A Crafty Mixtape (Mix-CD)

I was very enthusiatic about embroidery for roughly four days in November, before setting my 1/3 finshed sampler down in frustration and promptly forgetting about it. (Lazy daisies are not my friends.)

While knitting and sewing, the lovely wearable end product definately fires my obsession, and I just don't feel that drive with embroidery. I'm going through a slightly vagrant life-stage, so making things to decorate a house I might only live in for 6 months seems a bit pointless. I'd rather make clothes than embellish them. I still have some grand scale embroidery dreams, but I can't quite be bothered with the learning curve of smaller projects it will take to get there.

All this said, I have finally completed a (very very small) embroidery piece!

This week I was making a long owed mixtape for my favourite gentleman caller. (Well, it was a mix-CD, but that just doesn't sound as good!) I wanted to make a sweet cover for it, but unfortunately I am challenged in the artistic department and lumbered with decidely unattractive handwriting. Crafts to the rescue!

 

   

I read somewhere that good embroidery is as neat on the inside as on the outside...

I doubt Andy has ever watched Mean Girls, but I amuse myself at least...

Well... Almost there!

Round Two

Hello Stranger.

I'm not a terribly good blogger, it would seem. But what's 7 months between friends? Having been inspired by finding more and more amazing craft blogs (and aided by gaining a keyboard which can type the letters z, x, c, n and m) I'm back! Maybe for good this time...

So, some significant crafty event that have occured since November...


My Greatest Knitting Achievement Ever!

Deck the halls!

In early December I finally finished my Perfect Christmas Jumper- 14 months in the making and one Christmas late. It came out fitting perfectly, I love it more than anything else I've ever made! It recieved plenty wear over the course of the festive season (including the day itself, obviously), and is now wrapped up in three layers of plastic to save it from any nasty beasties, awaiting next year's celebrations.

I was lucky enough to see Susan Crawford speak at Oxford's Darn it and Stitch. Her work translating vintage patterns for the modern knitter, as well as her own designs, are really inspiring and one of the first things that made me want to really get in to the craft. Sadly, having ate a rogue, lukewarm pasty for lunch meant I spent most of the teaching portion of her seminar concentrating on the spinning floor rather than her lesson on how to knit with vintage patterns. But I did get to see (and stroke!) some of the samples for A Stitch in Time Vol 2. I've read through that book so many times it felt like meeting a group of celebrities!


13 Projects in 2013

On to the current year, and I have set a personal challenge to complete 13 knitting projects in 2013. This include projects that were started the previous year as I can't give myself any more reasons not to finish my damn Colour Affection shawl. (Those short rows are so... long!)

Six months in, I've completed five projects... So it could be going better. But I have two projects which should be finished before too long. And if the worst comes to the worst I can bang out a few Christmas decorations in December!


I Learnt to Sew!

Over Easter my wonderful Aunt gave me a sewing machine and taught me to make a patchwork pillow case.

Which I really ought to put a pillow in... And take a nice photo of.

Last month a very patient friend helped me to make a circle skirt. Even with my low skill level it was finished in a few hours. For a girl whose only prior crafts were knitting and crochet this is the stuff of fantasy! I'm hooked!

I'm currently working on a green Miette skirt, a super sweet pattern accompanied by a step by step online tutorial. I already have lots of other projects planned (clearly I won't let something as boring as my inability to sew in in straight line get in the way of my obvious genius) and am particularly keen to try some of the wonderful patterns by Colette.



And that's all, for now. Hopefully I'll be back before too long this time!

Carry on crafting,

Kirsty