Lonsdale in Bloom

Although my internet pal Tasia at Sewaholic launched her pattern line in November 2010, it wasn't until this week that I finally got around to making one of her patterns, the recently released Lonsdale Dress.

When I first saw the pattern in her newsletter I knew I had to make it, and furthermore that I had the perfect fabric for it. Except that turned out that I only had half as much of it as I needed, in a one-way large repeat pattern and there was no way that I was going to make it work.

So I did some stash diving and pulled out this purple chrysanthemum (?) print I snagged at Marden's on a field trip with Maggie almost two years ago. It was still a one-way pattern, but with a bit of shifting pieces around, I got the whole thing cut out. Which was the most difficult part of the whole project.

I threw caution to the wind with this project and cut it out in my recommended size (all one size! thanks to her "pear-sized" grading) and just went at it  - no muslin, no tissue fitting, no nothing, and it fits great.

Tasia put together a truly lovely pattern. The whole thing is seven pattern pieces, with simple construction, which meant I could take the time to focus and finish the project really nicely. The included instructions are clear and I used the sew-along posts to do some additional details like French-seamed pockets and stay-tape on the bodice. I'm super proud of the way the inside of this dress  from seam finishes to zipper to hem.

I love the way this dress turned out, and if you're reading this Tasia, I can't wait to see what you come up with next!

The Things We Do For Our Craft

Bristol and I headed out to the Falmouth Nature Preserve this past Saturday to do a photoshoot for a pattern I'll be releasing in a few weeks.

The things we do for our craft. :)

Best Barbeque Ever

One of the things Mr. Cleaver and I were most excited about when we moved from our one-bedroom apartment to the house is that we'd have space to have people over.

Oh sure, we had friends over to the old apartment, but, for example, when another couple came over for dinner once we had to move the table into the living room because there wasn't space in the kitchen. So it was a tad limiting.

But now our home is constantly filled with family and friends and that's my favorite thing about being a homeowner.

This past weekend was the best iteration of that so far with our housewarming/birthday BBQ and Hoedown.

We invited a bunch of our friends, family, and coworkers over for a potluck and BBQ. Friends and family brought the sides and we provided drinks, meat, and the band.

Which makes this the coolest party I've ever thrown.

Of course all the credit for the band goes to Mr. Cleaver, who after seeing a set by our favorite New England band Brown Bird, sent them an email to see if they would do a home show. They said they could, gave us a price and some available dates, and we worked it all out.

As Mr. Cleaver said, it like when you hear about people who have Jay Z at their bar-mitzvah or something, but on our scale.

(If you want an example of what it was like, Brown Bird played a set at the Newport Folk Festival the preceding weekend that you can stream in its entirety at NPR.)

It wasn't the cheapest thing we've ever done, but we both agreed that the experience and the memories were worth every penny. Particularly because all the guests had a great time too (or at least that's what they told us) and several wanted to steal Steinbeck, who charmed practically everyone. :)

It took a little when we first moved back to Maine in the late August of 2008 to really settle in and find our groove, but I was reflecting on our life in Portland earlier today and thinking about how wonderfully FULL it is and how I'm so grateful for it all.

(On a side note: I've just joined the chirping masses on Twitter, you can see my latest tweet in the sidebar or follow me @Ms_Cleaver).

In the Studio Part Two

Wow, it's been a while since I posted. But with the past month I've had it's not surprising. Here's a quick recap before I move on to new things. Since July 2nd:

• Got a dog
• Mr. Cleaver turned forty
• Released the Smocked Tank

• Tour de Fleece happened and I have about 600 yards of handspun yarn
• Turned 28
• Saw the final Harry Potter movie
• Helped write and turn in our major funding application at work
• Took a business trip to Buffalo and spent inordinate amounts of time in the Philly airport

• Saw an Elvis Costello concert
• Released Alaria with Quince & Co.
• Submitted a potential project packet to a knitting mag
• Painted and revamped my studio
• Knitted a design for another knitting mag to be mailed off today
• Had a giant BBQ in my backyard with over 30 friends and a live band.

Whew! and I thought summers were supposed to be slow!

I'll post about the BBQ later this week, but today I wanted to show off my newly revamped studio space.

As you may recall, when we moved in, the first floor bedroom looked like this:

In the early days of moving in, we stripped the wallpaper and I'd been using it as a studio in this configuration.

While the hearts and bears stenciling was an improvement over the baseball wallpaper, I still wanted an update. So my big birthday request was to paint the studio (I ended up with a much bigger gift than that, but more on that later this week).

There was a heat wave the weekend of my birthday, so we waited to paint until the next weekend.

Steinbeck was very helpful and only stepped in paint once.

The color is Yolo Colorhouse Water .02 - a fantastic blue that looks at alternate times of day anywhere from periwinkle, to lilac, to grey. The trim is the same Air .01 as in the living and bedroom.

The other major change comes from hanging things on walls, particularly the addition of the pegboard.

Pegboard makes me feel so organized.

Some other notable items - the original Ms. Cleaver portrait by Sharon Barto and three old knitting magazines courtesy of Bristol Ivy.

I still want to put some kind of yarn storage on the wall to the left of the loom, crates or hatboxes maybe and eventually all the carpet in house should be replaced, but other than that, I'm pretty darn happy with how it turned out and I can't wait to start making stuff in there!

Introducing: Alaria

photo © Carrie Bostick Hoge

Yesterday, I had the absolute and distinct pleasure of releasing a pattern with Quince & Co.

Every since this Maine-based yarn producer opened up shop literally up the street from where I work, I've been a hugefan and when the opportunity arose to publish this shawl pattern with them, I leapt at the chance!!

I still can't believe that that's my shawl up there. It's more to do with Carrie's photography than anything else, but man, I love the Quince photos.

photo © Carrie Bostick Hoge

One of my knitolutions for the year was to design a shawl and I knew I wanted to do something ocean-inspired, without leaning on my usual oceanic blues and turquoises. (Not that I've given up on those). When I picked up these skeins of Tern and saw the colorway was called Seagrass, that settled it.

Alaria (the name is from a genus of seaweed) flows between three simple lace patterns reminiscent of aquatic foliage. The shawl is a traditional triangle shape and all lace work is done on the right side rows only.

The sample was knit in two skeins (about 440 yards) of Quince & Co.'s Tern - a fingering weight silk/wool blend. It blocks beautifully and the silk gives it just a hint of sheen. (I will note that when I knit the sample, it used up all the yarn except for a teeny-tiny amount, so depending a knitter's gauge, it could sneak into a third skein).

As designed, the shawl is a great size for throwing over your shoulders or bunching up as a scarf, and should a larger shawl be required, additional repeats of 24 rows can be easily added to the first and/or second lace patterns.

photo © Carrie Bostick Hoge

You can queue up the pattern on Ravelry, or purchase the pattern via Quince & Co ($6 USD).

My Apron Collection

A few weeks ago, Casey of Elegant Musings asked for fellow bloggers to join her in a blog tour of Cherished Collections and having previously mentioned my "wicked apron collection," and made no secret of my love of aprons, I jumped at the chance to share my, wait for it....... aprons as part of the tour.

I'd like to say my love affair with aprons began in my middle school home economics class, when our final sewing project was a simple bib apron. In true 90's style, my featured sunflowers and was sadly lost in my first post-graduation move after college. But in truth, my apron obsession probably came because I lost that apron and needed a replacement.

I picked up another bib apron from ebay, in blue gingham, which I still use, but it was then I discovered the adorable half apron, of which I have now amassed eleven. I used to have an even dozen, but I passed one featuring a chicken off to a friend.

My first, and still on of my favorites, also came from ebay and features adorable pockets in fishy fabric, which I later recreated the shape of for a Christmas gift, when I lived in Chicago.

Surprisingly enough, only one of my collection is one I made (yellow gingham),  with most of my apron sewing skills having been put to gift-making.

A good chunk of my aprons have come from antique stores, where I grabbed them for around $5-6 dollars (black & white and embroidered pink). At least one has come from a garage sale (grey gingham with chicken scratch). A few I can't recall where they came from.

But my most precious one are the ones that have been given as gifts, including the Christmas bells from a roommate, the green hostess apron from a knitting friend, and the rose hostess apron from a co-worker- perhaps my most precious one, because it was her grandmothers. As was the plain white one I embroidered with Raggedy Ann.

And I use each and every one of them, because as they become dusted with flour and sugar, they become all the more cherished to me.

Meet Steinbeck

It's been a bit busy around the Cleaver household for the past week, because on July the 2nd, this guy joined our lives.

Meet Steinbeck (formerly know as Drake). He's a 3-year old shepherd terrier mix, we adopted via Lucky Pup Rescue. This handsome fella came all the way from Texas to live with us.

They say it takes a few weeks to a month for the dogs true personality to come out, but thus far we've discovered that Steinbeck is a 60-pound cuddle muffin, who wants nothing more than to sit on the sofa and be in your lap. Which is just fine with me.

IN just a week, we've pretty much fallen in love with this guy, as for what he thinks of us??

Time will tell. :)

Introducing: Smocked Tank

Since I first started publishing knitting patterns in earnest back during the spring  of 2010, I've had a significant backlog of items that I came up with and knitted way back when and am only finally getting around to making patterns for them. (See Exhibit A.)

While the Smocked Tank isn't the last of the backlog (there's one more to go), it did take the longest from incubation to actualization. I hope you'll agree it was worth the wait.

I first knit this idea for myself in June 2008. So, um three years later, here's the finished product. Graded for  bust sizes 30 (32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48) inches/ 77 (81, 86, 92.5, 97, 101.6, 106, 113, 117.5, 122) cm.

Knit in the round from the bottom up, the tank is very fitted, with curvy side shaping and is finished off with i-cord straps.

The tank utilizes 455 (495, 525, 585, 620, 670, 700, 720, 765) yds of worsted to aran weight yarn with a significant silk, bamboo, or rayon content for drape and sheen. Knit to a gauge of 18 sts and  24 rows = 4”/ 10 cm in Stockinette stitch on size 10 US / 6 mm needles.

The sample was knit in Berroco Ultra Silk in 6138 Lilac; 98 yd/90 m per 50g/1.76 oz skein; 40% Wool/ 40% Nylon/20% Silk, which has since been discontinued.

So if you need a quick summer knitting project, with a bit of a romantic flair,

the pattern can be queued up here, or downloaded for free  via the links below:

Seals of Approval

Okay, so I think this weekend's sewing project snags the title of the oddest thing I've sewn in my adult life.

Now, when I was a kid I used to take my Grandmother's sewing scraps and use Scotch tape to make outfits for a stuffed bear at her house, but I never imagined that my supervisor at work would ask that I would make a seal bikini, but he did and here we are.

The swimsuited seal and her bowtied beau are the unofficial mascots for my company. The "Seals of Approval" if you will. You can't say we're without a sense of humor.

It all started with this photo of the view out of one of our office windows (not mine unfortunately), that I doctored up as joke

and it led to this:

So, what's the oddest thing you've ever sewed??

OOTD: Making it Work for Me

Remember a few weeks back when I said this sweater wasn't my favorite, but that I'd probably wear it a ton anyway? While I still think it isn't the most "me" thing I've ever made, I have been wearing it a lot, and as the frustration of making it has worn off, I've grown to really like it. It's cozy and very versatile.

In this outfit, I paired it with another "out of my comfort zone" piece, the very red Red-Fox dress.

I fell in love with the dress, and bought it even though as a red-head (ish- auburn really) I've always avoided red. My last attempt at styling this dress I shared didn't quite work for me, the red/black was just too harsh methinks, but this "southwestern" take is a much better fit. The turquoise necklace hints at it, but if I had cowboy boots, it would be really southwestern.

Necklace: from my Mom

Cardigan: made by me

Dress: Red Fox by Shabby Apple

Belt: from my Mom

Shoes: Bass Outlet

When you end up with items that aren't in your usual style, how do you make it work for you??