The Plan - The Outcome

 At the start of the year I set myself a fairly loose list of projects that I wanted to work on which I called my Plan. The aim wasn't to finish everything, I didn't want the stress of feeling I was failing to hit a target, more to give me a focus and try and stop me buying lots of new materials and stashing them away.

I think it has been mostly successful, here's the latest update:

UFOs were as follows:

1 Hue Shift Afghan        
2 Floozy                        
3 Sparkle Punch Quilt
4 Alice cushion              EPP complete, borders and quilting left
5 Aran squares              One complete plenty more to go!
6 Pumpkin mini

7 Xmas stars                 Still a WIP
8 Wedding quilt            Still going
9 Opal socks                 Replaced by other socks

10 Jessa shorts            Toile complete now going to be trousers

The 'Ready to Gos' were as follows:

1 Highland cushions       To be started
2 Colourwork stocking
3 Scheepjes hat
4 Scheepjes shrug          Change of plan to a wrap (not started)
5 Hitofude                     To be started
6 Blythes Spirit 
7 Lottie and Albert Blanket   Removed
8 WM quilt
9 Bird quilt                    One EPP project at a time
10 Xmas mini                Needs to be started soon!
11 Socks
12 Cross stitch bookmark    Playing hide and seek

Not much change since October although the biggest change is that the Sparkle Punch Quilt is complete and gifted. I also decided that I don't need a Lottie and Albert Blanket and I can't think of a recipient for one so it's off the list.

As well as the items above I have also completed a Grace dress, Slipstravaganza shawl (still to be blocked), a Billie sweater, two Xmas stockings and five pairs of socks.

I like the use of a list, or lists, to keep me aware of what I have already got materials for. It also has worked as a place to list all the new projects that catch my eye and then I can decide whether to do them or just keep them as possibilities. I have definitely stressed myself out less this year by not planning to try and do everything, although I have slipped a little with sock yarn - though I'm working through it and variety is nice! My stash has gone down this year, although that has been helped by a couple of ruthless clear outs.

I'm going to adopt the same list approach next year, trying to balance out the crafts and project sizes so I don't get bored. I will refine it over the next few days and share it here as it has been fun to look back. 

December FNSI

 In preparing to write this blog I've realised that before photos would've been useful - but I was keen to maximise my crafting time.

First project was a bit if reworking on my Billie sweatshirt. As you may expect it's a Jersey top and as it was the first time I'd ever worked with jersey there were a couple of points where I'd created unintentional pleats. After a bit of unpicking and restitching I had a much smoother waistband.

The rest of the evening was then devoted to working on a pair of socks that will become a Xmas present for my partner's mum. 

A focused effort means that I only have a few inches left to knit. 

A very productive and enjoyable FNSI. 

If you want to see what everyone else got up to head over Wendy's blog:FNSI

Instant gratification and a slow burner

In an unusual turn of events I have achieved two sewing finishes this weekend.

The first was an Xmas Stocking which I started Friday late afternoon and had completely finished and pressed before midnight. 

I followed a tutorial by Cluck Cluck Sew and it turned out really well; I did find that clipping the seams helped the stocking look more snooth. This could have been finished earlier in the evening but I also worked on a second stocking.

This one's taking a little longer for what is hopefully obvious reasons. I only have a fat quarter of each of the three fabrics which isn't quite enough for the size of stocking I want so this is the more time consuming solution I've come up with. 

Before starting the stockings I finished stitching the binding and sewing in the ends on a quilt that has been a WIP for about 8 years. 

Pattern is Sparkle Punch Quilt by Elizabeth Hartman. I couldn't even begin to say what the fabrics are, I think most of them were purchased from an online US store. 

I do know its backed in a Tula Pink extra wide backing fabric from Sew Hot. 

This quilt is destined for my, very patient, sister and her husband. 

Slipstravaganza - The Mystery So Far

Before you read any further I must warn you that this post contains spoilers for the WestKnits Slipstravaganza MKAL

 It also contains several examples of photographs taken on a phone in poor lighting conditions (this is not really spoiling anything but prevents me having to apologise repeatedly)

Okay, you have been warned. Continue reading at you own peril...

So after all that build up you may have guessed that as of the release of the second clue, of four, for this MKAL I'm still knitting along, I'm having fun and can actually see myself wanting to wear the finishaed article.

I'm loving the yarn from Dusty Dimples (UK Indy Dyer). And am picking up new skills all the time. It all started with an i-cord and then picking up the stitches from each i-cord row.

We've then moved onto honeycombs... 

And then, so far for me the most challenging part so far, rather large holes... 

I'm looking forward to finding out what the next 3 sections bring and hopefully picking up a few more new skills. 

Does "The Plan" Still Exist?

I'm pleased to say yes it does and yes I'm still working from it ... to a certain extent!

So a first a quick reminder of the two main lists that were the basis of the plan with updates as to progress:

The UFOs are as follows:

1 Hue Shift Afghan        
2 Floozy                        
3 Sparkle Punch Quilt    Binding to go
4 Alice cushion              Still in progress
5 Aran squares              One complete plenty more to go!
6 Pumpkin mini

7 Xmas stars                 Still a WIP
8 Wedding quilt            Still going
9 Opal socks                 Replaced by other socks

10 Jessa shorts             Toile complete now going to be trousers

Hmm I'm sure I've completed more than that!

The 'Ready to Gos' are as follows:

1 Highland cushions       To be started
2 Colourwork stocking
3 Scheepjes hat
4 Scheepjes shrug          Change of plan to a wrap (not started)
5 Hitofude                     To be started
6 Blythes Spirit 
7 Lottie and Albert Blanket   And again
8 WM quilt
9 Bird quilt                    One EPP project at a time
10 Xmas mini                Needs to be started soon!
11 Socks
12 Cross stitch bookmark    Playing hide and seek

So 9 items off the list so far, and apart from face masks I think only one item has been completed that wasn't on either list - a Grace dress.

As may be assumed from my last post I am planning to swerve away from the lists, but not just for the Slipstravaganza Shawl but also with a Lovenote sweater that I am planning to knit in my upcoming week off which means it's also likely I'll have two big knitting projects on the go at the same time. 

Ah well some plans are made to be deviated from! 

Slipstravaganza MKAL - Nerves

 Probably due to the strangeness of the times I have decided to do something crafty I thought I'd never do again - take part in a mystery knitalong.

I took part in a blanket mystery knitalong in 2012, based on the fact the wasn't a previous blanket of the designer's I didn't like (I even h as d several of their books). Unfortunately even with the money invested in the kit and the many hours spent knitting the blanket squares I've never really liked the blanket and it's ended up unfinished as I don't know anyone personally who would like it. So I decided that taking part in a mystery anything was not for me. 

Until now when I quickly bought the pattern and the necessary yarn for the Slipstravaganza MKAL by Stephen West. 

I've never knitted a WestKnits design but I have been considering them this year. I'd also been following a couple of other MKALs. Other than that I can't really explain my change of heart.

Maybe it was the lovely yarn kits? I had looked at the official kits but with postage and exchange rate they were a little expensive. Luckily the dyer of 4 of the kits - Dusty Dimples - was UK based and so it was possible to get the same yarn direct from her (just without the MKAL goodies).

I have to say I love this yarn and if I don't enjoy the MKAL I'm sure I can put it to good use. As is the case I have had my head turned by other yarn kits that keep popping up but I'm keeping true to my first choice. I'm now nervously/excitedly waiting for the mystery to start on 9 Oct.

Wish me luck and I'll keep you updated. 

August FNSI - Multi Crafting

 Not having a definite plan as to what to work on this FNSI I was pleasantly surprised how productive I ended up being.

In the continuing plan of working through WIPs I decided to continue with the toile for a pair of Tilly and the Buttons Jessa shorts (these have been a WIP for a year so far and if I was a betting person I'd say the finished article won't be ready for this summer!) I thought I'd just get the zip fly in. 

But I was wrong... 

... and actually got the toile to a stage where I could try it on for size. It fit. I have decided to stop making the toile at this point, without as waistband and cuffs, as the fabric is horrible to work with (cheap, thin, with a tendency to shrink if ironed), some of my pieces seem poorly cut (or could've been affected by the iron), and I need to re-use the zip from the toile for the actual shorts. Also if I stop here there's a better chance of the actual shorts being finished in 2020!

I then went on to a bit of baking prep. 

 Pasties are the plan for lunch this weekend and the recipe suggested that the pastry was best if left to rest overnight. 

And after all that excitement I even had timeto squeeze in a bit of sock knitting before bed. 

Hope everyone else had a successful and enjoyable FNSI. 

Fearless Fair Isle - After Seven Years!

 I'm getting through my crafting projects pretty well at the moment, I guess I'm being assisted by all the current Coronavirus restrictions meaning more timd to craft. For example as I'm working from home I can do a bit of knitting during my lunch break (I could've done that at my office and I may do in future) and rather than spending an hour in the car at the end of the working day I get another hour to myself as my partner finishes work an hour after me (he does start an hour later in the morning). I'm also avoiding adding too many new projects to the list or pre-emptively buying materials for projects that are a long way off. 

Sock yarn doesn't count.

I thought pre-emptive buying was a habit I'd got into last year. When sorting out the yarn for my next knitting project I found this wasn't the case.

Price hidden intentionally.

Luckily I still want to make the project as much as I did if not more.

Hard to tell from the photo but this will be the Reindeer Romp Xmas Stocking from Fearless Fair Isle Knitting by Kathleen Taylor. Started well but turns out 7 years ago the shop was out of stock of one of the colours, after umming and ahhing I've now ordered a ball of the correct colour from what may be the same shop I bought it from originally (same name other end of the UK). This is a daylight project due to needing to read the chart so it may take a while, hopefully not another 7 years! 

Feeling the fear and doing it anyway...

...or maybe a more accurate title would be "Having to quilt the quilt on my frame because the central heating engineer needs space to work!".

The Sparkle Punch Quilt was attached to my quilting frame in late March.

In the normal course of things I would have started quilting it shortly after but whilst setting it up I found that, due to being clever when purchasing the fabric and the forgetting that I had been clever, the backing fabric was too short for the quilt. Loading up the frame had been quite an effort so I wasn't massively keen on starting again having bought new backing, likewise the alternative of makinvbthd top shorter also didn't fill me with joy.

This dilemma took me ages to resolve.

Eventually I decided that the better of the two options was to buy a new backing, which actually was quite easy to swap onto the frame. I actuallynalso prefer this second backing and I know the recipient does too.

A couple more weeks of procrastination passed, I enjoy using me frame and once I get going all is fine but this is a big quilt and the machine a use tends to play up a bit in the early stages requiring unpacking.

Eventually confirming that our central heating replacement was going to take place at the end of July spurred me into action as th frame takesmip a lot of space and would make lifting floorboards in the room tricky.

After all my procrastination the quilting went well, no unpicking required.  I also tried out glide thread which had been recommended in various places and it was brilliant and didn't break once. My free motion quilting it still a big wonky but overall I'm pleased with the effect and am thrilled that this quilt that's been on the go on and off since 2013 is almost finished.

July FNSI

My second FNSI in a row, although due to the current circumstances I do tend to spend most Friday nights sewing.

As I guess might be the case for a lot of crafters I had a long list of things to do but that was never going to be doable in the time.

I started the evening with a few post-dinner rows of sweater knitting and then I moved on to some sewing. 

On an impulse I started a Charmed Cushion last Friday, which I continued with. 

I didn't take many photos but I sewed together a pile of HSTs to make QST blocks. Then I spent much longer than I expected squaring up the blocks. Luckily the layout was pretty easy to do, I just didn't think about it too much!

Pleasingly by the end of my FNSI I had both the back and front panels sewn together in rows. Hopefully I'll have a finished cushion to show soon. 

Blythe's Spirit

One of the items in my Plan is the Blythe's Spirit sweater designed by High Fibre Shop. I bought a kit for this sweater in October but only started knitting it at the beginning of June.

The sweater is knitted in baa ram ewe's pip colourwork. The wool has a beautiful halo but there are quite a lot of weak points in it.

I also found out very quickly that the colourwork was not the best thing to work on when distracted (we've been playing a legend of zelda game a lot recently). 

 

I think I've knitted most of the colourwork twice over. 

Looks almost as good on the inside. 

I'm now on the body which is growing faster than I expected given it's 4 ply wool. 

I've really enjoyed the colourwork in this, which is lucky considering there's at least one colourwork item in my Plan. 

June FNSI

I've finally managed to join in with FNSI again after quite an absence and to celebrate I had a multi-crafting evening. 

First up was a quick scone baking session. 

During lockdown, when flour and egg availability have permitted (these have been hard to find items in my local supermarkets for the past 3 months but that seems to be ending) I have been trying out recipes from the National Trust scone book. 

I've generally only made half batches as there's only two of us. So far every recipe has been a success, I've mostly been baking the savoury scones as we watch out sugar intake, although the odd sweet one slips in and I'd really like to try some chocolate ones. And as we don't eat them all at once they've been stored in the freezer with no ill effects.

Tonight's batch were red pepper, onion and cheese and the little taster scone I made with the scraps was lovely. 

After the baking I moved onto knitting, whilst advising my boyfriend who was playing a Zelda computer game.

I am starting to make better progress on a colourwork sweater which has been suffering due to my not paying it full attention. As I'm currently working with 350 stitches I only achieved about a row but any progress is good progress.

When my boyfriend moved onto online gaming with his mates I moved onto my sewing machine in another room. I did have high hope of getting quite a bit done but my machine had other ideas. I did get the quilt binding I'd planned to do sewn on one side of my quilt, but thanks to jammed and broken needles caused, I think, by my walking foot loosening the needle's screw this took me the best part of 2 hours.

But it was all attached and trimmed by bedtime so I'm calling that a success FNSI. 

What did everyone else get up to? Head over to Wendy's Blog to find out. 

52 Weeks of Socks - Gerste

... or the learn-a-lot socks.

The second pair of socks I decided to make from 52 Weeks was Gerste by Verena Cohrs. I went with the suggested yarn in the book and bought some naturally dyed, natural sock yarn from Woolly Mammoth Fibre Co.

And why learn-a-lot socks? Because I used lots of new to me techniques on them.

First up Judy's Magic Cast On and M1R and M1L in the toes. 

This took a little while to get the hang of. 

Next German short row heels. 

(Quite tricky taking a photo of your own heel) 

I love the look of short row heels, but get a bit confused with wrap and turn short rows. I enjoyed these, even more so when I kept a close count on how many rows I'd done (something else I'm learning at the moment). 

Finally I learnt a stretchy bind off. 

A real game changer when putting the sock on your foot, and also worth taking some time to make sure it's relatively loosely done to make sure the stretch is maximised. 

Really keen to make some more toe up, short row socks soon, their fit is great.

All the new to me techniques were found on the Internet, mostly on the kitty or purl soho websites. 

Progress with The Plan

So the beginning of June seems as good a time as any to review my "plan", which was just my list of UFOs and planned makes which I am aiming to put a dent in this year whilst not adding too many new projects to the list. 

I broke my plan into 3 parts, so I'll update in those three parts. 

The first part was the UFOs as follows with progress updates:

1 Hue Shift Afghan - complete (except the ends, don't mention the ends) 

2 Floozy - just needs buttons purchasing

3 Sparkle Punch Quilt - on the quilting frame, getting my nerve together! 

4 Alice cushion - getting close to a completed flimsy

5 Aran squares - one added to the collection

6 Pumpkin mini - complete

7 Xmas stars - nothing much to report

8 Wedding quilt

9 Opal socks

10 Jessa shorts - slow progress has restarted on the toile

There has also been some progress (and removals) on the ready to go list:

1 Highland cushions

2 Colourwork stocking

3 Scheepjes hat - complete

4 Scheepjes Shrug - removed and planning to use the whirl for something else 

5 Hitofude

6 Blythes Spirit - next in line

7 Lottie and Albert Blanket 

8 WM quilt - basted 

9 Bird quilt - must stop collecting fabric for it! 

10 Xmas mini

11 Socks - one pair done, another 3/4 complete

12 Cross stitch bookmark

Of the Requires Refinement List I now know what pattern I will be using for the cat quilt, the joni dress has all the necessary materials purchased so is now in my dress making queue and the cowl may not be a purl soho one! 

All in all quite pleasing progress, and I haven't deviated too much from the lists. 

A first foray into dressmaking

So conveniently my first attempt at making a dress has coincided with me made May and a lockdown where it seems that the ideal is to learn a new skill (or bake a lot of sourdough) but neither of those are the reason I'm now making this dress. 

The idea for it came about in January when I was admiring some cotton dresses in Spitalfields Market and my boyfriend asked whether I could make something like it.

So the research into a pattern began, Simple Sew's Grace dress seemed a good id match from memory. I decided I would make a toile first, as mh sister hadn't shared the tip about using bedsheets, a wearable toile became my option. Then my boyfriend kindly offered to buy the fabric for the actual dress for my birthday, a wonderful excuse to spend a lot of time researching options on the Internet and the at the end of March j finally bought the pattern and waited for enough free time to start. Unexpected good weather and lockdown meaning a new found enthusiasm for making our garden a nice place to be meant thaf the first free time I've had was last week during some time off from work.

So I've, finally but enthusiastically started making a dress. 

First step pattern tracing (and a growing loathing for the non-stick backing paper I was using). 

Fabric for the hopefully wearable toile (for which I already had the perfect pair of matching earrings so this better fit!) was prepared.

A bodice was put together without too much stress and with the hummingbirds on the waistband. 

It has pockets (which will need moving up slightly in the second dress). 

And I have managed to gather and attach the skirt with reasonably good seam matching.

At this point a major flaw in my prep work/understanding/sewing machine accessories became evident. The pattern calls for a concealed zip, I want to fit a concealed zip, I don't have a concealed zip foot! It's easy to find one online, so now the dress is on hold until the foot arrives and until I've practiced zigzag stitching the raw seams. 

But so far so good, I'm really pleased with how it's going and already planning future makes! Hopefully I'll be able to report a finished dress before the end of the month. 

52 Weeks of Socks

Just before all the madness and lockdown I treated myself to Laine's 52 Weeks of Socks, it felt like a bit of a luxury and destined to be a coffee table book. 

Turns out I was very wrong. There are so many pairs of socks in this book that I want to knit,  every time I look through it a few more get added to the list. I think it's a bit optimistic to assume this book will only take me 52 Weeks to work through but I'll give it my best shot.

The first pair I've completed are Erika by Anja Heumann.

The beautiful yarn, with a slight sparkle, was a one of a kind sock set from Pixie Yarn. These knitted up so quickly (took longer than a week), no occurrence of second sock syndrome and might be the quickest pair of socks I've ever knitted.

Found a useful tip in Winwick Mum's blog for how to knit the ends in as I went, a real game changer.

I've already started the next pair, enticed in by the suggested yarn from Woolly Mammoth... 

...natural sock, dyed with natural dyes. 

Gerste by Verena Cohrs, the toe has been challenging but the foot is going quicker.