Of sewing, secret knitting, splints and framing

The past couple of months have been quite busy with an annual stitching weekend away with friends, Knit Nation and just general life busyness.

Prior to Knit Nation, I had agreed to test knit some lovely new sparkle yarn from Old Maiden Aunt yarns, ready for it's launch at Knit Nation. The yarn is merino sparkle in the shade Dreich and the pattern is Undine.



Another thing that has been taking up my time of late is sewing. I grew up with a Mum who made a lot of my clothes. My mum spent many years working in clothing factories as a sewing machinist. I have sewn clothes in the past with her help but I decided recently that I'd like to try to sew on my own.

So far I finished a Wrap style blouse in some very basic black fabric. This was my testing garment to see if I could do it.

Last week, I moved on to a tunic top with a concealed zip. The pattern is Juliet tunic by Serendipity design studio. It was a little tricky as I had to adapt adjust the skirt part of the tunic to fit my hips and lengthen it. The having to lengthen the skirt section blew my mind as I'm really not tall, only 5ft tall. Usually I have the exact opposite problem. But it now fits really well.

My most recent finish was another wrap blouse from the same pattern. I've altered it somewhat at the arms and shoulders so it fits better.

I've also managed to frame up a recent cross stitch that I already had the frame for.

The only downside lately has been a further recurrence of my previous hand problem so my right hand has been strapped up in a splint for the past month or so and I'm currently having more physiotherapy to try and resolve it. Thankfully it seems to have improved over this weekend so I'm feeling a bit more hopeful about it that I was last week.

Stitching and other things

Life is pretty much still a mixture of stitching, knitting and doing exercises at the moment. My physio think I might be able to return to work in a couple of weeks. Whilst not working is nice, I'm a little bored at home all the time. The internet and especially friends at various BBs and on blogs have kept me sane.

On Thursday, I was out and about with my aunt and her grand daughter. Its school holiday time here so there are children every where. Her grand daughter is only 7 and loves Doctor Who so when I heard there was a fan staged exhibition at Paisley museum, we had to go.
At the top of the stairs, we saw this



It was built by someone who builds them as a hobby and it looked pretty good.

There were also Daleks from different times in the series.



All in all, it was pretty fun. Its on for the rest of month and whilst it was pretty small, there's also the Paisley shawl and weaving exhibits to look at. I'm planning to go back and have a better look soon. I really like the motifs in paisley pattern and I would like to design some sort of stitched paisley pattern piece in the future.

Paisley and Glasgow have been in the news quite a bit this past week after some people decided to drive a car into the local airport aiming to kill people and blow up the airport. I live a very short drive away from Glasgow airport, which is actually just outside Glasgow in Paisley. Its been very shocking for everyone locally that this happened here. The west of Scotland hasn't got a lot of experience in having terrorist attacks here, although the proximity of Ireland means there have been connections to terrorist attacks. I guess I'm still in shock that it happened so close to home in what is a fairly small town.

Given that people have seen the not so nice side of Paisley this week, here is a picture of a lovely bit of Paisley's history.



The building is the old Anchor thread mill, which is now converted into flats. It lay in disrepair for a long time after it closed and its so lovely to see it restored. The mill is just past the end of my street. Because of the past history that Paisley has with weaving and threads, many of the streets are named after fabrics - Gauze, Lawn etc.

I didn't get too much finishing done last weekend. I managed to framed two things I finished recently.

Mirabilia's Miss Valentine fairy



When the chips are down by Hobb Nobb designs



I did, however, finish Miss New years fairy by Mirabilia, which started during my recent not blogging time.



During that time, I also finished a couple of Shepherds bush monthly musing designs which need finishing into a cushion and an ornament respectively. I also finished the Halloween fairy.



This week, I've got a couple of exchanges to work on so that will keep me busy.