Giddy!

This was a weekend of trying things out.  I did finish the green top on Friday.  It currently is getting ends woven in and will be in the wearable rotation in very short order.

I pulled out a lovely old project, the Bridgewater Shawl, from the deepest WIP bin.  It is the only thing from the time before that remains in my WIPs.  Everything else has been finished.  I had the book at hand just a few days ago and spent all of Friday afternoon going through books on the shelves looking for it.  When finding it proved impossible, I pulled out the fuzzy Phil Light top I had consigned to the hibernate pile.  I worked on that till I could sort out the where's and the what's of the next thing.  

Swatching seemed like a good idea.  I have this beautiful skein of a hand dye, swiped from the stash of my neice Shasha that I wanted something special for.  I had the idea of a Love Note  with it, where the lace is made with the hand dye and a strand of something fuzzy.  That idea came to me because I love the way this sweater, Zweig, with the delicate cable section done in a broad stroke of an accent colour.  I like the Love Note lace more than the cable bits so Love Note it is.  This is swatch one, because I did have to play around with what looked best for the combination of yarns, and in truth, I am not a hundred percent sure my fuzzy yarn is right.  I have some alternative selections in my stash and will dig them out soon enough.

I also planned to swatch these yarns now that I have finally sorted out what I want from it.  Stupidly, I just cast on, rather than swatching and I think I am going to have to go back to the drawing board.  It seems a little long even for the openess of the collar  on the top I have choosen.  

And then, I did something different.  I pulled out my tester fabric and cut out the Torrens BoxTop pattern. I want to do a bunch of sewing this week.  Kids will be a regular part of the routine here over the beginning of summer and I can much more easily knit than I can sew with the kids here. 

There will be a little refining today to make it fit.  It is a very simple thing, a box after all, but that doesn't mean that a box can't be too big for the wearer.  Too big, no matter what size you take, still is too big.  I need it to fit me right in the shoulders and not look to a-line to hold to the style, which I adore.  Even so, I'm not aiming for a top today.  Nope.  I am aiming for a dress but the fit testing is right to do at this time.  There may be a top later in the week. But the dress, oh my yes.  There are some really great versions online and it is my turn.  By the end of today, I do hope to have a dress fully cut out from one of the wonderful fabrics I purchased in the big pile of stuff.  

If there is time this afternoon, or first thing tomorrow, I am going to cut out the muslin of  another dress, the Sydney Designer Dress from Style Arc.  I am really hoping for a wearable muslin from the pattern.  It has a more traditional fit in the shoulders and upper body than this first dress I am working on so I do hope and pray that careful measuring will get me the rest of what I need to make it work.  And if all goes well, those things and more will consume my week.    

I am so excited by all this.  First up, pants, which I had never sewn before and they have been such a success.  They are comfortable and fit well, and surprisingly have taught that I like the ultra wide leg of my youth as much now as I did then and that I like them as much as I like the pencil leg.  It is wonderful to have both in my repetoire and in my closet. Now there will be dresses. My multiple size required body confined me to tops and skirts if I could find them and now to have dresses...makes me giddy.  Just giddy.