Old enough now to remodel

I bought this possum/merino jumper three years ago now, despite knowing I hate zippers in such things.  I loved the colour and the almost weightless soft warmth. I bought it while on holiday in New Zealand and it’s one of the few garments I paid full price for. Because of that, it’s taken me until now to be willing to pull it apart to change the zipper for buttons.

Before:

After:

Now I can wear it with just the middle few buttons done up as I usually prefer. It’d look better if I pressed it, oops.

It took a little while but was made easier by having a facing down the front as part of the original construction. So lots of unpicking, make cord for loops and position them, hand sew it all back up and sew buttons on. The button loops are plaited from the possum/merino yarn that I dyed to match this for making a hat a year or two ago. Pretty oval shell buttons from Eliza Fabrics. Interestingly I nearly used some round paua shell buttons but felt they made it look old fashioned in a dowdy kind of way. Whereas these oval ones have a neat toggle like kind of feel. Much more appealing I thought.

Comfy and Colourful

A couple more shirts made for a friend who can’t buy what he wants to wear. I’ve been snaffling interesting fabrics that I think he might like, purple is a favourite colour. Here are two I made up last week.

This one was a new length of batik found at the Green Shed in Canberra for very few dollars. The bulk of the sleeves are from a different black cotton, with the border nicked from one side of the batik. I thought putting the russet section on the front looked more manly.

the back has pleasing symmetry with the two tall sprays of purple flowers.

The second shirt is elephantine in more ways than one. It has elephants,

and I cut it very wide so as not to truncate (see what I did there?) the circles too much. I think this is very fun. It’s made from very soft block printed cotton. Probably supposed to be a tablecloth or bed spread. I popped the label at the base of the neck slit to cover a flaw in the fabric. It also strengthens that point against tearing.

all seams flat felled to keep the insides nice and smooth. These are quick to make and fun to work out how to best use the strongly patterned fabric.

Gradient Suri Spin

Spinning was also a good activity to do while hiding inside in with the aircon. I was given this pretty bag of Suri as a christmas present.

I’d never spun pure Suri befoe so this is now added to the small but growing collection of fibre types I have experienced. I decided to try for a 2ply gradient yarn so I split it out into colour groupings and halved those by weight.

I knew it ought to be long staple, so I combed it. Not easy! Some of the locks were lightly felted and/or twisted and they were slippery so getting the combs to work was fiddly. There was also a lot of shorter stuff present that needed to be put aside, a bit less than half the weight. I’ve kept that for possible carding adventures.

Here is some combed. Lofty clouds.

I spun each half into singles, both starting from the turquoise, aiming for a fairly fine spin. The second half went much better. Surprise! Partly due to simple practice. Partly because in the first half I started out by trying to include the short fibres. Bad idea. I rather wish I could wind the clock (and the spinning) back and do the first half again with just the good long stuff. Oh well, I knew this would be a learning experience. It’s long staple and really slippery. I hope I’ve got enough twist in it for it to hold together.

From there it was more familiar plying, skeining, wash and dry. 56g or 130m lace weight yarn.

I have thoughts on what to knit from it, but I want to clear at least one of the projects on needles first.