Wishing you a most happy birthday Roxanne! So glad you got to do some really fun things and purchase some great items for your birthday. I recently travelled to visit my mom for her 93rd birthday (we live on opposite ends of the US). Coincidentally her town has a very large quilt show the same week. My brother and his wife and I went to both days of the quilt show and while we were there we visited the "crafts room", which sounds similar to the craft store you went to. In about 1200 square feet they had donations of yarn, fabric, trims, buttons, kits, books and all other kids of donated crafts at such good prices! Fortunately I had lots of room in my suitcase to bring quite a bit home. Love, love, love your linen dress. You did such a wonderful job. It really looks professional and fits you so well. Thanks so. much for your videos. I always learn something new.
Hi, Roxanne. The Second City produces what they call long form improvisation. They do some pure improv, and then use the really good stuff to develop sketches that they perform regularly and then rotate in and out of the main stage shows. The improv you saw may turn into a sketch for future shows.
Belated birthday greetings. So sad about your friend and her sister. My thoughts and prayers go out to them. Your dress is lovely and will be ideal in your summer weather. 🇬🇧
First, I extend my prayers for your friend and her sister-in-law for a full recovery from their cancer. I was in tears when you gave the answer to your friend to give you an additional 25 years of friendship. I want to extend you a belated Happy Birthday! I sounds like you had a marvelous trip and celebration of your birthday! Take care!
Happy birthday! Your dyed blue wool is beautiful! My opinion, use the blue up toward your face w grey toward bottom. The sweater you’re wearing (blue) looks very nice on you. (Not saying the grey would look “bad” at the top!!!!) If cardigan, button band 1) in the mid-blue, 2) original grey, or 3) whichever color button band, bottom band, cuffs… add a pop of color for 1 or 2 rounds/rows before bind off. Me… I’d try different color pops: example, blue on cuffs, grey on button band, med blue at hem. Can’t wait to see your sweater plans! Love the blue! And the blue dress, socks, plaid fabric… You’re on a roll !! Thanks for a very interesting episode!
Wishing you a very happy belated birthday, it sounds like you had a great time in Chicago! The dress looks amazing and will be great for the summer. I can’t wait to see the gradient in your jumper. Much love and prayers for your friend’s speedy recovery ❤️.
hi Roxanne I love your shirt dress and think your blue fabric from Chicago would look great in a shirt length variation. your spiral sock toe looks interesting, thanks for sharing another great podcast.
Happy Belated Birthday wishes. Wishing your friend and her sister the very best too. Love how your learning new sewing skills! I've been sewing a long time, and just finished a 5 day free fitting bootcamp. It was fantastic. Doing the free skirt/pant fitting this coming week. I lost all my slopers the last time I moved. There's always something to learn.
Happy belated Birthday, its good to have you back and by the sounds of it you had a pretty good well deserved break and you now have a different energy. Your dress is really pretty and nicely constructed. Great podcast with so much going on. Thank you for your visit, its always good when you visit because you are so busy. Take care, see you next time.
Wow, so much in this episode to comment on! First, happy birthday! I was tickled to hear you talk about Logan Square and that it has not only good restaurants but an independent bookstore and yarn and craft shops. My husband and I lived on Logan Blvd. in the 70s (when you were in middle school, you said), our best friends down the street. We called ourselves urban pioneers. Such memories. Love the dark blue-black color of your dyed yarn. Very on trend. I wonder if the combination of gradient dyed stripes and cardigan front will be too busy. I think I would opt for a plainer pullover style. Light to dark if top down. But I know you will come up with something great. Thanks for sharing your design process with us. I’ve reserved the mending book at my library; it will be fun to check that out. I could say more about the rest of the podcast but I’ll stop with best wishes to your friend and her sister for full recovery.
My sweet 2 yr old climbing in my lap while i was watching thing and exclaimed oooooo bookies pointing to your shelves. I told her they were knitting books and she asked yarn? Then she rolled her eyes and said oh momma that silly. However she watched the rest with the same attention shes gives Bluey so thats a high compliment.
For the we’re should light and dark go. Most of the time light looks best on the top. The reason is dark looks heavier, light looks lighter. This in interior design, clothing and even landscape. Just a thought! Thanks for a learning filled podcast
I don't often comment but am today. Thanks so much for all you share, you have taught and inspired me in so many ways over the last 5 years as I have learned to love knitting after a very long break. Just love your linen shift dress too., a gorgeous colour for summer. I am an adventurous little more than beginner knitter and since I am not a good seamer of sweaters love the idea of knitting in the round. I too don't like the look of the round necklines but this winter I found a free pattern on Drops site for a short sleeve sweater with a saddle shoulder knit top down. I love the look and fit of this shoulder shape it's beautiful. Other than a wonky gauge on my collar and the smallest size feels a bit too boxy and big for me it was an easy knit for me. I also love that I could knit a longer almost 3/4 sleeve rather than a short sleeve. Fern Feast is the name of the pattern so offering it as an alternative shoulder style for your consideration. I have also seen cardigan styles with the same shoulder style. One day I might frog mine back and try a cardigan style. :)) Have a wonder filled weekend. :))
I just finished my sleeves for my Gelid Quarter-zip pullover and it has it all! It was in Interweave winter 2023. If you’re looking for ideas for your hand spun you must take a look. Enjoy your sharing of your treasure hunts. 😊
I've been enjoying watching your sewing journey. I can see the attention to detail that you employ in both your knitting and sewing. I would recommend the use of an edger foot for topstitching (also used for blind hemming). If your machine didn't come with one, they are easily obtainable. I would also recommend the book Fine Machine Sewing by Carol Laflin Ahles as I am sure it would appeal to your inner perfectionist. You can probably get a used copy fairly cheaply. Your dress turned out great. Linen is a lovely fabric to stitch. Happy making!
Hi Roxanne, happy belated birthday! If you find you don’t have enough plaid fabric to match up design, I have seen some visible alterations where strips of solid color fabric is added along the torso side seams. Just a thought.
Hi Roxanne, thank you for sharing your recent trip and birthday week activities. I also have a March birthday - Happy Birthday to us! Regarding the color flow of the sweater…. I prefer the lighter color at the top, and the darker color around my hips for visual balance when wearing the sweater with dark slacks. My largest width is at the hip. If the lightest color is at the hip, it would create a large bright band at the hip- I envision my appearance to look like Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum! Great job on your sewing!
Belated birthday greetings Roxanne. Lovely to spend it with your daughter. Love the dress. I especially like how it doesn't gape around the armhole, so many sleeveless shirts I've tried on in shops are cut far too deep. Pockets?
My initial thought was to put the darkest color along the bottom, my widest part 🙃. Then I wondered if you would prefer color next to your face rather than the natural gray...What about going from darkest to lightest then back to dark?
For your gradient, I think it depends on where you want to draw the focus, lighter things look bigger, darker recedes. (I think I have that right! 😂) Do you want to draw the eye up or down?
HB, Roxanne. Logan Square is a great 'hood. Happy you had a good time. I think your dress (expertly sewn!) fits absolutely perfectly. And it seems like, from your video, you have plenty of room to move in it. Great button choice. Kudos to you for dying experiments. The dark color turned out beautifully. And a gradient idea will be interesting. Personally, I've always found gradients disappointing in sweaters. One thinks abstractly that one color or another will work better top or bottom, but when it comes to it neither solution is without its problems. My solution is to do the neck, cuffs, hem in the dark color - - to establish, as it were, the shape of the garment. Then on the other parts playing with the direction of the gradient will always work. Engaging episode, overall. Entertaining and full of information.
My plan currently is for the darkest color to edge the ribbing at the neck, front bands and hem, and then to alternate thin stripes of the different greens with wider stripes of the gray, moving from lightest to darkest to lightest to darkest through the body
Sounds like you had a good b'day! Fun! For you handspun sweater I think you should start with the dark blue then finish with the grey. I think that with your grey hair it will look better.
I loved your dress! And your socks! Sending positive vibes for your friend ❤ Happy birthday! I live somewhat near Chicago: thank you so much for the WasteShed recommendation.
Sheding a year as you talk about your knit worthy friend. A long time friend of mine is being treated for colon cancer. Perhaps the key thing to take from both these situations is get tested folks. Don't keeping well yourself you'll get around to getting something checked out - do it. It could save your life.
My opinion is that the blue near your face would be most becoming. With your beautiful hair, you would get lost if the gray were at the top. Oddly, I just did the heel you describe for the first time (after making untold number of heel flap and gusset socks). It turned out fine.
I personally tend to like darker colors to be placed at the bottom and lighter ones at the top. To me, darker colors are “heavier” visually, so having them placed at the bottom gives the effect of the garment being “weighted” in a way that makes sense. I also feel this is a more flattering way to disperse color, for myself, not putting bright spotlight colors on my midsection if other areas would be darker.
I think I would use lighter color at the top and going darker to the bottom. To me darker colors are heavier and to have a dark color at top it could look top heavy. That sounds crazy but I don’t want you to tip over😂
Hi Roxanne! I hope you got the link to the video I emailed you. It's a documentary on knitting in Iceland. I also have a question, please: what are the yarns you used in those socks with the spiral toes? Thanks!
Yes, I did reply to that email last week! I had mentioned that it was one of the tidbits in the previous Casual Friday. :-) The yarn for the striped socks is linked in my Ravelry project for the socks: ravel.me/Rox/avss
I read an interesting thread on ravelry recently about knitting the body and sleeves as one with steeks (essentially a big poncho shape) to have identical gradients/stripes without having to portion up the yarn and then cutting it so you seam the sleeves and sides of the sweater (you can also hide yarn ends in the steek). BUT I have no idea how compatible this would be with a set in sleeve construction. For whether you start with the dark blue or the grey yarn I'd look at a few pictures to see what appeals to me more and also think about which color I want framing my face and which color combo might be more flattering (aka, I don't might not want a bright color that draws the eye directly above the fattest part of my stomach). Did you have dye left over in the dye-bath when you dyed the first yarn (I LOVE the color btw! that is going to be a gorgeous sweater/cardigan!)? If yes you might have to take that into account when dye-luting :D for the other batches.
The dye bath was exhausted, as was the plan. I made 300 ml of the 1% dye sol'n, and used 75 ml of it for the 75 g of yarn I dyed, so I have plenty of dye sol'n remaining. When I dye 75 g for the next lighter shade, I'll use 80% of 75 ml (i.e. 60 ml); for the next lighter shade, I'll use 60% of 75 ml (i.e. 45 ml), etc.
I can only imagine the looks on the faces of the folks at the LYS when the one and only Roxanne Richardson walked through the door! ❤
Occasionally, I am recognized, but not that day! :-)
Wishing you a most happy birthday Roxanne! So glad you got to do some really fun things and purchase some great items for your birthday. I recently travelled to visit my mom for her 93rd birthday (we live on opposite ends of the US). Coincidentally her town has a very large quilt show the same week. My brother and his wife and I went to both days of the quilt show and while we were there we visited the "crafts room", which sounds similar to the craft store you went to. In about 1200 square feet they had donations of yarn, fabric, trims, buttons, kits, books and all other kids of donated crafts at such good prices! Fortunately I had lots of room in my suitcase to bring quite a bit home. Love, love, love your linen dress. You did such a wonderful job. It really looks professional and fits you so well. Thanks so. much for your videos. I always learn something new.
Happy birthday Roxanne, I’m glad you had a wonderful weekend with your family. 🎂
Hi, Roxanne. The Second City produces what they call long form improvisation. They do some pure improv, and then use the really good stuff to develop sketches that they perform regularly and then rotate in and out of the main stage shows. The improv you saw may turn into a sketch for future shows.
Your blue linen dress is so cute. It fits you like a dream.
Belated birthday greetings. So sad about your friend and her sister. My thoughts and prayers go out to them. Your dress is lovely and will be ideal in your summer weather. 🇬🇧
The dress looks just amazing!!!!
First, I extend my prayers for your friend and her sister-in-law for a full recovery from their cancer. I was in tears when you gave the answer to your friend to give you an additional 25 years of friendship. I want to extend you a belated Happy Birthday! I sounds like you had a marvelous trip and celebration of your birthday! Take care!
I love how the dress turned out. What lovely fabric
Thanks for all you do and share. It's appreciated!
Happy birthday!
Your dyed blue wool is beautiful!
My opinion, use the blue up toward your face w grey toward bottom. The sweater you’re wearing (blue) looks very nice on you. (Not saying the grey would look “bad” at the top!!!!)
If cardigan, button band 1) in the mid-blue, 2) original grey, or 3) whichever color button band, bottom band, cuffs… add a pop of color for 1 or 2 rounds/rows before bind off. Me… I’d try different color pops: example, blue on cuffs, grey on button band, med blue at hem.
Can’t wait to see your sweater plans! Love the blue!
And the blue dress, socks, plaid fabric… You’re on a roll !!
Thanks for a very interesting episode!
Wishing you a very happy belated birthday, it sounds like you had a great time in Chicago!
The dress looks amazing and will be great for the summer.
I can’t wait to see the gradient in your jumper.
Much love and prayers for your friend’s speedy recovery ❤️.
hi Roxanne I love your shirt dress and think your blue fabric from Chicago would look great in a shirt length variation. your spiral sock toe looks interesting, thanks for sharing another great podcast.
Happy Belated Birthday wishes. Wishing your friend and her sister the very best too. Love how your learning new sewing skills! I've been sewing a long time, and just finished a 5 day free fitting bootcamp. It was fantastic. Doing the free skirt/pant fitting this coming week. I lost all my slopers the last time I moved. There's always something to learn.
My preference is to move from light to dark with the dark nearest my hips--not my best feature! Happy Birthday!
Happy belated Birthday, its good to have you back and by the sounds of it you had a pretty good well deserved break and you now have a different energy. Your dress is really pretty and nicely constructed. Great podcast with so much going on. Thank you for your visit, its always good when you visit because you are so busy. Take care, see you next time.
My cousin in Minneapolis took his kids to visit a cousin in Marquette, MI for spring break to enjoy more snow!
That plaid fabric is sooo pretty! 💙💛
& Hooray for captions, thank you!
Happy birthday Roxanne 🎂🤗
I don’t feel so alone! I prefer set in sleeves. I find it more pleasant to knit in pieces ❤
Wow, so much in this episode to comment on! First, happy birthday! I was tickled to hear you talk about Logan Square and that it has not only good restaurants but an independent bookstore and yarn and craft shops. My husband and I lived on Logan Blvd. in the 70s (when you were in middle school, you said), our best friends down the street. We called ourselves urban pioneers. Such memories. Love the dark blue-black color of your dyed yarn. Very on trend. I wonder if the combination of gradient dyed stripes and cardigan front will be too busy. I think I would opt for a plainer pullover style. Light to dark if top down. But I know you will come up with something great. Thanks for sharing your design process with us. I’ve reserved the mending book at my library; it will be fun to check that out. I could say more about the rest of the podcast but I’ll stop with best wishes to your friend and her sister for full recovery.
Super nice sleeveless top!
Happy Birthday 🎈 💐🎶
My sweet 2 yr old climbing in my lap while i was watching thing and exclaimed oooooo bookies pointing to your shelves. I told her they were knitting books and she asked yarn? Then she rolled her eyes and said oh momma that silly. However she watched the rest with the same attention shes gives Bluey so thats a high compliment.
Very good choice of buttons on your beautiful dress.
Happy birthday, your projects are awesome!
For the we’re should light and dark go. Most of the time light looks best on the top. The reason is dark looks heavier, light looks lighter. This in interior design, clothing and even landscape. Just a thought! Thanks for a learning filled podcast
I don't often comment but am today. Thanks so much for all you share, you have taught and inspired me in so many ways over the last 5 years as I have learned to love knitting after a very long break. Just love your linen shift dress too., a gorgeous colour for summer. I am an adventurous little more than beginner knitter and since I am not a good seamer of sweaters love the idea of knitting in the round. I too don't like the look of the round necklines but this winter I found a free pattern on Drops site for a short sleeve sweater with a saddle shoulder knit top down. I love the look and fit of this shoulder shape it's beautiful. Other than a wonky gauge on my collar and the smallest size feels a bit too boxy and big for me it was an easy knit for me. I also love that I could knit a longer almost 3/4 sleeve rather than a short sleeve. Fern Feast is the name of the pattern so offering it as an alternative shoulder style for your consideration. I have also seen cardigan styles with the same shoulder style. One day I might frog mine back and try a cardigan style. :)) Have a wonder filled weekend. :))
Belated Happy Birthday. The dress is so nice. Well done. Thank you for all the tips and teaching. Take care! Happy Easter.
Happy Birthday to you!!!
I want to clone you as a neighbor!!! 😂
You inspire me to reach beyond my safety zones!!! 💕
Happy Birthday!
You look so nice in blue, I think your gradient sweater would be very complimentary on you if you had your dark on top and fade down to grey
Madras! Takes me back. Happy Birthday.
Happy belated birthday!
Happy Belated Birthday! 🧶🪡 Nice shirtdress 👏
I just finished my sleeves for my Gelid Quarter-zip pullover and it has it all! It was in Interweave winter 2023. If you’re looking for ideas for your hand spun you must take a look. Enjoy your sharing of your treasure hunts. 😊
Great episode!
I've been enjoying watching your sewing journey. I can see the attention to detail that you employ in both your knitting and sewing. I would recommend the use of an edger foot for topstitching (also used for blind hemming). If your machine didn't come with one, they are easily obtainable. I would also recommend the book Fine Machine Sewing by Carol Laflin Ahles as I am sure it would appeal to your inner perfectionist. You can probably get a used copy fairly cheaply. Your dress turned out great. Linen is a lovely fabric to stitch. Happy making!
Happy birthday, Roxanne. It was my birthday on Sunday 24th.
Birthday twins! :-)
Hi Roxanne, happy belated birthday! If you find you don’t have enough plaid fabric to match up design, I have seen some visible alterations where strips of solid color fabric is added along the torso side seams. Just a thought.
Hi Roxanne, thank you for sharing your recent trip and birthday week activities. I also have a March birthday - Happy Birthday to us! Regarding the color flow of the sweater…. I prefer the lighter color at the top, and the darker color around my hips for visual balance when wearing the sweater with dark slacks. My largest width is at the hip. If the lightest color is at the hip, it would create a large bright band at the hip- I envision my appearance to look like Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum! Great job on your sewing!
Hello Roxanne! Your dress came out perfect. Awesome job!
Happy belated birthday 🎂 Roxanne!
Good to know you had a great birthday, I am happy for you. Lovely dress !!!
Happy Birthday, 🎉That is an amazing color! Just gorgeous!
Belated birthday greetings Roxanne. Lovely to spend it with your daughter. Love the dress. I especially like how it doesn't gape around the armhole, so many sleeveless shirts I've tried on in shops are cut far too deep. Pockets?
It's a shirtdress, so there are shirt pockets on the chest, but no side pockets.
My initial thought was to put the darkest color along the bottom, my widest part 🙃. Then I wondered if you would prefer color next to your face rather than the natural gray...What about going from darkest to lightest then back to dark?
For your gradient, I think it depends on where you want to draw the focus, lighter things look bigger, darker recedes. (I think I have that right! 😂) Do you want to draw the eye up or down?
HB, Roxanne. Logan Square is a great 'hood. Happy you had a good time.
I think your dress (expertly sewn!) fits absolutely perfectly. And it seems like, from your video, you have plenty of room to move in it. Great button choice.
Kudos to you for dying experiments. The dark color turned out beautifully. And a gradient idea will be interesting. Personally, I've always found gradients disappointing in sweaters. One thinks abstractly that one color or another will work better top or bottom, but when it comes to it neither solution is without its problems. My solution is to do the neck, cuffs, hem in the dark color - - to establish, as it were, the shape of the garment. Then on the other parts playing with the direction of the gradient will always work.
Engaging episode, overall. Entertaining and full of information.
My plan currently is for the darkest color to edge the ribbing at the neck, front bands and hem, and then to alternate thin stripes of the different greens with wider stripes of the gray, moving from lightest to darkest to lightest to darkest through the body
Oh, that sounds perfect!!
Happy Belated Birthday to you! Always interesting thank you. Your book is interesting. Liked the color of the material.love your blue dress
Thank you so much for this wonderful episode ❤
Sounds like you had a good b'day! Fun! For you handspun sweater I think you should start with the dark blue then finish with the grey. I think that with your grey hair it will look better.
I loved your dress! And your socks! Sending positive vibes for your friend ❤ Happy birthday! I live somewhat near Chicago: thank you so much for the WasteShed recommendation.
It’s late but Happy Birthday!! Cute dress, love the color on you.
Happy Belated Birthday! Love your dress. You did a great job. I enjoy your casual Friday episodes so much. These 49 minutes went by fast. :)
Sheding a year as you talk about your knit worthy friend. A long time friend of mine is being treated for colon cancer. Perhaps the key thing to take from both these situations is get tested folks. Don't keeping well yourself you'll get around to getting something checked out - do it. It could save your life.
Happy Birthday Roxanne! What a cute dress. Would you make that pattern again in a different color?
Maybe, some day!
Nice haircut! 😀
I've wanted to visit the Wasteshed for a long time! I love the principle of vintage and upcycled materials.
My opinion is that the blue near your face would be most becoming. With your beautiful hair, you would get lost if the gray were at the top. Oddly, I just did the heel you describe for the first time (after making untold number of heel flap and gusset socks). It turned out fine.
Your new book looks like sashiko - very popular right now.
I personally tend to like darker colors to be placed at the bottom and lighter ones at the top. To me, darker colors are “heavier” visually, so having them placed at the bottom gives the effect of the garment being “weighted” in a way that makes sense. I also feel this is a more flattering way to disperse color, for myself, not putting bright spotlight colors on my midsection if other areas would be darker.
I would go with lighter near shoulders and darker near waist to visually give more width to shoulders and narrower appearance to waist.
I think I would use lighter color at the top and going darker to the bottom. To me darker colors are heavier and to have a dark color at top it could look top heavy. That sounds crazy but I don’t want you to tip over😂
Hi Roxanne! I hope you got the link to the video I emailed you. It's a documentary on knitting in Iceland. I also have a question, please: what are the yarns you used in those socks with the spiral toes? Thanks!
Yes, I did reply to that email last week! I had mentioned that it was one of the tidbits in the previous Casual Friday. :-) The yarn for the striped socks is linked in my Ravelry project for the socks: ravel.me/Rox/avss
thanks!
@@RoxanneRichardson
I read an interesting thread on ravelry recently about knitting the body and sleeves as one with steeks (essentially a big poncho shape) to have identical gradients/stripes without having to portion up the yarn and then cutting it so you seam the sleeves and sides of the sweater (you can also hide yarn ends in the steek). BUT I have no idea how compatible this would be with a set in sleeve construction.
For whether you start with the dark blue or the grey yarn I'd look at a few pictures to see what appeals to me more and also think about which color I want framing my face and which color combo might be more flattering (aka, I don't might not want a bright color that draws the eye directly above the fattest part of my stomach).
Did you have dye left over in the dye-bath when you dyed the first yarn (I LOVE the color btw! that is going to be a gorgeous sweater/cardigan!)? If yes you might have to take that into account when dye-luting :D for the other batches.
The dye bath was exhausted, as was the plan. I made 300 ml of the 1% dye sol'n, and used 75 ml of it for the 75 g of yarn I dyed, so I have plenty of dye sol'n remaining. When I dye 75 g for the next lighter shade, I'll use 80% of 75 ml (i.e. 60 ml); for the next lighter shade, I'll use 60% of 75 ml (i.e. 45 ml), etc.