enter 2015

It being the first day of the month (albeit not of the first month of the year) I felt that today would be a good day to welcome The Wind-Up Sheep into 2015. Although there are already several new things that I’d like to blog about this year more keenly, I feel it’s only right and proper to begin a new blog year with a round-up of some of my creations from last year. I am well aware that this is a risky approach to take, and that it may just mean missing out on at least two perfectly good blog posts, but I’m hopeful that my blogging fu won’t run out immediately, and that there’s still a chance of writing more (if you can, channel your best blogging energy towards me over the next week – thanks).

So, without further ado, here is a quick visual whizz through some of what I did last year (I admit, it’s not everything, because I still don’t have photos of everything I made last year, so you’ll just have to imagine some more):

2014 in Pictures

From left to right, and top to bottom, we have: 1) origami paper hearts for our wedding lunch place names; 2) a fine bow tie, what I made for D to wear for our wedding; 3) the second of a pair of embroidered pillowcases, in Palestinian style (N.B. I can’t vouch for the genuineness of the camels on the first one – they were my own invention); 4) an embroidered tea towel with poppies on; 5) my autumnal Noro scarf; 6) a sparkly lace scarf with beads, intended for our wedding in February, but in fact not finished until September… oops; 7) my very own Amineko kitteh cat (I actually finished crocheting him in early 2011, but just didn’t dare put a face on him until last autumn); and lastly, 8) a Portuguese-style embroidered lover’s handkerchief for D for our wedding (I’m pleased to say I DID finish this in time).

Not pictured are: a lovely bunch of crocheted radishes (but of course!), a knitted baby cardigan made up of mitred squares (OK, I know I still haven’t sewn buttons on it yet, but I consider it basically finished) and a knitted rag doll, which, like the kitteh above, I actually knitted way back in 2010, I just balked at giving her a face until last year in case I accidentally made her creepy.

So, that’s it for 2014 (aside from the inevitable unfinished things started in 2014 but not completed). I know it’s not a bad output, but somehow I feel I could have done better. And I definitely could have blogged more. But I always said that regret was a pointless emotion, so let’s forget all of that and move on to a new year of more creativity in a positive spirit. Bonne année 2015!

made in 2013

While it’s still only just 2014, I felt like doing a quick round-up of my creative output from last year. In total (unless I am missing anything, which is possible, if not merely hopeful) I finished 13 things in 2013 – how fitting! Plus that works out as just over one a month, which makes me feel happy, as a sort of proof that I wasn’t just twiddling my thumbs all year. Here is my output in small:

So in roughly chronological order, and starting from the top left of the images above, these are the things what I made:

a basket
Noro basket weave socks
Tour de France hankies
camel pillowcase no.1
blueberry stripe socks
yellow lace scarf (my first ever lace scarf!)
Hanne Falkenberg scarf
skein no.2 of handspun yarn
Kettlewell jumper
felt reindeer bunting
lavender bags x 4
cushion covers x 5 (though only two are pictured here)
bow tie

Not a bad haul! Some of these items will be a complete mystery to you if you rely solely on my blog to see what I get up to, since my rates of making and blogging do not correlate perfectly. Far from it. Though I’m sure it’s better for things to be this way round. Of course, I’ve got plenty more where those beauties came from; these are just the things that I completed this year. I have projects in progress in more or less every room in the house, and I acquired yet more wool and fabric at Christmas that now needs transforming into new and exciting creations. But this is not the time to dwell on that. Well done 2013, and here’s to an even more fruitful time in 2014!

the last bow (tie) of 2013

I know it’s 2014 already, but only just, and I don’t think it’s too late to squeeze in one last creative effort from the end of last year. I learned a very useful lesson this Christmas (and one that might well be the cause of real downfall in the future): that contrary to popular belief, Christmas Eve is absolutely not too late to start making Christmas presents. It all began when my father asked for a new bow tie for Christmas, to wear to my wedding in February. I inspected the offerings on the snazzy men’s accessories site he had found, but I wasn’t really terribly taken with any of them. At which point my mother helpfully pointed me towards this very handy tutorial on how to make a bow tie from scratch. And because at that time I still had a whole week before Christmas, that seemed like a jolly good idea.

I went to my favourite fabric shop, the Cloth House in Berwick Street, London, to look for suitable material. My luck was clearly in that day, as I found just over two metres of the perfect stuff in their remnants basket: finely-striped red and purple cotton with sparkly threads in – the last of its kind. So far so good. I made a mistake, though, by not reading the tutorial closely before attempting to start sewing the Sunday before Christmas, since as soon as I did so, I found I needed interfacing as well as just fabric, and immediately the project stalled. But luckily my mother was able to rescue me once again, this time with her plentiful supply cupboard, so it ended up being Christmas Eve when I finally made a start on the tie.

Apart from a horrendous start in which I melted a huge patch of interfacing as soon as I put iron to fabric (a simple enough error to fix – I just added a hasty replacement patch), the rest of the project went remarkably well, and took very little time. The only thing I did differently from the tutorial was that I cut my fabric on the bias, following the advice of a couple of sewers wiser than I. And I think that as well as helping the fabric to lie flatter, having the stripes going diagonally actually looks better too. This was a wildly successful last-minute sewing project and I would recommend home-made bow ties to anyone. Even for a first-time bow tie maker like me, it was easy as pie. The key is just to get hold of the neck measurement of the recipient, as, once finished, these ties are not adjustable like shop-bought ones are. But the recipient of this tie seemed mighty pleased with it, and wore it all day. I am now threatening to make bow ties of all varieties and colours, for every man I know, as I think they’re pretty darn smart. Don’t you?

progress of sorts…

For a long time I have dreamed of taking a creative holiday at home; not going anywhere, just staying in and getting things done. For a serial project-starter such as myself, this has always sounded like the perfect solution to my ever increasing collection of unfinished things. Last week, since my usual partner in crime was away on a work trip to Germany, I had the perfect opportunity, and so scuttled back to my parents’ house in Oxford for an industrious week-long creative holiday with my ma, with a suitcase full of half-completed projects.

It was a very pleasant week indeed. We went for dog walks on Port Meadow (we even saw a snake, indulging in some unseasonal sunbathing); we went to the market – something I haven’t done in years – where I bought shiny pink sequins and my ma bought a spectacular matching red cape and skirt to transform into cushions (lamentably I couldn’t persuade her to just wear them as they were); we made an enormous pot of cassoulet to welcome in the cold weather; and we visited our local knitting and sewing shops (just to keep them in business, you understand) where I bought some silk to line a dress with and some wool to knit a Christmas present.

You could say that things didn’t quite work out as planned, however… My grand ambitions were foiled, and I was forced to scale down. I started the week gently (or so I thought) with an attempt to rectify my Jaywalker socks, which were coming out far too small. But when I started afresh to make them bigger, they just came out elephantine. So eventually I simply unravelled everything, and am now back to a ball of yarn with some needles in it. Ever so slightly more successful was my purple cardigan, whose tension was only mildly too tight (in spite of having done a tension square before starting). So although the end result was the same, i.e. I unravelled all the pieces, I did manage to achieve the right tension on bigger needles, so at least I know how to make it right the next time, which feels like some degree of progress.

I took two other knitting projects with me on this excursion: my Kettlewell jumper, which I finished knitting in July but haven’t had the heart to seam up, and my pink tweed shawl-collared sweater, which has been abandoned for years since I enlarged the armholes on the body and was then at a loss as to how to knit the sleeves to match. With the former, I came to a very agreeable deal with my mother in which she offered to seam my jumper if I would do her embroidery in return – which of course I did. I was feeling mighty pleased with myself for that little bit of negotiation, and was relieved to be so close to finally completing a jumper, until I came to finishing off the neck edging only to discover that the moths had got there first. So then I had to darn over a large area first, just to hold it together. Fingers crossed I’ve now put paid to those dastardly moths’ efforts to destroy my lovely jumper. Then with the latter, I haven’t actually made any physical progress, but thanks to my wise mama (who, like me, detests seaming knitting and will go to any lengths to avoid it) I have got the next move all planned out, and I think I understand how to go about knitting seamless, top-down set-in sleeves. This feels like a brave step, but easier than coming to terms with seaming in the long term.

It wasn’t a week of pure knitting, though – oh no. (I did say this was an ambitious week, didn’t I?) I also attempted to finish sewing my first ever skirt (I will have to write a separate blog post about that though, as it was an adventure all in itself), but only got as far as adding a zip (neatly – which I am extremely chuffed about about, I might add) and half of the waistband. So this is still languishing unfinished chez mes parents, awaiting my return when I can sew the other half of the waistband and hem it. Plus I also made a grand total of two lavender bags for Christmas presents before the sewing machine started acting up, and so I had to bring the rest of the material home again to finish; and the same goes for my great aunt’s needlepoint, which I had planned to turn into a cushion for her.

So at the end of the week, in spite of my best efforts and intentions, somewhat disappointingly I didn’t actually have a single finished item to show for myself. But I have made progress of sorts, even if it’s only to go back to the beginning of some projects, ready to start again (though I am unashamedly planning to re-set the start dates for those on Ravelry, to make them seem less never-ending), or to make a plan of attack for finishing others. I have all of about six inches of seaming left to do on the Kettlewell jumper now before it’s finished, which I think I can probably manage without assistance. And as for the rest, all I really need now is another creative week’s holiday!

*P.S. Any particularly astute or suspicious readers might notice that these photos of Oxford are not recent. I wholly admit that this is the case, but I was a bit stuck for visual material to accompany a whole post about not making things, since – as is to be expected – I don’t have any photos to show for that. You will have to wait for me to finish something first.

pattern extravaganza

This afternoon I had the pleasure of receiving three new sewing patterns in the post! Normally such a purchase could be said to go against the order of frugality (which is, sadly, the order of the season). But the whole reason that I was lured into buying these in the first place is because a bad influence at work pointed me towards this irresistible pattern sale, and who was I to turn down the opportunity to buy three new dress patterns for less than £5? I don’t think I’ve ever actually bought a paper pattern before, so today was a momentous occasion. My mother bought me one once, when I was a teenager or younger, which I’m ashamed to say I still haven’t used, and other than that I have only ever pilfered one from my mother (albeit with her permission). So this was today’s joy:

Earlier this year, I embarked on my first attempt at following that same pilfered sewing pattern. It was for a skirt, and since I chose to make my creation more complicated than the pattern intended, it’s still not finished. This is why (apart from the obvious, i.e. because I am the world’s worst blogger) it hasn’t yet seen the light of day on this blog. But the aim is, she says boldly, to rectify all that next week and finish said skirt, and tell the world about it. And then I can get started on my second daring sewing adventure! I’m not sure yet which it will be out of the two different summer dresses, smart work dress or jacket. Whatever the choice, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t make a hash of it, but the encouraging ‘Yes! It’s easy’ labels on every one of these patterns is filling me with absolute confidence in the run-up to the big leap…

accidental patchwork

Last weekend, I think due to the shock to the system of having four days off instead of the usual two, I accidentally embarked on a brand new patchwork quilt. This was just hours after telling myself sternly that I still had two patchwork quilts on the go that needed to take priority in the finishing list, and promising myself that by no means would I touch this until I had completed one of the others. Then I was left alone in the house, and when there’s no one about to keep me on the straight and narrow, there’s no telling what I might get up to.

So inevitably as soon as the front door was closed, I scampered off up the stairs to find the rotary cutter and a ruler and a mat, and set about cutting a hundred or so pink and blue fabric squares. I ought to explain that this is the result of some of the bounty that I returned from New York with. I made a visit to The City Quilter while I was there, and it was sort of beyond my wildest dreams. I only brought back a fraction of the things that I saw that looked interesting – I’m sure I only scratched the surface – but such is the fate of the girl who goes on holiday with friends who don’t share her fabric interests…

I ended up coming home with (amongst other things!) a pack of one hundred-ish little pre-cut patchwork squares, and I bought a couple of yards of lovely textured Japanese fabric in pink and blue to mix with them. It took me most of the afternoon to cut the squares above, and once I’d finished, I laid them all out over the kitchen table, and spent a happy half hour arranging the patterned ones in the gaps. Unfortunately the kitchen table wasn’t big enough, so you’ll see that I had to improvise a little extension on one side.

I’m sure that this is by far the speediest patchwork I’ve ever made, as by the end of the evening I had managed to sew the vast majority of the squares into strips, and only had a couple left to do the following day. Sadly I can’t claim to have carried on at the same pace all weekend, and I can’t yet show proof of the finished object, as the strips are still in a bundle in my living room, with numbers pinned to them so that I can’t possibly forget what order they’re supposed to go in, while I summon up the strength for my next mega straight line sewing session.

discovering gujarat textiles

I left work this afternoon with a spring in my step, because marked in my diary was an Oxford Asian Textiles Group event – a talk from Eiluned Edwards on Gujarat textiles and dress. I freely admit to knowing nothing about Gujarat textiles or dress, but I hope my enthusiasm makes up for it. I had seen Eiluned’s book on the subject in various bookshops on several occasions, and gazed at the colourful pictures and put it back again in a fit of sensibility, so it was fascinating to actually hear the author talk about these textiles in person, and this was made even better still by the fact that she brought along a large quantity of examples for us to stroke and admire.

Ajrak textiles formed the subject matter for most of the talk. These are made from two lengths of cotton, woven separately, then printed and joined with hand embroidery at the centre (see the photo above). This embroidery (often made to resemble fish bones) is incredibly dense to the touch, and must take a considerable amount of time to complete. The highly detailed, intricate patterns are printed using around 25 different carved wooden blocks, and a resist paste made of lime and gum arabic. Ajrak textiles are printed like this on both sides with an identical pattern, and apparently one can determine the skill of a printer when one holds such a cloth up to the light: if no shadows can be seen, i.e. if the patterns on both sides line up perfectly, then it is the work of a highly skilled craftsman. Personally, I am amazed that this could even be anywhere near possible when printing textiles by hand, using wooden blocks.

Although embroidered textiles didn’t feature in the talk, Eiluned brought many pieces of embroidered Gujarat textiles for us to see, including a couple of beautiful little children’s head coverings, both entirely covered in tiny stitches with not a single square millimeter left untouched. These were shaped like hats at the top, but with long, broad tails that would reach a long way down a child’s back and protect it from the sun whilst also radiating brilliant colours.

We also saw an embroidered bag, designed to keep a Qu’ran in, that was made in the style of a square envelope, with the four corners meeting at the centre on the reverse. It shimmered with little mirrors all over. All in all, it was a great event, and really wonderful to see all these things close up and examine how they were made. It might amount to a sufficient excuse to actually buy the book now…

2010: a stitch odyssey

I thought it would be nice to have a little retrospective of the year 2010, to summarise, in pictures, everything I made last year. N.B. this only includes things I started and finished making in 2010, so anything that’s still a work in progress is not allowed to feature here. Which amounts to quite a substantial number of things. But it’s probably best not to dwell on all the things I haven’t finished at the start of a new year… that’s just not the right attitude.

So, from top to bottom and left to right, we have 1) an Art Deco tea towel; 2) a roll-up case for double-pointed knitting needles; 3) a baby-sized crocheted Cthulhu; 4) Icelandic-style socks; 5) sunset-coloured cabled socks; 6) a pumpkin tea towel; 7) Stumpy the platypus; 8) a spotty cushion with embroidered detail; 9) a moo-cow tablecloth; 10) a Space Invaders tea towel; 11) a Nordic Christmas stocking; 12) a reupholstered chair seat; 13) a Digger tea towel. All in all, not a bad year. I am very happy with my output, especially considering the amount of moving around the country I did, and the fact that I managed to fit finals in somewhere in the midst of all that sewing and knitting. So maybe this year will be more fruitful still!

the summer of creativity

This is something I meant to post about months ago, i.e. when it was actually still the summer, and therefore relevant. But fortunately for me the creativity did not come to an end with the summer, and in fact appears to be enjoying a surge with the onset of autumn and winter. On my return to Oxford in June, I brought about the creation of the weekly joy that is known as Sewing Club (the name is to be interpreted loosely, as knitting, embroidery and pretty much any textile-based activity is welcome there).

Throughout the summer, attendees mostly consisted of myself and Beehive (aka Old Faithful), but recently numbers have shot up, and last week there were six sewers, not including myself! I was so pleased to see this rise in popularity that I requested pictures of the event to mark the occasion (thanks to those who humoured me and took these photos).

Last week’s Sewing Club achieved much fixing of old clothes (sewing up rips and patching holes) and a wallet (reconditioned using a collection of colourful festival wristbands for the exterior), a new initiate to the gentle art of knitting, a large section of a lovely knitted scarf with cables, an almost complete new pair of trousers using found fabric, a new cover for a worn-out chair seat and some embroidery on a tablecloth (details to remain secret for the time being). What a success! And it looks as though next time will be even more popular! Long live Sewing Club!

UPDATE: anyone who’s interested can now see photos of all the things that have been made at Sewing Club on my Flickr page. This will be updated as and when – if you have photos of things you’ve made and want to see them up there with the rest, let me know.

for the travelling knitter

This is something I made in the summer but just never got around to posting here. A handy little roll-up knitting needle case for a set of double-pointed needles I got on Ebay that only had flimsy plastic wrappers to live in. It was super easy to make – only took me an evening, and I made it up on the spot.

The only thing I would change about it is the way the fastening works. I put the elastic between the outer and the lining, which means the end seam doesn’t lie flat when the case is rolled up. Instead I should have attached it on the outside somehow. Oh, and it still needs a button or something, but all in good time, all in good time…