Heather
Heather is a Canadian with a passion for making things, and a desire to share those things with the world. (Whether the world wants her to or not.) Main mediums include knitting, sewing, polymer clay sculpture, baking, cooking, sketching, and probably things she hasn't tried yet.
Lutterloh Knitting
It’s been some time since I sewed the dress in my last post, and in the interim I’ve made another Lutterloh pattern. I had said I wanted to draw out the tank top pattern on my knitleader and knit it on the Brother 940, and I did just that. I went with this simple number: I drew out the pattern on paper manually, using the Lutterloh ruler, and then cut it out and traced it onto the knitleader mylar sheets. I included the dart, even though in retrospect I probably didn’t need to. I chose a yarn and a stitch pattern (a very hard task for me). I wanted to…
More Lutterloh Patterns
I thought before I dive into Lutterloh pants making, I should try something a little simpler. Enter this dress: It’s a basic little number with a back zipper and a couple of darts. I have a similar RTW dress so I can compare construction techniques. A better place to start for a pattern system with no instructions, I think. And a little more forgiving if the sizing is not quite right. First off, the pattern doesn’t indicate facings for the armholes. It only really shows a little fold over area at the back neck. It is assumed that the armholes would therefore be turned under, but I thought that a…
Sewing a Lutterloh Pattern
As most buyers/collectors of pre-loved knitting or sewing machines know, often when you get a machine you are given a collection of assorted odds and ends along with it. Pieces for other machines, random thread, bobbins, old elastic – anything that may have been associated with the machine in question. With one of my acquisitions, I can’t remember which at this point, I was given this box: At the time I had no idea what it was, but at some point I opened it and figured out it is a pattern drafting system made by Lutterloh. I put it aside, and hadn’t looked at it much until recently when I…
Tubular Fair Isle/Pattern Knitting on the Superba
A few times someone has brought up the possibility of machines that can knit tubular fair isle, but I actually don’t know of any machine that does it automatically. Maybe a passap? I don’t know. But after my three-colour jacquard investigations using a “blank” pass, I had wondered if it would be possible to do the same type of thing on the Superba, but in the round, so you’d have a tube instead of a double-bed jacquard fabric. So I finally got around to trying it out. Am I the first person to do this on the Superba? I very much doubt it, but I couldn’t find any documentation about…
Pattern Drafting (for Sewing) with Seamly2D
Why hello! I think the title for today says it all – I want to talk about drafting your own sewing patterns. If, like me, you got your start in sewing garments from commercial, pre-printed patterns from the “Big Three” pattern companies, or the printable PDF patterns available online, it has maybe never crossed your mind to draft your own patterns. After all, there are tons of great commercial patterns available, many of which include tutorials and helpful tips to make sewing your own clothes possible, even for beginners. Especially if you’re sewing for just one person (particularly someone who doesn’t change sizes frequently) and can get used to what…
Superba Forma/Pattern Driver Sheets
If you have looked around the internet for pattern driver sheets to fit the Superba forma/pattern driver device, you may have noticed there aren’t too many to be found. I have a set that I found on eBay, but because they’re vintage, the women’s sizes are pretty small for a gal of 2022 proportions. You can find the blank gridded sheets occasionally, so you can draw your own patterns, but I didn’t want to pay money for shipping what are essentially blank sheets of graph paper. The patterns, by the way, are 1/2 scale, and drawn with measurements in centimeters, although they list the kids’ sizes by height measurement rather…
Machine Knit Elf on the Shelf Sweater
I know it’s February, and actually almost March. Consider me very early for next Christmas, not late for this past one. I made this in December for our visiting elf, but never got around to writing up the pattern until today. Here are a couple of photos of the sweater: As you can likely see, it’s a very simple roll-neck pattern. The front and back are exactly the same, and there is no shaping anywhere. For those keeners who might want to recreate this and need no further instruction, here is the (hand-drawn, not to scale) schematic: If, however, you’d like a little more detail, you can find the full…
Needle Quest – Part 2
If you read Part 1 of this series, you will know that I was on a quest for suitable needles for a Bellinky linker. They are virtually impossible to get as it turns out, and although I have a stash, they won’t last forever, and other people are in need of them as well. I won’t keep you reading for no reason: the new needles work perfectly! But not without a few adjustments, so read on if you’d like details. I received the 88×1 needles (very quickly might I add) and look how closely they resemble the Orange PYE-2 needles: I apologize in advance, by the way, for these photos.…
Needle Quest
That’s what I’m calling what I did yesterday. Over the last while, I have heard from several people looking to buy spare needles for their Bellinky linker. And there is a shop that I have directed them to, where I myself bought some of the needles after an internet search, but they are out of the size 22. What I have been using successfully is the size 140/22, in the PYE-2 system from Orange needles. I can find NO ONE else who makes this type of needle, nor can I find anywhere besides that one shop to buy them. (A quick Google will bring them up. They are in the…
Insert Industrial Revolution Pun Here
My brain hurts, make your own pun for the title. It’s like choose your own adventure! So as the weather changes, and my natural crafty inclinations swing back toward sewing, I’ve been hard at work making spring/summer things for the kids and myself. If you’ve been following my Instagram, you’ll have seen the monstrous piece of cotton fleece I ice dyed to make myself some shorts, and the spring softshell jackets I made for two of my kids. I’m exceptionally happy with how those jackets turned out, but I have to say, they were not easy for my sewing machine. I used the vintage Kenmore for all of it, (well…