I'm featured on Sew Mama Sew!

Just a very quick one to say my Cambie has been featured on Sew Mama Sew today as part of the Super Online Sewing Match inspiration series!

Needless to say I'm very excited and chuffed!

Go and have a look here

See you soon x

AWOL and a knitted headband

Hi all, just a very quick check in. It's been a bit quiet on here recently mainly because we're going through a bit of a stressful time at the moment with a family illness so I haven't been in the mood for sewing or blogging. I'm not sure when things will settle down so I may be away from here for a while.

Although my sewing machine hasn't seen the light of day for ages, I haven't been entirely craftless as I have been knitting instead. It's relaxing and therapeutic and very portable which is great seeing as we've been up and down the country a fair bit due to the family situation.

I made a knitted headband a good few weeks ago which is atrocious quality (I misread the instructions, oops!) but it will do to keep hair out of my fringe when I'm running...

And I've made a really good start on the Wheat scarf, the first of the learn-to-knit series of patterns called The Simple Collection from Tin Can Knits. The photo below was taken about two weeks back and I've done a load more since then - I'm about three quarters of the way through in fact!

So hopefully things will be returning to normal fairly soon but in the meantime I'll be abandoning the blog for a little while. I'll still be putting wip photos on Instagram and Ravelry (miniandmerky on both) no doubt so keep in touch!

I can knit!

I can now say I've knitted an actual, usable thing!

Yes, it took me nearly three whole months and yes it's full of mistakes but it's still wearable. I present to you (...drumroll...) my wrist warmers!

 

I started these back in June when I took a beginners workshop at Guthrie & Ghani and continued little by little, adding a row or two at a time. I even took it on holiday with me!

The yarn is Rico Design Fashion Garzato Super Chunky knitted on 9mm bamboo needles. The finished wrist warmers are so soft and cosy! You can see the mistakes and also where I went a bit wonky but I reckon they'll be great for autumn when I don't need full blown gloves or mittens but my hands feel a bit nippy.

I'm really pleased with them and am planning some more soon. I've started my next project (an easy knitted headband) and it's sloooooow progress but I'm carrying on as I want to get good! You can see what I'm up to on Ravelry (I'm miniandmerky). I'm also going to be following along with the learn-to-knit Tin Can Knits Simple Collection series...Wish me luck!

My first proper go at recyled refashioning!

Sorry, I seem to have forgotten about blogging recently - it's been nearly three weeks since my last post!! Where has all that time gone?! I'm not sure what I've been doing, other than eating, working a a little bit of knitting (a post to follow...). Here's one of my backlogs in the meantime.

You may remember this post from last year when I tarted up my so-called sewing area (aka the window seat in the lounge). I chopped up the floor length curtains and used the offcuts to make littler curtains to hang under the window seat, mainly to hide all our junk, although my sewing machine also resides there. I have to be oh so careful not to whack it around too much for fear of damaging it - so far I've been a very good girl!

Anyway, I had about a metre/metre and a half left over which has sat in my stash for a good six months or more so I thought I'd make a skirt out of it. I've been after a brown skirt for a while. Btw, have you noticed a brown theme to pretty much everything I make? If it's not brown itself, then it will go with something that is!

Initially I thought about making another Cambie skirt, but actually, I've been hankering after a proper pencil skirt after seeing some crackers on t'web plus Helen's amazing green one IRL. Guess which pattern I used? Gertie's? The Burda Jenny used in Sunni's sewalong?

Nope, I went back to my TNT NL6483 and just modified it a bit! (Boring, some might say...)

The length of the curtain piece was about right for what I had in mind - a longer, midi finish instead of knee length and the best part was that it was already hemmed!!

I added pockets as per all my NL6843s (using instructions from Megan Nielsen's Kelly skirt) and made the skirt a little more tapered than the pattern suggested. Unfortunately I think I must have overdone it a bit as I couldn't actually walk to start off with...! So I went back and put a slit in the back using the very traditional method(!) of opening up the centre back seam and just folding it back a touch before stitching it down. It works, so don't judge me!

My only tiny little regret is that I probably should have made it half an inch bigger round the waist. And this is after letting out the two extra little darts I've been putting into every skirt I've made from this pattern! Don't get me wrong, I haven't put on weight to thicken my waist and the fit is actually perfect but it feels a little snug, even though it isn't. Does that even make sense? Maybe it's all in my head?

Well anyway, here's to another work appropriate skirt.

'Scuse the wrinkles!!