cottington's so crafty: August 2017

Saturday, August 19, 2017

Zephyr Sundresses: The Dress to Last a Lifetime

I swear when I made the first iterations of this dress, they lasted one MILLION years. They seemed to fit Camden forever, before we finally passed passed them on to her cousins.

I swear I made two back in the day, but I can't find the other

The Zephyr dress by Figgy's Patterns is a simple-enough make - quicker than the romper version, which I blogged about a couple months ago.

Overall, cute dresses! I will say that on THESE and the romper, I cut the straps NOT on the bias, which I think it calls for, and I also did NOT make tubes out of the strips before braiding them. I just braided those suckers. I was hoping that by not cutting them on the bias, they wouldn't stretch, as was the case with the old Zephyrs I'd made, but they still do stretch, which is kind of sad.

I like this dress for a long look. It totally works and gets me to use my knits, which I don't often do.

In the last post, I added several photos of our trip to Michigan, but we have been busy since we've been back. It has been a pretty fun summer so far, though we ARE hunkering down at home during the eclipse, as it will be NUTS here in Central Oregon.

Meeting up with a fun mom in South Dakota!

Camping for the first time in a LONG time!

A little Tumalo time with friends!

More friend times!

Can't take the heat...so...sleeps in the kitchen

Making daggers, of course

A fun visit!

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Sing Me a Song of a Finished Skye Boat Shawl

An easy shawl....a slow knitter.

I cast this sucker on for our family road trip to Michigan back toward the end of June. I finally bound off last week. I can't even recall what took me so long to finish it - other than all the traveling we've been doing over the past several weeks. Summer is just a slow time. I remember last summer as the months-long Doodler knitting, so, I shouldn't be too surprised.

The Skye Boat Shawl is clearly named after the lovely song which stands as theme song for silver screen adaptation of Outlander (my favorite books EVER!!! Go READ them!). Written by Judy Marples, it is a lovely, simple knit. The repeat is easy to memorize, and Judy's instructions are easy to understand and to the point, which is always glorious.

The yarn has been in my stash for a few years....maybe even over FOUR. It was originally meant for the Julissa sweater for myself, but, well....we see where I've gotten with sweater knitting for ME. And seriously - that sweater is GORGEOUS. Why have I not knit it??? Anyway, the yarn is Colour Adventures in the Dia Merino DK base. I think part of why I hadn't knit this Georgin colorway is that I never felt it was quite MY color, though I loved it.

Clearly, though, it would work in a shawl! And since I hadn't yet knit a heavier-weight shawl, I decided to go for it - though it DOES always make one nervous to use part of a sweater quantity of yarn, right??? :O I have, I am guessing, two and a half skeins left, which clearly isn't enough for a sweater for Camden, which is a darn shame. Such is life.

Also! Reds, as we know, are hard to capture on camera - well, at least to an inexperienced photographer such as myself, though I promise it basically does look like what you see in the photos. It maybe seem as though the photos are washing it out or brightening it, but the colorway just looks like that, aha!

And...goodness! Days in the life of us in Michigan!!! Omigosh - too many photos!!!