The Anonymous Blueberry Muffin Thief Sews...

This was what was called the emergency xmas present. I'd had a vague idea to make these, and possibly even gift one to the recipient at some point, but had mostly been focussing on other people for presents. Then I couldn't find anything in the shops and went and made these in a very short space of time (ok, about a week, but I was working, and had to wait for stuff to show up).

So, one of my friends is a giant Trek geek (this is not saying I'm not, but she's even more of a fan than I am). And she moved house fairly recently, so, when I saw this fabric over at Plush Addict, I thought "yes! cushions!" and then procrastinated for about a month over whether she'd actually like them. (spoilers: she did)

I shall be blogging the christmas makes in the next few days, and plans for the coming year. I may have spent a bit too much on patterns last night in Jaycott's sale. But so far I have been safe from any of the fabric sales as nothing is appealing to me.

Emergency xmas present almost finished, well, about half way there. It turned out there was more hand stitching involved than I thought, but hey. It's going ok. I've just bought buttons for it, and new needles for my machine because sewing through fleece and then suede and felt has basically destroyed my last decent needle. Knitting is coming along. Fibonacci scarf is about 66% done, lacework scarf hasn't actually been touched in about a week, but I have until Boxing Day to get that done, and I'm not actually doing anything on Christmas day, so I have a chance. My tree isn't up because I currently don't have any room. Soooon (the plan is to do it on sunday, when all my sewing stuff should have gone away for a couple of days and I can move furniture).   And here is the current state of the sewing table. Fabric, patterns, baking paper and suede jacket. Mwahaha.   And this is me and my squid, for size reference. I'm about 5' 6 (on a good d...

    So I'm currently faffing around at work, waiting for a meeting that might not happen and trying no to go mad with the current project I'm working on (pro tip: don't make the English graduate computerise the electrical drawings. bad things happen) My pretty fabric for my post xmas present sewing showed up at work on Friday (when I was off doing xmas shopping in MK) so I didn't get it until today. It's so pretty! And I managed some impressive colour matching given I was working on my not very well calibrated work monitor! This is going to be tucked away until I'm done, so I'm not tempted before I'm done with presents.   I posted the other night about how much I love my seam ripper (there was an issue with squid, which will be covered in a post later when I can get all the photos in the right order, so, when I get home) and someone asked what it was, so I took this to illustrate the point. It sees a fair amount of use, and this weekend ...

Another mildly panicked xmas present, to be made from this deconstructed suede jacket. Oh charity shops I do love thee sometimes.   Basically I may have failed to find anything for someone for christmas, so they're getting LARP kit, hastily thrown together from a broken down suede jacket and whatever material I can find in my stash that will match. 

I have many of them. Mostly because I'm frustrated with how long it's taking me to get stuff done for xmas, but sadly that's the nature of the beast when I'm knitting in lunchbreaks and the hour or so after I get home. Anyway, after xmas, I have plans. I'm going to finish the green shawl I was making for me, and I'm going to finish the skirt muslin I was making to see how massively out that sizing is. I have a small hope that I might get a dressmakers dummy (or at least money towards one) for xmas, so that would make things a little easier. I have LARP kit I want to make; a new dress for Odyssey, and a shirt for my rogue that looks a bit more Roman than what I've got at the moment. I might also remake the coat for my totally not nasty wannabe paladin. We shall see. And there's the usual round of repairs to be made. I also, today, in my lunchbreak, purchased this fabric and this fabric plus all the associated stabilisers and stuff to make this ...

November was a bit of a fail. Let's just leave it at that. Work has been pretty horrific of late, and I'm not getting as much crafting done as I'd like and xmas presents have started to become a pressing issue. The squid suffered some setbacks last weekend, when it became apparent that the long thin tentacles were going to be problematic to stuff. It turns out (so shockingly) that the fleece has a lot more stretch than the quilting cotton, and so as I was trying to stuff one of them, the cotton started splitting. No matter. I have plenty of fleece, so the long tentacles will just be all fleece. We'll call it a feature? Maybe? I've spent the afternoon sewing up the shorter tentacles and the fins. They now need stuffing, and then once the long tentacles are done, assembly can commence. Other than the squid, the main thing I've been working on is the Fibonacci sequence scarf for R. He knows about (he had to ok the colours, and I work on it during g...

The red cloak is finished! I wore it last week to an evening LARP event with the bottom hem still unstitched, but I finally got round to finishing it today (and as sods law dictates, the bobbin ran out with about an inch to go so I had to hand stitch). All in all this was a fairly simple project. I messed up cutting a couple of pieces, but I cut them too large rather than too small, so it was easily fixable (and I realised before I started sewing). The triangular inserts were a bit interesting to stitch in, and the points of them are shakily hand sewn (I will neaten them up if they cause me problems). This was me selfie-ing last week once the collar and buttons were done, along with the hat that would go with the outfit. And this is the collar up close. Someone said it could possibly do with something to stiffen it, but I have real issues with things being tight round my neck at times, and I quite like that it's squishy and soft. The button holes are a little wonky because...

I keep calling this "the fing" on facebook. It's a cloak as detailed as Sewing 2 in this post . It's technically done now. I have some cosmetic things I want to do to it (to hide a seam I botched up) and it needs a third button. I'm also going to make a hood to go with it, but my bobbin has emptied (halfway through sewing a buttonhole) and I need to reload it with a different colour so I can get on with Sewing 3 (the red version of this) and quite frankly it's annoying me. I've been having tension issues with the sewing machine as well. Anyway, a couple of pics...  On a hanger so I could get a vaguely decent shot. I sewed the right hand triangle on the wrong way, so the seam is on the outside, but I'm going to cover it with some more cloth to make it look like it's a rip that's been repaired. It could kind of do with some decent edging, but it's supposed to be a scruffy cloak and I'm lazy. The buttons are silver, but t...

So, current projects. There are plenty of them at the moment... Knitting 1. This is a shawl for me, using this pattern - Less is More from Ravelry. I'm about halfway done I reckon, and I'm really loving the texture that the yarn and pattern is creating. It got put on the back burner for a while as I was working on other things, but now it's getting a bit chilly, so I'm going to start working on it again so I have a scarf thing I can wear (to go with the billion other scarves and shawls I have). Knitting 2. This is a Christmas present for my best friend (he knows about it because he had to pick the colours). I've called it the "Pathfinder Fibonacci" as the colours match the colours we use for Pathfinder LARP, and the pattern is this Fibonacci sequence scarf , although I've added an extra step, so I'm going from 55, as he's a tall lanky bloke (this is causing some issues as I'm burning through wool at a rate of knots). I'm ab...