Miaou

Bar the odd blip, I’m now back into taking commissions (the clothkit skirt being one of them!). This week I had a bag to make, and had a wonderfully vague brief (she wanted a jeans bag, but the lining was to be “funky”, that’s all I had to work on!) - which both thrills me and makes me nervous at the same time! Anyway she is very pleased with the result:

This time I added a magnetic closure and an interior pocket for a purse or phone:

Do please contact me if you would like your own version!

I love clothkits, they are so cool! Both the original stuff and the new relaunched version. I was commissioned to make up a kit for a friend who couldn’t sew herself but was desperate to have a clothkit skirt.

(I wish I had thought to iron it first before I photographed it!)

This is the Big Birdie skirt, in fabulous purple corduroy. It was great fun to sew up.

I even managed the zip ok, despite not having a zipper foot (it seems impossible to find the right one for my machine, I have bought a few “wrong” ones now!). I like the attention to detail on the back of the skirt too, not just the front.

And there was a very funky lining for the inside!

I had quite a few bits of material left over, so I couldn’t resist making this little pouch out of them:

And I LOLed a lot at the spelling mistake and felt I had to immortalise it on the back:

(please excuse the wonky sewing on the back, it was v. late when I finished it!

Anyway, the skirt has been sent and the recipient is delighted, so I am a happy person! (Am secretly hoping that I get to make another one soon!)

Things have been rather quiet on the blog front - I have been busy putting together a dress for Eilish for a school project. She wanted a traditional spanish dancer’s dress. I used an old T-shirt of mine, 4 metres of plain blue cotton and 3 metres of spotty. I cut the t-shirt down, cut the polka-dot material into strips and hemmed them, then gathered them and added them to the plain blue fabric (which I had cut so that it was narrower at the top than at the bottom. Then I ran a seam up the side to join the skirt, gathered and pinned the top and sewed it to the bottom of the t-shirt (which I had cut shorter to make it waist length). The only spanner in the works was my *!?$&* sewing machine which would not sew through the t-shirt material and kept skipping stitches - I struggled through altering the body of the t-shirt, but when it came round to the sleeves and to adding the skirt, I gave up and sewed it by hand! Consequently, I ran out of time to add ruffles to the sleeves. Ah well.

It might seem like a lot of work to do for a school project, but Eilish had been wanting a long frilly dress for ages (and shops don’t sell them above the age of about 4!), and it will come in again for the Town Gala Fancy Dress Competition in the summer (for which I might have recovered enough patience to add sleeve ruffles). She is very pleased with it and it went down very well at school too.

Way back in the mists of time (December actually), I won a prize from Mee Crafty , but until now I haven’t got around to posting a picture! Sorry about that. So here it is:

The little box is made of padded fabric and the pattern is just delightful! I love the rose brooch too - I am knitting a grey cardigan at the moment and I think it will be just the thing to jolly it up. Although you can’t tell from the picture, the threads are all glossy - gorgeous! I am keeping them in a safe place until I can think of something special to use them for! Thank you very much Chloe, it is a lovely prize.

OK - now for the tute. When Caitlin wanted to dress up as a Victorian Match Girl for Halloween last year, I bought this brown corduroy skirt from a charity shop for £3. We sewed patches all over it and she was very pleased with the result. I was rather pleased with the skirt and thought I might wear it after she had finished with it! However, being somewhat, erm, vertically challenged, I looked like I was dressing up in my mother’s clothes. It almost reached the floor! A perfectly good look for my daughter, not so good on me.

So I decided to shorten it. However, what to do with all the leftover material? I decided to make a feature of it and turn it into a flounce. If you want to have a go too, just follow these instructions!

Step 1: Find your skirt

Step One: Find your skirt! This one is very long and cut on the bias. This would work equally well with a shorter skirt, but the fuller it is the fuller your flounce will be.

Step 2: Cut off the excess

Step Two: Cut 24cm evenly off the bottom and cut it into two. Make the upper piece slightly wider than the lower one to allow for adding a hem. The pieces above are 13cm and 11cm wide. Cut each piece at the side to make two long lengths.

Step 3: Oversew the edges

Step Three: Using a zigzag stitch on your machine, oversew all the raw edges (top edge on the lower strip, top and bottom edges on the upper strip).

Step 4: Turn the hem

Step Four: Fold up and press a hem on the upper piece cut from the skirt. Sew neatly using a medium length straight stitch. Sew both strips together at each end to create one large loop.

Step 5: The gathering stitch

Step Five: Using a contrasting thread, sew a running stitch through the top of the fabric as close to the edge as you can.

Step 6: Pin evenly

Step Six: By folding the skirt, find and pin the centre of each panel; pin each side then place pins in the centre of each section (eight pins altogether).

Step 7: Pin the flounce

Step Seven: Pin the length of fabric in the same way. Then line up each pin and, with right sides facing, pin both fabrics together.

Step 8: Pull up the gathers!

Step Eight: Draw up the contrasting threads, carefully arranging the gathers evenly along each section. Pin at small intervals.

Step 9: Sew to skirt

Step Nine: Using a medium length stitch and a heavy duty needle, carefully sew just below the contrast gathering stitch, rearranging the gathers as necessary.

Step 10: Finished!

A close-up of the flounce

Step Ten: Remove the contrast stitching, press if you need to, then wear with pride and wait for the compliments!

Sadly I have no-one here to take a pic of me in the skirt, but I must say that the flounce works really well, and swings beautifully as I walk!

This has been a labour of love - it has taken me such a long time, but I am pleased with the results. The minister had asked for “oak leaves and some kind of background in silk”, which is a great brief, as it gave me lots of scope!

I wanted to give the impression of the wind swirling the leaves around, which was how I came up with this “swooping” background. I also wanted to show the life-cycle of a leaf, which is why they start off a lush dark green, fade, turn brown at the edges, then become a rich reddy-orange. Bit of artistic licence there.

The backgrounds were put together in the manner of patchwork (she says, not having really done much patchwork!). What I mean is, I used templates, snipped into each curve and ironed flat, then tacked and sewed carefully with the hope that my stitches wouldn’t show too much!

The shapes of the leaves were too intricate to be able to turn them under at the edges, so I ironed Vilene onto the fabric before cutting out the shapes, then attached them to the background with tiny blanket stitches. I then went round each leaf with whipped stitch in a complementary embroidery thread to help prevent the silk from fraying. Hopefully the stole will have a long life and last well!

A rather prolonged absence from blogging with the odd sporadic post, but I’m determined to get back to it now! I’ve had several rather long-term projects on the go and I’m often a little shy about sharing WIPs. So to start with I will share an almost finished one:

(no, not the boy. He’s nowhere near finished )

Euan needed a new hat. I had two thirds of a ball of yarn that my mum gave me, left over from a cardigan she had knitted. I thought it was probably just enough for a hat. So I knitted him a hat. The gauge was wrong, and it was too small. So I frogged it and started again (let me tell you, it’s pretty yarn, but it didn’t frog well - however I think that’s down to my odd knitting technique rather than the yarn!). So I tried again, with a different style hat, using a “toddler” pattern. Euan is 16 months old and is small, so I thought this would be ok. But no - still too small! So I ripped back to the increases, put another couple of increase rows in, and knitted until I ran out of yarn (amazingly I managed to keep back exactly the right amount to cast off - I had about 8 inches left!). Perfect. Except when I put it on his head, it doesn’t cover his ears. Sigh. I will add a brim later I think.

And just because I’m sure you are dying to know what else I’ve been up to, here’s a couple of glimpses into two big projects which are nearing completion:

This one is a green stole, the second of a series of three I am embellishing for a newly-ordained minister. I have used several different colours of green silk here and am adding appliqued oak leaves. It’s almost done so you should see the finished product in a few days.

Now this one is (literally) a labour of love:

Ninety one squares altogether! Please note, I did not knit all these squares! I think I did about a dozen in the end. This is a collaborative effort of a group of knitters which I organised and co-ordinated. As a punishment reward for doing this I get to do the sewing up and add a border. Actually, I love sewing up, though it’s a bit of a challenge with this one as the squares are all knitted by different people, so there are a few size discrepancies! Anyhoo, this is all you get to see until the blanket is finished and presented to the recipient, so you will have to wait patiently to find out what it’s all about!

My poor neglected blog. My computer died then I went away on holiday, and between the two I have simply not had the opportunity to post anything! Sorry to all those who have been checking and finding me sadly stalled in September. Computer still dead, so I’m posting on Nick’s laptop, which is not ideal but I just had to do something!

Anyway, given the day, I thought I would post some pics of our Halloween outfits. Calum unilaterally decided that he and Euan would be going as dinosaurs. The flash makes the material look a lot more shiny than it really is! The sharp-eyed amongst you might notice that it’s the same material that I used for my wedding outfit earlier on in the year. Naturally they wouldn’t both pose at the same time so there are two pictures:

Calum showing off his spikes

Euan displaying his tail

Eilish has been asking for years to go as a Native American and this year I finally got round to doing it! Caitlin is dressed as a Victorian Match Girl and is going to paint her face grey so she looks like a ghost (she made up a story to go with it, apparently she met a grisly end under the wheels of a cart, lol)

Victorian Match Girl and American Indian

Edit: Calum won Best Dressed at Nursery this afternoon, he was most pleased!

Ah, a lot of things to share!

Firstly, a big thank you to Margy at Hmm Designs who sent me this fab turtle! I won the giveaway on her 150th post and she very kindly made me this lovely little stuffie.

Thank you Margy! The kids are very keen to have it but I’m keeping this for my very own

Next up, I have finished my stole! I hope the recipient likes it. I’m pleased with the way it has come out, and I have commissions for two more. I really enjoyed doing it - embroidery and applique are mediums I feel very comfortable with - so am looking forward to doing the next two.

And finally, my cork army has been growing … I went to my local wine bar and they very kindly gave me a bag full of corks with the promise of more in a couple of weeks! So I have been busy, look!

And finally - a confession. I was going to have a giveaway for my 100th post. Only I’ve just checked and um, I’m on post 101 now. Oops. Hopefully a giveaway will follow soon - I have an idea of what I am going to offer, just need to find the time to make it now!!

I have been doing lots of “bits” recently, and consequently have loads of half-finished projects on the go and nothing complete. I think I need to stop being a butterfly and concentrate on getting something done. Now the older ones are back at school and one of the littles is now at nursery each afternoon, in theory I should be a bit more productive! Hah - we’ll see.

Anyhoo, this is some of what I have been doing:

My mum very kindly offered to buy me some wool for my birthday to make myself a cardigan. After a lot of prevarication, I finally settled on grey as a “goes with everything” colour (I don’t do black!). The yarn is gorgeous and lovely to work with, so I started very enthusiastically, but have now slowed to a halt. The great thing about top-down construction is you don’t have to wait until it’s done until you try it on! I finished the top and did about six inches of the first sleeve - only to find that I had indeed done the wrong size (I thought I would need the smallest size but in fact it will be a little tight on the arms). Ah well, I shall pull it back and try again. But for now it is nestling in the bottom of my project bag.

So, whilst deciding what to do about my cardigan, my itchy fingers pulled out a skein of Lorna’s Lace Shepherd Sock yarn that I had been given as a present a couple of years ago. I have made socks before (well, one pair) and just love them! I’m not great with four needles so I stick to the very simple pattern that came with my first pair. I have made one so far. See, I’m just not good at finishing stuff at the moment!

Then I got very excited about some new yarn I have got from Scandanavian Knitting Designs . This is where my grey yarn comes from and I strongly recommend them if you are in Europe. They have a great selection of unusual and difficult-to-find yarns, their prices are reasonable and their delivery times are fast!

So, the yarn I bought is Kauni Effektgarn in Rainbow. I have coveted this yarn for months, and finally managed to track it down in Britain - previously I have only found it available abroad! So that made me a very happy bunny.  This is what I have been doing with it:

My love affair with yo yos continues! These are destined to be Made Into Something. I Have Plans. I will not abandon them and start something else … oh, except to finish this …

Remember the silk from my last post? Well here it is in action. Not anywhere near finished, but certainly in progress … watch this space!

And finally, for those of you who have impatiently scanned through this post to find out what on earth “footerin’” is, here is the description from a site that boasts Scots Word of the Week :

“Footer (also fouter) - Meaning to fiddle/tinker, a person who does this, or a fiddly task. This weeks Scots word of the week is a perfect word to describe that slightly aimless state of fiddling around with something in a totally unhurried way. Similar words are pottering and pootling.”

All clear now?

I finally went off to Wick this afternoon with seven (yes, seven!) handmade bags for the Made In Caithness shop. They were very well received so fingers crossed they sell well! Here they are, some being ably modelled by Eilish because they looked a bit sad and floppy on my table.

This is my crochet shoulder bag (remember all those little yo-yo’s?)

And here is a close-up (I lined it with a light denim):

This one is a lovely (if a little floppy) shoulder bag made from curtains (as if you couldn’t guess, but I rather like the colour!)

I put a matching pocket inside:

I’ve made this bag three times now! I like this version though - these handles remind me of maltesers … yum …

And a sneaky peek inside …

And another pair-of-jeans-made-into-a-bag (I’ve had lots of compliments about my own one!)

And another close-up for good luck:

Now the sharp-eyed amongst you will note that the two bags I put in my last post, plus the four in this one, do not make seven. No, sirree. However, the seventh one is a knitted one, exactly the same as this one, so there seemed little point in taking a picture!

I’ve got lots more ideas, so more bags on their way soon I think.