Two Afternoon Tea Tops (and a dress)

Having found the pattern for the Afternoon Tea Top on BurdaStyle, I have gone overboard and made a couple (and I plan on making more).

Here's the first two:

I'm going to enter the first one into the Spring Top week vote as I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.

I then realised that it would be fairly easy to modify the pattern into a dress. In order to do this I laid out all the pattern pieces as normal, with the exception of the main front and back bodice parts. These pieces I laid out with an existing skirt pattern I had lying around (the skirt from the Sew U book). I then drew around this smoothing out where there was any overlap, and I extended the dart from the bodice to go down to where the dart on the skirt finishes. Once I'd put it all together, the dress had quite a 50s effect, so to fit in with this, I made the straps into halter ties.

Here's the finished dress: The first time I wore it out, I was complimented on it and asked where they could buy one from, so I'm pretty happy with that!

Floral bag, twirly skirt

I have finally managed to finish off and photograph a couple of projects which I started quite a while ago.

The first one is a bag which I made from a tutorial on the Heart of Mary blog.
I'm quite pleased with the way it has turned out, but for myself I'd like a longer strap and different fabric. Due to this, I think I'll be listing it on my etsy site.

The next is a skirt that I mentioned in an earlier blog entry that I've done entirely from my own design. I based it on a skirt that I bought from Primark a while ago by just creating 8 identical panels, sewing them together and then creating a band to go around the top. I then hemmed it and put a zip in between 2 of the panels. It was kind of an experiment but I'm really pleased with the way it turned out and shall definitely make another at some point....and an action shot:

Sock Knitting: Part 2 (and Craft Off)

This time I learned how to turn the heel. I've learned the short row shaping method and it's pretty fun! It looks properly 3D now. Here's the back of it (you can kind of make out the sock shape):

Here's my picot edge, I'm particularly proud of that!


Unfortunately, the first thing I had to do on my own after the class was to pick up stitches from the side and I think I picked up the wrong part of the stitch, thus resulting in a ladder effect. I think I've worked out what the problem was, but if anyone has any advice on this (or any other aspect of my sock) then please shout up!

Laddered bit:



In other crafty news, a couple of friends and I went to an event at the Malt Cross in Nottingham to celebrate the launch of the Spinsters Emporium website. The event was a "Craft Off" with the theme being cheese. We created a pastiche of the "Now That's What I Call Music" albums with some cheese puns on existing song titles as the tracks. Here's the cover (we also made a vinyl record to go inside, out of cardboard).

Sadly, we didn't even get a mention for our beautiful work!

Ebay Disaster!

I bought a vintage shirt dress pattern on Ebay the other day with the intentions of making myself a nice black shirt dress to go with the lovely purple patent leather shoes I had just bought. In my excitement about this, I failed to actually look at the sizing of the pattern and when it arrived I discovered to my size 10 horror that it was for sizes 18 and 20.

With this in mind, I have now put it for sale in my Etsy shop. See below for a pic of the pattern.




Now I'm off to find myself a similar pattern that will actually fit me!

Sock Knitting: Part 1

So, I went to the second of the John Lewis tutorials that I've signed up to on Saturday. This week I learned to knit in the round. I can't believe I've not tried it before - it's so much easier than it looks. I also learned to do a picot edge (not so easy).

I'm making them out of this wool:I love the way it's self-striping. Although I'm thoroughly baffled as to how it works!

Hopefully I can manage to knit my desired length of sock before the 21st when I head back to find out how to turn the heel.

Crochet Class

So, on Saturday I decided to go along to one of the free classes that John Lewis haberdashery put on. This week it was basic crochet. I now know how to do a crochet chain, double crochet, treble crochet, increasing and decreasing stitches. Very badly. I shall attempt to practice it (if I can remember how) and maybe I'll have something good to show sometime soon. At the moment though, the mess below is all I have created:

Next week....Sock Knitting! (part one of three).

Ladies and Gentlemen...the Circus Dress

As I mentioned in my previous post, I made a dress from this tutorial. I got around to sewing up a couple of places where it had come apart and taking photos.

Here's the dress:


And a close up of the material:

I'm not too happy with the neckline as it's quite unflattering and would probably do it a bit lower and use a facing next time. I love the really cute fabric though, thanks IKEA!

Tesco Sheet = Lovely New Dress

Having made a dress from this great tutorial over on craftster, i decided to make a similar dress by modifying it a bit. I took the basis for making the bottom and doing the measurements for the top, and made the top so that it had straps over the shoulders.

As it was my first attempt at drawing up my own pattern, things were bound to go wrong...and they did. I completely forgot about seam allowance and ended up with a tiny bodice. In order to fix this, I have added in panels at the back (I luckily noticed before I'd fitted the zip). These panels actually add to the effect of the top, so I'm pretty pleased it worked out that way.

Here's a picture of it on a hanger:


And one of me wearing it to get the effect of the bodice:
As the material came from a duvet cover, there's absolutely loads of it left. At present I'm making up a skirt out of some of the remainder (again from my own design, so who knows how it will turn out). I'll post up pictures once it's done.

A long awaited cardigan

Having started knitting 'the go-everywhere, go-with-everything cardigan' from the first Stitch N Bitch book months ago, I have finally finished the back piece. All 140 rows of it. I think choosing black as the main colour was a mistake as it's just so plain and boring to look at. Although on second thoughts, it's probably better than a bright colour that would make looking at it for prolonged periods of time quite difficult.

I have now promised myself to stop putting off picking it up, and shall be making a start on the next piece shortly. I may even brave the Lee Rosy knitting group tomorrow....

...And after a long hiatus

Having not had the ability to put photos onto my computer for a while, I've neglected posting here. Last night however my cable for my camera miraculously appeared and I am able to put new photos up again.

I'll start by putting up pictures of a couple of the purses I have made from leftover bits of material. I used this great tutorial as a guide for making them.


And a felt owl purse which I made as a Christmas present for my friend Laura.
I shall be taking photos of a few recent projects and putting them up here over the course of the week.