Summer Making

I completed two garments recently: one began slowly and I lost interest in, only to pick it back up and love it completely! The other was sewn in a frenzy of excitement and anticipation only to find it didn't look or feel as lovely as I hoped. As in much of life, in making I find myself wondering about needs, wants and expectations. About the process of a thing, not only the finished product.

The first make is a lightweight summer shawl using a cotton-silk blend of yarn that I have had in my stash for about seven years. I'd actually used some of it to make a crochet vest a few years ago that I hardly wore - so I unravelled it and used the yarn along with the other balls to knit this shawl.

The pattern is called "The Seaside Shawl" by Carrie Bostick Hodge and follows a fairly straight-forward hour-glass lace pattern with increasing garter rows in between. I was attracted to the semi-circle, urchin-like quality of it. When I started it though I didn't feel overly excited and found myself getting a bit bored in the garter rows. I wondered how practical the shawl would be and if I'd ever wear it. I eventually put it aside to work on some other crafty projects for a few months. Then after Christmas I got it out again and found myself enjoying then knitting so much! The simplicity and repetition, was just what I needed at the end of a busy year. I took it down to the riverside and knit as my boys played. 

Once finished the shawl blocked out beautifully and I've been using it often in the mornings when there is still a touch of coolness in the air before the heat of the day sets in. It is the perfect summer weight shawl, and the colour reminds me of so many things I have growing in the summer garden - silver dust, lambs ears, succulents - as well as the lichen that grows so abundantly on the granite rocks and hawthorn bushes around the farm. 

Pattern: Seaside Shawl by Carrie Bostick Hodge
Yarn: 4ply cotton/silk blend from Bendigo Woollen Mills

The other recent make is my second version of "The Teahouse Dress" by Sew House 7 (which I have posted about before) but this time in a beautiful, soft double gauze cotton by my favourite textile designer Nani Iro.

I confess I fell in love with the hand painted flowers and swallows in the design, the sage green hues and the little bursts of blue and teal green and soft pink. I thought it would make the perfect, comfortable special occasion dress that I could wear to my sister's 30th birthday and then for Christmas in December - as it turned out both events fell on unseasonably cool days and I couldn't even wear it! 

I dreamed about this dress long before I started sewing it, and even as I worked on it I thought I would love it so much. But when I finished I soon found that I didn't! The cotton sits so differently to linen; I feel like every seam and stitch and rumple is visible. More un-ironed vintage curtain looking than flattering kimono dress. Sigh, perhaps it will grow on me with time? I wonder if I should just unpick it and make it into something entirely different.

Pattern: Teahouse Dress by Sew House 7
Fabric: "Jardin" double gauze cotton by Nani Iro