Jewellery

Well, here it is. The commemorative Lorne Necklace. What do you think? The chain is about 80cm long and the piece is about 8cm long. It sits just below the bustline.

Another thing I was asked to make was 4 identical sets of earrings for my sister-in-law. She says one is for her and 3 are for gifts. What do you think of these?

Quiet...

Sorry, I've been a bit quiet of late. I ended my 2nd week of work at my new job with a girls weekend away to Lorne. Two girlfriends picked me up from my office and we took a leisurely 4 hours to drive down there with a few retail pitstops. The house was amazing, I'm sorry I didn't take pics. A lovely weekend away with 6 girls (no hubbies or babies), lots of chatting, drinking, and eating. I even got my jewellery kit out to make a commemorative "Lorne" necklace for 3 of the girls. I'll have to make 3 more for the rest of us.

In the meantime, I've finished off my 2nd pair of legwarmies in the opposite colours to the first, thanks to lesleyp for sending me scrap yarn to finish the job:



I've also made progress on my Delicious OTK socks:

Jewellery making

I caught the jewellery making bug from my stitch marker making bug...it's contagious. I came up with a few different things I liked and I've offered them for sale on my Etsy page. The problem is that I have great difficulty in photographing silver! I only have a white light box and silver tends to blend in. My husband is pretty hopeless at taking them too, as you can see.

Anyway, last night I thought I'd whip up a bracelet and necklace I could wear to work today. This is the bracelet...sorry about the blurry iPhone pics:

Acquisition

So here is my newest acquisition. I bought it from The Fiber Denn on Etsy. It's the perfect shade of plum for a pair of Evening Stockings for a Young Lady. I originally wanted Rowan 4ply Soft in colourway Victoria, but they don't make it anymore and I couldn't get it anywhere! Pretty good match, I reckon. I was pleasantly suprised at how rich the colour was. PERFECT.

Fabric basket

I got this great little tutorial from my friend Kate. It looked like a cute little fabric basket to try. I'm happy with the outcome although I didn't catch all the lining in the edge sewing :( Oh well, learn for next time. Still a very cute project!

Boxy project bags

I finally got to my machine tonight to whip up my first boxy project bag. I used 2 different tutorials. One for the zipper and one for the project bag. I made one mistake though and that was I didn't ensure my fabric was the same length as the actual opening of the zip. My fabric was slightly longer. You can see what happens with this in the pics (you may have to click on the pic to enlarge). But in all I'm pretty happy with my first go! Many more to come with my new fabrics.

Update: The 2nd bag I made out of the same fabric turned out neater when I cut the fabric the same size as the zip opening, but obviously a tad smaller bag.

Stash

I popped in to Spotlight to get some zips for some boxy sock project bags I'm going to make and I saw some heavy canvas that I liked for $16.95/m. I asked for 1/2 metre of each of the fabrics and each time he cut 1m in error. He only charged me for 1/2 each time! It was my lucky day. Also, the zips I wanted were about $2.50 each but they all scanned up at 0.99c so I bought loads. Stay tuned for the project bags.

I'm off to nachos with a close friend! Nom-nom...

Shoe bag

My husband recently bought me my first full-size designer handbag for my birthday. It is big enough to carry everything I need in it. Even my flats/heels. Of course I don't want the dirty soles of my shoes touching the inside of my bag so I made myself a shoe bag using a familiar fabric :) The bag is big enough to hold my flats or heels. EVEN my boots!

***I changed the ribbon to a satin knitted cord because the ribbon was too "sticky"***



1. Cut a piece of heavyweight and lining fabric 18"x12".
2. Place the pieces rightsides together and sew along one of the long edges.
3. Turn it right side out and press.
4. Fold the sewn piece in half rights sides together along the original short edges so you have the lining piece up the top and the outer fabric on the bottom aligning the seamed edge.
5. Sew along the short edge and long edge.
6. Sew along the last short edge leaving an 8" gap.
7. Pull the whole lot the right side out through that 8" gap.
8. Pull the lining out and top stitch the 8" gap folding the seams under.
9. Push the lining back into the bag and sew another line of stitching along the top edge of the bag about 2cm down from the top.
10. Unpick the 2cm side seam enough to feed through a ribbon/rope to use as a tie.

My first pair of socks

These were the first pair of socks I ever made. I recently ordered a pair of sock blockers from the US so I thought I would take a new photo of them while they were drying. The big lesson with making socks is to use a VERY SUPER STRETCHY bind off. And also start increasing your sitches as you hit the bottom of your scarf. I was just so focused on using every last scrap of this yarn doing a toe up sock that I didn't think of anything else. I'm probably going to have to undo the bind off and re-do it.

Bugger!

So I should technically have had enough yarn leftover from my legwarmies to make another pair in the opposite colour. But I've fallen short about 5 metres. I'm on the hunt on Ravelry for 5 metres of the charcoal and 3 metres of the gray (Filatura Di Crosa Zara Solid). Please help me if you can...

Legwarmies

I've finished these adorable little legwarmies for a friend who has just given birth to her first child...a boy. I wanted something quick and cute to send to her. I think these turned out so lovely using this Jogless Stripes Tutorial. It worked a treat! I also made this little label for the outside with washing instructions on the back.

Storms and flights don't mix

What a day. It started off hot and muggy so I did a few loads of washing and hung them up to dry. Then as my son and I were napping, I could hear thunder in the distance. I quickly dashed out to take the washing down. 5 minutes later, huge downpour of rain with hail! My husband was due to fly back from Sydney at that very moment. He calls me after he was due to land in Melbourne, but his plane was turned back and he was still in Sydney! His flight left Melbourne at 3pm and now it looks like he won't be home till after 8pm. Poor bugger.

Meanwhile, my son and I have decided that this weather screamed "Pizza" at us. So pizza for dinner it is. Not much time or inclination to knit. But a lot of researching, yarn stalking and destashing was done. Including a skein of coveted Wollmeise Sockenwolle 80/20 Twin. If you know anything about this wool, you would know that the online shop is always empty! That's how popular it is. They only upload with new stock once a week when crazy knitting ladies from all over the world sit at their computers pressing refresh until they see something, and jump on it whether they like the colour or not. Think the Myer Boxing Day sales where people are pinching things out of your shopping basket! I've never been able to buy from the website so I can only buy after market. This colour just isn't me so I'm passing it on to someone who can appreciate it. $35 plus postage for 466m of sock yarn.

Sock blanks...?

I have never heard of this but I've recently stumbled on something called "Sock Blanks". It is 2 strands of undyed sock yarn knitted up into a big rectangle ready to dye. After you've dyed your colours (variegated, handpainted, solid) you can knit straight from the square and make 2 identical of sock at the same time! BRILLIANT!



On top of that I've also stumbled upon Yarn Workshop which supplied undyed yarn in huge amounts for really cheap! And they do dying workshops. Now THIS is exactly what I wanted. Sydney, here I come...again :)

Oh, and how could I forget about Etsy? There are so many differnt colours of hand dyed yarn there. Plenty in the colour I'm after too. What to do...what to do?

A million ideas

Ok, so now that the crafting bug has bitten me, I'm finding my mind wandering ALL THE TIME about all the things I'd like to make, knit, dye or try. The thing that is uppermost on my list at the moment is finding a sock yarn that is a lovely warm eggplant/beetroot colour. I cannot find a suitable yarn anywhere. So my mind wanders around the thought of buying a base yarn and dying it myself. I've never done this before, but it can't be THAT hard, can it??

Where does one begin when it comes to freshly dying sock yarn? Where do I buy base yarn? What do I use to dye with? How do I dye it? I've read a few blogs on how to do it, but I'm really not sure what to use as the base. Any ideas?

This will eventually become a pair of Evening Stockings For A Young Lady to wear with my new shoes. HEELLLPPP :)

Legwarmies for a newborn

So I just found out that someone I know had her first baby. It's a boy. So I thought I'd whip up something quick and cute. I can never resist an excuse to make a baby item. For this one, I was thinking little leg warmers. Maybe in a grey stripe. I went to Sunspun (my favourite place on earth) to see what they had. I found some Filatura Di Crosa Zara Solid and it felt delightfully soft. I've never used it before. I bought 2 shades of grey and have cast on already. I know, I know, I said I wouldn't start a new project until I finished all my other WIPs. But this was an emergency :)

To make the stripes "jogless" I followed this tutorial. It's brilliant!

New shoes

So I'm sad to say that I'm going back to work full-time as of this Tuesday after the long weekend. Well, sad and happy both. That's why I made the skirt. I'm also in the habit of knitting socks at the moment. And knee-highs at that. I was thinking that knee-highs would work with my new skirt but I needed a new pair of shoes :) So I bought these (shown with my Delicious Knee Highs):





Don't you think they would look lovely with lacy knitted knee-highs? I do :)

My a-line skirt

Well here it is! My a-line skirt that I followed a pattern to make. What do you think? I'm pretty happy with it. It's very comfortable and I think it'll look great with my plethora of boots. I'm thinking I might make a few more while the pattern adjustments are fresh in my mind. Maybe a pinstripe or a lighter colour. In all, this skirt cost $30 to make and that includes the cost of the pattern.

Sewing from a pattern

It's been a very long time since I've used a pattern to sew a wearable garment. I'm talking 20 years. Yep, high school Home Economics was the last time I think. It's been a learning curve, that's for sure!

I was in need of a heavy-weight a-line black work skirt. One I could wear my many pairs of boots with. I finally found a pattern that I thought would look nice - New Look #6854 (B).

Once I got over the shock of measuring up to a size 16 (!) I just went with it. The only alteration I had to do in the end was make the butt darts deeper. I think this pattern was meant to be worn high in the waist as you can see in the pic. But I like to wear mine low on the hips. Hence the size 16 and smaller butt. It's taken me one whole day, but it's done with no major catastrophes. I even lined it! Since it is nighttime now, I can't get a good pic. I'll try to get one up tomorrow.

All things crafty

I'm relatively new to the world of crafting and DEFINITELY new to the world of blogging. I got my inspiration for blogging from my friends Kate and Margarita. So here goes...

So I've finally designated myself a dedicated crafting area...FINALLY. I must admit I've only recently discovered that there are other crafts that get my creative juices going. I've recently pulled out my sewing machine from storage where it's been living since I acquired it! I came across a tutorial online on how to make some project bags. This suited me down to a tee as I have more than a few knitting projects on the go.

Tell me what you think...