The Anonymous Blueberry Muffin Thief Sews...

  It's been a month, can we all agree on that? January and February are historically awful months for me and mine, so I'm generally a fan of them passing as fast as possible. January did well on that count, although it's been a drag at work. In response to this, I did what any sane person would do; I spent money. Firstly, I replaced the decrepit old printer that I got free with my laptop (that has since vanished into whatever ether old laptops go to) when I went to university. Which, as was so kindly pointed out last night, was 10 years ago this coming October.  I haven't set the new one up (I'm trying to work out where to put it) but it does now mean I have no excuse for not printing patterns, and it means that when I do print patterns, I don't have to do it sneaky like at work.     Then I bought fabric. (disclaimer: not all of this fabric was bought this month, but there are 3m of gorgeous soft ponte that's sitting in a bag rather than b...

 More projects are in the works. I am however suffering from a severe case of winter blues, coupled with LARP starting to pick up again for the year (pre-season planning and stuff) and a general loathing of my job that's infecting pretty much everything I do.   But enough of the blah. I spent the weekend trying to sort my house out, mostly so that I had enough flat surface to get some cutting done. Saturday I cut the pieces for a LARP shirt. It's a Simplicity 3519  in view D, which I know is going to be massive on the sleeves and probably too small on the chest. It's cut in a size XL (to accommodate chest) and the sleeves are only half the size of the back and front (and they're huge). I used about 3 metres of calico for this, which is a pain as that's most of my toile fabric gone in one shot. Oh well. Even if it is huge, I can pass it off onto someone else, or I can modify it to actually fit me. LARP shirts that fit me are a rarity, so making my own is basic...

This is a really image heavy post, for while I sort of apologise, but on the other hand, the fabric is amazing, so at least it's pretty :D (I'm also writing this in between bits of work at work, so if coding is amiss, I apologise - there's something not quite right with the images, I'll fix it when I get home) - photos have now been fixed. The first finished make of the year is an Ethel Tote from Swoon Patterns . I've had the pattern for a couple of months now (it's a free pattern that I picked up because I'd bought their Betty Bowler pattern and then decided I wanted a test project to see where I was missing knowledge). I bought the fabric before Christmas and kind of used it as a lure to make sure I got all the xmas sewing done in time. This is a PDF pattern, with some bits that need taping together. I printed it at work, and somehow ended up with everything being about half an inch bigger than it should have been (I suspect I messed up the prin...

I started the cutting last night, got about halfway through, thought I'd screwed up the interfacing, gave up and went to bed. Came home this evening, running on 4 hours sleep (god I'm sick of these high winds already; my street is a wind funnel) and thought that more work on it would be a bad idea. When have I EVER paid attention to that kind of thinking? Finished the cutting and started ironing interfacing while I was making dinner, finished ironing the interfacing and fusible fleece after dinner and thought I'd leave it there. But no. No, I started sewing (once I'd stared at the instructions and then googled for finished versions of the project, because I was having issues working out where one of the pockets was intended to go). The two open pockets have been started. I'm in love with the fabric all over again. I wish there was a slightly better colour match on the thread, but I've not been able to find one, and in some ways I quite like it. I won...

Someone has just agreed to pay me, nay, asked to pay me, for a squid! Colours and price have been agreed, now to order fabric and get going. I'm also considering making one in 'realistic' colours. I'm also trying not to pad the fabric orders just so I can get free shipping, unless it's stuff I actually need. I've got a Wurm on my knitting needles at the moment, a bag full of knitting needles that need sorting into sizes, and this weekend, along with trying to clean my kitchen after 2 evenings of manic baking this week, I'm hoping to finish the skirt muslin, work out what size it NEEDS to be (rather than what it currently is) and cut an actual skirt. I found some fabric that I think was supposed to be a draft excluder many years ago, but which is actually really nice cotton, and it would make a really cool skirt (that hopefully doesn't need a lining). This is just the front piece. While I am somewhat large in the hip department, this goes all t...

 This is the last of the presents I made this year. I did start another scarf for my step-mum, but that ended up being too much work and I ripped it out. Anyway, this is a 2 meter knitted scarf, which on Ravelry is known as the Pathfinder Fibonacci. Pathfinder, because the colours are as close to the ones we use for the LARP group as I could find, and Fibonacci because that's the pattern the rows are laid out in.

 This was the big one. The one that was going to the person whose opinion as a crafter I care about, and a person who has had a bit of a rough year. Thankfully, by some miracle, it all came together, although this was NOT without disasters.