The end of another year....

It's been just over a year since I started blogging here and a year ago today I finished my first dress, Burda 7739. I know I've not been the most frequent blogger or sewer but despite it all I've still accomplished the following:

4 dresses from scratch
3 refashions - a dress, a dress into a top and a pair of jeans into a skirt
2 customised t-shirts
3 skirts
2 hats
4 snoods
1 Dalek

I don't think that's too bad, do you? I've had time to make much more but not really had the motivation or the need for any more clothes in my wardrobe! I started the year on a sewing rampage and that's since changed to all knitting and barely any sewing thanks to knitting being far more portable and easier to pick up and put down so I can do a little at a time when I have a spare moment. I'm really enjoying it at the moment and I have to go with what I enjoy!

Christmas

Was it good for you? I had a lovely time with my family and it's all over far too quickly, as usual! Prior to Christmas I did a little bit of crafting, a while back I said I wanted to make some Christmas crackers and I accomplished that goal, they were so sparkly!!

You'll also notice some Christmas place mats, they were mum's creation! Apparently it's been her dream to make some quilted Christmas place mats so off we went to Fabric Land and bought ourselves everything we needed to make some! They were very quick to make, my mum isn't very good at 'random' stitching and it required some random patterns for the quilting so I sat down and whizzed them round on the sewing machine to make the quilted effect and she did the rest! They're reversible and though these photos don't show the quilting very well you can see the different fabrics used.

Mum was really proud of herself and pleased with them, but threatened anyone who spilled anything on them on Christmas day so we were all on our best behaviour!!

Then for Christmas day I received a few lovely crafty gifts! My aunt made me this cute little needle book, apparently the button is around 60 years old!

She also got me the SINGER Complete photo guide to sewing which will definitely come in handy!

My mum got me a knitting gift, a month or so ago we were in Hobbycraft and on the mannequin was a lovely jumper made of the softest wool and I loved it but I was intimidated by it as I've never made a jumper before! Well for Christmas my mum had bought me the pattern and the wool for me to make it, apparently it's an easy knit so if I can knit a Dalek then I can knit this jumper! It's Sirdar 9493, I've had a look over the pattern and it's not too difficult so I'll update you with my progress.

The final comment is regarding Derek the Dalek, no-one even realised I'd knitted him myself until I pointed it out which was great news and he's now proudly on display in our lounge!!

My excuse for not blogging.... Meet Derek!

Derek is a Dr Who Dalek, just in case you don't recognise it, and he's been my most challenging knitting project to date! I didn't think I'd be able to do it because it involved a lot of techniques I've never done before such as I-cord and making bobbles but I managed it and he doesn't look too shabby!! He's my dad's Christmas present and I've been working hard on him for the past month with the . My dad is one of those people who's impossible to buy presents for so when I saw this pattern on Ravelry I knew it would be perfect! It's been slow progress, mainly because there's only so many bobbles I can do in one go before I want to kill myself, and partly because I kept stopping to play with him half way through knitting, I'm a bit sad to give him away actually, he's so cute! When I'm suitably recovered I might knit myself my own one, maybe a special pink dalek!

I'm so proud of him and of myself for managing to knit more than hats/scarves/gloves! On that note I'll leave you with one more (blurry) picture of me blowing kisses at Derek...

Knitting epiphanies - When the wrong way turns out to be the best way

My reading week was spent knitting a load of snoods over the reading week for a craft fair my auntie was doing, I figured they're popular now and people are more likely to buy them (and they did), I just have one left. Here are some of them, note that they are smaller than my snood which is enormous and sit more closely round the neck which is much better!

I love the cabling on them and they were nice and quick to make!! The purple one is still left over though, one lady must have tried it on a million times but didn't buy it :-(

Anyway, I've since moved on to bigger and more challenging things, I've decided to start my most complicated knitting pattern to date, I'm knitting a Dr Who Dalek!! I'm so excited by this project and it's not at all repetitive, it requires a lot of concentration so it's more fun to knit than other things however it involves a lot of techniques I've never used before. I'm using double knit wool and 4mm needles but I think it's still going to be enormous, we'll see...

Knitting this dalek has caused me to have an epiphany, an epiphany related to knitting bobbles! My Dalek pattern has a lot of 'mb' in it, or 'make bobble' and I've never had the need to make bobbles up until this point. So I did what I always do, read up on it, watched you tube videos and followed the instructions on the pattern but my bobbles didn't really look like bobbles and they definitely didn't look like the bobbles on the pattern writer's Dalek. In fact every bobble seemed to look different! So I kept trying and today I came to it and was merrily knitting away at my bobble when I realised that I'd knitted my bobble wrong! I'd knitted where I was supposed to be purling and I changed back to the original coloured wool/yarn a little later than I was meant to. Swearing away at myself I feared the worst and went to look at what I'd done, and what had I done? I appeared to have made a perfect bobble, one which looked like the ones in the pictures! So to check it wasn't a fluke I used my new 'method' for the next bobble and that bobble looked perfect too. So I made a note on the pattern and decided to use my new technique for bobble making instead of the original instructions. Now, I am a person who tends to follow instructions religiously, when I'm cooking, when I'm crafting, when I'm putting together furniture... because I panic that if I don't it's all going to go wrong! So what was my epiphany? Sometimes, just because one way is meant to be the right way it doesn't necessarily mean it's the only way. And sometimes mistakes are a blessing because they open your eyes to a new way of doing things. And finally, just because it's the 'right' way it doesn't always mean that it's the best way. So if you stumble across something which makes your life a lot easier then don't be afraid to go with it because one size doesn't always fit all!

I'm sure I'll be back soon reporting on how my Dalek is doing! I also have another project in the pipeline, I bought a dress today from Asda for Christmas parties and I had wanted a dress with a bit of sparkle but this dress doesn't have any (however it looked good and was too much of a bargain to pass up)! Never fear, I plan to get myself some sequins and sew them onto my dress to make it a bit more sparkly and original! I'll definitely be back with pics.