Crossandra Mini

~ PoundCake ~ 4 Comments

Finished, one small sweater. 

I cast it on before deciding I was going to take a pause on making clothes for my toddler. 2025’s end-of-year data inspired this decision – hot take, clothing patterns shouldn’t come in 2y/3y sizing, it’s the garden path! I’ve got one more project in which I’m partly invested and once that’s done, I will wait to sew more until Mini-Muffin is rational enough for bribes.

This is the Crossandra Sweater Mini (Rav link) in size 3 and its existence is due to my impulse buy of a 658-yard skein in a toddler-favored color for $10. I’d bought the pattern a year earlier but hadn’t been willing to spend real money on the yarn. This skein was enough for the whole project and I got my sprats and mackerels confused! The color is Cranberry. It’s 100% polyester, but it’s recycled polyester, and washer- and dryer-friendly.

I didn’t love-love the yarn but it’s fit to purpose. My big complaint is that it split really easily, I assume because polyester doesn’t have the grip of a plant or animal fiber. Also, it doesn’t look much different after blocking. Here’s my before of the scallops, followed by my after…

Indistinguishable, or perhaps slightly worse! Luckily wavy edges are cute. I spent a while going in with a big yarn needle and evening the tension on the bind-off, one loop at a time, before blocking, and that improvement was much more noticeable. Happily, after these scallops I feel like I’ve locked in short rows and can just do them now. Also, long-tail cast-on continues to be a stalwart, and I didn’t have to watch a video to refresh! Another successful skill installation: continental knitting. And I do mean knitting, because I tried continental purling and realized immediately it was NOT for me.

I also managed to pick up a dropped stitch AND correct twisted stitches, huge time-savers. Previously I would just frog until the coast was clear! I find the polyester less appealing to look at and touch than wool yarn, but the stitches are really clearly defined, which is helpful when learning to correct mistakes. Still can’t pick up a double stitch worth a damn, so I had to start the scallops over a couple times, and I knit probably 40 of those little pals all told.

I bought this pattern for the scallops, though going back to the listing now I see a red flag, repeated on the Ravelry project page: no modelled shots! It’s a cute object for a flat lay, and it’s got cute details, but at its bones this is rectangles. I would not have fallen for it if this was a sewing pattern!

It doesn’t exactly fit and it doesn’t exactly not-fit – much what you might expect from a simplistic design.

And I’m grumpy that such a beginner basic called for so many kinds of knitting needles. I guess I thought it was giving alts but it asks for five different “must-have” sizes, three on the neck alone. I got as close as I could with what I had but ended up buying two different sets of low-end DPNs – size US8, since my circulars top out at US6, and US2, since my smallest circulars were US3. I thought I could get away without the US2s but my collar wasn’t rolling properly so I frogged and reknit just that part, which was surprisingly straightforward, because the neck bind-off calls for knit-togethers, not slipped stitches. 

Anyway, who is this customer who needs a pattern for a garter stitch box but owns needles of every size? She is not me!

And also why DPNs? I bought them because the size was right, they were cheap, they were in-store, and because the pattern said so, but I didn’t do anything that I couldn’t do with circulars, and I suspect a straight needle would also have worked fine for the bind-offs! Is this a personal taste thing?

I’m a circulars gal myself, if gal type is a component part of knitting. And this and my last sweater have reconciled me to being a picking-up-stitches kind of gal, too. Easy to find your row in garter stitch, I’m glad to say, because I had to do so for the applied i-cord and I didn’t want that to wobble and jump around.

The fun details of this pattern were indeed fun, for the most part! The i-cord was fun, the applied i-cord was VERY fun, I like short rows, and the box pleat was a pain in my butt. The folding elements of the box pleat were easy to comprehend for anyone who’s sewn a box pleat but knitting off three needles at once was plain weird. I’m both grateful it was only 3 stitches deep and also believe 3 stitches is a wimpy-looking intake.

I finagled my daughter into this sweater despite her absolute allegiance to short sleeves. I do not know if I have the strength to do so again. Not, necessarily, the best use of my resources. Did I mention I’m taking a break from toddler clothes?

Never wear = never wash…heck, since I was enjoyably wasting my time, I could have just used wool! 

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Pattern:   Crossandra Sweater Mini

Pattern cost: $6.88

Supplies: 1 skein (658 yards) of Lion Brand Re-Spun 100% Recycled Polyester yarn in Cranberry, $10.00, Gather Here; US2 and 8 DPNs, $9.42, Michael’s

Total time: cast on 12/26/2025; cast off 1/11/2026

Total cost: $26.30

Vinterskjørt I

~ PoundCake ~ 11 Comments

This is my first project of the year, and my first vinterskjørt of Skjørtvinter. To clarify, I plan on making a few skirts this season, and I plan on doing so within an unnecessarily Norwegian framework. Blame winter vinter!

This is a skirt I’ve planned for a while; it was supposed to be a winter maxi but I came up about ½ yard short, so it’s a winter midi. Also, the only difference between this and a summer midi is that I’m wearing tights. That said: s’alright!

This is not a complicated item but it took me a while to get started because I really wanted to find a buffalo check in navy and brown, and clearly I’m the only one who does. I considered navy and white, overdyed with brown, but in the last second went with black and white. It’s a versatile, stripped-back duo, and in January I’m drawn to the illusion of austerity (lemon sorbet versus chocolate gelato). I bought 2 yards of this 58” wide quarter-inch gingham cotton. Mood tends to the florid in its fabric descriptions, but it is nice – light yet completely opaque. But either it’s a shrinker, or Mood’s measuring apparatus is a stinker, because the squares on the washed-and-dried fabric are 3/16”. 

I made each tier as long as possible after evening the cut edges. I hewed roughly to increasing each tier by 1.5; my top two tiers are equal in height, and the bottom tier is about double one of those. The following measurements/my cut plan include ½” seam allowance:

No scraps heading into my scrap pile. Waste not, want not! By the way, “front” and “back” are irrelevant, except for the top tier, since I added slash pockets.

I’m not totally sure why I made the top tier trapezoidal except that I saw it mentioned in a couple free patterns as a way to reduce bulk at the waist, and the True Bias Mave seems to do it too. It makes the seams a little distracting in high-contrast gingham, though. 

I considered having no shaping in the top tier and only one side seam, but that would have meant only one pocket, so on balance I don’t regret splitting it into two. But I probably should have used in-seam pockets. I knew that at the time, I just prefer sewing slash pockets by like, a lot! 

I made the openings pretty steep since the waist would be further gathered and I hoped they would land at a reasonable angle. Also, the pocket bag is folded vertically, the top edge is caught in the waistband, and the bottom edge is caught in the first-to-second tier seam. Really just the laziest pocket possible – one line of additional sewing and some pressing. 

I used roughly the same measurements from this skirt, but increased the waistband from 45” fully stretched to 50”, since I wanted more hip room than in that original (which fell apart just so, so quickly, by the way. RIP). I used the extra length from the waistband stripe to sew the fakiest of fake waist ties.

Actually I ended up hand-sewing those. 

My biggest complaint about this fabric is that the bobbin stitches looked sloppy and floaty, even though it’s a new year and I’m using a new needle! No, I change my needle more often than that. Erm. Anyway.

This waistband is actually full of funny business. I bought ¾” elastic, intending to sew two channels, but somehow my 2” finished waistband is 1 ⅞”, and those channels were too snug. So I unpicked the channel stitching, butted up the two elastic pieces, and zigzagged them along their shared length. This is a terrible idea for someone who hates elastic folding in their waistband, but I slammed some vertical bars of topstitching in a few strategic locations and now it’s merely a bad idea!   

I used a mixture of seam finishes throughout, selvedges when possible and French seams when not. I had early dreams of a deep hem, but couldn’t spare the length, so it’s a ¼” double-fold. This fabric is so light that I used my scanty scraps to make little triangle patch pockets in the side seams and tucked a penny into each. This added a whopping 5 grams total to the weight of the hem, but it’s kind of fun!

Cutting rectangles from gingham was swift and pleasant, but my stamina for precise sewing declined as I went, and wobbles show. Luckily I started from the bottom up, so the longest seams (where my attention tends to wander anyway) are acceptable. And my side seams, though I say so myself, are verrry nice.

Overall I’m okay with this skirt! I sewed it to wear it with big sweaters but possibly it will appear in other seasons too. An ordinary useful skirt is fine with me, even if I’m not, like, exploding into 2026.

In other news maybe you’re like me and you re-listened to The Protomen Acts I and II recently, laughing fondly at the idea of there ever being an Act III, BUT THEN LEARNED IT WILL RELEASE THE SAME DAY THIS BLOG POST GOES UP (A.K.A. “TODAY”)!!! Oh Lord! Happy new year, everyone!

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Pattern:  N/A

Pattern cost: N/A

Supplies: 2 yards of Cotton Gingham 0.25″ – Black, $25.00, Mood; 3/4″ elastic, $4.45, Michael’s; thread from stash 

Total time: 5.25 hours

Total cost: $29.45

Time and Money 6

~ PoundCake ~ 14 Comments

Usually this is my first post of the new year, because I typically finish a project in that quiet week between Christmas and New Year’s. This year, however, with an impending houseguest (human, nice) and a departing one (germ, awful; a Hobbes-ian tummy bug), I think it’s safe to call it a wrap.

So let’s toootal some speeending!

This year I made the arbitrary and annoying decision to break out kid sewing into its own spreadsheet. It only became annoying right now, but right now is when I am! Rather than totally collapsing that data into the ol’ pie chart, I gave Mini-Muffin her own slice (too much pastry?), but her slice also contains patterns, notions, and fabrics. I should have further subdivided it. I didn’t, but I did chart it separately, so that slice is also a wheel. Geometrically unlikely, yet here it is:

My total out-of-pocket spend (including both sheets) was $302.98, or almost $6/week. I know avocado toast economics are scurrilous but that does work out to one fancy coffee shop beverage a week. And instead I got a sewing practice! And sometimes also a latte! About 23% of that out-of-pocket went towards sewing for Mini-Muffin; the rest was for me, and just barely for Professor Boyfriend. That percentage stays pretty steady (closer to 21%) when factoring in gift cards. 

The one benefit of maintaining separate sheets is that I can check if I divided my hours similarly – 178.25 hours total, 111 ¾ of which I spent on myself (and kinda on Professor BF) and 66 ½ I spent on Mini-Muffin. Nope, different ratio! That’s a whopping 37% of my sewing hours spent on sewing for a person who changes shape rapidly, though to be fair my favorite projects for her were play objects, like these wings, which will fit indefinitely.

Also, I’ve averaged 3.5 hours a week of sewing time. Pretty solid.

I sewed 30 distinct patterns in 2025 – 19 repeats, 3 of which I altered meaningfully, and 15 new-to-me (some of the repeats were new-to-me first this year, which is how that math gets a little muddy). I also sewed 8 non-patterns, like cushions and stuff.

Separately but related I bought many more patterns this year. I noodled around with drafting, too, but time is finite and sometimes the cheapest way to pay for something is with money. I bought 3 patterns for myself, averaging $8.85/apiece, and 4 for Mini-Muffin, averaging $4.80/each. I also received 7 patterns from Twig & Tale for being a Storyteller, which was the sweetest deal in town!

Next up, something for people who like useless charts: a breakdown by fiber. Nearly every category is cotton! Just drawing lines between kinds of cotton, that’s how we do! I do like a rayon blend but I eventually re-homed the one just-rayon garment because it wasn’t wash-and-wear enough for my Lifestyle (a lofty name for remembering anew every single day that we don’t have an idea for dinner).

May as well discuss my ratio of hits-to-flops here. Not! Good! In the toddler category, I had 3 flops, 3 pending (projects that came out too big, or that were unaccountably rejected, so I’ll try again later), and 10 successes, 4 of which are already outgrown. In sewing for bigs, I had 5 failures (though one of those was a success until it ripped right up the front) and 17 successes (including 2 successful projects for PBF and a tote for a friend). Let’s sort of mush those numbers around to a 25% failure rate. I am not amused.

I also failed to accomplish my one specific sewing goal, which was to sew something on the bias.

And what, praytell, was I sewing, when I definitely wasn’t sewing on the bias?

For me, mostly bottoms, unless you allow a team-up between knit and woven tops, in which case mostly tops. One of the knit tops and one of the bottoms (shorts) were for Professor Boyfriend. My recent doll + doll wardrobe (“play”) I count as sewing for me, partly because it was so very optional and partly because sometimes I awake from a fugue state to find I’ve given the dolly a new hairstyle. 

Those 21 items cost an average of $21/each including gift cards; out-of-pocket, they cost closer to $11/each. Competitive with fast fashion, I’m surprised to say, especially since my sense was that fabric price per yard was way up. I think my new fave on the block kept that figure relatively low – Fableism! I’m excited for that upcoming block print collection, by the way! 

The average amount of time per item was 5 hours, which was also the modal amount.

Mini-Muffin gets the single jumpsuit on record. Her 17 items cost an average of $7/each ($4/each out-of-pocket). That’s competitive with thrifting, which comprises 80% of Mini-Muffin’s wardrobe (plus 18% hand-me-downs and 2% made-by-me. Those numbers are imaginary but represent an emotional truth, which is what…numbers…are for? I think?). That’s up from last year, when I sewed almost purely from scraps, but acceptably so! 

The average amount of time for a Mini item was 4 hours, though the mode was 2.25, with a couple chunky projects raising the average.

So that’s the what! Finally, the when!

So you can see a trend here, starting in the fall. You might point your finger at generalized holiday busy-ness squishing creativity to the edges and you would not be entirely wrong! However! It is a terrifying chart because it also shows: DECLINING NAPS. At the beginning of the year, Mini-Muffin was napping 2 hours a day, but lately that number has been between 1 and zero hours. Zero is the absence of a number. I weep. 

We’ll see what effect this has on my time going forward. Probably terrific!!!!

Links for nerds available here (sewing for mostly me) and here (sewing for Mini-Muffin).

I’m not setting any sewing goals for next year, at least not until I kind-of sort-of figure out a daily schedule without a daytime kiddo sleep. No goals, no intentions! Just drifting aimlessly like kelp! On the other hand, may we all be as useful, peaceful, and brimming with life as kelp.

Thanks for reading along with me, and have a happy and healthy new year!

Christmas Tree B7069

~ PoundCake ~ 16 Comments

I launched into this project with a lot of zest. The benefit of having a kiddo with a strong sense of what she likes, which, it’s safe to say, overlaps only a little with what I like, means a chance to sew stuff I wouldn’t otherwise sew. In this case, a ruffly festive Victorian-lite frock in a color that’s RIGHT in the overlap. 

The pattern is B7069 (which I was convinced vanished from the internet before realizing I was searching “7096”). 

I sewed view C in size 3, which called for 2 ½ yards of 45” wide fabric, but I fit it into the last 2 yards in stock of this Fableism Sprout cotton in Pineneedle. The pattern was a $5 impulse buy in some PDF sale. I probably wouldn’t have bought it if I realized it asked for so much fabric. 2.5 yards is a momma cut.

That said, I can’t imagine sewing a ruffle for myself, and sewing ruffles is actually a lot of fun! 

And the bib part of the bodice is a tidy little draft with a nice low-bulk finish for the back button plackets (I skipped interfacing and added topstitching). 

Also, in the words of internet feminism for beginners: It Has Pockets! My zest more than lasted through those steps. It even survived threading elastic through the sleeve cuff casings, a step I’m making peace with on a larger scale. 

But eventually, my zest dimmed. Does zest dim? My zest…pithed? Molded? Fell off the counter? Anyway, let’s get to the part of the construction that took the bulk of my sewing time, stress, and also the bulk of this blog post. The sleeve/bodice/waist junction!

Background; if you imagine splitting a bodice along princess seams, everything towards the center body would be part of B7069’s bib; everything to the outer edge of the body would be added to the sleeve. Also, the sleeve is gathered to match the bib edge. So there’s a snipped and opened corner where part of the sleeve becomes the bodice’s lower edge and joins the skirt. Okay.

You’re supposed to sew the waist first and then insert the remaining sleeve. I sewed the armscye/bib seam first. Gut check, but there’s no way to finish that armscye/bib seam allowance if attached in the official order, right? 

And that wasn’t going to work here. I loved the color and handle of this fabric, but it’s a shredder. So I marked, stay-stitched, and clipped the sleeve/waist corner as directed, but reversed the armscye and waist steps. I then serged the bib-to-sleeve seam (not very evenly), followed by an intrusive thought: is this an heirloom or not?

UGH. I went to my scraps and eked out enough bias binding for these curved seams (and enough straight binding for the skirt side seams and waist seam). I machine-stitched the underside and hand-sewed the top side. In retrospect I don’t think this was really the right finish, but I was in too deep! But not so deep that I thought the pockets had to be heirlooms. I serged those dudes.

This is when I started to get a dreary feeling. There were just so many layers in the seam allowances (even before I added my bias binding) and I suspected they would make the dress uncomfortable. And say what you will about toddlers, but I don’t know any who would wear uncomfortable clothes uncomplainingly, and neither should any of us, say I. But the alternative was a dress that wouldn’t survive very many washings.

Also, when attaching the sleevewaist to the waistwaist (pardon that non-technical language; I hope there’s correct jargon, but I don’t know it), I was left with a hole in every single clipped corner. I’d thought I’d sewn fairly precisely but boy, I proved me wrong. Since those corners were hidden by the ruffle, I decided a pucker was preferable to a hole, so I unpicked the ends of the bias binding on the armscye/bib seam, shoved under a bit of fabric, and then hid that messy solution under the binding again.

At the corners, the seam is only 1/16” or so past the clipped spots on the sleevewaist, so my hope is that the waist binding will add security to the seamline as well as to the fabric.

It’s so bulky, though! There’s one spot where the button plackets overlap (six layers), the ruffle is gathered (two layers, conservatively counted), the skirt is gathered (one layer, conservatively), and then I bias-bound the seam allowance (four layers). 13 layers, not counting gathers. That’s not a seam, that’s a torta chilena. It’s heavy, too.

But if you’re wondering if it’s moot because this dress is too big: yes it’s moot because this dress is too big! The bib and neck fit well, or at least not alarmingly, and that fooled me into thinking the rest of the dress would fit too. It doesn’t, to the point where Mini-Muffin staunchly declines to be put inside it, suspecting, maybe, that she would get lost in there. So we’re going to have a cooling-off period of one calendar year. Will she have a sense of personal style that’s less inclined to old-fashioned girliness in a year? Quite possibly!

But at least I’m not hurrying to get this done for this Christmas, I’m on the sparkly ornament ball for next Christmas! In conclusion: humbug.

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Pattern:  B7069

Pattern cost: $4.99

Size: 3, View C

Supplies: 2 yards of Fableism Sprout in Pineneedle, Gather Here, $25.20; thread, Michael’s, thread, $4.13; buttons from stash

Total time: 9.25 hours

Total cost: $34.32

Hy Fashion

~ PoundCake ~ 12 Comments

Well, that didn’t take long – dolly clothes are here! 

In fact this didn’t take long in any sense, since I line-itemed this collection-to-date as 1 project taking a total of 4.75 hours. Hey, have you tried dopamine? Try finishing 5 bitty items at less than an hour per pop. It turns out doll clothes are almost immediately rewarding. It’s like sewing french fries.

These are 4 of the 10 items from the Twig & Tale doll clothes bundle (I sewed the knickers twice). I’d hoped to sew the 15” doll entirely from stash, but eventually bought yarn, embroidery thread, and stuffing, but her wardrobe is all scraps, which makes me happy. And justifies me saving scraps forever and ever, amen. 

The first pair of knickers is from cotton lawn and in the grip of my two-year-old this 1.59 oz fabric will probably dissolve like a wet tissue after a few days of ordinary play. It was a chance to get comfortable sewing at doll scale, though – anticipate sewing around the needle, because there’s no way for most of this stuff to fit around the shuttle!

My second pair is sturdy cotton scraps from these gingham Pixies, another T&T project, suitably. My elastic casings on both pairs are a very generous interpretation of ¼”, but better that than too narrow! Eventually my work flow became as follows: fold casing (so much easier when pressed in advance, as directed); edgestitch casing ⅛” from the edge using a basting stitch, and leaving a gap; insert elastic in gap; hand-sew elastic in a loop (no way I felt like shoving those tiny ends under the needle); edgestitch casing with fabric right side up, using basting stitches as guide, sewing 1/16” from the edge with a normal stitch length and closing the gap; unpick basting stitches. It takes longer to say than do, honestly, and it means I don’t have to look at those (relatively) sloppy ol’ bobbin stitches when done. Also, I serged the seams on the lawn pair, but afterwards pinked everything.

Next up is the dress! I sewed straight-edged pockets instead of the sweet round ones because I’m not looking for any trouble, mister. The cotton is leftover from this cushion. I handed Mini-Muffin my bag of cotton scraps and she selected the fabric, though actually she picked some Nani Iro double gauze first, which unfortunately couldn’t accommodate the dress. Nice to know the kid has taste, though!

The pixie hat and vest use my Zeno’s corduroy for the outer. I still have some! I can’t seem to use it up, which is fine by me! Original garment here and first double-scrap-bust here. The lining is the cream knit from these sleep sacks, once again used fuzzy-side-out. The knit got really stretched out along the openings when turning, but was perfectly amenable to shrinking back into place with hand-sewn ladder stitches. I love the slight turn-of-cloth favoring the lining.

The hat has some surprising opportunities to customize fit, but I sewed the roomiest, simplest view and it took about 20 minutes total. No hat pattern could have anticipated the volume of this doll hair so it only kind-of sort-of fits but if I wanted to sew another one I could find the time! But it’s plenty cute as is and Mini-Muffin likes that her dolly has a “birthday hat”.

I failed to follow the directions (because…I didn’t read them) to turn the reversible vest fronts through the shoulders to the back and instead pulled the back and one front through the opposite shoulder. But hoo boy they tell you to do it the right way for a reason, because it almost took me longer to turn the vest than sew the hat. The button loop (a snapped hair elastic) and button were my addition; I eyeballed loop-and-button placement but I love those too. Tiny vest, you’re the tiny best, I love you sooo! 

Did I discover much joy in sewing doll clothes? Yes. Am I taking things OUT of my giveaway bag to use the scraps for doll clothes? Maaaybe. Could I see this becoming a problem? Maaaybeee!

In Any Other Business, I got cocky. “I finished a sweater,” I thought, “I can do things! I can re-knit the collar on this sweater to bring it in my preferred amount, following this tutorial!” Update: I cannot!! I ended up binding off the neck edge in a hurry because the sweater was fading away like Marty McFly in front of me and stitches were droppin’ like flies (McFlies) and it’s stable now, at least, but…

These loops? What are these? I went up or down a row when attempting to pick up stitches, I think?? I bound off anything that even looked sort of like a stitch and decided to worry about it later. Anyway, I’m going to pick up the collar, and if I have enough yarn to fold it over I can hide these loopies inside.

I have a big pile of mending and have-to projects to get through and I’d love to clear the decks for next year, but I can’t promise I’ll stop making tiny clothes instead! One more french fry!!

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Pattern:  Twig & Tale doll clothes bundle

Pattern cost: NA (received as Storyteller)

Size: for 15” doll

Supplies: scraps of cotton lawn, quilting cotton, gingham

Total time: 4.75 hours

Total cost: $0.00

Hi, Dolly

~ PoundCake ~ 19 Comments

Today, a doll! I’ve been really digging hand-work lately, and this, my final Storytellers project, fulfilled that wish. I used the Twig & Tale Tītoki doll pattern and encountered truly the strangest-shaped pattern pieces I’ve ever seen. But dare I say: result?!

I’ve sewn a few toys but this is my first doll! I panicked briefly when I realized I was uniting two of my evergreen sewing challenges: tininess AND symmetry. Also, the fabric I picked, leftovers of grey/green flannel, didn’t mark very precisely. So instead of following the sensible advice to mark the stitching line with a fine tool around tight curves, I just went ahead and hand-basted…everything. I used thread tacks to mark joints, thread-traced the ear placements, and hand-basted all the pieces together along their stitching lines. The hand stitches then functioned as pins and as a guide to exact sewing.

I’d recommend that step to anybody. Call it 15 minutes per piece, but it saved me so much time and stress when trying to manage bitty seam allowances around a small curve. I used a contrasting purple thread but ultimately didn’t have to unpick any of the basting. It won’t provide meaningful reinforcement, but it’s not hurting anybody!

I actually stuffed and embroidered the body before sewing the limbs, purely from excitement. I really wanted to see what the doll’s face would be shaped like, since fairly minute differences could have a big impact. I think the flannel helped here. It’s got more give than a plain cotton so the round parts are really round. On the other hand it tempted me slightly into over-stuffing – not too dramatically, but the doll’s a little pigeon-breasted. The final feel is a firm squish; if she was an avocado, I’d slice her today, but if she was a persimmon, I’d wait a couple more. 

Next, embroidery! I needed to buy black and white floss, and I hesitated in the Michael’s aisle over a water-solvent marking pen, but in the end I just measured the features by eye (my eye, to be clear. Not stitched eyes). The mouth, nose, and brows are a stitch apiece – you can get a lot of nuance in tiny adjustments, but it’s quick to iterate. The eyes took me much longer and were a bit of a test kitchen for learning embroidery, too.

At the end of two hours, I’d achieved a reasonably symmetrical pair, but they were also ineffably sad. 

Two hours on, two minutes off – I unpicked everything and was back to the blank canvas. Well, flannel. This pair is maybe a little sleepy, but I can live with it! 

I stitched the first pair with two strands of black embroidery thread and this pair with one, which I think was also an improvement.

Mini-Muffin, predictably, claimed the finished dolly about two days into the sewing process, so I made a couple changes to my plan. The biggie was that I wanted the final doll to be machine washable, so I landed on acrylic yarn for the hair. This is Loops & Threads Charisma in Forest Tweed; it’s a little too thick for the scale, and I didn’t have enough to make over-long hair and then trim evenly, so the result is this tiered Cleopatra-esque wig. At least the puffiness of the yarn conceals the largish gaps I left between the strands. I’d like to replace it eventually with something finer and longer for a waist-length style – I think it will be easier and more fun to braid for a kiddo – but I can’t pretend that I haven’t lost fives of minutes to styling and petting this puffball.

The ears nearly ended me. I had grand visions of giving the doll dainty little pointed elf ears (I was thinking flower fairy, nature sprite, that general situation) but I think the ears are the most challenging step even before going off piste. I tried adding points to the original ear pattern pieces but I shredded my seam allowances when trying to turn those out. I then tried designing my own shape for the ears, basically a teardrop, and those turned out okay individually but weren’t very similar to each other or suitable in context. My last attempt was these, and I think they went the best because I just marked the stitching line but didn’t cut that shape from the scrap fabric. I used the whole scrap as seam allowance so I could grab and steer easily under the machine needle. 

I still didn’t like my stab at the curved attachment stitching, so I replaced it with a single stitch per ear. The edges move freely, but the embroidery knots are hidden underneath.

I returned to the limbs, finally, which were almost totally without incident. They were my reward for doing the ears. Originally one thigh had a lot more stuffing than the other, but I evened them out. I finished this doll when I had laryngitis, and may I say, sitting silently in a cupboard while attaching doll legs with a giant needle is NOT the kind of attic wife I thought I’d be (I’d assumed shouting + arson!), but it’s certainly a look. 

Mini-Muffin has (perplexingly) named this dolly Hi. I’ve mentally amended that to Hy, short for Hyssop. 15” is bigger than I thought, but I pulled out a ruler, and sure enough, the finished doll is 15”. Soon, obviously, I’ll make some clothes for the sprite. I can’t overstate how satisfying it is to adjust the posture from standing to sitting – it’s so natural! 

And the hip joint attachment points turn into butt cheek dimples!! 

Let the people know: dollies; fun to make, fun to play with!

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Pattern: Twig & Tale Tītoki doll 

Pattern cost: NA (received as a Storyteller)

Size: 15”, right on the button!

Supplies: scraps of Shetland Flannel, from stash; embroidery floss, PolyFill, 1 skein of Loops & Threads Charisma in Forest Tweed, Michael’s, $12.25

Total time: 13 hours

Total cost: $12.45

Lakes End

~ PoundCake ~ 25 Comments

Surprising everyone (or at least me-one!) my Lakes Pullover is done! In just about two months, which is close to my personal best, and furthermore does not represent that I knit most parts of this sweater at least twice and sometimes five times.

The trifecta of (Relatively) Stupendous Speed for me was: knitting in scrap time (5-10 minute sessions). Knitting in transit. And knitting in ill health. 🙂 🙂 🙂 It’s been a fun fall.

I do like time management as scrapbusting, though – I need at least an hour to get into a sewing project and actually enjoy it, but I can pick up knitting, cue a song or two, and make incremental progress. Also, like every sweater I’ve knit before, the exciting or complicated stuff is front-loaded, and under the armpits is the stockinette barrens. That makes it really straightforward to just chug along.

Though speaking of armpits, for the first time I have no holes in the armpits! Best pits ever!! 

I guess I can credit this to picking up stitches. I am grudgingly converted. It certainly made it easier to customize sizing as I went. Because of my higgledy-piggledy approach to yarn & needle size – you can read about that here – I was worried that the sleeves and neck would look sloppy. I picked up 10 fewer stitches for the collar than directed. 

I also picked up the number of sleeve stitches for a size L, not XL, though the body was XL.

I was still so paranoid about running out of yarn that I changed the order of ops. So I joined the body, knit the collar, and then finished both sleeves before finishing the body. I figured worse case scenario I could always wear this cropped, but I wanted, y’know, 2 whole sleeves. I read somewhere that you should calculate ⅓ of the total yarn ask for the sleeves. That meant I needed about 230g for both sleeves; I’d budgeted 200g at most. Twist: the first sleeve took 55g. Further twist: both sleeves ended up with an odd number of stitches, despite the even-numbered pick up and reducing two stitches every 6 rows. A mystery, a mystery. I just knit the oddball stitch together with its neighbor when I began the ribbing.

Oh and a quick note about the sleeve pick-up! Maybe this is self-evident but I learned by doing. Pick up stitches going in a clockwise direction. Or you will be left staring at your live yarn on the left-hand needle wondering if your hands are on backwards. 

This sweater involved so much knitting forward and ripping back and knitting again, because one skill that’s not even a little sprout in my skill garden is fixing mistakes. I frog to well before any mistake (even if it’s just a twisted stitch) because my attempts to fix it always lose more time and progress than just an honest do-over. I run a lot of lifelines, but I haven’t figured out how to do that in combination with short rows, so areas like the left and right front took me 4 or 5 passes to successfully complete. 

The lifelines, though essential, were also a boot with which I kicked my own butt. Specifically, when I decided to switch from body to sleeves, I ran two strands of yarn through my stitches, because earlier when I’d done one strand it broke when I tried on the partial sweater and it took me ages and lost inches to get everything back on the needles. Then when I returned to the body, I kept knitting with both strands in place, essentially knitting around a spacer. So there’s a visibly looser row. 

It was improved by blocking, but you can imagine how stark it was before.

I didn’t even consider skipping the blocking this time. I’m a good girl! The evening I cast off, I ritually drowned the sweater in a stockpot and arranged it on some towels to dry. It’s a little humbling to discover just how bad I am at eyeballing measurements; I’d made one side of the body, and one sleeve, each 1” longer than its mate. So I *re*arranged it on some towels and waited 46 hours (what can I say, I got impatient). And…here’s the finished sweater!

I couldn’t tell you what size this is per the pattern, but here’s some data: the finished sleeve is 18” from armpit to hem. The finished body is 11.5” from armpit to hem. The circumference at armpit level is 53.5”. The circumference at the hem (unstretched) is 47”. And here is my super-mega-twist: the XL called for 700g of yarn. Okay, I used DK weight, so my final measurements were closer to an L, 600g. But I used…hold on to your butts…398g. !!! I’m not bad at math, but I am HORNSWOGGLED by knitter’s math!

Despite my self-inflicted confusion, I think this was a solid pattern. Clear and unfussy directions, though the linked videos were just okay and I preferred to find my own. The one step I couldn’t follow was the technique for binding off the folded-over collar – I used this one instead, which I’m pretty sure is different from what was recommended, but I’m very happy with it! 

I also could have used a reminder not to twist the body when joining in the round. Protect me from my own incompetence, pattern! On the other hand, frogging that Möbius strip was a pretty easy call. 

Also I have NEVER broken yarn so many times. Truly one bazillion ends to weave in! I could definitely see knitting this again, though, ends and all. I’ll likely wear this sweater all the dang time but I’d like to try again in the correct weight – I think the fuller-bodied shape from worsted as opposed to the drape of DK is part of the pattern’s appeal.

And I liked having a knitting project to use my time crumbs. Though the next one should probably use my leftovers – almost 150g of tweedy DK wool. Suggestions welcome!

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Pattern:  Ozetta Lakes Pullover 

Pattern cost: NA

Size: XL body, L sleeves, knit with size US6 needles

Supplies: 550 g/1430 m of Drops Soft Tweed in Raven (used 398 g), $52.90, LindeHobby

Total time: Cast on 9/8/2025; cast off 11/12/2025

Total cost: $52.90

Halloween wrap-up

~ PoundCake ~ 12 Comments

Here’s my Halloween wrap-up, for an underwhelming costume that somehow took as much time as an outstanding one! This is definitely about the journey and not the destination. My vague plan was as follows: I wanted to sew a bubble-skirted pinafore dress (with the bubble skirt representing the spider’s cephalothorax), four arms (for a total of eight, including her two existing arms and legs), and then some sort of dazzling headpiece covered in eyeballs.

I discussed last week how I stalled out on the spider arms, so I pivoted to the dress, because that sounded like fun. I took measurements from Mini-Muffin’s favorite RTW dress and drew up a casual pattern.

Mini-Muffin was firm that she wanted to be a “plain spider” so I used some library swap black corduroy for the main fabric. She also maintained that a spider needed “booty buttons” (??) so she accompanied me to the store and selected these, and the Halloween-themed cotton to use as a lining. I didn’t like the idea of buttons just hanging out for no reason, even on a Halloween piece, so I sewed some pockets and flaps. My corduroy piece was a long strip with a fuzzy flaw running along the whole scrap – presumably why the previous user ended up with that particular leftover – but that meant I had lots of selvedge to use for various finished edges. I used it for the pocket opening, and also for the upper seam allowance of the flap.

I liked this way of putting together a flap, which was a successful experiment. I cut the cotton lining shorter by the top seam allowance, sewed the edges, flipped to the right side, and then pressed the outer flap’s upper selvedge edge to wrap around the raw lining top. Then when I attached it I took one stitching pass from the outside without having to fold the whole flap over on itself.

I figured out before attaching the bodice and skirt that I hadn’t given myself enough space for the extra arms, even with deeply scooped armholes, so I added a waistband to the skirt instead (pictured here inside-out). 

It incorporated all the elements of the project Mini-Muffin had selected, anyway. But as anyone who’s met a two-year-old knows, it’s possible to triple-confirm they want berries in their yogurt only to have them react with horrified betrayal when their yogurt has berries. Except in this case she calmly tried on the skirt and then said “I’m all done”.

It was a lot less bubbly than I hoped for, too! Plus I thought potentially the bulky waistband was uncomfortable so I removed it and shaped the side seams to be a steeper angle emanating from a cut-on waistband. I pressed the straight top edges of the outer and lining to the wrong side before sewing them together with a hefty 1” seam allowance. I then dropped in the waistband elastic (already in a loop! No twisting!) and sewed the top edges together with a ⅛” seam allowance. 

I don’t know if I could pull this off with any curve to any of the stitching lines, but with short straight lines, this was surprisingly easy. Anyway, she still didn’t like it!

I put the skirt aside and returned to the arms. I cut slightly shaped arms from the corduroy. Unfortunately I couldn’t place the fuzzy fabric flaw consistently on the arms – in this case, definitely a feature not for a bug – but otherwise this went better than the tights. 

I was able to stuff these with less precision, but more vigor, and a chopstick. So they hold their shape pretty well and aren’t overly large and floppy. I used thread chains to connect the arms to each other and to her shirt sleeves at the upper arm, leaving the distal end of her human arm free in case she needed to wear a coat on the night. The thread chains didn’t all survive but they lasted long enough!

At this point I returned to the almost-finished bodice. I had enough corduroy left to cut a couple rectangles and seam them together for a skirt.

I wasn’t even thinking spider at this point, more salvage. I moved the pockets and flaps to the back of the new skirt before trying to attach the bodice.

I threw myself into a welter when I realized there’s no way to sew a continuous loop to an open-backed bodice and cleanly finish the waist seam with the lining. So I tried adding an afterthought placket to the skirt, largely because I couldn’t face moving the pockets again. The placket was 1. Revolting and 2. Reversed (I sewed it in such a way that the already-opened bodice buttonhole was in the underlap!) so: I sure ended up moving those pockets again! 

I cut out a thin rectangle including the back partial placket, folded over the new fabric edges twice, and overlapped and topstitched, leaving the top inch and a half open. Then I moved the pockets to the sides, because after taking so much from the center back they were almost kissing. By the final iteration the pockets had lost fidelity, and certainly I’d abandoned the vision of “booty buttons”, but Mini-Muffin wasn’t interested in this dress, either, so it’s moot. Anyway, pleats, the end!

Her final costume was comprised of the arm-shirt, RTW leggings, a headband with some hasty stick-on jewels, and a tutu borrowed from a friend. She had a lot of fun, and I got to eat her peanut M&Ms because she doesn’t like them. 

C’est la Halloween!

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Pattern: bubble skirt/RTW-traced pinnie dress

Pattern cost: NA

Size: 26″ finished waist; original measurements taken from J. Crew dress, size 3

Supplies: scraps of black corduroy, Hey Pumpkin cotton in Charcoal, $5.78; buttons, Gather Here; thread, Michael’s, $5.59; elastic from stash

Total time: 3.75 hours/2.75 hours

Total cost: $11.37

Re-Knits

~ PoundCake ~ 12 Comments

Today I have two knit projects, one successful and one less so. First: a shirt too large, in a knit substrate (rayon!) I quickly learned to dislike. Cutting it into smaller pieces solved the first problem; I’m not sure there’s a fix for the second, except for avoiding rayon jersey in the future. I was hoping to fit a cut-on shoulder tee onto the pieces and avoid sewing sleeves again, but though the tee was much too much big in the usual sense it was also a little too much small. So I turned to the True Bias Rio Ringer tee. This has very wee pattern pieces to my woven-accustomed eyes, and it fit easily on the old tee! 

This was easier to cut from the ex-tee pieces instead of the yardage, since there was less drape and pull, but I still couldn’t mark the fabric, so I pinned and cut around the paper pattern. My traced version was for the dress, so I cut along the dress side seam until I ran out of fabric. My plan was to sew the side seams (of their variable lengths, however long those should be) and then cut and hem later.

I took the easy road and used ribbing someone else picked out, my leftovers from this Needlesharp kit. I still have a good amount, even after cutting the neck and armbands for this project. Once again, easy, a word that has no place in a rayon jersey project. I was getting suspicious.

You’d think that would make me vigilant and precise but not so much. For the first couple steps it was a cheerful disaster, until I realized I wasn’t using a stretch needle, at which point the sailing was a lot smoother.

This pattern lets you eat dessert first, if you classify topstitching ribbing as “dessert”, and I know that you do. Once I finished that step I was warmed up and having fun, so I was less bothered by my hideous serging and occasionally peculiar seam allowances. The places where the ribbing meets are obviously lumpy, but most of the horribleness is on the inside, and so am I, so I’m blocking the view!

After sewing and serging the side seams, I cut straight across to level the hem at my preferred height. Since I didn’t use the hem shaping from the tee view, this made my side seams a little pointy; I shaved off a thin crescent from each side, blending to the flat line, before hemming. And that’s all she wrote. 

The fit is different on me than on the envelope – the sleeves stand away from the model’s body, while mine have a smidge of negative ease – but I’d call this an improvement over my big tee. 

Positioning and expectation make a huge difference. Even though I had hoped to recover a wearable shirt, I was surprised when it worked. Starting from a wadder made me think “hey! This is pretty good!” whereas the original was contrasted against my hopes and expectations. The sewing is fairly shady, but I almost dare to say this is the right fabric/pattern pairing?! It’s not NOT cloud-like. Also, is this a good time to notice I made the upper chest sheeny from ironing the ribbing? 

Darn you, rayon jersey!

Project number two: a Halloween piece for Mini-Muffin. She committed to being a spider early in October and wouldn’t budge (breaking my heart, because her other front runners were bathtub and pufferfish). I didn’t have a clear idea of how the final costume would look, but multiple arms seemed non-negotiable.

These are bottom-of-the-barrel DIY spider arms but I bought two pairs of baby tights and cut off the legs (each at 11.25”). Before stuffing the first one I measured a pile of polyfill, and that one took 18 grams, so I did my best to keep the stuffing amount equal per leg. Arm. Limmmb. To be honest, though, I think my kitchen scale was just telling me what it thought I wanted to hear. It’s not the most sensitive device!

I unpicked the side seams of a toddler tee, first sewing a couple tacks over the serging below the armpit and above the hem, and inserted my puffy tights. Or rather, I inserted the first two, and then I took a step back and actually looked at them.

Yeesh.

This was such a bodge job that I tendered my semi-traditional Halloween regrets and binned the tights legs. Part of my sense of self as it relates to creativity is that I’m pretty good at it, but this was callin’ me a liar.

I feel bad that I wasted two perfectly good pairs of tights, but I’m saving the shirt for pass 2, which involves cutting and stuffing fabric arms. I looked at a number of spider costumes for inspiration but they were all lackluster (sorry, internet!! But why would I say it if it wasn’t truuueee), then pivoted to looking at spider plushies. The missing ingredient seems to be shaping. Basically, tube with a bend = spider. Those tubes, above = sausage.

Halloween is breathing down my neck so whatever I do I better do it fast! This couldn’t be lower stakes, but please wish me luck!

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Pattern: Rio Ringer tee

Pattern cost: NA

Size: 10 bust, 12 waist, 14 hip

Supplies: leftover rayon jersey + ribbing, from stash

Total time: 2.25 hours

Total cost: $0.00

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Pattern: NA

Pattern cost: NA

Size: NA

Supplies: 3T tee shirt, 2x toddler tights, Target, $13.00; polyfill from stash

Total time: unrecorded

Total cost: $13.00

Introducing…

~ PoundCake ~ 19 Comments

Today I invite you to stare not at the guts of my clothes as usual, but at the guts of my home. That’s right, internetians, it’s a LIFE UPDATE! The headline is that I have a new sewing machine.

Introducing the Duchessa, named for the brand of Helo’s car in Jade City (though not Helo’s own car, for obvious reasons. His Duchessa is white. This joke is funny to such a narrow band of people I thought about deleting it, but I’m in that band, sooo). It’s a refurbished Singer Featherweight 201-2, with the wall plug updated for modern outlets, and an instruction booklet copyrighted 1957. A casual google + a calculator leads me to believe this machine likely cost today’s equivalent of $1,600. Mine was priced about even with my modern Singer Heavyweight. It was restored by and purchased from Bob Harrison (who also rebuilds vintage wooden cars!), and I was able to take ownership this spring, when we moved.

Which is also to say: we moved. We were in our old home for 12 or 13 years and while we only moved about a 10 minute walk away, I had a whole lotta feelings, which is partly why I have not treated my new room very lovingly. Which is also ALSO to say: I have my very own room! 

The previous family called it a closet, presumably because it doesn’t *have* a closet, but it does have a door and a window, and I call that a room. I used to sew in the dining room and keep my supplies and machines in the dining room hutch, pantry, and coat closet; now all my stuff is in my room but I still sew in the dining room. Because my room is full of stuff.

Verisimilitude.

I miss the hutch particularly. Don’t get me wrong, W.B. Mason makes a fine box, but I prefer concealed storage, and the hutch had both a ton of space and a lot of separated space in a way that no dresser or shelf alone can replicate. I don’t have a vision or plan for my new space except that I know I want to put everything away and my budget is as near as damn to $0 as I can make it. Possibly one very long desk along the window wall so all my machines can stay out? Uh…pegboards? I like the desk in Not A Primary Color’s craft room but I’m not convinced a corner is right for the footprint of my room. I also have to decide if I keep the Duchessa in its original cabinet. 

Pros: original! OOH! Also, Mini-Muffin is fascinated by all the moving parts of the machine and storing it inside keeps those away from toddler manipulations.

Cons: It sits a smidge higher than I’m used to sewing. It’s quite possibly more ergonomic, but I feel like I’m fishing around for the pedal a lot. Here is a fun pedal/room interaction: more than once I’ve accidentally slid the pedal under the baseboard while it was compressed, and then when I lift up my foot it obviously stays down, and I panic because THERE’S A GHOST IN THE MACHINE!

Essentially, though, it’s comfortable to use. There’s some differences from my modern machine but nothing upsetting/directly defying my intuitions. I also consult the instructions a fair amount!

It’s old-fashioned, but there’s something I like about this booklet. It’s reflecting the limiting norms of its era, but the implicit message is “What the little woman needs is KNOWLEDGE AND POWER” and I can’t disagree?? 

There’s also something nice about their assumption of their own permanence – use only SINGER* Motor Lubricant! Sold and serviced wherever you see the famous Red “S”!

But the main “something” I like about this booklet is that it’s a good booklet and every stage of set-up and sewing has been perfectly clear with it as a reference. 

This is the one machine I actually use in situ, even though my situ is messy. It’s a lot darker than the dining room, though, so I guess you can add “lights” to my nonspecific room plans! That said, the actual sewing is deluxe. Truly you can feel this machine’s power. The stitches are always the same length, no matter what. Thick fabric, lots of layers, going over a bumpy seam, the Duchessa does not care. Even, tight stitches every time. Turning curves is easy – almost too easy, since fabric just zips smoothly through whether sewing straight or curved, and my muscle memory tells me I need to push through a curve. It’s also very VERY easy to sew through extra layers of fabric since there’s no hesitation that might make me think “oopsie”.

I’m definitely not sewing up to this machine’s capabilities – call me learning curvaceous – but I intend to Get Good eventually. I have a ton of feet to experiment with, too. These are also listed in the booklet, so I don’t have to guess, but feel free to leave guesses below! A French ruffler, perhaps?

So far I’ve used the Duchessa for pants and just pants. Obviously it’s capable of sewing non-pants, but I have a little mental block around it. It feels like using a vanilla bean when vanilla extract will do or driving a [Look Up FancyPants Car Here] to the grocery store. Which in this case is extra silly, because while a vanilla bean is consumable, this machine improves with use. The oil works itself in so it can sew more smoothly and quickly, and a frequently-used machine gets more maintenance and attention. So while I’m always excited to sew another pair of pants, I should probably use this for other stuff too.

Also, if you have any workspace/storage ideas, strategies, inspiration…I’m all ears!