Ooof!

So much has been happening!

The stuff for the shop I am hoping to start up has really started to take off, especially on the printing side of things, I have finally found some ink I can block print with and have been carving out some cool designs based on Alice in Wonderland and Red Riding Hood.

I finished another project bag last week so I have some pictures for you to look at, this one is slightly larger then the last one I made, mainly in height. I am going to make another one later today which will hopefully be a medium size for knitting scarves and sweaters.

As you can see, there is a button missing, because I am waiting for the shop to get some more in, but obviously it would have 3 buttons across the top! I have also put the D-ring at a higher angle so that it will hang well from a strap.

The inside is really spacious, the bucket style shape means that your ball or cake of yarn isn't going to hop out while you are knitting.

I lined the internal pocket with the outer gingham fabric on this one to make it stand out a bit and to add a quirky fun bit.

And again this one has the outer open pocket just like the others, I think this will become a standard feature for all of the bags.

I have ideas for other items to make as well so keep an eye out for those.

A few other things have popped in as well but I will tell you about those next time!

Tastes like summer.

This for me , along with the warm weather we had today, really does make it feel like summer.

In other news, I have some pictures of my first sample for a project bag that I am considering making for sale. I have spent some time figuring out what I myself and others on Ravelry found to be things required in a project bag, and this is the result.

The main feature that I really wanted to make a bit different is the shape, I really wanted it to be very easy to open wide at the top so that there is plenty of room for maneuvering. As you can see the box bottom shape and the shape of the top do this.

I also wanted to use a button closure as zips are bad for yarn! I have had my yarn get trapped in a zip before and it never ends well, buttons also mean that the bag can be closed and you can still knit outside of the bag, with the yarn passing between the buttons, something which if attempted with a zippered bag often leads to fraying.

As you can see to make up for the button closure I have added a fully lined integrated zippered pocket in the wall of the bag to keep notions and yarn needles in, while also adding larger open pockets on the outside for if you have the bag closed and simply want to easily grab a pair of scissors or your cable needle while knitting on the train!

You can just about make out in the above picture a D-ring for attaching a strap too, on this one it has ended up a bit too low so on the next one (which is just waiting to be stitched up) I am going to place it as high in the bag as I can and at an angle to allow for efficient use of a wrist strap or possibly a longer over shoulder strap for knitting while standing. I think the longer strap might be something that I would make an optional extra.

Like I say I am already working on the next one which I hope to have up tomorrow and which I think will be a bit slimmer in width but taller. I am thinking also that if I were to do multiple sizes I would just increase the dimensions by a few inches.

What do you think?

A brief sewing update

Just a couple of things,

Pretty Fabrics to be sewn into potential items for sale...

(P.S. I am looking into dying and printing my own cotton for some projects)

Cool free gifts with Cath Kidston book "Sew!" which was really easy to put together.

And another Kidston book arrived in the post Wednesday, expect embellishments galore.

Any pretty things gracing you today? Mine are making me feel summery :)

Slow Coach

Ach! I did it again!

This post was supposed to have been a few days ago, but I went and got distracted, time flies when you have nothing to do it seems.

SO!

Remember the snow from my last post? And how cute my red wellies looked in it? Well check out how they looked a few days after that!

The snow got quite a bit deeper for a few days there, I had to wear 3 pairs of walking socks when I went out, and my feet were still cold! I am really not used to this kind of weather.

On the plus side look how pretty the garden looked, it's Narnia!

(Note, that light is actually only about to my knee, not a full blown Narnia lamp in the middle of nowhere, but that is still thick for this country)

Now, what else kept me from posting, aahhh yes, Ms. Charlaine Harris and her wonderful Sookie Stackhouse books.

This picture of books 3-6, but I now have all of them, because when I went out the other day I had to get 7, 8 and 9, I just had to. After reading books 1 and 2 I decided to wait to get the others, well I waited long enough for the postie to bring them, but I couldn't wait for the next ones I really couldn't, they are just great. I only feature books that I really really like on this blog so that gives you an idea of how much I like them, they completely gripped me, I literally put down one after finishing it and had to pick up the next one, I stayed awake until 4am to finish one of the books and had to stop myself from staying up any later then that to start the next. They have just the right balance of humour, grit, and make believe that they go down nice and easy like a glass of cold milk. Perfecto!

Now I just have to wait until May for the next one, though I do keep reading the snippets of the first chapter that are available on Ms. Harris' website.

Obviously the Sookie books have a TV series to go with them and I may have come across series 2 of that show online somewhere *ahem* and sat and watched all 12 episodes one after the other twice now, including repeating episode 9 at 26 minutes into the episode just to fully take in how pretty Mr. Skarsgard, aka Eric, is in the buff, which allowed for some knitting time :D (knitting while reading only leads to dropped stitches, read on for an example of this)

The main thing I have been knitting is these:

I have only finished one as you can see, but do not fear! This is not a case of the One Mitten Syndrome!! I have actually cast on the second one and it is about one third complete, I am only taking a break from it to update this actually.

These are the Hurricane Mittens pattern which was written to compliment that hat I featured a couple of posts ago. I have done them in an opposite colour scheme to add a bit of interest and so far I am not sure about them, the second mitt I have actually started in the smaller size, as the first one doesn't fit very well, it is a bit loose, so if I prefer the smaller size I will be frogging this one and redoing it. I have also added a full thumb which isn't in the pattern and I am intending to add a flip top to make the mitts changeable between fingerless and full mitts.

I have also... wait for it...

FINISHED my Bella's Cable Scarf in purple for my sister!! This scarf has been on the needles since the beginning of september so it is a huge relief to have it cast off and wrapped up in some nice paper waiting for January the 23rd.

Here is a little shot just before I wrapped it, note, no needles anywhere! So happy about that! Especially as this is where the dropped stitches when reading occurred, I made a mistake in the cable and frogged back 8 rows to fix it and in doing so managed to drop 6 stitches back a couple more rows, it was very frustrating, but now it is all done.

I was going to do a FO report on this one, but I have knitted the pattern before, so I will just remind you of what I used, I knit my own pattern on 10mm needles with Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino yarn in shade 13. I used about 3 and a half balls of the stuff and it took forever, but it is a really nice open scarf and is really long and should wrap around little sister's neck plenty to keep her snug. If I could change anything I would probably slip the last stitch on each row to make it a little neater.

Right my last crafty persuit of the past could of days is one I am rather chuffed with. It came about when I got these through the post:

I had completed my Knit Pro needle set, and they needed a home, the tin I was keeping all my knitting stuff in wasn't very organised at all. So I whipped up this new nice safe home for them.

I think it looks a little like a clutch handbag, but it rolls out like this:

As you can see there are spaces for everything. I made it from that lovely red striped fabric I have used before (all my stuff matches) and some plain cream cotton for the lining and some dense sew in interfacting for rigidity, and I basically had a look at the ones available to buy and whipped up the perfect combination of all the ones out there already.

Here we have my needles from 3mm through to 6mm tips, and a pocket for my fixed circular needles which are sizes 2mm to 2.75mm. As you can see if you look closely I had to make the pockets for up to the 5mm size shorter to accommodate the smaller needle tips that I have in those sizes.

And on the other size I have pockets for the needles up to 10mm in diameter and then I have little pockets for my cables (the idea for this I borrowed from the Della Q interchangeable needle cases) and they lay nicely over the larger needle pockets so that it all fits. in the folded out picture you can also see I made a zipped pocket to fit into the middle seam to hold bits and bobs like stitch markers and point protectors and crochet hooks. A simple velcro fastening holds everything together.

I think it looks quite smart, it used things I already had around the house so has saved me the £25 it would have cost to buy one and it has already had plenty of use. Good all round I think!

All sewn up

This came quicker then I thought it would (hence the new post, I wrote the charity one this morning with a note about an update during the week), I was sure that this would take me a couple of sittings to finish because all I had left was the really fiddly job of sewing in the top, but a couple of hours pinning and sewing, a little bit of unpicking where I had sewn too far so the side pockets wouldn't work and had to be redone, but nothing major, and I was done!

So here it is, all finished and with some jumpers in it so you can see what it's like. shape-wise. The top is curved, which made it even more fiddly to sew.

It is fully lined with some strong calico and stiffened all over with interfacing. I am hoping all my triple stitching will mean its nice and strong too.

I also added some pockets, this fully lined one extends over the front of the bag and will be perfect for putting travel documents and a book or magazine in so i can grab hold of them without rummaging. The end pockets are also lined, with both calico and more oilskin and I think they will be perfect for popping in a water bottle.

I made the bag almost exactly the the airline specifications for hand luggage sizes. I should definitely be able to fit everything in. Now all I need to do is make the shoulder strap (one of those padded ones with velcro) and a wash bag. I need to get hold of some more oilskin for that though so it will have to wait!

Almost done.

My luggage that is, at the moment it is sat with the final panel pinned into place ready for some manic stitching, there is a base in place courtesy of Mum's work and all I have to do is get motivated enough to sit at the machine and do it. I am not feeling particularly motivated at the moment. I have a cold.

I know, I know, its only a cold, but I feel awful, yesterday was really bad because it all of a sudden hit me out of nowhere, but today I have gone from stuffy and coughy and things to serious head pain. I am hoping tomorrow it will not hurt as much as I am back at work following my volunteering days, and it will be a saturday, and I am currently to be found in the kids section.

On the plus side some good things have coincided with this horrible illness.

Yesterday I received an amazing package from a lovely person over on the random acts of kindness forum on Ravelry. This one was just for me, not for the library, but for me, and it had so many nice things I just have to show you.

I got necklaces, extra beads and embroidery cotton for embellishing things, sock needles and a pattern (already in use as you shall soon see) lavender sachets which are tucked into my stash so my yarn smells all pretty and a giant quality street, of my favorite one, the one with the caramel with the hazelnut in the middle, YUM!

This obviously cheered me up a lot, it is always nice to get something as a treat after you have started a new job which requires you to be up at half 5 and on the bus at 7 in order to get there for 9. It has been a time of transition, and it has been difficult, especially as I wont gain much financially as the transport costs so much money.

At the end of the day when I get home I am knackered and so I haven't done much knitting, not even while traveling, I am too tired in the morning and the bus is really crowded at night. However I have used my RAK gift to start my first ever sock for myself, I once started a child's sock but frogged it to make my Bella's mittens, so I don't count that.

I think the yarn is knitting up in a really pretty stripe, because it is hand dyed it isn't perfectly consistent as I imagine a normal one would be, but I really like it, it is also really soft. I am also not entirely sure that I have enough wool to make both socks, so i shall make them not too long up the leg.

I just thought I would put this one in, it is my current diet, I bought 400g of cola bottles the other day, there is still loads left, and we have loads of banana milk (my favorite flavour) from Mum's work :D

Experimitten

I think experimitten might not work :(

I am obviously talking about the mitten I am trying to put together to match my Haven scarf. I think I am going to frog what I have done and try it with a few more stitches or on a slightly larger needle, but I am not sure, it's the yarn over's, they look strange, the bottom ones are as you can see in the picture, but the ones after the very bottom aren't very defined and the glove is a little small, so I shall try once more with the scrap yarn and then I will have to make a decision, I might end up just making plain ones if I can't make it work. I do usually really really try though, so hopefully fingers crossed it will work!

At least the knit pro needles are great, they are pretty and they are great to work with, I am going to add several pairs to my christmas list, I love the acrylic ones and the wood so I am going to add a selection I think, especially some more sock sizes, and some more interchangeable tips, some cords, pretty much everything :D

So what have I been up to when I haven't been knitting? Well mostly volunteering, I do quite a bit of that, and preparing to work at the job and such, but other then that I have been wrestling a lot of this stuff:

Obviously doesn't look like much in this picture, the one below you can tell what it is :D

It's luggage!! It is hand luggage to be exact, for visiting the Irish boyfriend. I am flying with Ryanair because I am skint, and they charge more for checking in a bag, and I am only going for 5 days so I wont need a HUGE amount of stuff. So I decided I would make a piece of hand luggage that near enough exactly matched the size specifications, it is going to be 54cm x 38cm x 20cm, so cutting it fine, but it will be nice to know that I will be able to take everything without squeezing stuff in. Not quite finished as you can see, I have to sew the top zippy bit in it, simultaneously sewing in the lining, I haven't done this yet because I need some stiff plastic to make the base all firm and give it some structure, but after a nice trip to B&Q or somewhere then it shall be done, not too bad for about 2 days cutting and sewing.

Next up will be a wash bag to put everything in, and maybe a little make up bag, that requires getting more oilcloth though. I will also be making some project bags when I get more oilcloth, not to take with me though as UK airports are not knitting friendly :(

Sew..a needle pulling thread.

:D

That is what I look like right now because I stole my mum's sewing machine today and finally finished my red zippered project bag! Here it is:

I am so proud of myself! My sewing skills aren't amazing, I can hem things, and play around a bit but I always dodged textiles at school so things like zips and linings made me feel a bit nervy. Sewing the lining in wasn't very neat because by that time I had sort of had enough, and it was quite difficult, but oh my do I love that zipper foot!! My first attempt I had to hand backstitch the zip in because my machine wouldn't fit a zipper foot on it, but that thing made it so easy this time! Here is the lining, i think its quite neat considering it was my first time doing it.

And here it is with a project inside! This is the purple Bella's scarf I am knitting for my sister and it fits nicely with a full ball of yarn, circular needles, a cable needle and copy of the pattern and there is plenty of space for more bits and bobs, definitely the perfect size.

I got some blue polka dot oil cloth today, so I am hoping to make one in that too, maybe one large and one smaller one, and maybe a little notions pouch. Then I am not sure what i will do with the rest, because there's quite a lot of it, either a bag for all my sewing stuff or a small weekend bag for visiting the boyfriend.

Another thing I have finally finished is this little guy:

I finally managed to get some toy stuffing on friday and so it is nicely stuffed and ready for having pins stuck in it. I veered from the pattern a little bit and made the cake separate from the case as I am hoping to make little christmas puddings in this way, that I am going to stuff with sweets instead of stuffing, for little christmas presents.

I also didn't have the right size needles so mine is a bit bigger then it is supposed to be, and the case is made of wool not cotton. As you can see from the picture below I am also a bit rubbish at sewing it together, I shall hopefully improve on this before December!

I think Sunday shall be spent knitting more of my Haven scarf and reading this week, hopefully the weather will be a bit nicer then it has been today and I will be able to venture outside.

Enjoy your weekends people!

Stuff

I have finally decided how I am going to make my yellow lace project, I ordered some lemon yellow Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky from The Black Sheep yesterday, I think 8 balls will be enough if my calculations are correct, if not I will just have to find some more! It was half price which I actually did a little dance about, a real dance with "yippee!!"'s and everything. I had gone into Tricot earlier in the day and asked if they would order it and they would have to charge me for the full ten balls and it would be £45 which in my currently jobless situation I could not afford, so I was super happy when i found this at £2.50 a ball and only £1 for postage! There was some confusion about whether they actually had any, but today I got the confirmation they definitely did so I cheered up after thinking I had lost my perfect yarn.

I have decided though that I wont be casting this on for a while yet, while at Tricot I got some Katia 100% merino which is a much closer match to the pink german yarn I already had for my pink Bella's Scarf and so I frogged the little bit I had done in Sublime and have redone it in the Katia, I am going to get another ball and do the hat in it too but do the other mitten in more Sublime, I am determined that I will finish the pink and the purple sets before starting the yellow lace project as the yellow is really a christmas present to myself, and I wont be using it until I get my bag anyway.

My list of to do is slowly getting bigger, the purple is chugging along nicely, I will definitely need more yarn but I will worry about that next week, mondays are now my Scunthorpe days

so I will be going to the library and the yarn shop then.

Today I haven't done much knitting, but I have been playing with yarn. Last night I was knitting away and getting really frustrated about my ball of yarn rolling away from me, my first solution was this:

While effective and also using up one of the hundreds of bowls my mum has (they come with panna cotta and creme brulee in them from M&S) the ball bounced out a couple of times, so instead I did some searching on the internet and found out how to wind balls of yarn so that they unwound from the middle, and so have been feverishly winding yarn on my thumb for a lot of the afternoon.

I did it quite losely and the yarn is all in much smaller balls now, they will all fit in my bag with some projects in too which is good as that is what it was designed for, it was a little annoying that it didn't all fit anymore. I think I shall definitely be doing it from now on, they are all so neat and tidy too :)

Other then winding yarn I have been busy sewing, I have made the project bag I had said I would from the scraps left after the sailor dress transformation.

I am actually quite surprised with myself with this one. I honestly thought I would leave it a few days then start it then leave it because using the sewing machine does wind me up sometimes, but I'm glad I have done it, I have also made a little notions bag for my now completely finished stitch markers (I glazed them with clear nail polish in the end). Hopefully this will stop me losing them, and help keep my knitting bag tidy, unfortunately I didn't think ahead and make it big enough to also hold my cable needles and tapestry needles, but I have a little make up bag I don't use that I think everything will fit into. If you haven't noticed already, I really don't like things being messy.

The only other interesting thing to report really is that I have found some new favorite books. I have been finding it hard to concentrate on reading lately because my mind would keep wandering to other things and I would not take in the words on the page. I knew I needed something really easy to read, and so I decided to try these:

I first discovered them while working at Waterstone's and considered getting them, but I am now glad I didn't, 30% discount doesn't come anywhere near 3 for £5!! I found them at this bargain price in the bargain bookshop The Works when browsing for a book for my sister's AS Level English Lit course. They are really fun, I finished the first one in two days, which while slow for me is quick for me while I am also knitting and feeding my restaurant city people and chatting and cooking etc.

The series is about a 50-something PR businesswoman who takes early retirement and moves from London to a tiny village in the Cotswolds, murder shortly follows and in a Miss Marple-y way Mrs Raisin (as is her name) solves it! The first one, 'Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death' was nice and light hearted, and I especially like it as I can see the same sort of things in my own village, particularly the bits about incomers, damn those new builds ruining the prettiness of my picturesque home :)

Ahoy Sailor

So i have been a busy sewing bee today.

I have successfully shortened a dress into a pretty camisole top :)

Here it is before I cut it, it was a very nice dress but I have only worn it once since I got it around 2 years ago. As a top it shall be worn lots.

Not a huge thing i know as it is only one seam to sew but for me thats really good as I'm not a very good sewer.

Here we are all cut and sewn up again, I think its really cute and would look great with jeans and a little cardigan or bolero.

I am going to turn the left over fabric into a small project bag to carry my knitting around in my handbag too :)

Craft fantastic!

Whoo! I can finally explain the mystery of last night's post!

Well I spent all yesterday evening being Miss crafty. I made my own stitch markers!

I am so proud of them, they look great.

I decided to do this when i was browsing Etsy for some polka dot ones to match my knitting bag and tape measure. I found a few that were lots of different colours with polka dots, but none that were just red and white. So my brain having of late looked at things and though well why cant I make that, decided I should give it a go, and yesterday I went and got some clay and cord and crimps so I could try.

Here is all the cord nicely crimped into loops, I wanted the to be snag free so I have avoided those metal looks that I have seen a lot made with, also using cord like this means that they fit onto different sizes of needle and the cord simply hangs into a tighter loop. The crimping was quite difficult because I didn't have any small pliers so I ended up using quite chunky pliers on tiny pieces of metal, a miracle I didn't squish my fingers!

Just before going into the oven, my hands were all red from rolling all the little balls, it was fun though, and they look like little cherries or something which is cute. getting them back into a round shape after squishing the crimped cord into them for the hole was a bit annoying, but I managed to get them quite round.

This was at the time of posting last night, I had just gotten to use my favorite toy, the hot glue gun, to put the crimps into the holes, a couple of the holes had shrunk a little so I had to use a bradawl to scrape some extra clay out. One I had to abandon completely because it simply wouldn't go in.

Here they are all hanging to dry after painting, I love the little ones, they look really cute with their dots, they still need glossing though, I can't do that yet as i don't have any gloss, completely forgot to get some from the craft shop!

As you can see the bigger sized ones have notations written on them for marking specific things, my painting isn't the neatest though so some look a little scruffy. I am still really proud though, I got 19 for the price I could pay for 4 on Etsy (20 if that last one hadn't messed up, though I used the cord to make a heart) and they match my stuff nicely too :)

I am going to be even more crafty later today as I am turning a dress into a top and making a small project bag from the trimmings left over. I shall update when i have finished it!