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I’ve been spending the last couple weeks indulging myself with my new sewing interest. A lot of that time has been spent pouring over blogs, tutorial sites, sewing communities. There is just as much information on the internet for sewing as there is for knitting, which is really saying something!

Its lead me to some thinking about my blog and what I share with those who read it. Some of my favourite sewing blogs contain posts about the craft, but also contain inspiration, information and tutorials, and even some posts just meant to create discussion in the comments. It makes me excited to visit them each day to see how the person is feeling and what is driving them to create.

I would love my blog to reflect that part of me, instead of just being a place where I post about what it is I’ve knit or bought that week. In fact, if I don’t feel the pressure to take a picture of my own knitting or sewing or crafting, I might be spurred to make more posts!

With all the thinking I’ve been doing, I’ve certainly been making things at a slower and more thoughtful pace.

A week ago I cut out some fabric for a pajamas set, and while I don’t have a picture of them in their current state they are nearly complete. The fabric is a cute flannel monster print that was so much fun I couldn’t resist. It was also on sale which is never a bad thing.

One of the sewing blogs I frequent had a challenge wherein she wore only clothes she made herself for the whole month of March. She enjoyed it so much that she’s actually created a “Me Made May” challenge! I obviously can’t join this in the full spirit intended, but I thought a fun start may be to only sleep in clothes I have made myself. I can certainly get together a couple of pajama sets within the next month!

I like the idea of this challenge as part of the reason for me wanting to sew is so that I can become more independent of stores and shopping. I find that when I buy clothes I buy them because they are cheap and will work, not to reflect my style or because they will last. It’s a highly consumerist way to clothe myself, as well as not the most attractive! It would be so much better if I chose the style, cut, fabric and fit of my clothes. Even knitters can get in on this. Maybe you will only wear hand knit socks all month? Or maybe only hand knit accessories?

I’ve also starting picking fabrics for a new summer quilt. Not surprisingly, fabric in large quantities is not cheap. I started with grabbing some fat quarters here and there and then picked out a binding and backing based on the direction the fat quarters were taking me in. I don’t have everything I need yet, but here is what it looks like so far:

The green fabric along the bottom is the backing, followed by the red floral binding for the edge of the quilt. The white cotton will be the spacing in between all the colourful fat quarters which will make up the top of the quilt. The colour palette was originally oranges and greens, but the red seemed to sneak its way in there and I love it so it’s staying!

I have to say that picking fabric for a quilt is a lot different than picking yarn for a sweater. It’s actually a lot harder. Once I get all the fabrics together I will definitely make a post focusing on my choices with this one. A new craft is so much fun for experimenting; I can’t wait to see how it comes out in the end.

Now I don’t want you to think I have forgotten knitting. It’s still there. Waiting. And sometimes being worked on little by little.

I can say that it is nice to have a break now and then. I’ve been knitting for a decade and sometimes it’s hard to be inspired by something you do every day for that amount of time. Looking at clothing and fashion as a whole, instead of just the knitting piece, is giving me a different way to view things. I love knitting and will never stop, my new experience and knowledge can only help the ideas I have with knitting grow! Hopefully they won’t grow as slowly as these socks. They are taking forever!

1. I finished more sewing! The liners for Winston’s cage, set one and two. I still need to do the third set, and then figure out what to do with the fabric scraps. Maybe a little corner house for his cage is in order.

The yellow and brown will really camouflage it’s entended purpose of collecting pees and poos.

Robots! How could I resist?

2. I actually finished seaming the Medallion Cardigan. It’s okay. My main issue is that they tell you to “knit until it makes a circle” which is pretty much no direction at all. When a garment is constructed in an entirely new way, it might be helpful to include a few more pointers besides “knit until it fits around the inner circle”. Basically, the reason this took me so long is I overknit the border by about a foot. I undid a load of my knitting, seamed the piece, and then blocked it.

Not bad right? Well, kinda. The center flower blocks out WAY BIGGER than the border. So the instructions should probably have included something about blocking that first, letting it dry, then comparing the border to it. All in all, it is wearable - but just not perfect. To improve it even more the center medallion should have a very stretchy bind off, which I didn’t think about at the time.

3. I somehow managed to sneak in 13 hours of sleep on Friday night. Yes, it was as awesome as it sounds. Unfortunately I don’t have much else in the way of progress to show you due to all my extreme laziness. Sorry to say it was totally worth it. I am really well rested though, and the bags under my eyes are nearly gone! Thank god it’s Sunday so I will soon be back to my sleep deprived and productive ways.

Yep, sewing! I need another hobby like an extra hole in the head, but I decided I need to learn how to sew. More and more I am unhappy with the clothes available in most stores. They don’t fit me well and I hate the idea of paying for people in third world countries to slave away for these “throw-away” garments.

If I am ever going to be successful in making a whole wardrobe for myself I need to learn to sew. As awesome as knitting is, I don’t think I want knitted pants.

As long as I have been making clothes with sticks and string, I can’t just start out sewing hot skirts and alluring dresses. I need to start out on simple things, like maybe a baby quilt…

This fabric kit was an impulse buy while wandering through Joanns a couple weeks ago. Once I started sewing I couldn’t stop and it was finished in a week! This is perfect for my good friend Carmen’s baby girl, whose room will be decorated in similar colours.

Here is a close up. Not that it’s really fancy, but the fabrics are cute! The backing is the flannel pink tweetie birds with the occasional brown bird. A soft fuzzy brown fur fabric borders the plain squares, which vary from satin to cotton prints.

On the whole knitting is quite different than sewing, but there are similarities. You have to pay attention to the fabrics used (that satin was a killer). Preparing is key (swatches and ironing, both very important). And the sense of accomplishment is definitely addicting! Visions of a queen size quilt are now dancing through my head.

Someone may need to step in before I start amassing a fabric stash. Maybe my boyfriend can give up his closet space? Or maybe the food cupboards would serve more purpose as stash containers? Why do we have a couch taking up so much of our living room when it could be fabric storage? Or, maybe we just need a bigger place!

I have not really done much spinning this past week. All of my previous progress is still buoying me and I don’t feel the pressing need to burn through the fibre stash at quite the same pace as I did. I’ve not even really been knitting. In fact, I’ve been doing something that is neither knitting or spinning, but I will not have pictures of it until tomorrow.

I do have pictures of a quick knit that resembles a snail but was finished as fast as lightening.

It’s cute! Feels a bit funny on my head, I might want to get it soaking wet and then tug it down over my noggin’. I guess I am just used to hats fitting… different than this? But I do like it! This is “Quincy” by Jared Flood in his “Made in Brooklyn” collection, knit out out of Malabrigo in “Vaa”. This colourway is one of the most interesting colourways to me, and I am so pleased that it showed properly on the camera. Double win!

I also have some pics of my Elements Hat in good lighting on an actual head!

Okay, it’s a bit blurry but I was asking Matt to take the pictures and he’s not used to the camera. Yes, that is a nub at the top.

And here is the elusive Matt, trying to help me out with a bit of male modeling and to give you a break from way too much of my face. What a sweetheart!

So hopefully all these head shots can tide you over until I can get daylight pics of the “other” craft. Any guesses as to what I’ve been up to?

I realized in doing my WIP Roundup the other day that there may be a distinct reason I am bored with my current knitting. It’s all brown. All of it! Brown, beige, tan, maybe some grey. Depressing! So to make my knitting not so boring, I first finished up some of the boring beige items.

The French Press Slippers that were a gift for my friend Carmen are finally done! In March, 4 months too late. Or maybe they are 6 months early! Either way, I finally get to send them out to her in the coming week. The felting was a bit uneven on one of the toes, but it will even out with wear and washing. The buttons are from my random button stash, I am a bit sad to be letting them go as I really like them, but I still have one or two left from the set so maybe I need to make my own slippers!

I also finished up those Noro striped socks I was working on for what seemed like ages. I think these took a lot longer than they should of as they were my travel knitting project. For three weeks I actually drove to work instead of taking the train so they got no action.

Now that they are complete I thought it would be good to add some colour to my knitting life, so I grabbed the most colourful sock yarn I could find for my new train knitting project. Behold, the Zauberball.

The gradual transition on this yarn with such bright colours is similar to Noro, but the yarn is extremely evenly spun and the colours do not mix at all. It’s like the OCD version or Noro, which is kind of great. I love the colour change so much that I am attempting to come up with a way to not mess it up while turning the heel. I have a few ideas, but am unsure how they will turn out in knitting actuality.

I am going to head over to knitting group in an hour so hopefully I can bounce my throughts off of them and see if they think it will work. If it does, I will DEFINITELY share it. If it doesn’t, I will probably just hide my shame and pretend like these socks never existed.