From the vault review: Nui Cobalt- Second Harvest: Fruit

I was writing this here for the Scents Sibyl forum boards because notepad always crashes on this phone. I decided to publish it because why not, love of perfume deserves to be shared!

"Luscious abundance.

Homemade pies and preserves brimming with spiced pear, blackberry, apricot and currant. Wear this confection to attract pleasure and feelings of contentment. Anoint pink or gold candles to manifest luxury and creature comforts."

From the vial: sugared and spiced currant and apricot. Bit syrupy.

Wet on the skin: very jammy apricot and berries with a hint of mulling spices. There might be a quick flash of pastry note, but it's so ephemeral that I wondered if it was worth mentioning.

Dry on skin: still fruity. Though it's not your fresh summery fruit salad; it's seasoned, cooked, canned, and comforting. Berries, dark and warm. A pear that is rather shy indeed, macerating in its own syrup in the background of the picture.

I was told there would be pie, but I suppose someone took the crust and ran away with it, leaving the fillings behind. No pastry note in the slightest. 

2 hours in: this fella isn't a big morpher. The apricot is back, but warmer than at the beggining. Sweet and round. At this point is it a bit closer to the skin

Projection at its strongest: half an arms lenght. I get it on full blast while I knit, but I get only an elusive whiff when my arms are fully extended (I dabbed on my wrist)

Longevity: becomes a nondescript skin scent after 5-ish hours.

Best part of photoshoots for gourmand perfumes is eating the props afterwards 

After one sewing project

 

Hi. Sometimes, I cannot get my dopamine fix through knitting due to hand injuries, so I figured sewing would take the torch when this happens.

These are the records of my first trepidations into Fabric Land. Enjoy.

Can I just begin by saying it's not the same flow? Oof, when I start a knitting project, even casting on annoys me because I want to just get in the rhythm of things. Sewing? Heck it's more preparation than the actual act of stitching.

I opted for a dress, for the first project. Something simple, but with some challenge:

 

Burda 6687, view A. It's 5 panels and an invisible zipper. Fabric picked for that was a black linen, and cotton voile for the lining.

And with by "some challenge" I mean starting from scratch, knowing nothing about sewing, and just learning along.

• tracing
• measuring the seam allowance, as it was not included
• darts
• invisible zipper
• lining and sewing that b*tch in there (instructions were confusing as heck)
• hemming... we'll talk later about that
• I heard about interfacing for the very first time 
• the term "princess seam" just to show you how blindly I jumped in this
  

The quality of the picture reflects the quality of the time spent tracing. *fart noise*

Burda doesn't include seam allowance. So it was interesting to deal with that for the first time. There I went, tracing some more, 1.5cm around the drafting paper and chopped that off.

After ironing on the interfacing, I pinned the center front and side fronts together. First difficulty, and first spark of excitement, coming from the same thing: curves. It took me by surprise for some reason, how it's a bit of a fiddle to get the curved lines to lay against each other to be pinned. But once that was done, I saw some shape take form, and THAT got my motivation up!

The floor is my working table. Super ergonomic! Not shown: the chalk line I had to redraw on the seam line, because the cut wasn't exactly even.

After stitching, before ironing

Okayy now we're getting somewhere, now I can understand the hype! I was a slow start, but the "I'm making things with my hands" buzz is finally kicking in.

Thennn came the zipper.

It's not that they explain badly in the pattern's instructions, but they explain like they're talking to someone who's been in the sewing universe all their lives. So I ditched the instructions, went on YouTube, got the zipper in, got a soul-boner from how proud I was.

Booyah, invisible zipper.

 

Then I stitched the rest of the sides, did the whole thing all over because I forgot about the lining (thankfully I had 2m of cotton voile lying around from a mistake purchase. Happy little accidents!)

Came the time to attach the lining to the dress aaaaand I understood none of the instructions once again so back to the Tubes I went.

Some guts showing before the lining was put in

Lining was attached to the neckline and armholes by machina and to the zipper band by hand, shoulders were closed, one thing was left.

The Hem

 

Wow what an unpleasant ride that was. They just say something along the lines of "hem it." in the instructions. Yep. Ok. Cool. How. So I folded it twice over, ironed it, stitched it. For both the linen and cotton voile, separately.

That was not a good idea.

The linen still cooperated as much as linen does. It's far from haute coutûre, but there's nothing glaringly wrong with it, you can just tell it was made by someone who's probably hemming for the first time.

But the voile? The freakin' cotton voile? Don't do it like that! I don't know how else, but don't double-fold-iron-pin-sew, it won't work! I won't even show how bad it is, because I don't have to, it's the lining, it's hidden, it's my dirty-ass secret, y'all can't see it, but you just have to take my word for it: the way Denethor eats a cherry tomato looks less disturbing than what I've achieved with this hem.

/rant

So, I got a dress.

Don't mind the dead plant, I forgot to move it.

It's a bit heavy. And thus a bit warmer that I intended. But it's a dress. I made it. I made a dress. Dopamine aquisition is a success.

I did cowardly follow the sizing chart to a tee, so the waist seems a bit undefined. I could take it in, but probably won't. Next dress I'll try to be a bit more courageous and use MY size, although I'm unsure how.

It's a very simple-looking dress, perfect for sporting bold accessories without being over-the-top.

Now, on to procrastinating for my already chosen, already bought for next project! (I need to know my cup size, idfk send help)

Gardengate Sweater

 Whilst I'm taking a break from working on my Zweig due to the structural integrity of my hand being compromised STILL, I'll blabber on about other sweaters I've made!

I had been stalking Jennifer Steingass on Instagram in the Spring 2019, leading to June of the same year, to jump on the Gardengate sweater as soon as it was published. It's so darn pretty. However I only cast it on about a year later due life in general. I had found the yarn for it not long after its publishing, though! I wanted an almost black and an embery-smoldering orangey-red. 

I got this in Julie Asselin Leizu Fingering Simple in the colour Midnight Oil, and La Bien Aimée Merino Single in Kitsune. All at my favourite LYS in Jyväskylä, Titityy.

Old Norwegian cast on is quickly growing to be my favourite

Had I done the zero saturation test, I'd have noticed that the contrast between those two isn't extra. But I learned to actually adore the overall darkness of the sweater, it's the first happy little accident, this lack of "pop".

 

Has a black metal look to it, doesn't it?

Second happy little accident was the fit.

I... kinda swatched? Okay okay FINE I counted the stitches on the neckline and called that a gauge check, ye happy? It looked alright then.

What I didn't take into account, as a green knitter, was the silk content in Leizu Fingering Simple. How that would affect the drape of the garmen, and not just make it softer to the touch. Sooo I got one heckin drapey, loosely fitting sweater when I originally cast on to get a zero ease product.

That's boxy. I cast on for size A. And that's BEFORE blocking!

But I blocked it anyway, no choice, my tension had been uneven through out the whole make and it showed. So blocked I did. And loe and behold, it evened out my stitches and made it grow lenght-wise! The positive ease all of a sudden looked intentional, like I made it a bit oversized on purpose!

Now it's the comfiest sweater I own, it's my go-to when I want to spend a lazy-cozy moment.

Also, it being very loosely knit and it being a single ply, I feared it would pill like a mf. It pills. But for the amount of wear it gets, it's really not as bad as I pictured it. I wonder if it's because of the silk content? As you see, I'm still a green knitter and I don't fully comprehend all the properties of every fibre material.

Conclusion: Sometimes letting go of total control and just going with the flow and see what happens ends up in success stories!