I’ve got a treat for y’all today Mika (our wise & patient knit-along cohost) graciously agreed to write up a guest post with regards to knitting a first sweater. Whether or not you are joining us in the Agatha/First Sweater Knit-Along, this is really great information straight from the mouth (fingers?) of a seasoned pro.

Ok, enough blab – I’ll let Mika take it from here -

Knitting your first sweater is incredibly exciting, and also pretty nerve-wracking. What if you spend all of these hours knitting something, and then put it on and there are holes where there shouldn’t be and it doesn’t fit? (No, of course I’m not speaking from personal experience! There is definitely not a mangled sweater sitting in my old room at my parents’ house.) Here are my top 4 things to keep in mind when knitting your first sweater, things that I wish someone had told me before I made mine. Obviously picking your pattern and yarn are very important and I don’t discuss them here, but if you’re looking for tips on these issues, check out my blog – I’ll be posting my favorite sweater patterns for beginners, with yarn recommendations, sometime during the next week.

1. Size: Picking your size to knit can be confusing. Sweater sizes are generally by your full bust measurement, not your bra band size! The sizes listed by the pattern reflect the finished measurements. Think about ease as well – some sweaters are meant to be worn with negative ease (like the Agatha cardi), meaning the finished garment size should be smaller than your bust measurement. Others should have positive ease. Others should have zero ease. If you’re not sure, check out the Ravelry project page for your pattern – has someone written about the ease in their sweater? Do you prefer those that are more fitted, or loose? If you’re in between sizes and considering ease doesn’t change that, in my opinion its best to size down. Blocking (see below) can work wonders on adding width, but it really doesn’t help much with making anything smaller.

Don’t let this happen to you! [Image Source]

2. Swatching & Gauge: Swatch! Especially for your first sweater. Once they’ve been knitting a while, many people skip this step, depending on the pattern. For sweaters that are meant to be fairly fitted, however, swatching is crucial. Swatching is also a great way to figure out a complex lace pattern and make sure you understand it. Swatches are also helpful for testing the durability of your yarn. Does it say superwash? Soak it, lay it out to dry, and measure your gauge so that you don’t have to knit another swatch. Then chuck it in the washing machine and the dryer. If it comes out a felted, pilled mess, at least you know not to do that to your whole sweater.

Knit your swatch to at least 4″ wide. Then, block it (see #4). Once it’s dry, measure and compare your gauge to what’s stated in the pattern. Is it the same? Great! You can start knitting now. If it isn’t, try again with a different needle size. Even if the 1/4″ extra width in your 4″ swatch doesn’t seem like a lot to you now, the difference will turn a 34″ bust into a 36″ bust – which can make a big difference in how your sweater fits.

[Image Source]

3. Blocking: Blocking is the queen of knitting. If you plan to wash your sweater at all (and I hope you do!) you have to wash and block your swatch – gauge can change dramatically once a swatch has been blocked. If you’re knitting lace, use blocking pins to expand your swatch and open up the pattern. For ribbing and stockinette, lay your swatches flat on a towel, yoga mat, etc. Once you’re done knitting, block in pieces (if it’s a seamed sweater) by soaking the pieces, gently lifting them out of the water, squeezing (not wringing!) out the excess water, rolling them up in a towel, and then laying them flat according to the pattern measurements. Blocking is invaluable if, despite your best efforts, the pieces come out a little bit too short or too narrow.

4. Perfection: Even if you do everything you can, your sweater may not be perfect. My first sweater looked ok in pieces, and then I seamed it and there were holes in the seams because of my loose tension at the edges of my knitting (and some bad seaming). And then I machine washed and dried it (I used a superwash yarn, so why not, right? Wrong.) and it partially felted and shrank. And never saw the light of day again. But it was a learning experience. If it hadn’t felted and shrunk, I would have worn it anyway. Under a coat. The only way to get better at knitting is with practice – some people make perfect sweaters on their first try, and I hope some of these tips help you get there. And even if the final result isn’t perfect, a) you made a sweater!! With string and sticks!! and b) your next one will be better.

Thanks again, Mika, for this guest post – very very helpful!
Does anyone have sweater-knittin’ questions for Mika? Ask away in the comments

Also, I love embroidery! I don’t get to do it enough, but I just find it so relaxing & free-flowing. This particular monogram is from Hoop Love Vintage Transfers – I use transfer paper to draw the design directly onto muslin, and then fill it with pretty embroidery stitches This piece has satin stitch, back stitch around the satin stitch, and split stitch swirlies. Yay! I DO feel better, thanks for asking!

During coat downtime, I’ve been cooking up some sewing schemes to keep my occupied ’till then.

A croquis for your viewing pleasure. Also, shoe fail.

I will be making the Colette Violet out of some nice sheer white dotted swiss – I barely had enough to cut my pattern out (the under collar is actually pieced – whoops), but I managed This fabric is SUPER sheer, though, so the body is underlined with cotton batiste, and I replaced the interfacing with a sturdy muslin (collar, facings). Debating on whether or not to underline the sleeves – what do you think? The fabric is still pretty sheer even with the underlining. Mostly I don’t feel like hand-basting anymore but I’ll totally take one for the team if need be. Opinions, please!

The skirt fabric – some poly blend plaid that I picked up at Denver Fabrics a year or so ago. I love how bright it is, but yeesh that plaid repeat is GIANT! I think it translates nicely into a circle skirt. I let myself buy a couple yards of bright yellow rayon lining… and a piece of matching petersham ribbon to stabilize the waistband. That creepy black blob in the corner is 3″ horsehair braid for the hem. Oh yuck, I just noticed that you can see part of a broken button in that picture too. Ew quit haunting my dreams.

These are all cut out and ready to be sewn up – the skirt has been hanging for about 2 days now, and I just finished basting all the underlining for the shirt. First non-coat of 2012, yo!

What have y’all been working on?

If you want to join us, we’d love your company! Join the Flickr Group and stick the badge on your blog! If you just want to watch this ’round, that’s ok too This is a pretty informal/flexible knit-along – I personally don’t plan to be completed for at least a couple of months.

Speaking of sweaters – I have more swatches! Ahh I am so sick of swatching! I think I finally got gauge, though

Lace swatch

Ribbing swatch

So yay! Thanks again for all your help with my first batch of swatches – I had to go down to a 5 to get gauge. Now I’m ready to knit

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In coat news – I finished the lining last night, yay! Started to sew the buttons on and every single one of them broke, boo! Cheap ass covered buttons, guh. I did, however, find a local source that will cover my buttons for me with a machine… the only drawback is there is at least a week processing time. So we are pushing back the coat unveiling and I would say I’m sorry but I’m really not because I demand perfect buttons.

In the meantime, Amelia seems to think my coat is a suitable cat bed:

She knows what she is doing is wrong. You can see the guilt in her eyes.

Guys! I’m almost done with my coat! We are entering FINAL COUNTDOWN phase – all the pattern pieces have been removed from their respective fabrics, folded & replaced back in the envelope, and my cutting table is (mostly)clean. I just have a bit more hand-sewing to do and then it’s time for a coat fashion show! Yay!

Here are some in progress pictures to get you pumped & ready…

Steaming the undercollar – I wrapped it around my seam roll & propped it up against my clapper. Doesn’t it look so smug & satisfied in that picture? How can a seam roll look smug, anyway?

Part of what has taken me so long with this coat is all the hand-sewing involved – there is a LOT. I pressed every seam open and catch-stitched down both sides. This really helps eliminate bulk, which is really necessary with fabric as thick as mine. I also beat the shit out of every seam with my clapper. That was fun.

Ever wondered what the inside of a tailored coat looks like?

Here ya go! I already sewed on the facing pieces, so no pretty padstitching pictures for youuu – but you can see how the front is interfaced with hair canvas. I told you – lots of handstitching! And look at my cute sleeve heads I used Gertie’s tutorial for setting in tailored sleeves – I have done this before with my Lady Grey (and much success!). It is my favorite method for setting in sleeves and it makes everything easy easy! Got it right the first time, yeah!

Here’s the coat back – not much to see here, just a back stay. Boring!

Collar is looking good, thanks to all that padstitching.

And then topstitching. I was a little apprehensive about doing this – I think topstitching can really make or break the look of a garment. Usually the latter – sometimes it looks kind of cheap. But I like the way it looks on the coat, which is good! Don’t wanna rip all those stitches out, el oh el.

So that’s where we are as of today! I actually dropped the lining in the coat yesterday afternoon, although you can’t see it from the pictures – all I have left is more hand-stitching. And sewing on the buttons. And then I’m going to throw a hissy fit because this whole week is going to be a balmy 60*. Lovely, but coat-wearing weather it is not.

One last thing…

Look who is coming home with me today

WE ARE IN LOVE.

This is the Lacy Collar – it’s from the book Knitting Vintage, which I swiped from my library last week (Sidenote: our local library RULES. Not only do they have practically anything I could want, but you can use their website to request books that are shelved at any of the branches and have them delivered to your local branch. Awesome awesome awesome!). I used yarn left over from my Bunny Slippers, and a button from my stash. Basically – free lace collar! Woohoo! I was inspired by these little autum collars from Casey – I love the idea of a removable peter pan collar, but I didn’t want to spend my precious sewing time making one. Instead I spent a WEEK of precious knitting time on one! No, I don’t get it either.

I only made one change to the pattern, and it was unintentional – I left out a couple of rows by the bottom lace edge. So my collar is a little smaller than the one modeled. Oh well! I learned how to pick up knit stitches with this project, and the lacework is a little more advanced than what I had previously done. I wish it had blocked a little flatter, but whatever – it’s lace, I’ll deal. Isn’t it pretty, though?

I am really pleased with how the lace work turned out! And it was such an easy project!

Ok, here’s a question for all you knitters – I need some swatch hand-holding!
I had to make two swatches for my knitted cardigan – ribbing and a lace panel. I actually made 4 because it looks like my gauge is a little loose. In both pictures, the left was knitted with size 7 needles (as per the pattern’s suggestion), and the right was knitted with size 6 needles. All swatches have been blocked & dried.

The ribbing swatches should measure 2″x2″. As you can see, thanks to my handy-dandy 1″ gridded cutting mat, one measures 2″x3″ and the other is 2″x2.5″. So they are both still a little big! Does it really matter if they are long, though? Or is the width the only thing I should worry about?

Here are the lace swatches. These should be 2″x3″, and the size 6 looks like it baaarely sticks outside of the 2″ margin. 7 is more like 2.5″, so obviously that’s too big!

So I guess my question is, I should use the size 6 needles, yes? Or do I need to go down another size & make another swatch (eeep!)? Help meeeeee!

For your patience, here are some pictures of the current coat progress:

I started padstitching the undercollar last night, but as you can see I got a little antsy in my pantsy & decided to stop after one row. The undercollar is lightly padstitched (1/2″ stiches spaced 1/2″ apart); there is no need for a fall since the coat has a collar band. At least, I hope that’s the case lol.

And here’s where I am so far! Kinda looks like a (sleeveless)coat, eh?

A randumnb news story to brighten your Friday – Dolly Parton & Gaylord just annouced that they will be opening an amusement park in Nashville. Nashville has been mourning the loss of our beloved Opryland for over 10 years now (they replaced it with a shitty mall. Ew!), but it looks like we’re gonna get it back! Yay! Just another reason to love Dolly

Sorry that the pictures are so bad – I took these last night because I was so excited to show them off. It’s been grey & rainy all week. Ugh, winter is so bad for pictures.

First up – bunny slippers!

This is the hopsalots pattern – it is very easy! You knit everything flat with decreases and increases and then seam everything up, felt the shit outta it, and sew on the ears/eyes/nose/tail. I learned a lot with this pattern – decreases, increases, seaming, felting, knitting with 2 strands of yarn. I also made my first pom-pom lol.

Here is a progress photo – I had to pin the edges down because they really wanted to curl up.

I added 2 rows of stitches before decreasing, since I knitted a 5/6 and I wear a 6.5. In the end, I pinched a little excess off the back because the slippers were too long – probably from those extra rows. Also, I don’t think I felted them as much as I needed to. Felting took about an hour – I got bored! I brought my Kindle in the kitchen and watched some TV shows, so it wasn’t tooooo bad, but man my poor fingers were pruney after the fact.

Anyway, I love my slippers! They are kind of dangerous on the bathroom floor but I’m sure I’ll manage

Next pattern – my cowl!

This is the Casu Cowl (psst – it’s a FREE Ravelry download!). I knitted mine using an Alpaca blend in a delicious shade of wooly teal. It is my very first written pattern and that shit took foooorever (mostly because I kept stopping to make other fun things, like bunny slippers. Ahem.). Things I learned with this pattern: how to read a pattern, how to read a pattern chart, provisional cast on, yarn overs, knitting 2 together, grafting, and adding a new ball of yarn (I used almost 3 balls). Grafting was interesting – my seam isn’t totally invisible, but I think it’s pretty good for a first try

I just love the lace pattern at the top.
The only thing that sucks about this cowl is that the teal is basically the same color as my new coat – which is too matchy-matchy for me. Ah, guess I’ll have to just knit another cowl. Bummer

I have a couple more knitting projects – one nearing completion (just a few more rows to knit and then a quick blocking) and I just started swatching my sweater last night. Actually, the lace pattern on this thing nearly killed me but Sarah the Knitting Magician saved the day/my life and corrected my error. Hopefully I’ll have some swatches to show off in a few days! I am REALLY excited about this project

Are any of y’all on Ravelry? Friend me – I’m laurenc0re!

And now I CAN’T STOP DRAWING. It is so much fun! I’m no artist, but I am pretty good at copying stuff. The patterns are so easy to draw from because they have little line-drawings, so you can just copy directly onto your figure, making any necessary design changes (such as making the vintage wasp-waists more like your own waist). If you really wanted to, I’m sure you could print the croquis out to the exact dimensions of the line drawings, and then just trace everything over – I don’t have that kind of patience, though.

After I printed my croquis to the correct size (mine are approximately 5.5″ tall), I simply laid a sheet of paper over the print-out and traced lightly with a pencil. I drew the clothing on the croquis and erased whatever needed to be erased, then traced over everything again with a fine-tip sharpie. And I think they look pretty good! Not perfect, but good enough for me!

Then I stuck them all over my fabric board:

You can see I got a little crazy & drew several!

I pinned fabric swatches to each one, and wrote the pattern number on the bottom.

I even made one for my coat!
Silly croquis – couldn’t bother to put on pants or anything

Speaking of my coat, progress is plodding along! I haven’t posted any updates because I’m at the boring tailoring stage – fun for me, boring for pictures. Here, have some pictures anyway.

One of two bound button holes – and a fabric-covered button to boot! Covering that button was a PAIN IN MY ASS. I dread covering the other 3. But it looks good, no?

I started pad stitching the other day, and it has gone by really fast. Much faster than pad stitching my Lady Grey coat. I’m not sure if it’s because I actually know what I’m doing this time ’round, or if it’s the fabric I’m using. Probably both. PROTIP: if you plan on tailoring a coat, do yourself a favor and pick some wool coating that has a lot of texture. The stitches don’t show at all. I wish I’d figured this out on my last coat, it would have saved me hours of time.
See my new toy? I bought myself a Kindle Fire for Christmas (right before I discovered the Featherweight, actually – hence why it’s being paid off via layaway and not livin’ the good life in my sewing room. Wah!) It’s great for my crafty time – I can keep it in my sewing room & listen to music/watch sewing videos while I work, and it holds all my PDFs for knitting patterns so I’m not carrying around a bunch of ratty pieces of paper.
And yes, I listen to 80s pop when I sew. Or the Rhythm is a Dancer station. I love shitty 90s dance club music, lol.

I finished pad stitching the lapels last night while watching The House of Yes (which is my favorite movie – it’s really messed up but but but Parker Posey! Dressed as Jackie-O!). Like I literally pulled the last stitch through as the credits started rolling. I told you pad stitching is going faster!

Then I put the lapels out for a little steam session:

And here they are as of this morning! Beautifully rolled!

Next up – actually putting the jacket together! Yay!

I was inspired to make one of these after reading chapter 2 of the Colette Sewing Handbook, A Thoughtful Plan. It is suggested that you make your own croquis to aid with planning out future sewing projects.

This is not normally something I would use – garments look sooo different on a bunch of stylized croquis than they do on normal ol’ bodies, plus, I’m pretty ~aware~ of how my body looks – so I didn’t see much of a point. But now little mini-me’s are popping up all over the internet, and I’m a sheep at heart so I took some pictures and drew out my own. Mine has a little outfit (bathing suit?) because I feel a little creeped out at the idea of a nakey me floating around the internet.

The book suggests printing your picture & tracing around the lines to create the croquis – which is fabulous, but I don’t have a printer at home and I was a little skeeved at the idea of printing out a picture of my undie-clad body on the office printer (or at Kinko’s! Oh God!). Hence, the all-digital LT.

And guess what? The process was pretty easy, so I made a bunch of screen shots so I could share the tutorial with you And the best part is, you don’t have to have Photoshop I used GIMPshop, which is a FREE software that is very similar to Photoshop (except free). Yay!

First, you are going to want to take a picture of yourself – in something very form-fitting (like leggings or a tank) or just undies. My actual picture was taken in a tank top and undies, hence why I picked a different picture for the tutorial But you – you are going to want to wear something that shows your shape!

Some photo tips that I wish someone had pointed out to me:
- Stand in front of a plain (preferably light) backdrop. The less noise you need to edit out of the background, the better! This also makes it easier to see where you figure ends & where the wall (or whatever is behind you) begins.
- Make sure the camera is pointed straight at you, and not at an angle. My first croquis did not heed this warning, and as a result, she hashad very short legs (Had. I deleted her lol). Apparently I take my pictures at slightly MySpace-esque angle, which is great for outfit photos but not so great for croquis.
- Ensure that there is plenty of light & use a flash if necessary! It doesn’t matter if the picture is “blown out” or you are making a derp face – we are just dealing with the lines here, anyway.

Ok, so you’ve got your picture – tutorial time! These pictures are also located on my Flickr in their own set if you feel so inclined. Click through any picture to make it bigger if you need to!

I decided to use this clover picture as an example, saving y’all the pain of viewing an undies shot. You are all welcome. And again, I’m using GIMPshop. It’s free! And please note that I am by no means a professional when it comes to digital image manipulation – I just kind of hacked my way through until I came up with something suitable

(I know, it should be “Croqui” not “Croquis,” my bad. I did not realize until it was TOO LATE!

I made myself wear the Pastille dress:

In the future, I will be drawing the actual clothes with a pencil & a piece of paper. It is hard to adjust the lines of the garment in GIMP to correspond with the lines of my body.

At any rate, I’m excited about my new little friend

Now – go print out a million little images of yourself & draw up a new wardrobe! Yay!

So, I knew I was going to put myself on a fabric-buying ban. It seems silly to keep spending money (especially when you consider my expensive taste when it comes to fabric) when I have soo much perfectly usable fabric hanging out at my house as it is. I mentioned this at the beginning of the year (aka last week) and a few of y’all commented that you should also follow suit, but felt like you couldn’t stick to it. To be honest, I kind of felt the same way, but after pulling out my stash & really combing through it, I am actually pretty excited about this upcoming sewing year. I have so much good fabric! So many gems I had forgotten about!

Over the weekend, I pulled every single piece of fabric off my shelf, measured it (both yardage & width) and took a picture. I was going to upload everything to Pinterest – well, I started, anyway – but their site is all buggy and half the pictures don’t show up and idk, I just got pissy & moved everything to Flickr. Whatever! I also took the opportunity to pull any fabric that hadn’t been prewashed (I try to prewash everything as soon as I get it home but in some of these cases, this fabric has been hanging around for years… long before I because the Queen of Prewash) and get that taken care of as well.

I’m not going to bore you with dozens of pictures of my fabric stash, but if you are feeling lurky, I have allotted it it’s very own set on flickr. I am kind of embarrassed that there are nearly 50 photos, especially when you consider that this is ONLY my woven garment fabric with significant yardage. I have more stacks of muslins/interlinings, linings, remnants/scraps, and an entire cabinet full of stretch fabrics. Plus I never got around to that stuff in the attic lol. Baby steps, y’all!

I cut little swatches & hung them on my bulletin board as well:

The swatches to the left are the ones I want to try to sew up over the spring/summer. The swatches in the middle are fabrics I want to use before them (aka now). The giant stacks at the bottom are the rest of my swatches. Oh, and the little white papers stuck on everything show the yardage & width – so I can figure out if I have enough of something without actually unfolding it and getting measure on. Did that once, not doin’ it again!

Then I got really inspired and decided to document my entire pattern stash as well. And, well, guys… I have a lot more than I thought I did. And I’m kind of embarrassed. But we’re not judging each other, right? This is a safe space, yes?

Ok, well, here’s the flickr link to all 158 of them.
Don’t judge me!

For your troubles, here is my favorite weird pattern that I had forgotten I own:

lol wtf is even going on here?

So there you go! I do feel more organized about my various stashes – I’m already planning my spring wardrobe in my head Hopefully this is inspire some of you to take control of your stash, too! And then share pictures, because *I* like to lurk Heehee.

I noticed this while I was cutting out my pieces:

I actually see this a LOT when using vintage patterns (and wearing vintage handmade stuff) – people who go the extra mile and give those notches a proper space to call their own. I remember my mom doing this on the clothes she made for me, and I always thought it was such a fiddly extra step. Cutting out fabric is obnoxious enough without having to maneuver around the table to cut some tiny extra pieces with the tips of your shears.

Here’s how I handle the situation:

I cut the triangles off entirely & notch directly into the seam allowance. It’s quick, painless, and efficient.

And it gives me a good excuse to use my tailor snips, a Christmas present from Landon:

(Seriously, he is the best! I AM NOT WORTHY)

Now seems like an appropriate time to introduce you to my Gingher Family:

8″ knife-blade shears, pinking shears, applique scissors, and the new tailor snips.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand – how do you handle your notches? Do you cut out the entire triangle, or just snip a little snip? Or do you do something else? Is there any benefit to leaving such a giant piece flapping around the notch? Should I stop cutting (hahahahaaaa see what I did there?) corners?

In other blog-land news, I was nominated for the Versitale Blogger Award by miss Joanne and given this cute button to share!

Now I’m supposed to tell you seven things you don’t know about me. Let’s see…
- My last name is Taylor! Every so often, I’ll have a friend make the connection and get really excited about their epiphany.
- I got the bird tattoo before I got the name. I am not really sure what to tell you about the second L. I wanted it to be like Lloyd, the silent L that makes for confusing pronunciation.
- I love obsolete electronics & I collect bits & pieces when I can. My favorites are computers/game systems and cell phones.
- I was homeschooled from third grade until graduation. This REALLY confuses people when I tell them, because apparently I don’t “act homeschooled.” Well all right, then!
- In addition to Nashville (my hometown & forever Lover), I have also lived in New Orleans & Pittsburgh. I left New Orleans because a bitch named Katrina kicked me out I left Pittsburgh because it was a terrible idea. The cold & I do not get along.
- Johnny Paycheck serenaded me on Lower Broadway in front of a bunch of tourists shortly before he died. I told him to bugger off & he thought it was the most hysterical thing ever. I didn’t find out who he was until years later – I thought he was some rando tourist just being an ass.
- I have pretty bad TMJ, so my jaw pops every time I open it all the way. My dentist finds this hilarious.

Now I am supposed to nominate some people for being my new favorites of awesome, so I pick Molly and Oona. I would nominate more but it looks like Joanne already jumped on the others I was going to pick. Boo!

Okay, back to cutting! I have a shirt muslin that requires my complete & undivided attention.