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.

Flying by

Life seems to be going by very quickly at the moment hence the lack of blog posts. Work is keeping me really busy plus I've been out and about socialising a bit more lately, which has been nice.

There has been some knitting finished.

Purple socks for one of the Race for Life draw winners. The pattern is Angee by Cookie A. I've concentrating on sock knitting this month for the Socktoberfest KAL



And some simple gloves in Colinette jitterbug that are coming in very handy now winter is starting to make an appearance in Scotland.



On Sunday, I spent the day at my mum's learning to sew something based on a top I own. My mum spent most of her working life working in clothing factories and bridal shops plus she has always sewn clothes for herself and the rest of the family. She was showing me how to use a top that I own to make a pattern to make another top. She then helped me to use the pattern to make a top. I'm pretty pleased with the results. She helped me a lot with the sewing also as the fabric was pretty tricky. I can see more sewing in my future.

Inspiration

A post by Isabelle this week made me think about how blogs and boards that I visit inspire me to try new things and discover new designers. She posted a few links of places that she visits and takes inspiration from. I followed a few of the links and got some inspiration too. That for me is one of the most interesting things about blogs - they link to other blogs, which you would probably never see unless you followed the links.
I enjoy reading Isabelle's blog as she sews some lovely dresses and I enjoy reading French crafting blogs. Karen's blog inspires me to stitch things that I wouldn't have in the past and her finishing ideas are great.

This week via Isabelle's blog, I found a blog called Molly Chicken which features a lot of sewing and stuffed toy making, especially using some fabulous Japanese patterns. The bears are particularly brilliant. I've made a few bears in the past and I quite fancy trying some of the patterns as I have a few pieces of mohair in my craft stash. I ended up on Ebay buying a Japanese craft magazine and a Japanese needlefelting design book largely because of the hedgehog designs that they have in them (I collect hedgehog items) .

Another place that I am being inspired by at present is Etsy . I love the idea of a place like Ebay but that actually seems to value hand crafted items. I bought some hand dyed sock yarn a couple of months ago from a seller and I was very inpressed by them and the yarn. There is such a variety of different things being sold. I love the prints this seller has and this seller has some gorgeous fabrics, some of which are currently flying across the oceans to my house.

Meanwhile, I'm still knitting away on a pair of socks which are very spring like in colour. I'd like to finish them before April is over but that might not happen.



I have already finished a pair of socks this month but they are rather smaller than the ones I normally knit (and they some with a hat and some mitts).





Of course I need knitting inspiration along with inspiration for the other crafts. A forum that I visit Crafty threads n yarns , provides a lot of inspiration and links to lots of stash enhancing shopping. Claire sent me the link to the forum and also supplies regular shopping inspiration too - we seem to be able to enable each other quite easily and share a few similar opinions lol.

Its all Seahorse's fault

So I'm casually reading Seahorse's blog and I see her post about some great fabric that she bought from an ebay seller. 24 hours later, an envelope arrives at my letter box containing lovely cotton fabrics. The piece on the far left is a free piece that I got for buying the other 3 and I have to say this seller has great judgement in picking the free piece because if I had seen that bit of fabric, I would have bought it.




My bedroom has quite a lot of chinese texiles and Oriental themed stitching on the wall so I think the oriental prints will become cushions or cushion backs. Its ironic that I really love going shopping for fabric now as when I was very young, I hated it when my mum dragged my sister and I around every local fabric shop. My mum trained as a sewing machinist and made us most of our clothes when I was a child. It was pretty good as I got older as we could take her into a shop and show her something we liked. She would then make something very similar and it fitted much better too, given that I'm not very tall.
I didn't pay enough attention when she tried to teach me to sew when I was younger so I'm not very confident with a sewing machine. Ironically, my mum isn't much good at hand sewing and she doesn't have the patience for cross stitch. I tried to teach her a couple of years ago but she says that it takes too long. At the moment, she is sewing my sister's wedding dress and 4 bridesmaids bodices/skirts. They will be coming to me very soon to have beads applied to them.

I had my sewing machine out this week as I finished my Scared stitches piece from the Shepherds bush retreat. I'm not 100% happy with all the seams as they aren't as straight as I would like them. The pictures make them look even more squinty.





I also made a couple of pieces of oriental fabric that I got from Satomi into cushions and also an Oriental themed round robin into a cushion. I forgot to take pictures of them last night. I've also finished off 2 exchange pieces this week but pictures of them will have to wait until them reach their destinations.
Tomorrow is my last day off work this week. I was off sick at the start of the week so I feel like I haven't been there in ages. I'm kind of dreading going back as I've had enough of work there at the moment. There's still no news from the company that told me at the end of last year that they wanted to employ me so I guess they still haven't got any vacancies. I really need to get myself motivated to learn to drive. I've had a lot of driving lessons in the past but after a very upsetting driving test 8 years ago, I haven't had any lessons. I actually like the driving bit but the test bit is so horrible. It would open up a few job opportunities if I got my license so I should go for it.