Knitting, Travelling, Photographing, Mending and Spring Cleaning!

Yesterday I went to my local knitting shop (hurrah for local knitting shops) and bought the final ball of yarn for my happy rainbow blanket.

It's "grass green", one of the new colours Stylecraft introduced last year. I'd been looking everywhere for a nice bright, zingy green to add to my rainbow of colours so I was thrilled when Stylecraft added this to their range. Doesn't it look great with the other bright colours?

Things have been a little quiet here on the crafty front as I've been taking lots of trips and spending my evenings before planning lots of sightseeing and after putting my feet up and editing lots of photos.

I've got lots of photos to share from my trips to Leeds and York - and I'll blog about them sometime soon, I promise! I've also visited Bath (beautiful as always) and the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare (breezy!).

Our sweet kitty has been furious with me for being away so often, but he seems to have forgiven me now and is back to sleeping on my bed at night and getting into my business whenever possible.

Here's a snap of him from a few weeks back when he was "helping" me take some photos:

He also kindly kept me company on the sofa while I did some mending this weekend (he snoozed at one end of the sofa while I sat and stitched at the other: excellent teamwork!).

I've been meaning to mend this duvet cover for sooooo long, it's great to have the task finally ticked off my To Do list. I can't remember ever having sewn a patch on something before, and the hole I was mending was actually several small holes and one large tear... so I'd convinced myself that this was going to be a v tricky task and thus had been putting it off.

It turns out it wasn't actually tricky at all, hurrah, and I'm delighted with the finished result. I used scraps of my favourite Liberty print for the patches because why not have pretty patches, right?

Also on my To Do list at the moment: lots of spring cleaning! I'm doing lots of actual physical cleaning and tidying, but also sorting things like my digital files and my Etsy shop. 

To help me spring clean my shop, I've reduced the price of some listings that are due to expire in the next few days. All these pieces are now just £1 each (plus postage). Quick, go grab a bargain and treat yourself or a friend to a felt-y something...

Work In Progress: Sewing, Knitting, Mending & Sorting

As always, I've got lots of projects in progress...

This weekend I spent several relaxing hours sewing felt flowers onto this cushion cover, which I last worked on in November (!!).

Back in November I'd got so close to finishing this but it's been sitting in crafty limbo ever since.  All the flowers I'd pinned and tacked in place back then have now been properly stitched in position and I just need to add a few more small flowers at the edges to fill in the remaining gaps.

I've also re-started a much-neglected knitting project (visiting a knitting festival does tend to put one in the mood to knit!).

Let's not talk about how I was determined to get this finally finished in time for Christmas 2015 and it's now February 2016, okay??? Shhh, it can be our secret.

This weekend I've also been mending my much-beloved vintage coat. After sewing on a missing button, I'm now mending some tears in the lining and holes in the pockets. Not at all exciting - and sewing black on black is such a pain - but important!

Does a project count as "in progress" if you've just bought the materials for it? Because I think this one might technically be a new project as I've yet to start it (or even make a real plan for how I'm going to make it) but I have bought the fabrics and washed/ironed them.

Semantics aside, these lovelies are going to be a small quilt for summer picnics and (of course) trips to the beach.

I'm also continuing my ongoing "sort out everything in my studio" project. Everything is looking so neat and organised, it's quietly thrilling.

One of this weekend's tasks was to sort through my stash of sewing thread - you probably can't tell from this photo that this is the "after" photo but it is!

My most-used colours (which match the felt shades in my stash) are in the drawer on the left, and the rest are in the drawer on the right. Not the most complicated system, I'll grant you, but a system nonetheless :)

Meanwhile, the urge to sort and declutter is contagious and my mum has been bitten by the bug. I've been helping her clear out assorted cupboards and take things to charity shops... and I've ended up with some new/old things that she's decluttered!

I've inherited a few bits of vintage crockery that belonged to my grandparents, including these pretty dishes (one Poole, one Carlton Ware). Aren't they lovely?

 

I'm also now the proud owner of some craft supplies which were left over from our childhood crafting sessions, then forgotten about in the back of a cupboard. These tubes of glitter will be an especially useful addition to my crafty stash!
 

Right, that's enough waffling about WIPs... I'm off to make the most of my "extra day" by doing something crafty :)

Interesting Signs, Cute Kitties & Gorgeous Yarn

Blogging is a funny thing. Sometimes you write a blog post that you think will be really popular and it passes largely unnoticed and doesn't attract a single comment. Then other times you write about something you think "hmm, this is a bit of a weird thing to be writing a whole blog post about" and it turns out lots of other people love that weird thing too!

I am delighted that thanks to the magic of the internet we can all be door-loving weirdos together :)

Here are a couple of non-door-related snaps I took on the same London walk:

A lovely old street sign with a backdrop of gorgeous blue sky (I am so looking forward to the arrival of spring so we can see more of those!)...

 

... and a rather battered sign of a different kind:

I also took a trip this week to Unravel, the festival of knitting held annually at Farnham Maltings. I'll be blogging about it properly once I've had a chance to edit my photos but to sum up: wow, there was so much beautiful yarn! This loveliness was from The Little Grey Sheep:

Back at home, my tidying, sorting, organising and decluttering continues. While tidying I found this adorable hot water bottle cover from my childhood. How cute are those kittens?? Oh my goodness.

There's no way I'm going to throw this away but it's not really useable as a hot water bottle cover anymore... so I'm thinking about turning it into a cushion cover. I'll have to make a custom cushion insert for it, of course, but that can't be too complicated, right??

I probably shouldn't be adding another crafty project to my To Do list as I have so many of them already, but never mind!

This weekend I am finally getting "sew missing button back on coat" ticked off the list, and next up is "patch holes in duvet cover" which has been on the list for aaaaaages. I've decided to use a scrap of Liberty fabric to make the patches, because if you're going to do mending it might as well look pretty.

P.S. This is the pencil I'm currently using to write my To Do lists, etc. I have a whole bunch of fun pencils like this left over from my childhood, it really makes me smile using them and they brighten up even the most boring admin!

Projects in Progress This Week

This week I've been doing some colourful stitching which has been very relaxing. Working with bright colours like this never fails to cheer me up on a gloomy day.

 

I've been printing out some words for a project that involves lettering.

There's also been lots of felt cut out, including some quite fiddly little shapes (thank goodness for embroidery scissors).

A while ago I took the bottom drawer out of this mini chest I use for storing craft supplies... and then forgot to put it back. The the weight of the supplies in the drawers above made the divider bend out of shape and the bottom drawer won't go back in. So I'm now trying to bend it back into shape.

 

I'm working on a prototype for a project that involves pipecleaners, which I don't think I've used for crafting in about two decades!

 

I've also been sewing lots of fabric squares together.

(Quilts are a bit of a pain to photograph, aren't they? So hard to find the space!)

I've sewn five long strips of squares together and I'm now halfway through adding them to one end of the quilt. Next up: arranging and then sewing a bunch of squares together to fill in the "missing" section in one corner where I removed a bunch of squares that didn't fit at all with the style of the rest of the quilt.

I vaguely remember noticing this in my teens and thinking "whatevs" (or whatever the equivalent teen expression was back in the late 90s) but on rediscovering the quilt it really bugged me, so I unpicked the section and will now be restitching it. Luckily I had plenty of spare squares leftover from when the quilt was going to be much bigger! 

Taking It Easy & Doing Some Decluttering

So, this past week I have done a bit of mending (mending some dresses that had holes in them, sewing some buttons back on a cardigan, sewing up a couple of holes in some blankets)...

... and I started sewing up some Big Knit hats which I think I made last year (?) and then forgot about (oops, lucky it's on again this year, eh?)...

... but mostly things have been quite quiet on the crafting front.

I have been feeling exhausted this week - partly with the sadness/stress of my grandmother's death and funeral (thanks for all the kind messages about this, by the way, they are much appreciated!) but mostly because I've been ill quite a bit this spring/summer and I think it has just worn me out.

Long-time readers may remember that I've had M.E. since I was a kid. It's mostly pretty manageable these days as long as I take care of myself, but my immune system is still a bit rubbish and when I get sick it hits me hard and then it takes me a loooong time to fully recover. So although though there are a gazillion things on my work / crafting To Do list which I'm itching to get on with, my main priority at the moment is to try and take it easy so I can get well as soon as possible.

So last week I didn't do much work but instead went to my grandmother's funeral, spent lots of time watching DVDs with my mum, and continued to have a bit of a tidy up and a clear out, gradually working through loads of old boxes.

I've really been enjoying clearing stuff out recently. It's been nice having a lovely nostalgic look back at stuff like old mix tapes & teen poetry but it also feels great to be tidying and decluttering and generally making my space a bit less busy / messy / full of stuff. And it is wonderful to have a relaxing, not super-demanding task I can get on with slowly when I need to take the afternoon off (or the whole day off) and rest for a bit. Also I think having a clear-out can be quite therapeutic and stress-relieving - I don't know if you feel this way too?

I'm definitely one of those people who tries to have "a place for everything and everything in its place" but I am much better at the first part than the second! I have a pretty detailed filing system, but my "things to file" pile often gets so big that it nearly falls over. And like many (most?) crafters I find it pretty hard to make stuff without making a huge mess in the process... and, well, it's hard to find time to put things away when there's all this exciting new stuff to make! :)

So actually getting round to tidying / filing / sorting things / properly putting stuff away feels great. A mega filing session always makes me feel super-efficient and organised even though the only reason I was able to spend the whole day filing things was because I'd been lazy not filed anything for months, haha.

As well as being a bit lazy with my filing, etc, I also have to admit to having slight hoarding tendencies. Being both "crafty" and thrifty, I am forever keeping things that "might be useful" ... and I'm quite sentimental too. I'm forever keeping stuff like ticket stubs and newspaper clippings and old postcards and birthday cards and so on, which all adds up to a lot of stuff after a while.

I actually had to give up making scrapbooks (which is something I loved to do as a kid and in my early teens) because I'd scrapbook everything and end up with loads of scrapbooks with a ton of really random stuff in it which I'd look back and and think why the heck did I keep that?? Nowadays I have "memory boxes" (this sounds a bit cheesy but I'm not sure what else to call them?) full of all sorts of sentimental paper-y bits and bobs in them, which can be easily edited as time passes and things cease to have that nostalgic appeal and just become "stuff".

Here's a quick snap of some of the paper-y stuff that I cleared out last week (plus some old headphones that sadly will cost more to mend than it will to just buy a new pair, boo).

I still need to sort all that lot into piles to chuck, shred and recycle. That second pass through is very helpful, I find, as it stops you accidentally throwing away anything you didn't mean to (or, at the very least, it stops you worrying that you might have next time you can't find something important!).

As well as sorting through old boxes and files, re-organising things and clearing out small bits and pieces, I've also been doing some "proper" decluttering, clearing out things like books and clothes and jewellery and Christmas ornaments and CDs and bits of vintage china.

I did quite a lot of decluttering a few years ago, trying to make space in my old flat for my expanding crafty business and to help the flat look tidier & generally nicer. I am not (and will never be) a minimalist but I cleared out a lot of junk and old / unwanted stuff to make room to better display and store the stuff I needed, used and loved. Then I cleared out even more stuff when I moved out of my old flat and back into my parents house, and packed up all the "household" things from my flat into crates ready for when I (eventually) move out again.

I'm really lucky to have a large studio/office space in my parents house (I've rearranged things a lot since I first moved in, but you can see some old pics of the space HERE if you're feeling nosy) so I don't have any real space issues at the moment, but after looking at some flats online I've realised that when I do move out it will likely be into somewhere pretty tiny, so I need to try and downsize my stuff down quite a bit more. Chances of me having a studio space in my new place? Slim to none.

And what better time to make a start on this when I'm pottering about my parents house with not much to do because I'm having to rest & take a bit of time off work? So, I'll be continuing to have little clear-outs for a while and I've also decided to do another Less 365 project, getting rid of one thing a day for a whole year (from now until this time next summer).

I really enjoyed the challenge of my last Less 365, it made me properly think about my stuff - what I really loved, what I actually needed, what I was using and what I wasn't, and so on. I also found it made me much more mindful about buying new things, which was great for my bank balance! (I'd really recommend trying it if you fancy doing a bit of decluttering yourself).

Hmm, this has turned into a bit of a ramble, hasn't it? Anyway, I hope you'll wish me luck with my decluttering! I'm not 100% sure I'll manage the full 365 things, but I'm going to give it a jolly good try and - fingers crossed - hopefully get most of my stuff a lot more organised along the way.

Mending and Alterations

Ah, mending! I'd never throw things away just because they lost a button or ripped a seam but my goodness mending things is dull. It's right up there with ironing on my "loathed domestic chores" list and despite sewing things for a living the mending pile is often neglected for months.

So I'm feeling very virtuous this week for getting a top darned, a rip in a cardigan mended and two pairs of too-long trousers hemmed. Hurrah!


I'm also thinking about tackling another "make do and mend" project, altering another vintage dress that's been lurking unworn in my wardrobe for years.


I love this dress - the florals! the multicoloured buttons! the ric rac trim! - but I never wear it because the sleeves are just too huge. They start out as a sensible width and balloon out to these big flappy things that while being deliciously retro are completely impractical for anything other than a fancy dress party.


I'd love to be able to wear this dress all through the autumn, with bright tights and cardigans but to do that I need to alter the sleeve to make them more wearable (and to make them fit under my cardigan sleeves!) ... making them narrower and maybe adding a cuff? I predict much googling of sewing tutorials in my future!

Make do and mend

Tis the season to do some spring cleaning, and I'm starting with the contents of my wardrobe.

I'm trying to be really ruthless and admit to myself that I haven't actually worn that dress for 5 years, that this cardigan while once lovely is now 10 years old & looking its age, and that the crazy sweater bought on a whim really does just make me look a bit crazy.

The really fun part of clearing out clothes is, of course, that you're making room for lots of lovely new ones! But I'm also trying to mend & alter all the things that just need a bit of TLC or have hemlines that make me feel rather frumpy.

My mending pile is normally very neglected - partly because there's always something more fun to be sewn than some boring old buttons, and partly because I'm really not very good at it. There was much cussing yesterday as I was sewing on buttons and turning up hems, but it was worth it in the end.

It's especially nice to have my much loved vintage coat restored to its full 14-buttoned glory after shedding so many buttons during the winter...
Over the next few weeks I'll be dredging up memories of skills learned in G.C.S.E. Textiles, checking some sewing books out of the library & tackling those alterations. Most challenging will be a vintage dress with a broken zip which I never wore much as a dress but which I'm hoping will make a lovely new skirt. I'll let you know how it goes!