My grand-mother passed away earlier this year, and my mum and aunts decided to give me her former sewing machine, an elna “supermatic”. It’s probably over 50 years old, but she so took such great care of it that it’s still in great shape. I found on Ebay a set of extra cams, and now I can do all those super pretty fancy embroidery stitches.. ! :-P
It’s quite special for me to be able to sew with my grand-mother’s sewing machine… especially when reading her notes on the manual or sewing booklet that came with it. I always have a thought for her and nearly feel like she’s around, which is nice. :-D

Excuse me otherwise for the lack of posting. Some rather serious health problems happened in our house lately, and I just had no time for crafting or even working altogether. Hopefully this should get better, little by little. I haven’t had time to work on the larger (XL) size of the Jehanne cardigan yet, but should be done soon with the revised sizing for the Roselette. Testers for the 6-8-10 yo sizes anyone ? :-)

Thanks to the very helpful feedback and edits of Krysten TenDyke, great feedback on my questions on Ravelry… and after another quick triple-check of the sizing on another cardigan (that’s how it always works, start a new project to validate the former one, right ? ;-)

I’m now VERY happy to introduce the long-awaited pattern for my Jehanne cardigan, which as I have just learned, features a “liripipe“, long medieval-looking hood. So glad I learned a new word today, and all the more as the more I look at pictures of liripipes and medieval reanactments, the more I see my Jehanne hooded cardigan and Jehanne capelet (the perfect “Chaperon with liripipe” !!) would fit perfectly in medieval festivals !! That makes me happy as I love those middle-ages costumes… :-D

But let’s get back to the pattern: the Jehanne cardigan is available so far in 4 sizes, going from XS to L.
An XL size will be added asap. ( all those who purchased the pattern via ChezPlum or Ravelry will receive the updated pattern then).
It’s meant to be worn very fitted, with a body-hugging silhouette that’s very feminine and flattering.

As usual, my pattern is very detailed, with lots of step by step pictures so that you will visually see where you’re going and what is the next step. I personally hate to crochet in the blind without “seing” what I’m meant to do, guess I’m a visual person.

Jehanne hooded cardigan – $6 –

One last thing: this pattern is also included in my “Around the granny square” ebook, which now includes TEN patterns for under $20. Quite a deal I’d say, and you’ll have all three liripipe designs: Jehanne capelet, Jehanne hooded cardigan and Ermeline. :-)

“Around the granny square” ebook – $19.95 –

ETA: I have just sent an exclusive coupon code for 20% off this design and my ebook to people already in my Newsletter. If you haven’t signed up for it yet, do it now to be notified when I release new patterns… and get exclusive discounts ! :-)

This may look like an entire new design… yet it’s meant to double-check my final edits on the Jehanne cardigan.
If all works well, I’ll also have a pretty colored cardigan at the end .. :-)
The yarn is icelandic Lett Lopi, highly recommended by Helene Magnusson so I had to try it !

Some designers are super methodic, very fond of math and will tell you all about their grading systems, with 5 to 10 sizes for a single pattern… This has always scared me so much, looking like a different language I could never understand let alone speak.

For all the garments I designed so far, I knitted/crocheted intuitively, designing directly for myself or my kids and followed my intuition for the rest… trying to keep the “math part” to a minimum, as I always felt that however hard I tried, it never translated into something wearable in real life. This un-method kinda worked so far.

Then there was the Jehanne hooded cardigan. I designed it based both on the general shape of the Violaine, but most of all, on my own measurements and fit. BUT this time, there was a glitch and the helpful people testing the larger sizes showed severe sizing issues. I knew I had to alter those sizes, but for some weird reason I had no idea where to start, it seemed so daunting.

So I hired Krysten TenDyke to do some tech-editing for me, hoping she’ll get her magic wand out and hand me out a “perfect pattern”. Magic wand she didn’t have, but her notes, remarks and questions were JUST what I needed. I tell you, hiring an expert can be pricey, but it will be worth it because they’ll point out the important points. :-)

So. What I learned in the process is:
- while it would seem logical to have the front of a sweater larger than the back, it is not the standard used in the knitting/crochet industry, and there are good reasons for that (thanks to Raverly for all the valuable input I received on that question!!)
- an excel spreadsheet IS not as difficult to use as it seemed, and you know what ? It’s even a bit “fun” to see all those numbers coming out of it: sudenly I nearly have all my sizes ready, and all those triple-checks say it should even work !

- last and not least: triple-check gauge. On your swatch, on the finished garment and also after a couple months wearing the garment. Sometimes I keep finding different numbers, wondering if I was sick last time I checked gauge or if somebody changed those numbers during my sleep ;-)

Anyhow. So now I’m redoing all the math for the Roselette: this pattern highly needs a bit of TLC. There’s a couple things I want to edit, and I wasn’t happy with the current 6 yo size. The new version should go up to 10 yo size. How’s that ? I will also take in-progress pictures of the samples I’ll crochet to check those new sizes, and add those pics to the pattern.

This is making me very happy today. :-)

For once, I’ll be posting in french to introduce my new french site, “Fibre créative” dealing with my fiber experience in Vercors, France: knitting and crochet pattern-writing, workshop teaching, and translating craft books and individual knitting, crochet and sewing patterns.

Bonjour,

Une fois n’est pas coutume, j’écrirais ce post en français, histoire de vous présenter mon tout nouveau site aux couleurs de mon Atelier en Vercors: Fibre Créative !

Ce site sera l’occasion de développer l’aspect plus “local” de mes activités, autour du Vercors et de la région grenobloise, mais aussi de manière plus globale en France lorsque j’aurais l’occasion de me déplacer sur des festivals (on croise bien sûr tous les doigts pour qu’il y ait d’autres éditions du “Lot et Laine”!!)

Pour le moment, Fibre créative est encore un tout petit site, mais j’ai essayé d’y présenter l’esprit des ateliers laine que je veux animer, à la fois par le biais de la Maison pour tous de Villard de lans (attention, les ateliers débutent cette semaine !!) mais aussi par le biais de stages thématiques à Lans en Vercors sur le filage de la laine ou le feutrage, probablement un samedi matin par mois … (au moins tant que je n’ai pas trouvé de studio dédié uniquement à mes activités)

J’y ai inclus un petit diaporama de diverses photos, une page “boutique” qui sera amenée à grandir beaucoup dès que j’aurais traduit certains de mes modèles en français comme cela me l’a été demandé (oui je sais, c’est un comble pour une française !).

Et j’y présente aussi mes services de traduction de modèles de tricot et de crochet anglais ou américains, puisque je travaille de plus en plus avec des client(e)s français(e)s.

Quant au blog en français, il sera bientôt intégré au site, mais pour le moment il est encore sous blogger. Chaque chose en son temps ! :-)

We just got back from 2 weeks away: went to the beach, jumped in the swimming-pool, ate tons of ice-cream to keep us cool…

I managed to finish in time a third design to submit for that “One skein” crochet book. This one is for a cute little baby bolero, which I will probably also self-publish sometime soon. Now let’s cross fingers that they accept at least some of the projects for the book. :-P

My uncle has just moved just nextdoor to our place there, and he is quite passionate about metal-detecting. I had a look at his amazing collection of antique spindle whorls: those are all metal ones (he said lead, mostly, and they certainly ARE heavy), and date back up to the roman times…

He was so kind as to give me one of them, and I played with it with a very uneven piece of wood: yet it did spin, and pretty well too !! I can’t wait to try it with a straight shaft.
The fun part is that he was so happy to see my little demo, and to hear any little info I could give him on why whorls were designed as they are, and how they were used. I say this is the best partnership and exchange of each other’s knowledge ! :-D
I made a quick video, and will try to post it shortly.

And now it’s back to work (although I did work on several translations and that new baby bolero design while there…). The girls are still on holidays for 2 weeks but I’ll try to focus on the million things I have to do… September is always my favorite month of the year, full of promises and new beginnnings, and this year surely won’t fall short of new beginnings, especially with my first weekly workshops. Both exciting and scary !

How was your summer ? Did you manage to crochet a bit as well ?

So my younger daughter – she just turned 5 this summer – really wanted a mermaid Barbie doll. Why buy it when we can make it ? I found this beautiful shiny silver fabric in an op shop lately, perfect for a mermaid !!

She also wanted to work on a crafting project, and do some sewing… and today was the day !

I am posting those pics and explaining what we did, step-by-step,in the hope that it may inspire some of you to sew one with your little ones as well. They can handle a sewing machine pretty well if they are focused on what they’re doing and knowing that you will handle the pedal.

You can either use the pattern we drew, or make your child draft her own. Ours is a bit wonky and uneven at places, but it’s her own ! I really wanted her to be proud that she made it all by herself, and pattern-making IS an important step of sewing your own clothes.. :-D

- First I made her draw the outline of her doll’s legs on a sheet of paper. Then she drew the “tail” section around the feet (I helped her redraw it afterwards) and we added about 1 cm for seam allowance around it all.

- Then I used a colored pencil to mark the cutting line, and she cut her pattern “along the blue line”.

- We set the fabric on the table, with wrong side up. Positionned the pattern and I pinned it in place. Then she drew “close around it” with a pen. She removed the pins, very carefully (!) and then cut around the lines with her scisors. (that was the hard part and I had to help her slightly). We repeated this for back of tail. (you’ll need 2 pieces, for back and front)

- Then I told her to place both pieces on top of each other, with the pretty shiny sides together and so that the edges matched as much as possible. Stay beside your child, help her when needed and she should be able to manage that fine. I held both layers of fabric together, and, very carefully she placed the pins through both layers of fabric.

- Finally, the exciting step: sewing machine !! I drew a line about 1 cm inside the edges with a colored marker, to mark the stitching line. Set up the sewing machine on a medium size straight stitch. She sat on my knees, and … ta dam !

- As I said earlier, I manage the pedal. Make sure you push the pedal as slowly as possible, nearly stitch by stitch to begin with. Show your child how to lift the presser foot and place the colored stitching line in place, just below the needle. Then tell her to try and keep the colored line going toward her. That is the key instruction.

- Stop stitching whenever the stitching starts to diverge from the colored line. Let her lift the presser foot – make sure the needle is down IN the fabric – and show her to turn the fabric to follow the curve of the colored stitching line…

- and keep stitching, slowly and with plenty of love and encouragement until you reach the other side. You may show her how to sew a locking stitch at the end (stitch backwards and forward again) if she’s still up to it at this stage.

- Bravo !! You’ve done a great job together !! Trim the excess fabric around stitching line. And let her turn the mermaid tail inside out, for instance with a chopstick. Help is often welcome at this stage for the tail’s end.

- Try the mermaid’s tail on Barbie. Cut a matching strip of fabric if desired to make a belt that will secure the tail in place. ANother strip of fabric will make an easy bra (at this stage, she’s probably tired of sewing)…

And there you go, full Mermaid’s outfit !!!!

Download the free template to sew your own Mermaid’s costume for a Barbie doll.

I recently heard about 2 book projects currently accepting crochet submissions, and thought you might want to give it a try too :-)

Storey publishing is preparing a crochet version of their popular “101 one-skein projects” series. Deadline is August 31st, compensation is $101 but you can submit projects that have already been published (or self-published), including smaller projects as the goal is to make them using only one skein of yarn… :-)
I’ve already prepared 2 samples to send. Yes, because you have to send the full package, finished sample, instructions and even the ball band of yarn used. :-)
You’ll find the details here, and also on this Ravelry thread.

Cooperative Press is also looking for submissions for their new series of books, “Fresh crochet“.
For this one you’ll be submitting a project that was never seen or published before.
Deadline is september 2nd, and details are here.

Will you be submitting something ? Having books sitting there at the bottom of your Ravelry’s designer profile is pretty cool IMO.. :-)

A colorful necklace made by my oldest daughter adorns my pretty matrioshka… while tons of vintage pretty french spindles wait until I find a minute to list them on Etsy.

And new translation jobs keeps coming in. I love my job !! :-D

I have plans to start local workshops teaching people how to spin yarn on a spindle. On top of finding a place to do that, I also wondered how to allow people to leave with a spindle (not so easy to find in local shops… )

Yesterday night I experimented and made a spindle with Fimo. My very first spindle (there will be lots more I’m sure) is all but perfect with unbalanced uneven thickness around shaft and it has a bent nail instead of the hook (couldn’t fit it in, and no patience to wait for a more competent person)

Yet, you know what ? It spins perfectly !!!!!! About as efficient as my Ashford student spindle, it spins effortlessly and for a really long time. I had always wanted to try a square spindle too, and am not disapointed. So very pretty.

Now that I know it’s totally worth it, I’ll pay extra attention next time to make them nearly-perfect. Look-out, we’re going to make spindles !!