Friday Flurry of Finishes

The first is just my sister’s graduation card, finally put onto a card!

I’ve also finished socks

and more socks!

I also knitted myself a cover for my earphones

That was very annoying, and I hope that I don’t break these earphones any time soon!

And finally, a set of pyjamas ready for Winter. They’ll be living in Salisbury, and so next time I’ll be going home is for Christmas, so I needed to finish them. Ta-da!

Since these pyjamas are a big thing, I’ll be continuing my habit of discussing what I learnt from this project.

• Sewing machines don’t like sewing over 4 layers of fleece!
• If something doesn’t seem to be running right, stop and figure it out. Don’t keep going until it becomes a big problem!
• Gathers aren’t so bad. Sewing them is a right pain, however!
• If a gather seems rather large, stick a finger in the middle of it and scrunch it down into a few smaller ones
• Fleece doesn’t fray. Which is wonderful when the machine decides it’s tasty and makes a hole 😦
• Mums are magic! I can’t remember what mine fixed for me this time around, but still, it’s always worth mentioning!
• Pins don’t hurt, so stop moaning about it!
• Don’t sew Winter clothes in the Summer, when it’s a right pain trying them on!

I think that’s everything this time!

Hello 2015!

Well, clearly my ‘standard’ schedule of posting on a Saturday is well and truly out of the window! I go back to Uni next Saturday, so after that I’ll probably go back to posting on Saturdays :).

So, my latest finishes: the one everyone has been waiting for, the OUAT sal. First of all, December’s block, which was Hansel and Gretel:

And the whole thing in all it’s glory. I’ve got plans to turn this into a hanging, so there’ll be another picture when that happens.

So, that was my last finish of 2014. I had this grand plan to finish 12 pairs of socks this year, and only managed 10. I’m very happy with 10, and am looking forward to knitting more this year as well 🙂

Then, in 2015 my mum very kindly introduced me to the basics of dress-making, and I’ve made a skirt. No progress pics of this, but here it is all finished.

It’s a bit blurry, but you get the point 🙂 The skirt itself is covered in butterflies in different colours which I think is wonderful 🙂

I’ve started making a pair of pyjamas as well, in some gorgeously soft fleecy material :).

What I learnt from my first attempt at dress-making:

• Stick pins in so they’re facing the edge of the material. Then the head is out of the way for stitching and the foot will simply glide over the pins themselves. Very obvious when told!
• Measure yourself! Just because all your jeans are size 8, doesn’t mean that patterns follow the same sizing guide! Lesson learnt the hard way.
• Mums are somehow magic. When mine ironed straight onto interfacing, it’s fine. If I try…oops!
• If you baste/sew for the gathers inside the seam allowance, you don’t need to remove them when sewing the whole thing together! Genius!
• Gathers don’t need to be perfect. Actually, nothing needs to be perfect. Seam allowances can hide a multitude of sins.
• It’s very easy to lose track of time when doing the whole machine-iron-table-machine thing. Pay attention and take breaks to sit down and have a drink. Otherwise you hurt afterwards!
• While dress-making is fun (and I would love to have quite a few items in my wardrobe) I’m not head-over-heels in love with it. Which is probably a good thing, seeing as how I only have a few weeks a year to use my mum’s, as I’m away in York so much!