Before & After: The Tale of The Sparkly Pineapple Shirt

It all started in Kohl's. I had just gotten paid, and eager to spend all my money, went out to buy some (much needed) clothes. Mostly for work, I picked up jeans, looked at button up shirts, and even bought my first pair of leggings, but when I ended up in the clothing section to buy shirts I felt lost and confused. It had been so long since I bought clothes in an actual store (Thank you, TeeFury). From section to section I wandered. Some clothes seemed to be for 14-year-olds, and all the other clothes seemed to be for 40-year-olds. Annoyed, infuriated, and worst of all, holding an armful of nothing but work clothes, I made a declaration to "Just crochet all of my own shirts."

Everything looked awkward. Everything felt awkward. Even the models in the pictures, and the clothing on the mannequins didn't look appealing to me. Nothing was making sense. I was going to make my own clothes. 

I was half joking, but by the time I got home, and ended up alone on Ravelry for a good hour or two, I had looked through all kinds of shirt patterns. I was so excited, the very next day I went out and bought some cotton yarn, then started on a simple-looking shirt, Light and Lacy by Doris Chan.

I had finished it in an astounding 3 days. It worked up so fast, I was suddenly even more excited by my decision to make all of my clothes. The only problem? It fit about as well as an oversized grocery bag.

I told myself it was okay, that I had never made a form-sitting shirt before. At my size, I've never been a Small before, but it turns out that maybe I should have made a small for this shirt (I made the Medium). It was so baggy on me, that as I wore it, I swore it made me look 30 pounds heavier. I told myself it was okay, but I didn't even have the motivation to tie in the ends. I set it on my dresser, and feeling defeated, went to bed.

The "Before"

The next morning, I don't know if I had a dream, or if the answer was really just that simple all along, but I woke up so enthused, I knew I had figured out a way to fix my shirt to make it look better.

After much debating, and cringing, I (painfully) ripped out about 75% of my work, then made a band by decreasing the chain mesh.I was really happy that this had been a fast project, because even after ripping out most of my work, it still only took another 3 days to completely finish it. I could make two of these a week if I really wanted to supplement my wardrobe.

By making a band in the middle significantly smaller than the rest of the piece, this pulled it in a bit, then I increased it enough to have it bellow out again. It went from Potato sack to flattering A-Line piece.

(If you are looking for the technical things I did, and how to do this yourself to this shirt, you can look at the notes on my Ravelry Page.)

Ta da! New shirt!

I love it so much now, I can't wait to wear it! Although, with it being made of cotton, and in such sparkly and bright colors, I can't imagine wearing it any other time of year besides late spring and summer.

This was also nice, because now instead of just "dealing" with the style of a shirt (the way I would ahve if I had just bought a shirt the other day), I'm now actually looking forward to something. On top of that, I had so much fun working with the colors. The white, although you can't see it, is actually a "Holiday" yarn, so it has metallic tinsel throughout, and the blue-green stripes are Lily Sugar N' Cream "Country Stripes", a yarn I've had in my stash forever, but didn't know the perfect thing to use it on. The sparkles and the stripes give it an awesomely light oceany feel to it that I am so excited to wear around when the weather is warmer.

I have a lot of plans to make more clothes, of course. I even picked up a book from the library today, and without even noticing the author, I got it home, only to realize the patterns were from none other than Doris Chan herself. After finding Light and Lacy, I went through all her patterns to find that I love her style! I guess I can officially consider myself a fangirl, and I look forward to expanding my wardrobe over the next few months. With such a great start, how could I not be excited?

Finished Project: Doily shirt!

This project was finished back in June, but only today have I had a chance to get some pictures that do it justice. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into this, and I can't wait to share it with you guys! Without further ado, here's a bunch of pictures of the biggest project I've ever done.


















Thanks for looking!

What I've Been Up To: 4 Finished Projects

Upon finishing my Mario Granny Square Rug, I decided to tie up some loose ends (heh.) with some other unfinished projects that had been looming about about for the last few weeks (or even months) before starting even ANOTHER big project. There is still a doily sitting in my Box of Estranged projects, but hey, no one really needs to know about that.

These are just a few noteworthy projects I've made recently. I've linked to the ones I can, but a couple of them are from either magazines or books (both of which I've mentioned).

1. Archipelago Handwarmers 

Okay, so they're actually called Ravenna Mitts, but the colors I chose were 'low tide' and 'sand', and since I happened to be making them to the tune-age of the Chrono Cross OST, well, the name just fit. I used some bamboo yarn I had gotten on sale at Michael's, and it ended up being (I think) just under 100 yards total. I've worn these a few times when typing (or crocheting, even), and I have to say that they're very lovely!

2. Cafe Wristers

 

 These were a project in the most recent issue of Crochet Today magazine, and I literally started making them within 5 minutes of seeing them. I didn't even flip all the way through the magazine before I had my yarn and hook out. This color was a skein of Caron Simply Soft I bought back in December because I had a gift certificate to Jo Ann fabrics and I thought "IT'S SOFT. AND BLUE." Since it was lying around anyway, I decided to use it. I wish I had gone with something a *little* different, since I use so many blues, but the wristers came out nicely nonetheless.

If you happen to have this issue of Crochet Today, or have just managed to stumble upon the pattern, my only suggestion is to make the ties quite a bit longer. I couldn't make a bow, I could only tie them once, and I'm sad to miss an opportunity for a cute wrist bow T^T

3. Stargazer Tarot bag

I've been reading Tarot for a handful of years now, and after buying my 3rd deck of Tarot cards almost 2 years ago, I was sad that they didn't really have a place to belong. My other decks stay in wooden boxes, but my newest deck was just wrapped in shoddy fabric. When I found the pattern for this, I decided to, once again, use some random yarn I had bought because of a gift card, and once again I thought. "OH. SHINY. BLUE.", and thus, this bag was born. I love the color, and it's a silk/bamboo yarn, so it's incredibly soft, and I'm certain my tarot cards are very warm and happy in there. As I recall, I didn't have to make even the slightest change to this pattern, and my cards fit perfectly. On top of that, it's super easy, pretty much just single and double crochets alternating. Love it.

4. Misty Taupe Broomstick Lace Hat

This was my first broomstick lace project, and also my first project from Kristin Omdahl's "Crochet So Fine". The band was supposed to be a sort of 'faux cable', but my skills are clearly not up to par with the book, so I alternated fpdc and bpdc to make a ribbed pattern. It's not as elegant as the book, but I'm happy with it.

I used a size 3 bamboo yarn infused with aloe, and I want to rub this hat on my face forever. The texture of the broomstick lace is not only amazing to the touch, but also keeps the head surprisingly warm. I was also pleasantly surprised at just how easy broomstick lace actually is. Wouldn't mind playing around with broomstick lace on other projects at some point.

As of right now, I'm just about halfway done with another huge project, it's a Doily Wrap, also from Kristin Omdahl's "Crochet So Fine", and I can't wait to share it with you guys...although probably not for another few weeks! The first few parts have taken me about a week, and I spent almost the entirety of today trying to figure out how to put all of them together via a very stressful session of trial and error. In the end, I managed to get it together, and I think it's going to look very nice when it's done :)

First Article of Clothing!

I am super psyched! Although it may be simple, it may fit awkwardly, and one sleeve may or may not be (hint: it is) bigger than the other, I made my first piece of clothing, and I really like it! I used this pattern to make what I have dubbed my Super Simple Grass Green Shell Shrug! The pattern is a bit iffy, and making the large, I had to make the base chain quite a bit bigger than it says for it to be 33" across, but besides that it was fine. All in all, you'll spend 90% of your time making shell after shell after shell, then you fold it in half to sew together the sleeves, and then make an edging.

 

This took me just under a month to do, since making roughly 1,000 shells was no exciting task.

I used Bernat Handicrafter cotton, which will hopefully make it nice and cool and comfortable once the spring and summer months come up. I really like shrugs, but don't own any for some reason. I am pretty sensitive about my shoulders (the left one has suffered some pretty bad burns, and I dread the "what happened?" question). I'm excited to make more shrugs, and to now expand my camisole collection, since I'll soon be able to wear them in public :)

 

 

I enjoyed making this, and can't wait to make more of my own clothing! I have decided 2012 is a year of big projects, and I'm certainly on the right track so far.