I’ve been knitting rapidly through the excellent film Son of Ranbow, the creepily good Being Human and a train journey from Leeds to London and gradually building up the stripes of my blue and pink scarf. You can definitely see where I’m progressing, where the most recent rows of stitches are considerably less holey than the earlier ones, but for my first knitting endeavour I’m quite happy.

It’s perfect to do in front of the telly. It’s equally perfect for getting out of  my boyfriend’s demonstrations when he wants to show me some new way of coding websites (django being his latest inspiration). I instead threaten to tell him about purling, casting off and other knitting related jargon. I guess programming and knitting are kinda similar?

That reminds me, I need to knit me a robot. Maybe some nice people at iknit will show me how to do this at one of their knitting groups, I’m trying to build up the courage to head down to one of these this week. I hope they are friendly. Its conveniently close to where I live  and since I have a few days of next week I reckon I should do a recce and check the store out – Wish me luck!

I had another go at making a cushion, this time stitching an owl onto the front that came from a card I was given by a friend. It was really nice to find another use for the owl and worked really well with the owl fabric that I picked up. It is nice to incorporate the yellow ric-rac into the the cushion too.

Like the last one I made, this cushion cover is a bit snug for the pillow.  I’m going to have to work on that for next time – it seems that the patterns in ‘Sew!’  are a little bit small for the cushions they recommend.  I’ll definitely have to get this sorted if I want to have a go at making a cushion good enough to give as a gift. I better keep practicing then.

It took me a while to think what to make with the bird patterned fabric I recently bought – making a peg bag seems a bit pre-emptive since the weather is too cold to hang clothes out and who really needs that fancy a peg bag anyway? To put the fabric to good use a cushion cover seemed a great solution.

Using the pattern from Sew!, I went off piste from Cath Kidston’s instructions to use striped ticking and floral fabric by going for yellow gingham and ‘It’s a hoot’ bird fabric. With this project marked at ‘thimble level 1′ (the easiest one!) it was quite a quick and fairly simple process to follow. Though it is a little snug for the cushion inside it came out OK. Matt, my boyfriend, is now under strict instructions not to use this cushion, as is his normal practice,  to rest his feet.

Having not used the Cath Kidston book ‘Sew!’ since my second project, it is about time I try out some more of the projects in its pages. Since my flat is getting an ample scattering of covers, holders and cosies it would be nice for a change to make something I can give away as a gift. So after flicking through ‘Sew!’ the Stanley dog toy caught my eye as a present for my nephew.

Although it can be a prickly endeavour for the tips of your fingers, even with a thimble, I really enjoy the slow careful process of hand stitching. It also involved my first experience with ric rac,  the scalloped shaped edging to the toy, and which Cath Kidston aptly describes as ‘cheerful’. After stitching the yellow gingham back to the circle patterned front of the toy, all that was left was to make the collar and name tag. Since this present is for my sister’s baby Angus it seemed only right that instead of stitching Stan, this dog should be called Gus. It will be great when I visit my sister on Friday and I can give Gus to Angus.

Though learning to sew is mostly about having fun and taking part in an activity just for me, with no pressure to be perfect, I like my projects to have a least some form of practical application. So when the kitchen drawer started to become full of plastic bags from trips to the supermarket, having a grocery bag holder was clearly becoming a necessity.

Make it and Love it quickly came to the rescue with these instructions for making a grocery bag holder. I opted for the easier job of using a single piece of fabric over several strips. Perhaps that makes me lazy but that seems like just too much work for just something to use for plastic bags. Here’s that Amy Butler fabric again – it sure goes far for only £5. Now I just need more plastic bags so that I can fill it straight to the top. Oh and find a better place to hang it, not the bathroom door.

Despite using it almost daily for the past couple of weeks while I learnt the art of sewing straight, my sewing machine still managed to  gather dust. Though I’m sad that I won’t be able to enjoy its purple boldness as a feature in my living room, I thought it would be a good idea to make a sewing machine cover to keep it dust free.

I like the instructions from Chez Larsson, a blog that helpfully explains the process through step by step photographs. This blog has lots of DIY tips and Benita’s explanation of how to make a pillow case from a t-shirt is definitely going to be added to my list of projects to do. Using some Amy Butler fabric I bought in a sale, I set about making the cover. Maybe one day I will add a pocket or other embellishment but for the time being I quite like this simple style. Luckily having such a titchy machine makes stitching a cover super quick.

Over the years my generous friends have given me gifts that have built up my tea set (cups, saucers, tea pots and even tea bag squeezer tongs). I think it is about time I complete the collection with a tea cosy.

Step in Lisa Stickley. Lisa’s tea cosy instructions made it to the Guardian’s making time series, a collection of weekly craft projects. This step by step guide to making a tea cosy comes from Lisa’s Made at Home series which has similar projects to Sew! but has some different interesting makes for a beginner.

This project is simple to do, the only complicated bit being where you draw a semi circle round your tea pot. I found it easier to put a dot on the paper where the edges of your tea pot are, lid, handle, spout, then do another dot 5cm along to draw the semi-circle big enough.  Oh and remembering to pay attention to the instructions; my first attempt had me stitching the handle so that the loop was inside the tea cosy.

I chose a floral pattern for my tea cosy and then cut up one of my boyfriend’s T-shirts for the lining – thanks Matt. It is great to have such quick results that will make me smile and keep my tea warm for longer.

Sew!

After a very dangerous trip to John Lewis on Oxford street (dangerous for my purse that is) I acquired Cath Kidston’s ‘Sew!’ This book is filled with lots of  little sewing projects that are great as a starting step to get into sewing and comes with the fabric to make your very own Cath Kidston shoulder bag.

Perhaps it wasn’t the greatest idea to learn how to sew by using designer fabric but I hope that no one will look too closely at the stitching. Through making this bag I learned that rather than sewing being a serene experience it mostly comprised of me swearing at myself, the sewing machine and the pin I just pricked my finger with. Actual blood and probably sweat went into the making of this bag.

One major flaw in ‘Sew!’ is that in Cathy’s eagerness to delight the reader with glossy pictures of her vintage inspired creations the descriptions of sewing techniques are particularly brief. I discovered this when trying to work out from just one sentence and a very small diagram how exactly I could create a ‘T-junction’ that allows the bag to have a rectangular bottom.

Searching online I discovered that many others were suffering from the exact same problem which was a relief that it wasn’t just me. From the sewing forum.co.uk I shall always be in gratitude for ‘queeniegoth’ for posting the solution. After having finished creating the bag I realised I had no use for another Cath Kidston bag and began to use it to hold all the things I used to create it – and so the circle is complete.

Cath Kidston Shoulder bag

Lessons Learned:

Lesson 1: Cath Kidston’s book Sew! has lots of fun ideas but is not great when it comes to explaining how to produce it – leading the ‘!’ to be one of exasperation.

Lesson 2: Never underestimate the kindness of the interweb community – they will save you from any craft related problem. (And also that Goths like floral too I suppose?)

Pennies were being pinched this Christmas and the excitement of having my first xmas tree in my own pad was hindered by the thought of buying all the shinies, dangles and flashies to cover all the branches you just paid good money for.  After some reading up online I thought; why not make my own decorations?

Making Christmas tree decorations is surprisingly easy, it just took a few evenings hand stitching in front of the TV and there were soon plenty of stockings, reindeer, robins and hearts to cover a decent tree.

Though my stitching is far from perfect the imperfections just add to the home-made feel and I particularly like the flexibility of being able to choose exactly what I wanted to go on the tree, rather than shopping around for it. Now xmas is over I can’t  wait till next year when I can bring them out again and even add to the collection with more festive shapes.

To make the decorations shown I used an old dress, ribbon collected from beautifully wrapped presents and the stuffing from a very ugly elephant toy my boyfriend won for me at a fair  – sorry Matt. Some may think of this as using bits of old rubbish but I prefer to think of it as part of sustainability. Either way these odds and sods were great materials for my project.

The shapes used for the decorations were found from printing out Christmas themed shapes I found online and then using these as the templates to cut around the fabric.

Step 1:Find a suitable shape online for you decorations.  Wish I’d found this Russian doll template when making mine. Good old google images – and if you search in black and white you are more likely to find a template or stencil shape.

Step 2: Cut out the shapes to make the decorations – front and back.

Step3: Sew around the outline, stuff, add ribbons to hang them from and hey presto – a robbin, reindeer or Russian doll Christmas decoration.