Posts Tagged ‘Sewing’
Why do you craft that which you craft? Interesting question I reckon.
Hmm, I think I’m inspired by necessity, in many cases, as with a little side project I’ve decided to make for myself. You see, a little background to the project… Whenever I’m in town, I take my mobile phone so my fiancé, who’s at home, can call me and we can discuss stuff like what I’ll pick up from the supermarket, how long till I’ll be home, how much we love and miss one another, how frustrating that lady who was yelling at her children on the bus was, you know, that sort of thing. Often he’ll call me so we can discuss something, but my phone will be in my backpack, and with all the noise of the shops and people around me, I’ll not hear it. It can be really annoying for him, and occasionally worrying if I’m way later than I intended to be.
So, I thought to myself, I’ll fix this situation, and started carrying my phone in my hand all the time. Yes, that’s a little tricky, though. So, next flash of inspiration! I’ll knit a lanyard! Yep! I’ve got some lovely nylon braid, fairly strong stuff, so I’ll make an icord lanyard out of that! So that’s one way that I get inspired.
Another is when I see a garment that I really like, on the catwalk for instance, and I’ll ponder a heck of a lot about how to make it. Like years ago I saw a lovely skirt on a catwalk, it looked like a lovely wool, much like a beige picnic blanket, that was asymmetrically hemmed, and bias cut. Beautiful! I tried to make it with a woollen blanket, lined it, FAIL! But I was inspired, and I’m still inspired to one day make a skirt like that. So that’s another of my inspirations… I think for me it is often a case of styles that have always appealed, and taking up the chance to make them. I love capelettes, always have, so when I got the chance, I was inspired and I’ve made four now, with fabric to make two more. So what inspires you in your craft?
Okay now for a pattern, ridiculously simple, yet here it is, an icord lanyard pattern. :D
Tags: inspiration, knitting, Sewing
I didn’t blog throughout the Christmas period, so here’s my Holiday blog post, albeit a little belated.
Wow, eh? Wow! A new decade! My fiancé and I have been having fun making jokes about not having done things this decade. Like, I’ve not had a glass of juice this decade! Or, just after midnight yesterday, I’ve not had a shower this decade! :D Silly, but fun!
So, how was your Christmas? Ours was very good! My fiancé’s mother decided to give us lots of surprising gifts, including a sound system and huge juicer for my fiancé, and a sewing machine and overlocker for myself! I was so shocked… it was awesome! I’ve been using the new machines, and they sew like a dream! Much easier to use than my old sewing machine, and much, much more that I can do with them! I’ve got more than forward straight-stitch! :D
I’ve been sewing that faux fur cape, again. Got it to the point where all I have to do is sew together the lining and outer together at the bottom, which is, unfortunately, a really irritating thing. Because the whole bottom of the cape is bias cut, it’s really hard to get a smooth line together, and this leads me to be very irritable with it so it’s sat for three days with nothing happening, even though I’d done nearly all the sewing the day before that and was SO CLOSE to fishing! Bah! Anyway, after that I’ve just got to iron down the seams and then sew on the clasp. So pretty close to being finished! It’s very, very weighty, perfect for a really cold day. I feel like a gigantic diva in it! I just need one of those stupid little turbans! :D
I’ve also been knitting away and have nearly finished my fiancé’s scarf. I’ve only used three of the four balls I bought for this, otherwise it’d end up a three meter long scarf and that’s just silly. So with the last ball of yarn I’m thinking of making some fingerless gloves to go with it, a ribbed cuff with the herringbone stitch over the hands, I think.
Anyway, now for a pattern and then I’ll pack this post up! Hmmm, I think the Helvellyn hood is very cute!
Tags: Christmas, Holidays, knitting, Sewing
It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for some time, and now I’m finally doing it… creating my own forum!
I really like to have a place to talk about sewing and knitting, and any other crafting exercise I’m undertaking, and I’ve long thought it would be nice to be a part of a handcrafting forum that wasn’t too specific. I mean I really like the Ravelry forums, but they are limited to yarn-crafts. I envision something broader in scope, and not so obscure as I’ve found most handcrafting forums to be. The other issue I’ve found with handcrafting forums is that they are sort of meant for certain locations, not an international one.
So I bought my URL, and I’ve bought a hosting package, and now I’m setting up the software I’ll need and such, and also picking a forum template. You see, I’ve found a few that I like, and I’m trying to pick between those few, and a lot of the people I’ve asked to help out are pointing towards one that, whilst it is good, is all black and white, and I feel it’s sort of oppressive. I think I’ll end up going with one that not quite so many people prefer, but that is, I think, fresher. I want some colour involved, I don’t want to be limited to a monochromatic colour palette.
It’s a big venture, for me, to try to do this all by myself when I’ve never done it before, but I think it’s going to be well worth it. I’ve got friends that are interested in joining, and hopefully they will tell other friends and so on and so forth, but yeah, I really hope it doesn’t end up being a dead-zone. It’s a bit scary to contemplate, I think purely because of how much I want this to succeed.
Anyway, I’m going to link to a pattern now, and of course I want it to relate to the subject at hand, so here’s a sewing machine dishcloth. :) I’m not much into dishcloths, but I like sewing machines, so I’ll go with it for today.
Tags: forum, handcrafting, kniting, Sewing
I’m geeking out again, though this time it’s at the behest of someone else. They want a project made for them, and I’m getting paid for my time. Gotta love that!
A while back I made a shawl for someone, a shawl that was inspired by the Aes Sedai from Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. It was a huge success, the girl I made it for loved it, and I really enjoyed making it and the finished product was something I was proud of. That was last year, and this year I’ve had another shawl commissioned, and I’m really excited to make it!
Last time round I didn’t charge a fee to make it, just the materials and postage – this was for someone in Europe – but this time I’ve actually remembered to charge for time as well. I don’t know this person, they were referred through my website, but it’s been very simple to arrange what colours and fabrics she wants for this shawl. It’s actually been a very straight-forward process, which is nice, and I feel like this will run quite smoothly. These shawls are so much fun if you’re a fan of the series, they also just look really nice, too.
It’s nice to be paid for my work, too. Not something that’s happened before, really. It’s not a huge amount of money, but it feels like the right direction, if that makes sense. Like my work is getting better, which it ought to!
I just turned around to see my fiancé sitting quietly, going through the week’s mail, whilst our little girl-cat is sitting on his lap. We have this bowl where we dump the mail each day, and often we don’t get to it – unless it looks urgent – until the weekend. Our system works nicely, but does mean you end up with a heap of junk mail… Right now I can see a whole bunch of mortgage deals stuff and whatnot. There’s always a lot of those at the moment. I still have hopes to have our own house in a few years, so I look at mortgage news from time to time, but only when I’ve a heap of time to waste and I’ve gone through Ravelry and all the blogs I check. We’ve got good credit, so we don’t have to worry about those dodgy bad credit mortgage loans, where you pay extra because they’re hedging their bets about you defaulting. Those are there for a good reason, I suppose, unlike those cash for home things. Speaking of which, there’s one of those in the junk mail too. Oh! Jewellery catalogue, gotta go now!
Wait! Pattern! I’ve been getting more and more into the idea of knitted jewellery, I think it is an underutilised medium, to be honest, so here’s a very pretty Dragon Scales Cuff that anyone could make, really.
Tags: Aes Sedai, knitting, Sewing, Shawl, Wheel of Time
I’ve got about five, I think, craft projects on the go at the moment. They are all in various stages of thought or production.
Okay so yeah, I’ve got many craft projects going at the same time. At the moment they include… As mentioned in my last post, I’m knitting my fiancé a new bookmark. I’m at the stage of having the yarn and fibre fill I need, but not having cast on yet. It shouldn’t take long, though. I’m also working on a knitted neckwarmer, which shall be really pretty, but I have to restart for the third time, so I’m not anywhere with that one at the moment, but it won’t take long once I get back onto it.
Then there’s three sewing projects. I’m still working on my faux fur capelette, because my boy-cat peed on the pattern I was pushed back and couldn’t work on it. I won’t be able to get to my Uni to print up the pattern again until Monday. Then there’s the second – geeky – capelette I’m working on, the Gryffindor one. This one is solely going to be an ‘in the house’ deal. No way would I wear this outside the house, though I might show it to an equally geeky friend from work. The other sewing project is this really cute scarf dress idea from a competition at Burda Style. You use shirring and some scarves to make a dress. I bought my shirring elastic today, and I’m rather excited to give it a try. As I’m not in the U.S. I can’t submit it for the competition, but I’m excited to see what I can come up with nonetheless.
Okay now for a knitting pattern. Due to all my HP geekery, I think we need something to go along with that! I like this really simple little owl pattern, more of a Pigwidgeon than a Hedwig, but cute!
Tags: knitting, scarf, Sewing, shirring
Both are great! I love sewing and I love knitting equally, but for different reasons. That’s what makes it so hard to chose one project over another… probably why I have so many on the go at one time.
Okay so I’ve got two projects in mind, one sewing, one knitting, so I’m going to outline the pros and cons for both. First up, knitting.
With knitting up the Silvanus bag I get to use my lovely new needles, but I’m working on the Victorian Neckwarmer on those anyway, so I don’t know how long it would be until I could start. If I got the yarn for my Circular Shrug, I would have a nice little shrug to wear, but I would be sacrificing the chance to work on my new needles after the Victorian Neckwarmer, and the chance to sew. So I think that shrug is completely off the agenda until I’ve got a nice amount of some great chunky yarn. Silvanus will take a long, long time for me to complete, and I won’t be able to get the cape finished, or the project it is related to if I do it.
If I go the option of sewing up the cape, I’m getting something I’ve envisioned for a long time done, but I’m sacrificing the chance to work with those new needles with the Silvanus pattern. However I do have stuff I can go onto working on those needles, with what’s in my stash, and then I’ll have a couple of cute little completed projects, the cape and the neckwarmer. The cape is also tied into a project for a website, and if I don’t get it done, I can’t finish the project, and that bothers me.
Looking at my little list there, it’s clear that I most want to get the cape made up, and then the next lot of crafting money can go to knitting supplies!
Alright then, now for a knitting pattern. Susan B. Anderson has created some of the cutest toys imaginable. Here today is her newest pattern, Rabbit, and also I’m linking an older one that is a personal favourite, Elephante, the cutest little elephant pattern I’ve seen.
Tags: cape, knitting, Sewing, shrug, silvanus
It’s a lot of fun starting a new sewing project, and now I feel like I can because I just ordered the clasp I needed for my brand new cape.
A few weeks ago when my local craft store was having their annual 50% off fabric sale, I bought enough faux fur and satin to make and line a pretty little faux fur cape. I had initially wanted to go with a clasp of a natural material, wood, bone, or horn, but couldn’t find anything right anywhere. So I decided I had to go with either fabric or metal, and as fabric would look very odd on the faux fur, I finally settled on a metal clasp. This pewter clasp, to be precise, which I ordered yesterday morning.
I am not starting the project until I have all the pieces at my disposal… well, okay I may to the pinning and cutting, but no further than that until I have the clasp. I have everything else here, in a big plastic bag. waiting to be made, and I am pretty darn excited. I started making these about a year ago, and I have made a red one out of gaberdine with black faux fur trim and collar, a colour combination suggested by my fiancé which looks amazing, and a grey one out of wool flannel with white embroidery down the fron and on the lapels and back. If I had the chance to do that one over, I would have picked a different colour for the embroidery, maybe a nice grey silk thread, but I still like this one so very much.
Sewing and Knitting both have their pros and cons. For instance, sewing is more immediate, you get a final product in a much shorter time than you do with knitting. However, you will experience a lot more physical pain, with all the bending for pinning, cutting, and then the actual sewing! But with Knitting, you get to sit somewhere quite comfortably, but I take forever to finish anything.
With all this talk of capes, today’s knitting pattern is also going to be a cape! Novak from Berroco, in this case.
Tags: cape, cloak clasp, faux fur, knitting, Sewing
What a frustrating position I find myself in where I have everything I need to make my cape, save the cloak clasp!
So, I have the faux fur and satin lining all ready to go, but what I need is a cloak clasp to use as a closure. When I asked my fiancé, he suggested that I get something made from a natural product, he suggested a wooden clasp of some sort. I loved the idea, and set about trying to find a nice wooden closure of some sort, but so far I haven’t been able to find a thing!
I have googled and googled, looked on Etsy, on ebay, and I can’t find any! I can’t believe that. I looked for horn and bone too, but still couldn’t find any. So that leaves me with metal ones. After much deliberation, and looking over website after website, I have decided to go with a very pretty pewter fox head. I have always liked this clasp, right from the moment I first saw it some time ago, and I think the colour would go really well with both the grey fur of my cape, and the pewter colour of the satin lining.
Now, just because it has been rather a pain to find these, here are four sites I found many a nice cloak clasp on… First is Crafty Celts, they have some lovely, if pricey stuff. Second is Twin Roses Designs, they just have an assortment of nice clasps that could be good for period pieces or things with modern flare. Third is Patterns of Time, who have a huge range, some of which is really great. Fourth is Cloak and Dagger Creations, who have some unique and pretty clasps.
Today’s knitting pattern is another super simple one, mainly because with this one you would get to pick out buttons, and I bet you that awesome wooden buttons would be heaps easier to find that cloak clasps! :lol:
Tags: cloak clasp, faux fur cape, knitting, Sewing, sewing supplies
Yep, I got mine back! And in spite of my not using a money broker or tax accountant, it was great! I don’t think I will need to have someone else do my taxes for me for quite a while, and that’s fine with me!
My fiancé and I share an account, and with this current account, he gets an email whenever the balance exceeds a certain amount. Well, yesterday morning he got such an email, and sure enough, there was my tax return, all neat and shiny and new and ours!!! So this meant that we immediately bought some stuff that we had been after, paid some bills, and then I got my £50 to go shopping with!!!
So today off I went and I bought the following… 1.2 meters of beautiful grey faux fur. Almost rabbit like, with a flecks of light grey, dark grey, and black… the fur is black close to the backing, and lighter at the ends. It is just lovely, not too thick. I got 2 meters of pewter luxe stretch satin to line the cape with, as it had to be a thicker lining that regular lining fabrics. The reason I got more of that is because it was only 112cm wide, where as the fur was 150cm wide. I am want to buy a wooden frog closure of some sort online, as the store didn’t have any. I haven’t found anything just right yet, but something like this would be my second choice if I couldn’t find a wooden clasp.
With that, I got 3 meters of 4-way stretch velvet in red… this stuff is gorgeous! When I was standing at the counter getting it cut, I heard ladies behind me admiring the colour, it is really that lovely. I also got 5 balls (100 grams, 250 meters) of a dusty rose pink merino wool that I intend to make a jumper out of, and one ball of forest green wool that I am going to make a felt purse out of, with a coconut wood button that is really, really pretty.
In seeing my tax return come back all excellent, it kind of made me think that perhaps I had been over thinking the whole money issue. I mean, what need do I have at this stage for finance forums or using a foreign currency bank account for investment? I don’t have need for that stuff, for now I have other things to focus on.
Today’s knitting pattern… the one I am thinking of knitting up that merino with, the Terra pattern. It is shaped so it will fit well on any size, and there are a lot of size options.
Tags: fabric, knitting, Money, Sewing, tax return, yarn
As I have talked about the option of having my little hypothetical business in my community already, I am now going to talk about the net option. There’s a few ways I could go about this… I could create my own website (which would take me FOREVER!) or I could sell things on Etsy, a handcrafting sales site. I would have to consider what would be necessary investments for the net option, and if it was still worth it.
I have been looking into what I would need, and it is somewhat daunting. From what I can gather, I think I would need to investigate leased line providers, and make sure that I am in an area that has business SDSL availability. I think there are a number of broadband companies around at the moment, so I could shop around for a good deal.
That’s all if I chose to have my own website, but I would be concerned that I wouldn’t get enough traffic to make it worth while. I could just have a shop on Etsy and then I am much more likely to get traffic, but I also have fewer options to make my part of the site stand out. The more I think about doing this, the less inclined I am to do it. I think that I may hold off on this for a while, until I am much happier with what I make, and have a stockpile of really unique items.
As for really unique items, this isn’t a knitted one, but rather a crocheted one, but this is one of those really unique patterns that needs to be looked at. A Beholder, as in D&D Beholder, crocheted amigurumi style. :lol: I wouldn’t personally make this, but it’s still unique!
Tags: handmade, knitting, online, Sewing, small business
A most wonderful time of the year! *sings* The reason revolves around the end of the last financial year. Not only will I receive my tax return in the next week, but I just received a catalogue in the mail, a catalogue that I considered having framed! It is the 1/2 price fabric and 33% off yarn sale at my local fabric store!!! 8O
So, my fiancé and I were talking about what we are doing with this year’s tax returns… firstly, we are saving a large portion of it to put away for a house, and to improve our credit ratings as we save for a home deposit, so when we do decide to buy, we have fantastic credit. We know the banks aren’t as free with loans as they once were, but nor are they as restrained as they were six months ago, so things are looking good there.
We also want to just leave a portion of it in our bank account, to take care of any unexpected expenses through the next few months. We do this every year with a percentage of our tax returns, and has been quite fortuitous on a number of occasions. We’ve also joked about an offshore bank account, but we don’t think that’s really necessary, I doubt we’ll have to go on the lam at any point, and that’s the only good reason I can think to have one at this stage in life. :lol:
Now, after all that, there are a few expenses to be paid up, and then, after that, there is some left over, probably around a hundred pounds, and that is all for me to go get fabric and yarn… with that sale, can you imagine how much fabric and yarn that is!? I am so excited! It’s like Christmas for me when this store has this sale, they have some of the loveliest fabrics. Their jersey is some of the nicest I’ve ever seen for sale, and they have some lovely wool flannel. They also have amazingly beautiful faux fur, which works really well for this cute little cape pattern.
As for today’s knitting pattern, Rebecca Danger of Bunny Nuggets fame has put up another awesome pattern, this time for an awesome little toy that goes by the name of Monster Chunks. I must say, I can’t wait to have stacks of these awesome little critters on my desk!
Tags: 1/2 price, banks, fabric sale, Sewing, tax return, yarn sale
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