Tag Archives: sewing

An Update

I haven’t forgotten this blog, I’ve just had very little time. However now I have lots of things I want to write about so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to keep up with this a bit more!

I only have one main finished project, and that’s the cardigan from NaKnitMo. I love it, it’s warm and cosy and I’ve basically been using it as a coat. The pattern is Velvet Morning and I used Wendy Traditional Aran (which I believe is British). Sorry about the bad picture quality.

I didn’t knit much in December, just started a pair of thick socks from the leftovers of my cardigan. I’ve almost finished them now, and once I have it’s time to get back into proper knitting again.

In December, Nick from UdellGames and I got engaged. I’m planning to knit a shawl for me, and shawls for my bridesmaids. The pattern I picked for my shawl is Sheherazadeshetla and I’m using Jamieson & Smith’s Shetland Supreme 1ply, which has 1600m per 100g. It’s really thin, but the small bit I’ve knitted so far is coming out really well. It was important to me to use British wool, and I wanted a natural but pure white, and this was the closest I could find.

Finally, as a birthday present for me, and an engagement present for the both of us, Nick and I bought a Kenwood Chef Titanium. So far we’ve made ice cream, short crust pastry, soda bread and some bread using ground almonds instead of flour, and have been impressed by it all. We only got it on Tuesday. Now that I’m used to it, I plan on making up some of my own recipes, so look out for them in the future.

In 2015 I have some big plans. Not only am I knitting my wedding shawl and bridesmaids’ shawls, I’m also going to try and knit a pair of socks per month (I managed 11 1/2 pairs of socks last year!), plus I want to knit at least one cardigan, a scarf/shawl or two for me and probably various other small things. I’m also going to finish sewing my big fancy project bag, and learn how to sew clothes properly. That should give me plenty of material to post at least once a week for the foreseeable future. Oh, and we also plan on getting a dog, as soon as we can find one that’s suitable.

In December my working hours got doubled. This has made me value my free time a bit more though so I’m actually managing to get more done than before.

So, that’s the plan, let’s see if I can actually stick to it this time!

Work in Progress Wednesday – 21st May

1 Reply

This Work in Progress Wednesday it’s back to normal. You may have noticed that I only got up to Thursday on Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. I ran out of ideas and then got busy, so I didn’t finish it. I hope you found the posts I did write interesting and something a bit different.

I haven’t done a great deal of knitting this week. I don’t think I’ve written about my new Sock Madness socks though. These are Shakertown Fences. They’re way too small for me so they may be a gift for my mum, if she likes them. The next round isn’t out yet. Only seven people from each team can get through that one though so I’m not holding out much hope of getting through unless the pattern happens to be released when I have nothing to do, which is highly unlikely as we’re moving in a month and currently don’t actually have a house to move to.

I may have not done much knitting, but I did do some sewing over the weekend. I’m on a mission to create the perfect knitting storage set (large bag, small project bag, notions pouch(es), needle cases etc.) and decided that a weekend to myself was the perfect time to begin. Once I’ve done one for me and ironed out all the problems I hope to make more.

A couple of weekends ago we were in Winchester and C&H Fabrics were having a 20% off everything sale. This was my opportunity to buy some fabric I liked. There was still a little of my birthday present from Nick left (go to craft shop, buy some things I really wanted) so this was the perfect time to spend it. Seeing as I love knitting socks so much, for my storage set I chose a fabric with socks all over it!

And Nick pointed out this lovely fabric for a dress for me, which I’ll make when I’ve found the perfect pattern.

I got a third fabric, but that one’s a secret.

Nick mentioned the other day that I had stored up a lot of old jeans to re-purpose but have never touched them. Turns out the various colours of the denim went brilliantly with my sock fabric. As did a pale blue fabric I bought a while ago for something I never got around to. The only thick denim-suitable thread I have is bright red, but that goes fantastically too.

So I started planning, cutting, ironing and finally sewing a little notions case to start with. All went well for a while, until I broke a needle. Typical. I gave up for the day and went back to it the next, finishing it off. I need to sew on the buttons though. (I have some bright ones that are perfect that I had in my Christmas stocking). It doesn’t look like it because of the angles in the image, but the buttonholes are the same length.

I continued on to the DPN case. All went well for quite a while. Surprisingly so actually, as usually something goes wrong quite often when I’m sewing. Then I broke another needle trying to top stitch around the edge. My machine just doesn’t like thick fabric, even though I was being really careful. It’s almost finished though and I think with a little more careful sewing I’ll be done.

Obviously there are some things I could improve, but I’m pretty happy so far.

Happy New Year!

Works in Progress

I’ve got a few things on the go that I plan on completing in the not too distant future.

The first is my Rough Weather socks from Think Outside the Sox. I thought they were suitable considering the weather we’ve been having lately! I finished the first one over Christmas and want to get the second done fairly soon. I’m using Regia sock yarn for a change. I’ve had it in my stash for a while and it’s the perfect colour for these socks.

The second, my Thermal, hasn’t really grown much. I took it with me to knit over Christmas but didn’t take any spare yarn. This would have been fine had one ball not decided to be thinner than the other, so I had to stop and wait until I could swap it out for a real one. Not sure why that happened, but it was cheap yarn so that might explain it.

The third, and final for non-hibernating projects, is my Demalangeni Shawl. I’ve had this yarn for a while, and I finally found the perfect shawl for it. It’s Araucania Ranco which I love, and I’m hoping it turns out well. It looks it so far!

Christmas

For Christmas, I got a ball winder and swift. I’ve wanted these for a while. I immediately set about using them on my new Exmoor Sock Yarn as it’s the only thing I had.

When I got back to my stash, I then also wound some yarn that I had previously hand wound. I love the neat cakes the ball winder creates, and they’re so much easier to knit from than hand wound balls.

For Christmas I also received a little tripod, so hopefully that will improve the quality of my photos here considerably!

Coming Up

This year I am setting several crafty challenges for myself. The first is to knit a pair of socks every month. A group on Ravelry has set a theme (flora) and you have to find and knit patterns that in some way relate to a particular flower. It’ll be quite a challenge, but hopefully by the end of it I’ll (and various other people) will end up with some more lovely hand knit socks.

With some of my Christmas money I bought this book on dressmaking and this is where my second challenge comes in. For several years I have attempted to teach myself, with no help from books or anything, how to make clothes. I can make simple skirts, but that’s about it. So I decided it was about time I learned how to do it properly. Hopefully in the not too distant future you’ll see works in progress and finished objects not only from knitting, but also sewing!

My final challenge is to finish things! I’m really bad at finishing anything that isn’t socks or a shawl, so my challenge is to not start too many things. I need to at least finish my Zora cardigan, and not let myself start a new one until Thermal is complete. That is going to be quite difficult seeing as I found this for half price in the John Lewis sale.

It’s Wendy Roam in a lovely blue colour. I’m going to use it doubled so whichever cardigan I choose to make from it doesn’t take forever.

Have you set yourself any crafty challenges for the year? I’d love to hear about them!