Knitting Christmas... whilst moving out!

Bam! and the dirt is gone. I thought I'd share a few pictures of our last weeks of Edinburgh. I finished my job about a week and a half before we moved and I spent the time knitting and cleaning the flat (hence the precarious balancing of a hoover on top of a ladder). 

Also in these pictures is the mustard yellow Tilly and the Buttons picnic skirt I've mentioned a couple of times, and wanted to talk to you about. This was another of those little jobs that needed doing, as I had to take three inches out of the back... taking 2 out when it was made and then another inch or so once I'd worn it a couple of times. I think the weight of the fabric must have stretched out the waistband, as it just seemed to keep growing! I wonder if I could have used a stronger interfacing to stop this happening... what do you think? It fits great now, and I love wearing it with my navy tights, and a navy top.

In the pics you can see my light and dark grey knitting project for my sister. A slouchy hat and mittens, which I decided to make a finger-cap for after I realised my sister is always chilly. I also added sequins to these. Ill have to get a pic of my sister wearing them for the blog... but until then you'll have to imagine their shiny glory! 

Did you do any knitting projects for Christmas pressies? I've seen alot of bloggers discussing giving these presents to people who you know will appreciate them, and I've got lots of Christmas pressie posts to do on what I made. Do you think everyone appreciates a home made gift, or should they be kept for those who appreciate it? Such as those who knit themselves? I'd love to know your opinion.

Progress is being made on exciting things which I hope to post about in the next month or so... watch this space! 

Another New Look 6128 Pencil Skirt... and a Happy New Year!

First things first... Happy New Year everyone!

Apologies for my lengthy hiatus from the blog, after the move away from Edinburgh, and our unsettled-ness (living with parents's) I have failed at putting anything online. First off I want to show you the last couple of projects I did before we moved, and then I'm going to over the next couple of days add some more projects that I did for Christmas pressies, which I haven't been able to publish for obvious reasons!

After the success of my burnt orange pencil skirt, I decided to do the same pattern again, because it fit so well... and because of the novelty of having a straight skirt that doesn't do that tightness around the thighs and bum which I don't like.

And here it is! It's in a dogtooth brown, and what Mr T calls Dragon tooth in brown on the pockets. I love this pattern, it came together really easily, and I haven't stopped wearing it for two months:

Hope you like the pictures, I hope you've all had an amazing festive season, did you manage to get any crafting done? I've mostly been eating chocolate, but it has to be done ey? 

Autumn/Winter Inspiration

It's all happening up in Edinburgh, and in my favourite season too. The big move is well on its way and I'm unemployed once more. Mixed emotions, but I'm looking forward to the future. 

So! I've got a little time on my hands (in between the packing etc). And thought I could do with some improvement on my photo manipulation skills. So here are a few of the pictures I've been taking around Edinburgh. Above is Autumn, and below are some festive colours! I used this collage instruction guide from A Beautiful  Mess. It was really easy to use, and didn't make me swear loudly like most computer based things. 

I've some more projects on the way soon, in the meantime, hope you like the pics. You can see bottom right all the green tomatoes I harvested this year, not sunny enough for red tomatoes this year unfortunately but I'm sure they'll come in handy for a certain festive event in the near future. 

Fix up, look sharp

I have been spending my time before I begin the arduous packing process as an opportunity to do all those sewing jobs which aren't very exciting, but are very important. Like fixing old projects, and sewing clothes that are falling apart back together, so in the next couple of days expect some more pictures of me posing (slightly awkwardly) in lots of skirts!

The first is a skirt that I had made over a year ago (if not longer) it was based on a very similar theory to the Picnic Blanket Skirt, with the original having buttons down the front, and pleats instead of gathers. I stupidly didn't take a picture before I started so unfortunately you'll have to use your imagination.

This material (which I think has some silk in) is super soft, with a floral design which is much greener at the bottom. When I bought it, I was itching to make something with it so I forged ahead without interfacing the waistband or plackets. The skirt looked great for a wee while but eventually the waistband started to crumple and the buttonholes started to stretch (mostly because I did the buttonholes vertically rather than horizontally).

Therefore I decided to do it right this time, and change the skirt to a simple dirndle skirt, to show off the swishy-ness of this material. I used my new favourite (a lapped zipper) up the side, added some more pleats to adjust for the added material not needed for the plackets and added interfacing to the waistband. You can see in the picture the lapped zipper, which worked well apart from for some reason the waistband didn't match once it was sewn in. I have adjusted for this with the button, and think I need a little more work on my lapped zipper.

Have you got any hints and tips to make a lapped zipper easily without this problem? Let me know!

Also, do you put off these renovating jobs? All those finickety jobs that need doing but aren't very exciting? Post them below, and join me in fixing up your wardrobe.

Deborah

Edinburgh Sewing Corner

This is a final opportunity to take pics of my sewing area before we move, and as I love to see other peoples' sewing rooms, I thought I'd share mine too. I tidied ALOT before taking these pictures, as the whole place was covered in tiny bits of threads, bigger bits of material and various cups etc. I'll take a picture of my new sewing area (when I have one) whilst work is in process so you don't get the misleading impression that I am in any way tidy when I sew. Apologies for the quality of the pictures, our flat gets very little light and I took these last night.

I use the dining room table for my sewing machine, which is in the corner of our living room on a little stage. Like most people I don't have the room for a dedicated sewing space at the moment, so most of this stuff has to be packed away if we ever have dinner at the table (which is almost never).

 I use the corner of the space for all my various boxes.  The box on the right is for keeping sewing projects in progress, along with patterns (which I have very few of these days) and interfacing. You can see on the top a skirt that I got in a charity shop a while ago and want to make smaller so it fits on my waist rather than on my hips (watch this space).
The vintage suitcase at the back contains all the materials I used to make my wedding fabric flowers, I'll have to do a post on these at some point, but I'm thinking of changing some of the colours so I'll let you know when I have made up my mind (I'm very bad for changing my mind all the time).

Here is my brilliant sewing box which holds all my tools; scissors, pins, rotary cutter, small fixings etc. It's the perfect size and I've had it for... 6 or 7 years? I got it from Dunelm mill.

I keep all my threads and buttons in a set of jars on top of the sideboard:

I love these old jars, and in fact like (seemingly most) sewers love jars of any kind. If Mr T would let me I would cover every surface with them. As it is I have to make do with these three (and two in the kitchen). The red stand up jar filled with buttons had a rather boring beige lid which I painted with red poster paint. It came out really well to say it was poster paint.

I also have these posters up on the wall from a series of nights we organised in Manchester back when we lived there. Alongside the 'Unquote' posters, a night organised by Mr T's sisters band, The Monkeys In Love. I love these posters as they all go so well together in their black and white, and they really show off the artistic talents of Mr T's family.

I keep all of my materials in the bedroom, on top of the wardrobe (excuse the mess). It does make getting at my material a complete nightmare as I have to get them down from a very high height. But in our tiny flat there really isnt anywhere else for it to go. I went for plastic containers after hearing such great things about being able to see what's in the box. And it works, so far, but with the fabrics seperated into the two biggest boxes, I do forget what I've got in there. Luckily I love looking through them all and just looking at my fabric, do you feel the same, or is this a bit of a chore you'd rather do without?

You can see that the top left box is what's left of my wool collection after giving away half of it at the Swap Shop. This is still a pretty big box though so I need to get knitting! I have a couple ideas of projects, so I'll post about those in the near future. The top left box is for unfinished projects (of which I have a shameful number), I just can't seem to muster up the energy to finish some of them. You can see a fabric dolls feet sticking out at the bottom, I feel particularly guilty about stuffing her in a box, but what could I do?

So I hope you've enjoyed looking through my cupboards (or lack of them), I've enjoyed sewing in this flat but it would be nice to have a space of my own. Fingers crossed for a sewing room! Any ideas for how I should store things in the future? Have you done any brilliant organisations lately? Or if you're looking for organisation inspiration, I'd recommend Sew Many Ways, which has an
                                                           amazing array of craft organisation ideas.

 Deborah

Swap shopping and packing post

The date of the big move is inching ever closer, and so I'm afraid my blog posts will start to slow down a little while I try and get packed and sorted out.

This is also due to having to pack away my sewing machine, and paraphernalia including a massive amount of fabric and wool that I don't actually want or need. So the Granny's Swap Shop came along just in time. I went through all of my craft materials and packed a (shamefully) massive suitcase of stuff which I took along to work with me (donating some wool to work mates along the way), and then took over the Central Hall for some swapping fun!

You can see here the suitcase once it was empty, and the single ball of wool I took home with me, very proud of myself for not swapping my masses of stuff for more masses of stuff.


Everyone was super generous with all of their donations, with everyones gems from the back of the cupboard coming out of the woodwork, including vintage patterns, half finished socks, loads of wool and even some knitting needles!

I had a brilliant night and I feel like I've made my first step on the road to packing. I hope you can see from the pictures below, that I think the rest of the Granny Greens Gang had a great night too, thanks Andrea for organising this brilliant event!

Have you ever done a swap shop? Any hints and tips for finding a brilliant bargain? Or would you like to do one but just don't know where to start? Leave a message below and I'll get back to you.

Thanks, Deborah

New Look 6723.... success!

I have completed my wallpaper dress!

I learnt lots of things whilst making this dress, one of which being it doesn't matter how careful you are at measuring, you can still end up with a dress that's about 2 inches too big for you. I will take a note of this and (probably) end up making this in a size smaller next time. I think I've seen bloggers mention this problem before, have you encountered anything like this?

I'm still really happy with it though, I like the casual element that the slightly bigger size gives. But I'll try and make a smaller one next time, to see if I like that aswell.

In the picture to the left you can see me taking advantage of the pockets that I added to the pattern (all dresses/skirts should have pockets).

In these pictures you can see the shared garden in our Edinburgh flat... and the light disappearing from it even though it's only 1pm in the afternoon. I'm going to really miss this outdoor space, but I'm not going to miss that it loses light so early in the day! Hopefully I'll have a garden all of my own in our new house

  

Overall I'd say this pattern is easy enough to make, the instructions are clear, and there are no confusing extra steps to trip you up. However, it annoyed me that it didn't come out the size that it said it would, so it loses points on that score!

If you'd like one that might be a little more accurate, this pattern looks quite similar to the Peony from Colette patterns. There is a project on at the moment called a Sewalong, which you can join in to make your very own Peony, bloggers will take you through the process step by step and everyone can add in hints and tips for making this dress the perfect fit. I had already started my dress, so have missed out on the chance, but if you want to give it a go, click on the logo at the bottom of the page to have a look. Happy Sewing!

Deborah