Buying fabric for my next embroidery project.

The stitch sampler is more or less done. Our next shared project will be a free embroidery on the theme of “Stockholm”. I have some ideas but they need to ferment a little while longer before I can make decisions and buy materials.

For today I’m just embroidering nothing in particular. I have a second-hand pillowcase that I bought at a charity shop for 30 kr that I’ve been decorating with simple, meditative running stitch. It might turn into a project bag when I feel done with it.

I also did some work on the self-portrait I started some years ago. Mouths are tricky.

I bought scraps of a nice wool fabric a while ago, with the plan of turning them into a skirt. Decent-sized pieces that had been pinned in the shape of a ladies’ suit on a shop window mannequin. I was picturing a scrappy, patchwork-y skirt, pieced together from differently shaped parts.

I quickly realized I’d need to bind all the edges, or the fabric would fray with all the handling. I struggled to find a bias tape that would work with the fabric – the tapes I looked at were too red, or too purple, or too muddy brown. Then I found this linen bias tape which I thought looked decent. But now I think it was a mistake – it’s too bright and sticks out too much. Should have gone with one of the darker colours after all.

Next problem – the bound edges were all stiff, which I hadn’t expected. When I started assembling the pieces, the fabric didn’t drape any more but sort of stood stiffly.

And the pieces I cut weren’t any good, either. I didn’t achieve a patchwork-y look at all. I didn’t want to bind and sew too much, and didn’t want to waste fabric, either, because I didn’t have very much of it. So I made the pieces quite large. Put together, they just looked boring.

At this point I can’t see any way of rescuing this and making anything I’d actually want to wear from what I have in front of me, short of undoing absolutely everything and starting all over. And even then I’m not sure I could fix all the problems. This is no fun at all any longer, and while I don’t like throwing away things that could be something, I’m not going to force myself to work on something I won’t enjoy. This goes into the recycling bag.

Last time I took a Friday off to go to the crafts fair. This time I couldn’t swing that, so I had to go on the weekend. Was expecting it to be super crowded (the way it definitely has been sometimes in the past) but it wasn’t too bad at all.

Bought yarn, and more yarn, and fabric, and more fabric. Was glad to see that Apmezga was there again. (I bought the yarn for my green top from them.) They might just be my favourite yarn dyer and seller right now. There are many indie dyers who sell hand-dyed yarn, but many tend towards candy colours, some even adding glitter. Apmezga’s deep jewel tones are much more to my taste.

I have plans, and I have a yarn – I can start knitting!

There’s a whole chunk of it done already, even though what I have doesn’t much look like a sweater. I’m knitting it sideways, and not starting either in the middle OR at the side seam, so what I have is sort of random-looking pieces. A long strip of the left side, from the front hem over the shoulder and down to the back hem, and then a big chunk of the front, with the neckline curve at the right side of it. Now to finish the front, then knit the back, and then they’ll join up again at the right shoulder and continue towards the side from there.

We filled the last, ninth square in our stitch sampler, with latticework. This could be a lot more elaborate, but I think I’ll be leaving it as is.

After the pleasure of making this, the main point of all these squares will be to remind me of all the possibilities.

I bought more yarn on the internet. I was going to hold out until I can go to the crafts fair and can touch and look at what I’m buying, but this was just there and looked good, so I thought – why not?

Turns out that you need even more than looking and touching to check what you’re buying. This yarn turned out to smell, with a sharp, chemical odour. I asked the seller about it, and they said that the yarn had been musty after a a long while in storage, so they’d put it next to a toilet freshener block for a few days. Well, it definitely doesn’t smell musty any more.

I’ve squeezed in a lavender pouch between the yarn balls, and that plus just general airing might get the odour out, but I suspect I’ll end up having to return it. Who the hell would want their knitwear to smell like toilet cleaner?

Planning the details for the “sweater with the funky yarn”. I couldn’t find a pattern that I liked, so I’m making it up myself based on bits and pieces of different patterns.

Sewing patterns can have curves all over the place, for armholes and sides and necklines and what not. But knitting patterns ultimately tends to boil down to straight lines and triangles. Making things fit is about adjusting the angles and lengths of those lines. “Decrease x stitches on every n:th row”, and you just pull those numbers up and down to fit.

For a curve, you just need many short, straight, angled lines after each other. Knitting is inherently made up of discrete stitches, after all. Even if it looks like a continuous curve, it isn’t. You want a neckline curve? It’ll still have to be broken down into “decrease 10, then decrease 7, then 4” etc. (I’m postponing thinking about the details of this neckline for now.)

Went to my favourite yarn shop and bought some undyed wool yarn to combine with the funky one. I think this combination might work out.

The yarn weight isn’t a perfect match – the funky one takes up more space than I expect based on its looks. With the same needles for both, the funky one bulges out a bit. I could try and buy more varieties of gray wool yarn from the internet, until I find a better match, or I can just make do. For the top half of the swatch I tried using 4 mm needles for the funky one and 4.5 mm for the gray one, and that looks pretty even.

Found some merino wool jersey and tried sewing a basic top of it. It worked just as well as the cotton jersey I’ve been sewing simple tops and dresses of. Thicker, but it still fit under the foot of the sewing machine. This was less fun than knitting a wool top, but a heck of a lot cheaper and faster.