The knitty gritty

Thoughts on simple crafting projects to get me through a stressful house move.

Hey peeps, what’s up? I’ve been busy crafting away, trying not to think too much about the impending move (likely to be over the Easter holidays sometime). Actually, I should be thinking about the move and setting up lots of easy to work on knitting and crochet projects to get me through the time when I won’t have any sewing machine access. I was inspired by the recent couple of posts by Stitch Diva’s Jennifer Hansen (here and here) to get more organised with my crafting. I have yet to work on all my electronic lists of project ideas, but I’m going to search out some simple patterns to work on that fit my lifestyle. Just recently I ran out of easy to work on projects as everything was at that stage where I needed to concentrate and look up techniques for the next step. It’s made me realise the value of simple knit and crochet projects, and that I should always have a pair of socks on the go!

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Yep, Gabriel likes his cardie. And Daisy’s Frozen wand, apparently.

However, this dearth of patterns to work on actually made me go back through the WIP basket and pull out a few things to finish off. I finally completed Gabriel’s cardie (it fits him, phew!) and have finished knitting the last sleeve for my own boring brown cardie. I’m worried it won’t suit me when I sew it all together, but I’ve got to at least try. At best, I’ll get a valuable new outfit-building garment for my wardrobe in a lovely soft woollen yarn. At worst I’ll frog it and start again. The yarn is wasted leaving it in an unfinished state, so I have to at least give it a go.

I’ve also been thinking about setting up some hand-sewing projects. This was inspired by a wonderful birthday gift from my sister: the Alabama Studio Sewing Patterns book. I hadn’t realised when I originally wishlisted this book that all the patterns were included as pdfs on a disc, or that Alabama Chanin garments are entirely handstitched, including all seams! I think I might sew up a test garment on the machine to test fit first, though. It would be dispiriting to spend all that time handstitching only to discover it doesn’t fit properly.

I’ve had a hard time choosing which pattern to begin with, so ended up putting in an order to get nearly all of them printed on wide paper. I also got a few of my Seamwork patterns printed too. Why haven’t I done this before? So much quicker and easier than piecing all those bits of A4 paper, and I suspect much more accurate too. At the moment I’m all about saving time, and have determined that the quickest way for me to prep fabric is to cut out the paper pattern and either pin to the fabric and cut around it (works best for the tissue kind), or to weigh it down, trace around it with chalk pen and then cut. Or best of all, weigh down and cut around with a rotary cutter on the pieces that are small enough to fit on my cutting mat. Note to self: buy a larger cutting mat.

Now I just need to decide where to start, and what fabric to use out of my stash…

I’ve finished a few sewing projects that need blogging too, and here’s a sneak peek at Gabriel’s lovely sleepsuit–my first Ottobre magazine pattern!

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Okay, I have toddler socks to knit now. Gabriel seems to be getting the benefit of most of my crafting time at the moment, but I suppose that’s because little things are cheaper and quicker to make. Plus they’re cute, and he keeps needing new things because he will keep on growing bigger. T-shirts for him next. He needs some new long sleeved ones, and I have the perfect Ottobre pattern to use. Can I be bothered to trace it out, though, that’s the question?!

What are the rest of you making at the moment?

What do you reckon? I'd love to hear from you!

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