This week, I have been mostly ...

Writing!

Luckily, I scheduled a few posts to catch you up on things I've made, because I am writing up a storm at the moment.  I going for a marathon finish of my novel-in-progress, planning to write 70,000 words in a month.  That's 17,500 words a week (eep!).  So, if my blogging goes a little quiet over here, I hope you'll understand.

I start my corsetry class on Wednesday, so hopefully I'll have things to post from there while I'm busy writing.

And I have been squee-ing over the pre-ordered awesomeness that arrived in the post on Wednesday:

Damn, Gertie, you don't make it easy on a girl to do anything other than drool over your gorgeous book and want to sew everything in it!

And she's lovely - she even retweeted me calling it sewing porn!

I might need to make myself some embroidered versions of the stunning illustrations by Sun Young Park to go up on the wall.  How inspiring would that be?!

The Summer Blues - On Snoods & Sewing Disasters

Hello my dear readers ... It's been a month, but I am still here, just severely lacking in motivation at the moment.  I tend to get a bit fed up and worn out at this time of year, and I think finishing my teaching course has left me even more tired.

I am well past owing completed snood photos, but fear not - I'm more than happy to oblige!  Here is my version of Hilary Hunt's Holy Cowl pattern (free on Ravelry!):

Apologies for the photo in a mirror - I really need a dedicated blog photographer!

I really enjoyed knitting this one - knitting in the round was less scary than I thought it would be and once I got the hang of the pattern it was pretty simple.  I've been wearing it loads, too - it's warm and comfy and the crazy colours kind of go with everything!  I'm super pleased with it, considering it's my second knitting project.

Remember that first knitting project?  Well that's finished, too, and my Gent has claimed it as his own, so it can't be too bad (or he's just too kind!).

Which is more than I can say for my attempts at this pattern:

It's such a pretty pattern and only a size too small ... so I thought I'd attempt to alter it to fit on Dolly ... how hard could it be?  Well it was a bit of an epic fail.  Thankfully I was just playing about with cheap calico, but it has still left me feeling a bit bummed and unmotivated.  Meh.

So I'm now trying a different tack - I got this book the other day:

Some of the designs are awesome, some are not so great, but the main pull for me was the chapter at the beginning that shows you how to draft your own basic blocks from your own measurements.  The rest of the book shows some pretty cool ways of adapting those patterns for different designs and I think will be a good companion to 'Make Your Own Dress Patterns' by Adele P. Margolis, which I already have, but is a little intimidating for my first foray into pattern drafting.  Little Green Dresses looks like a more gentle introduction and gives the instructions on how to draft that initial block that Margolis' book requires.  Score!

Anyway, I think I could use that block to draft a bodice in my size for that vintage Butterick pattern (such a pretty neckline!) ... I think ... We'll see!

And I might be getting ahead of myself, but I'm really loving this owl jumper pattern on Ravelry - I want!!  More realistically, I'd like to do The Newbie and the Knitter knitalong hosted by Kristen Makes, but I don't really have the money to buy that much yarn at the moment (boo!), so I'll have to read the posts and knit it up later.  Looks like it'll really help anyone learning to knit.

Anyway, hope all of you are well and that has given a little bit of an update.  

x

Pretty Things 2 - Kittens!

Hello lovely readers!  Well, my trip to my mum's ended up being a bit longer than I expected!  I had a lovely week, first visiting her, then she came back to Nottingham with me for a couple of days.  I was planning to do a blog post or two while I was with her, but I actually enjoyed having a bit of time away from the computer.

Plus, I was a bit distracted by KITTENS!

Mum lives with my sister and nephew and they recently got two kittens.  They are too cute!  I had planned to try to steal them, but Mum was watching me too carefully (damn!).

Here they are:

The black one is Gizmo and the black and white is Rizzo - they're both boys, but were named when they first thought Rizzo was a girl.  Oops!  Anyway, that's them asleep, but the camera woke them up:

But then I must have been too boring, because they yawned and went back to sleep:

Yes, the great thing about kittens is that they can make anything into a toy.  Really.  There are bits of my mum's potpourri all around they house where they've been batting it between the two of them.  And if you put anything in Mum's seagrass waste paper basket, well, that clearly must be a toy for them, why else would you put it there?!  That boor bin gets knocked over, climbed over, jumped in and bits of paper get pulled out and torn up.  That white thing under the chair is a piece of kitchen roll that the kittens got out of the bin and attacked!

As well as playing with kittens, I did some knitting (more on that another day!), mooched around some shops with Mum and watched some films with the family.  All in all, it's been a very relaxing week - aaah  :)