WIP Wednesday: Restlessness and Determination

 

This week has been a bumper for knitting my Susan Shaw cardigan. I managed to get both of the fronts re-knit and seamed together on Saturday night, but then a try on showed me that the armscyes were too tight. I had picked up around the neckline for a button band, but decided I would rather fix the fit on the sleeves now, so I took the shoulders apart again and added 2 more repeats of the faux cable pattern, then put it all back together. The shoulder seam is now about 1 inch too far back, but I'd rather have it be comfortable to wear than worry about the placement of the seam and the fit is much better now. Then I decided to knit the button band separately like the pattern calls for since I liked the look in the photo and I'd never done one that way before. 

The button band was majorly tedious - you knit just 13 stitches to be long enough for the entire opening of the sweater. In reality, it didn't take that long since I managed to make it all in a day, but it sure felt like longer than that. Not enjoyable to knit. Also seaming wasn't very enjoyable either. I do like how it looks now that it's on the sweater, but definitely not my favorite construction of a button band.

In sewing news, I finally got grommets for my stays mock up. Even though these were technically too big, I still wanted to get them officially finished. I've as given myself a reprieve on Regency sewing for now. Originally I had wanted t make it up for Halloween, but having the snags I've had on the last few pieces I made have really just sucked my excitement for this completely away. I still have to hem my chemise and fix the neckline (because of how the pattern illustrations looked, I put the drawstring opening on the back thinking it was the front :/), and I made myself cut out the bodice petticoat, which was quite the challenge in and of itself because 1) the pattern was not "tiled" so I had to make acrobat tie it and then just hope I was lining things up correctly and 2) the skirt pieces are just enormous - so big that they couldn't even fit fully on a single A0 sheet so the pattern itself has to be pieced before you even cut things out. I've had a ton of things with this project that just had snags or took extra figuring out, plus I have a bunch of other modern clothing I really want to make and wear. Because of this inner conflict I found myself not sewing at al last week and just knitting instead. So I've given myself permission to just make what I want to make. The regency stuff will get done eventually - I just want it to be because I genuinely want to make it up, not because of some arbitrary deadline. No sense in making yourself miserable with something that is supposed to be a fun stress reliever :)

So now I have a black Fiore skirt sitting on my table ready to be sewn up and I actually want to sew something again. Anyone else have project regrets? Because here is your permission to just do what you want to do in case you feel you need that. (p.s. you don't need permission)