I'm Sew Excited

We've had a mini break, not really a holiday, just a break from home.  Grace went to Glastonbury (which she really enjoyed) and while she was away, we stayed at her flat in Sheffield to look after her hamster!

I don't know whether Juno the hamster appreciated us being there because she spent all her time trying to chew through the bars of her pen to escape!

Anyway, we had a lovely time in Sheffield, very relaxing.

Now that I'm settling into dressmaking and feeling more confident, I've been watching The Great British Sewing Bee on TV.  This is the first time I've watched the series, which is now in Season 4.  I really enjoyed watching this and feel that I've learnt quite a few new things.  At the moment, my dressmaking projects can be classed as "Easy" or "Beginner" but I'm determined to branch out and tackle some more challenging projects in the future.

For the time being I'm making nice, simple summer dresses.  Here is the latest one I've made.

(I never look relaxed when my husband is taking the photos!)

I have again used the Simplicity 6262 pattern, but having put sleeves in the previous version I made, I have decided I'm more of a sleeveless dress person - at least as far as summer dresses are concerned.  I added a ribbon around the waist this time.  It adds quite a nice trim, but I could have done with applying it better - next time I'll be able to do it better.

I'm hoping for some warm and sunny weather now, so that I can wear it.

Whilst we were in Sheffield I was looking at the sewing machines in John Lewis.  I thought I should maybe update my machine and I was interested in finding out more about how to do buttonholes.  When I got back home, I thought I would check the handbook for my machine to see what it could do as far as buttonholes were concerned.  I was amazed and overjoyed to find out that my machine does one step buttonholes that are precisely sized to the buttons you want to use.  I've only had this machine a mere 21 years, and who knew that it was as clever as that!  I really need to explore what else it can do, I'm clearly not using it anywhere near to its capabilities.

Tomorrow I'm planning on cutting out another summer dress, pink this time - let's hope my optimism is rewarded with some nicer weather.

Catching Up

The sun is shining, England are winning easily in the cricket and my crafting is all going well.  My husband and I have just come back from a lovely couple of days in St Albans.

The weather was a lot better than when we visited last year in November and Eve got the train out of London to meet up with us - so a perfect time we had.

We had a lovely walk around Verulamium Park, a visit to the cathedral and a relaxing lunch.

It was all over so quickly but such a great time.

This past week I've been busy with my dressmaking.  I'm definitely growing in confidence now and enjoying the process more rather than just finding it stressful all the time.

I made a practice dress for a pattern I had recently acquired- McCall's M7116, using a bedsheet in a lovely aubergine colour - I made view B.

I liked the style of the dress, it's different to the usual dresses I make but there were a number of issues that I wasn't happy with.  The sleeves were rather short, the bodice also too short and the neck too wide.  I think I could probably address these issues without too much difficulty but in the end I went out and bought a new pattern that is more to my taste in style - Newlook 6262.  I particularly like view B with the short sleeves (shown in yellow on the pattern envelope) - all my dresses so far have been sleeveless.

I didn't feel I needed to make a full practice dress but I did want to have a go at fitting the sleeves, so I used some leftover sheet and I'm so glad I did.  The sleeve went in no problem, but the neckline was surprisingly high and uncomfortable.  I altered the pattern to lower the neck and now I have a dress that it very comfortable to wear.

The fabric is from my stash, bought sometime last year and it's so pretty and very summery.

So happy happy happy.  I have three more dress lengths of fabric in my stash so now that I'm on a roll with the sewing I'm hoping to have some lovely additions to my wardrobe.

I could do with knitting up a light coloured cardigan to go with the summery dress, but instead I've just finished a navy coloured cardi.  It's just a plain cropped style - my favourite and it goes well with a number of dresses I wear a lot, which is why I made it.

Please excuse the bad photographs -
they were taken in the hotel room by my husband !!

I don't have enough light coloured wool in my stash to make a plain cardigan and as I'm on a yarn diet, I'm restricted to knitting from stash.  I reckon I have two more cardigans worth of stash knitting to get out of the way and then I'm going to treat myself to some nice cream wool.  Looking forward to that.

As I find it almost impossible to not use up every scrap of yarn, I've made six more little sock yarn sweaters to add to my bunting.

So that's what I've been up to.  I'm planning on spending the rest of the bank holiday weekend working on my Mandala Madness blanket which hasn't been shown any love for some time.  I'll also be catching up on all the sporting events that are happening this weekend on the television.  A nice relaxing few days ahead of me.  I hope plenty of relaxation comes your way too.  Bye for now.

Socks, Sun and Shawls

Hello everyone, I hope you're enjoying this lovely spell of warm weather we are having here in the UK.  Makes a nice change.

I've been enjoying knitting up my socks for May.  I used West Yorkshire Spinners Yarn in the Goldfinch colourway and they just flew off the needles.

I just love the colours.  These could be my favourite socks of all time.

I had planned that this month I would try knitting my socks two at a time (I like to try something new each month).  I knit these socks toe up - this is now firmly established as my favourite way to knit socks.  I got as far as part way up the foot, knitting two at a time, before I lost patience and gave up.

I found it was taking me longer to do a round for two at a time than it did for me to knit a round individually on both socks.  I tend to knit my socks simultaneously, so I don't have a problem with second sock syndrome, which seems to be the only reason to knit two at a time.  So at least I gave it a try, in the end, it's all about finding the right sock recipe for me.

You can see full details of this sock project on my Ravelry page, HERE.

As the weather has been so nice, we had an afternoon watching a cricket match.  We watched the last day of the three day match between Lancashire 2nd XI and Derbyshire 2nd XI at Northern Cricket Ground (a lovely small ground with about twenty spectators!)

It's very relaxing, sitting in the Sun and getting on with some knitting!  I worked on my navy cardigan, just to try and make some progress.

It may be sunny but I'm not taking my cardigan off yet!

I'm aiming to have this finished this month, but...

...there's always a but , and it usually means a distraction.  So this week's distraction is a lovely shawl pattern by Helen Stewart called Spindrift.

I received a gorgeous ball of gradient yarn from Grace for Christmas, and I've been agonising ever since over which pattern to use for this special yarn.

So this week I finally decided to go for the Spindrift pattern.  The main reason I chose this one was that I wanted to be able to use the whole ball of yarn.  With some patterns I wasn't sure if I would end up with yarn leftover or actually run out.  With the Spindrift pattern, percentages are given throughout as to how much yarn you have used.  So far I have knit 20% of the pattern and this ties in exactly with the amount of yarn I have used, so I feel very happy.

I can't wait to see how the colour changes progress.  At the moment it's essentially stocking stitch.  Here's how much I did on the first evening of working on it.

It's very addictive.  At 50% the pattern changes to eyelets.

I hope to have this finished over the weekend - but if this lovely weather continues, we might have some days out, which might slow me down a bit.

Then, hopefully it will be back to the cardigan and the other neglected shawl.  With that, I'll say bye for now, and get back to my lovely Spindrift shawl.  Happy days everyone.

Enjoying the Sunshine

There are times when I feel that I devote too much attention to the weather - but I'm British and that's what we do.  So yesterday was gorgeous and unbelievably hot and sunny.  Yes, I should get outside and do some gardening.  Well I made it outside, but somehow the gardening just didn't happen.  It was far too nice to worry about gardening, instead I sat and read and did another row of knitting... and another.  So the gardening never got a look in.  But I did get my first suntan of the year!

Anyway, enough about the weather, let's move on to more important matters - knitting and crochet!

This week has been another productive week. I'm in such a good creative place at the moment, everything seems to be flowing along.  Firstly, the socks for April were finished. I used the yarn Grace bought me for my birthday.

I endeavour to try something new each month with my sock knitting.  It's just over a year since I started knitting a pair of socks each month and I feel I've still got so much to learn.  This month I was trying a new heel.  I find I'm drawn to toe-up knitting rather than cuff-down, so I'm trying to find a heel that works best for me with this method.  So these socks were knitted with a Fleegle heel.

And I must say I loved it.  It was a great heel to knit, I loved the process.  I'm not sure about the finished look of the heel yet.  I think I need to explore some more styles of heel before I settle on my perfect sock "recipe" but this is one that I will knit again.  You can see full details of this project on my Ravelry page here.

I've got the sewing machine out at the moment.  There's a dress in progress, but still a way to go with that.  I'm taking a leisurely approach to sewing it up so that it doesn't feel too stressful - it just means the dining room is littered with fabric and sewing patterns.  In between sewing the dress, I ran up a work-in-progress bag for one of the shawls I'm knitting at the moment using leftovers from last week's Dottie Angel dress.

I also found a sample of some crochet flowers I had made years ago that was hanging around, being idle, so I put it to use as an embellishment for the bag.

I should then have been concentrating on completing one of the two shawls that are on the needles, but there was a distraction!  And I blame Meredith - yes, you Meredith.  I sat drooling over your South Bay Shawlette and saw that you were making another one (and had got Lynne to join you).  How could I resist making another one myself.  It is a great pattern, so easy and it grows quickly.

 I had some lace weight yarn in my stash that needed some attention.  I knew it wasn't enough to make a full sized shawl, but there was still enough to make something of a decent size that would satisfy my South Bay Shawlette distraction.  And here it is.

It took two evenings to make and used up 27g of Regia Lace.  It's just the right size for a doll or Teddy Bear and I know just the bear who would appreciate it.  So I'm gifting it this weekend to someone's well-loved and cherished companion.

The squares for my crochet blanket were also completed this week.

I have 11 squares in total now, only 5 more to go to get the size of blanket I want.

So that's it for now.  The sun has come out again, so I'm off into the garden - to actually do some gardening this time.  Then later it will be back to the dressmaking and in-progress shawls.  (Actually yesterday I started a new crochet along for a blanket, but I'll tell you about that another time).  I hope the sun is shining for you.  Enjoy your week.

Waiting for the Warmer Weather

It's April, and don't you just feel that it should be a bit warmer outside?  Apart from one sunny day this week, I don't feel particularly drawn to the great outdoors yet.  I did venture out to eventually cut the grass for the first time this year - guilt had got the better of me, and it desperately needed doing.

So it's been a quiet indoors week (although I love the indoors and love the luxury of not having to venture out if I don't want to).  I'm hoping to get these socks off the needles today.

Aren't they lovely and colourful?

As part of my stash busting blitz, I gathered together all my bits of aran weight yarn and decided to make them up into a Sophie's Universe blanket.

The colours aren't very inspiring, but I don't knit with aran weight yarn very often, so I wanted to clear the stash completely of these pesky bits and pieces.

I didn't have enough to do a full Sophie's universe, you can see the one I made last year, here.  Instead I kept the central square shape and just added as many borders as I could.  I like the effect, the colour combinations work quite well, even the hot pink and bright red work well together - they give it a jewel-like colour scheme.

It's just the right size for a lap blanket. so I have it by my side on the sofa, ready to throw it over my legs when it goes chilly in the evenings.

So that's a very welcome reduction to the stash of 650g.

Last week I popped into Liverpool and bought some fabric to make up a "proper" version of the Dottie Angel Dress (you can see my prototype, bedsheet version, here).  From the prototype I had learned that the armholes on the pattern are quite deep, so I adjusted for this.  Also the point at which the ties are attached to the dress were a little high.  I needed to lower the point of attachment to allow for my more mature, gravity affected body!  This time I also wanted to make a two colour version.

And it all went well, I didn't bother with the patch pockets, but I did add pockets in the side seams.

This will be a lovely comfortable dress to wear, when (or maybe, if) the weather gets warmer.

I also bought more fabric for one of my other favourite dress patterns - because you can never go into a fabric and haberdashery shop and only buy what you went in for!  Maybe later this month I'll get started on that one.

For now, I'm back to my socks - and then there's the shawl, the cardigan, the crochet square etc etc etc.  Don't you just love being surrounded by so much craftiness!  Have a good weekend.

January

January is coming to an end, and it's been a funny sort of month.  Usually I find January a month of hope and optimism - a time to dream and plan.  This year, it's felt tired and directionless - maybe it's the influence of the weather, it's another wet and very windy day here.

I've tried to simply my knitting projects, disciplining myself to concentrate on the one immediately in front of me.  This month it has been my Fair Isle cardigan using leftovers.  I set myself the task of completing it by the end of the month, certainly possible but I'm growing weary of working of it.  It's certainly looking colourful though isn't it.

My embroidery squares are coming along nicely.  I've completed 21 now, but I'm setting myself a punishing schedule, of 4 /5 squares a week.  Again, I've reached a point where enthusiasm has left me.

I need a new project, a new diversion, an adventure, something to liven me up, get the blood pumping.

Picture from Oprah.com

So this afternoon, I'm NOT going to carry on with the Fair Isle knitting, or embroider another square, as I had planned.  Instead, I'm going to give myself an energy boost and dream up a new adventure.

Before then, I've got to brave the elements as I have a dentist appointment, BUT when I get back home!  The sky's the limit, I'm going to dream BIG!

I hope you all have more energy than me, and if you have any to spare, please send it my way.

Despite the Weather, Let's Spread Some Happiness

Hello everyone, how are you getting on in the wind and the rain?

We had a rather damp night away, staying in St Albans.  I'm sure it's a lovely city, but when the weather isn't good, it's difficult to enjoy walking around.

We did spend some time in the cathedral, which was very interesting.

We had a lovely meal in the Wetherspoons in the city centre - a bit like being in a medieval banqueting hall.

November seems to be going just as quickly as October did.  My resolution for next year is to work out how to make more time - it may require some magical prowess, but I'll see what I can do.

I've just finished reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.

What a fabulous book.  It's not a newly published book, it's been available for quite some time, but I've only just discovered it and it's got me so excited.

Gretchen spent a year thinking about ways to maximise her happiness.  She wasn't unhappy, she wanted to see if it was possible to find ways to be even more happier with who she is and what she does.  She devotes a chapter and a topic to each month - relationships, friendships, money, leisure activities, spiritual matters, health etc.  This is not a book that tells you how to live your life.  It is Gretchen's own experiences that she relates, in a humorous and entertaining way.  It is very inspiring and I've already started planning for my own happiness project.  Like Gretchen, I have a happy life, I have everything I need and I have a wonderful family, but I think it's important that we constantly try to improve ourselves so that we can be more supportive to those around us.

Happiness is infectious and I'd like to do my bit to spread it around.

Summer Has Arrived

Well as soon as I had published my last post, complaining about the weather, the Sun comes out, the wind drops and lo and behold, summer has arrived!

It may not last, so to make the most of it we packed up our lunch and went and sat on the beach for a picnic.

Delicious camomile and honey tea.

Goats cheese sandwiches, followed by home made chocolate, fruit and nut flapjacks.

The figure in the background on the left of the above picture is actually one of the Iron Men statues. Someone has given him a lovely blue and floral outfit to wear.

This singled him out from the other (naked) Iron Men and he was proving to be quite popular with the photographers.

A lovely treat to be able to enjoy the lovely weather, and visibility was very good so the Welsh Mountains, across Liverpool Bay, can be seen clearly.

I apologise to all of you who are not having the best of weather.  I know some of you are struggling with near impossible conditions.  Here in Britain we like to complain about the weather even when it isn't really that bad.  But it's good to be able to cheer when the Sun shines.