2016: a retrospective

2016 has been a challenging year. 

Brexit and Trump mean it will have a lasting political impact on the world, but there are other things too. Smaller things about my own life which have been difficult and challenging and which will have ongoing and long-term effects. And, just like Brexit and Trump, these things are also changes that I do not want, that I do not support, and which I have done my best to resist. 

It seems - sadly - that I will have to learn to live with them. To work round them and to rethink my future. 

To get back to the other challenges for 2016, I set myself several crafty objectives earlier in the year, and it's time to take stock. 

1. Tame the stashes 
I did a good job of reducing the yarn stash, and knitting from stash a wee bit (tank top or two, plus a few other accessories), and then bought a sweater's worth of lovely yarn from Skein Queen to make myself a jumper, and two skeins of yarn for hats. 

I did sort the fabric stash, and move a few things around and get rid of some fabric I thought I would never use. But, that didn't shrink it much, and then I found I needed to order some more for a project or two that I had planned, so I don't think I am any further forward. 


2. Use the stash!
Knitting: I made a cowl for myself, a tank top for the bean, another scarf for myself, and a lovely hat. I used the stash to remake a hat for my brother, and knit a Christmas hat for my daughter. I made a slightly too big pair of socks that ended up going to my dad. My needles are currently clacking away on a pair of fingerless mitts for my brother's girlfriend. 

Newhaven Hat by Ysolda Teague

knitted in Ysolda's Blend No 1 

wee scrap hat (own design)

modelled by little bean

scrap hat revisited - own design

I made this for my brother using some frogged yarn from an old scrap hat of his, which was disintegrating from use/wear and washing. 

Sewing: I have made myself two jersey skirts suitable for work, three very small raglan tees for a friend, two pairs of school leggings and a nightdress for the jelly bean. I also made a few upcycled projects using fabric recovered from old t-shirts.

3 x recess raglan tee (See Kate Sew)

made with upcycled fabrics; the fire-engine motif was rescued from a toddler t-shirt and attached using bondaweb

4 x upcycled dusters or polishing cloths. Made from old t-shirts

3. Make some things to fill gaps in my wardrobe: 
I made a cowl, a navy jersey skirt, a lovely raspberry coloured scarf, and a grey hat. It is so satisfying to make things that fit right in to the palette and styles that I wear everyday, and which immediately go into rotation. I also made a gorgeous multi-coloured skirt which didn't really fit into my careful plans, but has been a useful me-made addition nevertheless. 

 Bias stripe scarf (Purl Soho)

Knit with some lovely but anonymous raspberry sock yarn from the stash, and striped with some odds and ends

 

4. Finish the UFOs
There has been progress here. My WIP pile has reduced significantly. I think I just have one long-range UFO in my knitting bag, which I am eyeing up as a Christmas gift. My sewing UFO pile ebbs and flows, but I think it has reduced in size a little. 

5. Continue to work on mending. 
There has been a lot of mending this year. I have darned, sewn, embellished, and ironed-on patches. I even managed to do some of that with friends. 

I haven't blogged much.  But I have been stitching. And I made myself some things. I might not have achieved everything I planned, but I can happily tick quite a few things off the list. Hurrah for that. 

Itchy Fingers

Ah, September. Something about the shift in light and the cooler temperatures and the back to school vibe are making my fingers itchy. 

Life has been a bit challenging here lately with one thing and another (hello chicken pox, hello full-time workload). Our University semester and first teaching block has begun and I'm setting some boundaries early on to try and keep myself sane/well. 12 weeks of teaching is exhausting - particularly as our model of teaching insists that we all work as single traders - that doesn't really suit my style of working or teaching at all well. Sigh. 

In the middle of all that, yarns have been tumbling through my fingers and I have been eyeing up patterns here and there. There are some small projects to finish off too, and a few deadlines coming up that I'm working towards. But, the main thing that has been happening is sewing. 

I've realised that waiting until all three children are asleep means that my evenings are fairly short. So, I have been snatching little pockets of time here and there to move projects along. The other day I cut out a nightdress for the jelly bean (now 7!) while the little bean was having a bit of quiet time. Later in the afternoon I sewed it together, during the post-supper play and homework slot, and quickly did enough during bath time that she could wear it that night. 

A couple of days later, during another playtime lull, I rummaged in my stash for t-shirt fabrics to make up into shirts for a soon to be 1 year old friend. I cut three sets of sleeves, three backs, fronts and neck bands. Batches really are the best when you are short on time! I'd love to hear other people's strategies for sewing/crafting when time is tight.

So, it's September and my creative juices are flowing. I'm stitching here and there and doing my best to make in-road into my stash which is still (ahem) generously proportioned! I'll be back again soon. Promise. 

Scrap Hat Recipe (free pattern for a stashbusting hat)

Dearest knitters, verily I say unto you, 'tis the season for elving. And, because of that I thought I would share my recipe for my scrap hats. This is not really a pattern - it has not been tested by test knitters, or tech-edited or checked for mistakes - it's just a loose set of instructions. The extra bonus is that you don't need to buy any yarn for this, just use your scraps!!

Size

This is a one-size hat for a man or woman. Actual hat size is in the region of 58cm. 

Yarn

You will need approximately 75g of double knit yarn in colours of your choosing. I find it easiest to group together like colours (e.g. shades of blue, or shades of green) with one or two contrasting colours for interest. If you want to add a knitted lining, you will need more yarn. I usually make my linings in one colour - just choose something that will be comfortable to wear next to the skin. 

As the hat is textured, it is also possible to include heavier and lighter yarns.  I find knitting with 2 strands of 4 ply yarn works well, although one strand can be tolerated in small doses. Chunky or aran weight yarns can be similarly tolerated in small doses.

Gauge

something like 18 stitches to 10cm worked in st st in the round on 3.75mm needles.

Instructions

Cast on 100 stitches using a 3.75mm circular needle (or DPNs) and using DK yarn. If I do add on a few stitches for a bigger hat/head then I make sure I use a multiple of 4 - just to make working out the decreases a lot easier!

Knit until work measures 5 cm. This will make the roll up brim of the hat.

On the next round begin your first purl band, and purl for at least 2 rounds. 

Knit a few rounds, and then purl again as your fancy takes you.

Continue to alternate between knit bands and purl bands. I tend to make my purl bands between one round and 3 rounds and my knit bands a bit more than that. I don’t count the rounds between bands, but alternate by eye.

Change colour whenever you feel the urge or your current scrap of yarn comes to an end. Since the whole point of this hat is to use up yarn then there is no need to count stitches, rounds or master the jogless join.  When changing colours you can either employ your usual yarn joining technique and weaving in ends as you go or do what I do and knit the old yarn with the new yarn for a few stitches. This might be seen as slovenly, but in a project like this perfection is not necessary and I like the variegation you get when you knit two yarns together. Do what you have to…

Continue until the work measures approximately 18cm finishing with a purl band of 3 rounds (roughly).

On the next knit round, begin to shape the crown as follows:

*k2tog tbl, k21, k2tog , rep from * until end.

Next alt round: *k2 tog tbl, K19, k2tog rep from * until end.

Next  altround: *k2 tog tbl, k17, k2 tog rep from * until end.

Keeping pattern correct, work crown decreases until…

For a flat topped hat suitable for a bobble

… only 8 stitches remain, then break yarn, run tail through stitches and pull tight, sewing in end firmly to secure the top of the hat. A bobble if desired.

For a hat with a stalk

… work until 4 stitches remain then knit a few cm of i-cord before casting off. I like to tie a knot in my i-cord stalks, so I normally make the stalk about 10cm or so.

For a hat with a tassle,

… work crown decreases until only 2 stitches remain then work 15cm of i-cord, cast off and attach a suitable tassel to the end of your i-cord.

Weave in ends, wash hat gently, shape and dry.

If you want to add a knitted lining, then it's fairly straightforward: pick up stitches inside the brim of the hat. The round where the outer hat changes from stocking stitch to reverse stocking stitch provides a useful place to pick up these inner stitches. Knit the lining using your preferred rib pattern - I use either 2x2 rib or 2x1 rib, just depending on my mood. Knit until the lining reaches the start of the crown shaping on the outer hat, then work crown decreases. I usually work these as follows:

round 1: *knit 2bl, knit 8 , repeat from * to end.
round 2: work in pattern
round 3: *knit 2tbl, knit 7, repeat from * to end. 
round 4: work in pattern..

Keep this going until you have only 3 stitches between decreases, then decrease every round. when there are only 8 or so stitches left, then break yarn, pull through and close up. It should look something like this.... 

Happy knitting folks! I'd love to hear about any scrap hats that you make.... 

Making Monday #10: here endeth the lesson

You will be glad to hear that after all the cursing two weeks ago, I managed to get that scrap hat finished and sent off to my brother in time for his birthday (Happy Birthday, bro!).

After I fell foul of the knitting gods over the whole brim thing, I took a few deep breaths, and possibly a sip of gin, I considered my options. I couldn't see a way of fudging or incorporating the extra stitches into a spiffy new design feature. So, that really only left one option - to detach the brim and then reknit using the frogged yarn. If ever there was a lesson in ultimate yarn thrift, this is it!

Here is the finished hat, with a reknitted brim. 

As is usual for my scrap hats, there was a knitted lining - seen here - , which I also needed to rework. I frogged and reknitted for two reasons:

1. after making that rookie mistake with stitch numbers, I wasn't going to get caught out again (shakes fist at knitting gods), and 

2. because the outside of the hat is mostly wool or wool mix, it has shrunk a bit with inappropriate washing over time. The lining for this hat is made with cotton yarn (a bit cooler than double wool as this is a summer hat, obvs!) and hadn't shrunk, so it was a bit saggy. 

I picked up stitches inside the brim and knitted the innards using a 2x2 rib. 

Nice huh? Remaking and repairing is just as satisfying as making new things I find. What are you mending today? I'd love to hear...

In which I realise I might have bitten off more than I can chew

Sometimes deadlines are just impossible. Was it Douglas Adams who said he like the sound of them whooshing past?  

Knowing that my parents visit was fast approaching, I spent a couple of evenings last week diligently cutting fabric into pieces and then stitching it back together again - trying to get the quilt top for my mum into some sort of order. 

I chain pieced and I pressed, and I now have 100 finished blocks. I ought to be ready to stitch these together into rows, but eeek. The blocks aren't quite perfect.

Some of them are a bit smaller. Some are a bit bigger.
Some are (gasp) a bit wonky. Turns out, my cutting wasn't always as accurate as I thought. And, um, neither was my sewing. 

#alwayslearning

So, I'm sort of stuck. I don't know whether to embrace the wonkiness and just sew the darned thing together, or spend time fiddling and trimming and trying to square things up before sewing the darned thing together. 

My parents are here now too, and as my mother doesn't Know about The Quilt, I'm not going to spoil the surprise. 

Sigh. 

A half plan is forming in my head, but it'll have to wait. 

Enjoy the bank holiday if you have one. I'm at work, the kids are at school, so it's not a holiday here #justsaying.

Another day, another blankie (FO)

Me again (don't faint with surprise)

After the raving success of the first stash-busting blanket I cobbled together another one, using up absolutely all of the weird textured yarn I used in the first one. 

It's not my finest creation evah, in that it's not very rectangular - something about the textured yarn made it difficult to keep my edges straight, but it's okay. I tarted it up a bit with some nice bold blue around the edge (4 ply held double) and gave it a wash. One end has stripes, and the other half is just plain because that's how the yarn worked out. 

Just like the last one, this will be donated to local charity: the Pregnancy & Parents Centre. They've got a nearly new sale coming up on Saturday (16th May!) Just in time. 

Stash and burn (FO): the story of a made-up blanket

Hey peeps. 

I'm not on a stash diet this year, I'm blitzing, I'm busting, I'm hoovering up that stash. It will be conquered. After this, everything will be different. 

Yeah. 

[Has Marie Kondo written a book about dealing with a stash yet?]

Anyways. I had a bit of a rummage in the yarn stash a couple of weeks ago, just before our bedroom was deconstructed. I pulled out some baby blue/green yarns that I cant find a project for, and got my crochet hook out.  

This is what I ended up with. 

The colours are a bit off here, the olive colour isn't quite so olive in real life - it's just pale green. But the other colours are fairly true (I will resist the temptation to tell you that it's really blue and black).

Not bad huh? It's fairly square, and should work as a baby blanket to keep someone small warm. It consumed a reasonable amount of yarn, with enough left for another blanket too. I dropped it off at the Pregnancy and Parents Centre, so they can sell it to raise money. 

I've no idea what any of the yarns are - but they are all highly synthetic and came from charity shops at one time or another. Two of the yarns are textured, so it's quite forgiving in terms of mistakes, but also slightly harder to work with because the stitch definition is, well, not very defined.  I didn't follow a pattern, I just started with a chain that was about the right length, and just took it from there. Also, don't ask what stitch I used, I have no idea!

Seeing as there was a goodly amount of yarn left over, I almost immediately cast on (do you cast on in crochet?) for another blanket. The stripes will be a bit different, because I used up most of the smooth yarns in the last one. 

In other news, I have been watching the great british sewing bee, and fantasising about having 4 hours, or 6 hours, or even 90 minutes to sew something without having to look after children or make meals or rush out to pick someone up from a party/play date/school. I don't think I've touched my sewing machine since Christmas *sigh*. I am really looking forward to the end of (my) term, and the Easter holidays, and maybe having a wee bit more time to do something apart from work. Grrrr.

Sorry. Did that last bit come out out loud? It's been a bit of a rollercoaster recently, mostly plunging towards an abyss, and hoping that at some point things might get slightly less bad. 

Still, there is always crochet. 

And knitting.

And chocolate.

And urchins like this

to keep me going.

Itty Bitty Hats (FO) (warning: contains images of very small & cute hats)

Yo ho ho me hearties.

As you (both? all?) know I have a healthy stash that I try to keep tamed and somewhat under control. Ahem.

Now and again I get the urge to use up a few scraps of yarn and make some baby hats using my common or garden baby beanie pattern. Sometimes I make the hats for people and babies that I know, and sometimes I make them just for the hell of it. After all, what's not to like about knitting round and round a few times, making an itty bitty stalk and ta-da! a hat appears? 

I kid myself that I'm stash busting when I do this, but really? Each hat probably uses 20g of yarn, so it aint going to make much of a dent. But do I mind?

Not in the slightest.

4 of these dudes have sprung off my needles lately, although I can only find pics of 2 of them. They share a colour palette, and have consumed the last remains of some sock yarn used for other projects, like these, these and this. 

I'll be donating these to the folks at the Pregnancy & Parents Centre to help them raise funds. 

Stash Busting New Year Styley (FO)

The New Year arrived at our house along with the spring cleaning and sorting bug. Over the weekend there was a flurry of cleaning, sorting, recycling and general tidying up. 

Several cupboards and bed bases were sorted and organised, and two or three bags of stuff left the house never to return. My daughter's bed base is the home to part (ahem) of my fabric stash. Because I have been making a few things here and there, I thought I might be able to fit another chunk of the stash in there too, and I did my best to make that happen. 

I failed. 

I have quite a lot of nearly worn-out clothes which I have put aside for upcycling into something else. This included a pair of pyjamas of mine in a nice red/grey check with a sparkly. As everyone else in the family was happily occupied, I took the opportunity to upcycle these pjs into something useful.

First I cut the trousers and top into useable pieces of fabric that were roughly square or rectangular. I left hem finishes where appropriate.

Then after a quick iron, I set about making a set of fabric gift bags to add the pile we use for Christmas and birthdays. I have been making these bags for a couple of years now, inspired by Soule Mama. They make wrapping gifts pretty quick - no hunting for paper or tape or scissors - and make tidying up a breeze too: fold up and put back in the box. Easy! 

Wherever possible I used existing hem/edge finishes for the opening of the bags, and I worked with existing seams too, to minimise my sewing effort. I have learned not to make the bags too small, so aimed for something that is at least big enough to fit a novel. I ended up with 7 bags of various sizes.

It didn't make much of a difference to the fabric stash under my daughters bed, but it's a start. One thing dealt with. And, as we didn't have enough fabric bags for all of our Christmas wrapping, it'll be a good addition to that stash...

The best present. Ever. (FO)

Last year I made my husband some shoe bags for Christmas, which he declared were The Best Present Ever. High praise, no? Flattery like that gets you everywhere...

He likes them for all sorts of reasons:

:: he has expensive taste in shoes, which he keeps for years decades
:: they don't take up any room in the house
:: they help him keep his shoes shiny and dust free

I like them too, for different reasons:

:: they are really easy to make
:: I made them from the stash
:: they are quick and cheap and have a high appreciation factor

After the raging success if last year's bags, an order was placed for more. Last year I upcycled some unused pillowcases (unused because they were the wrong size/shape for our pillows). This year I homed in on a linen skirt that had been hanging about in the upcycling pile for aaaaages.

It looked promising: a natural fibre in a neutral colour, and after a quick eyeball for size, I calculated that I could cut it up to make two new shoe bags in next to no time.

The first step was to cut the top of the skirt off. Choppity chop.

Then I ripped the central seams of the skirt. Riiiiip.

This left me with two rectangular pieces of cloth, each joined at the side seam and with the original hem. I spent a bit of time looking at the hem deciding what to do with it. I wanted my bags to have drawstrings, so needed a casing to run the strings through.The hem finish seemed to be perfect for this purpose,  so I just needed to sew the side and bottom of the bags together.

For durability and neatness and just because I like it, I used French seams. And, I bagged the bottom of the bags too, to give them a bit of shape.

Finally, I ran some tape through the hem casings to make drawstrings. All in all, a really quick little project. I reckon it was under half an hour, including all the rummaging and ironing. Result.

'Tis the season

Winter is almost here. My pockets are stuffed with hats and gloves, and the nights are getting longer and longer. Maybe it was the clocks going back that did it, that caused a switch in my brain to turn on. 

C R A F T! 

it says

M A K E!

Knit, sew, cut, stick, bake, glue - just DO something. Christmas is a-comin, dontcha know?

My fingers are itching to make and do. My head is full of ideas and plans, There are lists and notes, books, magazines, blogs and websites and flashes of inspiration here and there. In the last week I have bought card stock, circular hole punches and a new guillotine. I am lusting after fabric and yarn - but trying to restrain myself to shopping in the stash. That is the challenge: Use. The. Stash. 

I am planning:

• A zippered bag for shoe cleaning kit for DH (probably the Purl Bee one)
• A waistcoat for the bean (BBC vest by Schwin designs)
• A dress for the jelly bean (Figgy's Sunki dress)
• Zippered pouches/project bags for the jelly bean
• Some raglan tees for the bean (Recess raglan tee by See Kate Sew)
• Some self-made bias tape for my MIL
• A knitted cowl for the bean
• To finish the Phoebe cardigan for the jelly bean

Then there is a Christmas cake to make, plus peppermint bark, fudge and a whole pile of Christmas cards to make (and write). And, of course I could add a few more projects like: make decorations, finish that quilt top I have barely started and tidy up some of the other WIPS lurking in corners. But doing that would be ALL kinds of crazy, and I am definitely not crazy: I am completely in control (yeah). 

Since the crafting fever began last week 18 Christmas cards have been made, Christmas cake ingredients have been bought and the patterns for Sunki dress and BBC vest printed out. And, yesterday I bought two presents!

DIY Elsa costume (FO)

The jelly bean was five a couple of weeks ago, and like most small girls, is fairly enthusiastic about the film Frozen. Badly sung and barely remembered versions of 'Let it go' feature regularly in our house.

An Elsa outfit of some description was needed for her birthday, and I did some careful research on the webz to get some ideas. I decided to make a skirt and top rather than a dress, with a separate cape. As with all dressing up clothes, I figured it would be useful to make things interchangeable, just in case a fireman or a pirate ever needed a snow queen's frosty cape to wear. 

In one of those 'oh yes' moments, I realised that the sparkly teal knit fabric I had in my stash might just be. completely. PERFECT. for this project. It feels fairly horrid and is undoubtedly a synthetic throwback from the 1970s, but it looks pretty (and double bonus is only cost £3). 

As if that was not karmic enough, when I was hunting through my box of scraps, I found an old vest/cami top of mine in a nice ice-blue colour, just right for the not-quite-matching vibe of Elsa's sleeves. 

Yada, yada. Here is the make:

1. SKIRT
I wanted to emulate some of the shape of Elsa's skirt, without the split or foxy silhouette. So, I decided to have an a-line panel at the front, and gathered panel at the back. The front panel has a little hi-lo curve at the hemline to look extra cute. I used some of the jelly bean's existing clothes to give me an idea about dimensions, but generally just cut it on the fly. I cut the front panel on the fold, and then used a curved hem from another pattern to give me a cutting line for the hi-lo hem. 

I just cut a rectangular panel for the back of the skirt, with plenty of width to give fullness. Of course I had cut this before thinking I should add a curve to this hem too, so that it could form a little train. Oh well.

Because this is a non-fraying knit and for dressing up, I did not finish the hem.

I did the waistband on this baby three (yes, THREE!) times. The first time I included a dressing-up-friendly velcro closure, but then realised it would pull the fabric something rotten and end up mangling the skirt. So I took it off. 

I cut another waistband from the scraps and got that all sewed on ready for the big day. Before I could add a fastener, I got sick (lying-in-my-bed-unable-to-do-anything-sick) and the birthday dawned and the jelly bean put it on anyway. It was fine apart from the fact that it had no fastening, and it was about 2 inches too small (yes, too small?! wtf?)

Cue more seam ripping. Sigh.

The third time I made a casing and elasticated the whole darn thing. No fastenings, no velcro. Nothing to go wrong. It's fine. 

2. BODICE
Next I made the top. I wasn't quite sure how I was going to do this at first, but somewhere I got the idea to use the raglan tee pattern I bought a year back (it's all about the stash). 

I cut the back from the teal fabric and the sleeves from the ice-blue fabric, without any adjustments. Oh, actually, I did make an adjustment - I made a mistake when I cut out the sleeves, so I had to fudge it a bit lowered the back neckline to match the front and trimmed the neckline on the sleeves. 

For the front of the bodice, I used a piece of the teal fabric, but adjusted the neckline to look more like the front of Elsa's bodice, with a little bit of a sweetheart shaping at the top and a point/V at the bottom. I then filled in the 'missing' part of neckline with a scrap of ice-blue fabric. I've been reading lots of sewing tutorials lately, and I made use of a tip I saw somewhere (umm, make it love it I think) about using a glue stick to stabilise things before sewing. I glued and then top-stitched the two pieces together, before making up the tee in the normal way.

To finish the neck I folded over a narrow hem and top-stitched. The clean line fits with the vibe of Elsa's costume, and it was really quick! I love it!

3. The CAPE
Finally, I got to work on some organza which I bought for the cape (£4.50 per metre). Although it is fairly easy to sew, it is so fragile that it pulls apart really easily. I hemmed the bottom, then gathered the top and attached a ribbon tie. The first attempt looked lovely, but was too long, and came apart when the birthday girl stood on it. I shortened the cape to reduce the risk of being stood on again, and reattached the ribbon at the top - hopefully it will be a bit more robust this time...

All in all, I am totally thrilled with the way this turned out. I spent £4.50 on the organza and everything else came from my stash (ribbon, thread, fabric, elastic). Oh, and the jelly bean likes it too. 

Pyjama time (FO)

After cutting those pyjama bottoms out in a flash, I stitched them up quickly too. 

I have been devouring sewing blogs over the summer, and absorbed some of the advice about maximising your sewing time from the Coletterie blog. The main thing I did was to work on the three pairs simultaneously - cutting them out in one session, then sitting down to sew as much as possible before getting up again. After only ONE sewing session all three pairs pyjama bottoms were sewn together, and just needed waistbands and finishing!   

I used french seams throughout, and followed a neat tutorial about boxer shorts for the waistbands on the children's pairs. These turned out fabulously, and I slightly regret not doing the same thing on my own pair. 

My pair of pyjama bottoms took a bit longer to finish than the children's as I had to hem the legs. I found this rather lovely bias fold trim in my box of notions. I think it is something I have inherited from my grandmother or my mother-in-law - so I used that. It went on like a dream and looks very pretty! 

I am happy to report that all three pairs of pyjama bottoms were pressed into action immediately. It makes me a very happy mummy/sewist . 

Pyjama bonanza

Over the last week I have managed to wear out two (TWO!!) pairs of pyjama trousers. How does that happen?! They weren't even the same make or the same age.

As I'm on a bit of a sewing bee at the moment, I salvaged the usable remnants and (after a quick wash) I cut out two new pairs of pj trousers from the ruins. One pair is for the jelly bean (5 next week!) and the second pair is for the bean - his pair are shorts as that was all I could eke out of the fabric available. 

I used some existing pjs as a template, adding as much length in the leg as I could manage. My children tend on the slim side and just seem to get longer/taller rather than wider as they grow.

While I was cutting out pyjama trousers, and, given that I am down two pairs, I cut out a pair for myself. I used an existing (non-ripped) pair as a template, and cut into some rather fabulous cotton lawn I bought on a whim a year or so back. 

They are going to be rather gorgeous. I did wonder about making a matching top (there is still quite a lot of fabric left), but thought that would be a bit much, particularly as none of my other pyjamas have matching tops! 

Knittember

September turned out to be all about knitting rather than sewing after all. Autumn is here, and the morning school run is getting cooler. We've started thinking about hats and scarves again, and last weekend we got them all out of the cupboard for a sort out. 

Much to my husband's disgust we each now have our own bag for hats and gloves etc. Last year there were two bags - and I was the only one who could find anything! And, since I am keen to foster independence, the move to one bag each should mean that the children can find and, importantly, put away their own things. 

While we were sorting things out, the jelly bean persuaded me that she needed a new hat, so we went shopping in the stash and something sprang onto the needles. I don't have a pattern, I just made it up as I went along. 

Unfortunately it turned out a bit bigger than I anticipated, so it's turned into a hat for me (yay!). A smaller one will surely follow....

Coming soon

Normal service (e.g. semi-regular blogging) will probably be restored in the next week or two. There are some insurmountable technical issues which are currently being surmounted, and after that happens I should be able to blog a bit more easily and a bit more frequently.

In the mean time:

1. knitting news - I have been casting on a few things here and there. I think I must be the queen of small things, for everything currently on the needles is 4ply and destined for a small person. 

2. sewing is much thought about but little done. life just gets in the way somehow. 

3. i am enjoying - really enjoying - being able to use my knitting skills to adapt and alter things I have made, so that they continue to be useful. Little bean is growing before our eyes, getting longer and longer and longer. The beanie hat I  made earlier in the year was a bit too small when I put it on his head the other day: now embiggened. The once fitting Charles is now too short in the body, although the sleeves continue to be a perfect length. I have dug the grey yarn out of the stash (just as well I didn't use it for something else) and plan to add an inch or two to the body to extend (my) enjoyment of this little sweater.  

In the mood

Despite resolving to sew down my stash, so far I have failed miserably.

Last night I took advantage of a quiet evening and a sleeping baby to make a start on the mountain of projects and mending. The result: 6 baby wipes upcycled from an old top, and a third pair of pyjamas shorts for the bean.

The wipes were ready to stitch, and the shorts just needed a bit of finishing - neatening a seam or two, stitching and elasticating the waistband.

The two projects had been waiting neatly for some weeks, and it is good to move them from the WIP pile to the FO pile. But, I still feel rather gloomy about getting to grips with the rest of it.

A big issue for me at the moment is the constant internal dialogue about what to do with the time available. Naps are still a rather moveable feast (little bean is 11 weeks), so there isnt much certainty about when or how much nap time there is to: do housework, play with the bean and the jelly bean, make supper/lunch, read, work (grrr) or craft.

Of course crafting tends to come lower down the list than most of the other things - after all, you can't feed small children with fabric or yarn. And hungry children are - in my experience - pretty bad company. Although they are not quite as bad as (my) children when they are hungry And tired. Oh man.
Still, we are where we are, and there is a fourth birthday to plan and sew for, so. Watch. This. Space. I have a plan... 

Stripes

Things are pretty stripey here. First there is the never ending blanket, and then there is a toddler Charles. And then there are the dad socks.

 All stripey I tell you.

Progress somehow seems faster when I am making stripes. Maybe it's the 'just one more row/stripe' thing, or just the way in which the completion of a new stripe makes progress palpable in a way that plain knitting is not. Is that just me?


Anyway, the blanket is coming along and gobbling yarn to the extent that I am wondering whether I might have to buy some yarn to make it big enough. But, as is often the case, I am getting ahead of myself, and therein lies danger.

The danger is mostly to do with unecessary stash augmentation. I am getting a whole lot better at putting off yarn (and fabric and clothing) purchases safe in the knowledge that today's bargains will be replaced by tomorrow's bargains. And, over the last couple of years my yarn stash has been slimmed and trimmed.
My fabric stash on the other hand has not. It grows when I'm not looking, fattened up by discarded clothes and linens: a ripped shirt, an old duvet cover, some tired t-shirts... The challenge is finding the time to do some sewing which slims and trims the fabric stash in the same way as the yarn stash.

It's my summer challenge: sew my stash.