to the Casing and Finishing part when I realized just how horribly wrong everything was. By then, once I ripped everything out and all pieces were free again, all of the edges no longer could be relied upon for alignment (I couldn't rely on aligning and pinning the edges anymore) since the wrong parts were sewn together and their edges clipped. I had to be brave and work through that problem by trying to pin everything so that the grain of the fabric was as straight as I could make them again.

For step 5, make sure that the top of the pocket is basted close to the top and not with a 5/8" seam allowance. I think the 5/8" seam allowance made it very difficult to pull the elastic through.

Step 7 asks you to turn the upper edge of the garment along the fold line before creating a 1/4" fold. I find it easier to press the 1/4" fold first.

Also be careful when stitching along the top edge. Don't stitch too deeply into the casing area or the elastic won't be able to pass through. Ask me how I know :(

Ending Comments

I had made pajama pants for myself using Simplicity 1561 and did not have as difficult a time. The instructions for Butterick seems to have left out details which could have made the process easier, for example how to lay out the fabric for the crotch area so that he wrong pieces are not sewn together. Simplicity 1561 had a different technique which requires inserting one pant leg into the other and then stitching the crotch. It seemed weird and I couldn't quite figure out how it would work until I took one store brought pant and tried it. When I had to work on the Butterick pattern, I thought to use the same technique, but since there were pockets and their instructions are different, I figured that I should just follow their instructions instead. I'm a little leery of Butterick patterns now and will make sure that I pin and check to see if something makes sense before rushing into sewing it together.