It's about three and a half inches from the underarm now and is starting to show the shape I am hoping for. (draping flowing back, regualr front) Plus I am still on the big ball with lots of knitting left to do.
and when that is done, I still have this to knit through.
There are twelve balls of never been knit before, which will take this top to the longer length I am hoping for. Keeping my fingers crossed, though, just in case. I am going to keep going with the giant ball right now, but shen it is complete, I will knit the sleeves and neckline finishes so I can just keep knitting till it is all gone or until it is long enough for my liking.
That alone made for a great days work, but what really sealed the deal of the day was that midway through, I got an email that my fabric was at the post office.
Buying fabric online can be a crapshoot. You have to accept that you are taking your chances with what you order so you had better be sure, and matching fabrics can be difficult. But when it comes and there is only one stinker in the bunch (which you sort of knew anyway), it is such a thrill.
The greens match! And the checked madras matches too! And the yellow is the right tone of yellow. I would have been more than happy if the yellow rose fabric only would have worked with the green so I am beyond pleased that it all works. The green is for a nice flowing pair of pants, the rose fabric is my test fabric for the shirt pattern, the maddras is for a shirt. The real conundrum is the yellow was for a dress patterns first try but now I am wondering if it should be just a nice tunic length or a full longer dress. The dress is only because they really are cooler in summer, but how long should it be? Dresses do look nice over long wide legged pants though so we shall see.
The lightweight denim is great, the black is perfect, but the red is bang on. I worred about the red. I was hoping for true red, not tomatoe red or even cherry red, just a nice crayon red is what I wanted. And it is!
The only stinker in the bunch is this.
I thought it might be. After I completed the order, I was looking at the fabric online again, and something about it just struck me. It wasn't on a black background as I thought it was. It was on a garnet coloured background. I still hoped for a more red garnet, but it quite solidly in the brown red mahogany camp. Oh well. I was thinking of this for a test fabric for the Sydney dress but now that I see it, I think it will be more useful as a test for the Otis overalls or for the Winslow culottes. It has a bit of a stretch that might make a less than perfect fitting test of a pattern more wearable. It is a fabric to get me there and away from my face, perfectly fine to wear. Besides, the blue in the flowers matches the antique blue top I knit last year.
And then to top off a perfectly lovely day, the notice that my sewing machine had arrived as well, also popped in around lunch time. My first machine was a Kenmore and it sewed for years and years and years. It was pretty basic and I wasn't sewing knits very often so it worked. I was working at the office already when I bought the White sewing machine. In a lot of ways it was a dud. I had it since 97 or 98 but those years weren't big sewing years. It sewed only off and on, cost a lot of money and was repaired twice after very little use and now needs a third repair. Plus it would probably cost more to repair than a new machine and I would have to drive to the city. Of all of these, the city driving is the straw that breaks the camels back.
This one is not expensive, has a nifty threading feature which is really going to help keep me sewing longer and has all the stretchy stitches I need now that I am sewinng stretchy materials. If it can get me through this batch of clothing and keep me going a few years, it will have been well worth the money.
Today is bound to be full of adventures! Off I go.
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