The giant crafty update
Just when you thought you’d got away from my waffling, fibre-arty epistles, I go and start up again. Hello!
Now, listen. The completist in me wants to go back and chronologically update you with EVERY SINGLE THING I’ve made since I last blogged 400 years ago. But actually, I don’t think I even have photos of some of the things I’ve given away. I regret the loss of my daughter’s little blue cardigan most of all. It’s a reminder not to give away things you’ve made for your babies. You never know when you might want to pull the tiny outfits from their moth-resistant storage bags to have a little cry about how quickly little ones grow. Plus it had pink alpacas on it. What a loss. 🙁
Anyway, I digress. The point is, I’m just going to shut my eyes, say “to hell with chronology” and go ahead and do another craft dump. (That sounded ruder than it needed to.)
The big news is, I’ve recently got the sewing machine out of hibernation and started up sewing again. I have no idea what I’m doing, but looking back on here, I am reminded of how bad I was at knitting. Now look at me – unpicking the same top-down raglan neckline every evening because I’ve been distracted by the TV and have forgotten to increase. I’m a seasoned professional!
So, expect to see more sewed items on here soon. “Soon” in this context could mean “in 3 years” given my previous track record.
Anyway, enough blather. Here are a selection of recent and no-so-recent makes. Enjoy!
Hetty’s homemade ensemble
Even though this photo was taken quite a few years ago, Arrietty (nearly 6) STILL wears this beautiful Summer Days cardigan by Elena Nodel.
It was my first ever top down knitting project. It’s made seamlessly in one piece. It comes together using some sort of sorcery called the “Contiguous Method” developed by a magician called Susie Myers. It truly is magic.
It is also very fun to make. Even better, I became a more adept knitter because of it. However, any new skills I learned have almost certainly all been forgotten because I can only retain about 10 pieces of information at a time. Thank god for YouTube.
I made one of these for Cecily too, but the yarn I used was a soft baby merino instead of this beautiful cotton-merino mix (which I think was Debbie Bliss) and it turned out floppier than I’d like. She still loves it and wears it, though.
In fact, this has been so popular, I started making another one for Arrietty in red. It’s in the queue to be finished next.
Here’s a photo of my knitting it last summer (yes, I started it ages ago and never finished because [reasons]). Please also enjoy the swollen left ankle. I twisted it at our wood when I was distracted by a tree.
Beady-eyed crafty types will also note I’ve written some Universal Crochet symbols along the bottom to help me remember increases. I don’t know the knitting symbols (I assume there are some – I’ll save that rabbit hole for a day when I’m on deadline with an important work project.)
I wish all patterns uses charts. They’re so much easier.
ALSO! I totally sewed that skirt!
I made that skirt for Cecily yonks ago. In fact, so long ago I barely recall it. What I CAN recall is that she only wore it a handful of times because she only really liked wearing giant “spinny” dresses at the point (ie dresses so puffy she could spin and show her knickers). I think it was a contributing factor in me deciding to mothball my sewing machine (but more on that later.)
Again, I think I gave the skirt away so I can’t upload a better photo. However, I can exclusively reveal that it’s made out of Liberty fabric I got from a fabric outlet mill in Lancashire.
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Hold on, change of plan!
Actually, I know I said I was going to do a big crafty dump, but I’ve changed my mind. I’m moving my other knitting makes to new posts. This one is already long enough and if I don’t hit publish soon I’m scared some of you might enter an induced coma before any of us reach the end (with me being the inducer).
See you in the next blog post! I know you’ll all be on the edge of your seats waiting for it. See you soon!