I guess it’s quite fitting for my crafting these days that I thought I had taken a picture of my knitting and then it seems I didn’t. It wasn’t on my camera and I hadn’t deleted old pictures yet. Weird. So, this is what you get. A not so great picture, since the sun is not completely up yet and it’s raining too…
Anyway, it is fitting, since this is what I’ve been doing this week. Knitting round and round, hoping for the blue to change into a happier color (and dreading the pink, since that’s not really my favorite color). Not knitting as much as I hoped either. But it is always within reach. That’s a start.
I’m experimenting with knitting a bag without a pattern, but I’m not sure where I’m going with this prototype. It is wonderful comfort knitting though and I guess I will find some use for it eventually, so I’ll just keep going.
Last weeks list:
– Julia directed me to this cardigan and I think I’d like to make it. Perfect for the colder evenings (I know you’re laughing, but goodness, I’ve been so cold this “winter”. Only 75 Fahrenheit/24 Celsius most nights) – still need to print that pattern and cast on for it
– I also have an idea for a simpler project that I can just wing without too much thinking (because a. I knit mostly at night, when I can’t read a pattern and b. I’m just so tired most of the time). Going to try that and I’ll show you next week (or not if it fails) – as seen above. Knitting on, but not really sure where I’m going
– stop myself from getting overly enthusiastic. Startitis has not helped my knitting mojo these past two years. Too overwhelming, I guess. One big project and one easy project should be enough for now. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make plans… 😉 – Um, yeah. Knitting mojo is disappearing again, even without startitis. But I’ll try to hang on. I missed it too much.
This weeks list:
– print that pattern and cast on for that cardigan
– keep knitting that bag
– find time to sew (I need dresses and/or skirts badly)
One of the things on my (long) list of things I’d like to be able to do, is sewing my own clothes. Now, I don’t have the time nor the patience to look through intricate patterns, adjust sizes and things like that. Or, to be honest, I tried that and failed miserably. Not my kind of sewing. So I was on a quest for an easy dress pattern, that would tick all the boxes (comfortable, suitable to wear outside the house, preferably a little bit flattering) and that I could make over and over again. There are some nice patterns online, but I found most of them didn’t really have a defined waist shaping. I like to see my waist, while I still have it. I had this store bought (well, thrifted) dress that I really liked. I can put it on over my head (no buttons or zippers!) and it had an elastic waist, that was simple but looked nice. So I decided to copy that dress. Drew the outline on pattern paper and made the bodice (since the waist of this dress was too far up for me) and the skirt a bit longer (these dresses are meant to wear for my normal day-to-day happenings. I like not to worry about what’s showing when I bend over). And then I just started cutting and sewing. Much to my surprise, it actually worked.
I used the second option (baby hem) in this article about edge finishes to hem the armholes and the neck. Worked like a charm.
It’s a little bit too wide, because I tend to cut bigger seam allowances then I sew them. (Weird, I know.) But it still fits nicely and I love wearing it.
So I did it again, this time paying a bit more attention to seam allowances.
I love these dresses. And yes, I will be making more soon.
But next, I’m going to try to do something similar to T.’s favorite shorts.
I promise more interesting projects will be revealed soon (dresses!). But it was so satisfying to finally get this off my list. And my new sewing set-up made it really, really easy.
If you recall my older crafty goals (I stopped posting them because there was no progress at all), I’ve mentioned making a table cloth and/or placemats a few times. We have some store-bought placemats, but they are stained and I think they can’t be washed or otherwise cleaned (though I might try to clean them soon, I have an alternative now if they fall apart). In The Netherlands, I used to have a lot of tablecloths and I loved using them, but I got rid of them all, thinking they would blow off the table anyway. Cause that’s what happened in our little apartment. But in this house, we eat in the kitchen and even though we run the ceiling fan when we eat (to keep flies off our food) things stay put. So I can use table cloths after all.
I had this plaid cotton and it was just the right size to use for the two of us (covering half of the table). And since one isn’t really practical, I cut up an old sheet to make two more. I like the plaid one the best with our plates and the others may end up as something else as soon as I find some fabric I like better, but for now, it works.
You may recognize that sheet. I already cut it up for another simple project, a few months ago, making three project bags for my knitting. And since I had just the right amount left over after cutting two table cloths roughly the same size as the plaid one, I made a fourth project bag. I was one short after all.
Long ago (in a galaxy far, far away – or so it feels), I had a room of my own. To sew, to craft, to write, to store my stuff. It was a gift for my birthday and I loved it so, so much. As our family and our needs changed, I first moved my stuff into another room and then lost that room completely because we broke out a wall. But I still had a table to craft on when I wanted, so all was well. In this house there’s a lot of room, but not a lot of rooms. I can’t just claim a whole room of my own. Well, I’d like to claim the (currently unused) upstairs room, but we agreed to clean it up and use it as a guest room/office, maybe even adding a small kitchen and a bathroom in the future. That would free up the room we now use as a guest room, but it will take time. So a few months ago, when I tried to get back to sewing, I put a folding table in the entry room, brought my sewing machines to that spot and… left it like that. Needless to say, it quickly turned into a mess, collecting everything we needed to drop… somewhere. When we returned from The Netherlands, I added a whole lot of yarn to it and it’s been sitting like that ever since. But… no more! Two weeks ago I started by organizing my yarn into one of those plastic drawer organizers. It may not be beautiful and instagrammable, but it does look so much better!
Before:
After:
Noticing how well this worked (I can actually see what yarn I have!) made me realize I needed another one of those organizers for my fabric and sewing things (because this solution was getting buried under my other stuff). So last week I finally bought one and it got to it right away. And that freed up enough space to actually be able to use that table.
Before:
After (ignore the hole in the wall, this room is still very much on the to-do list):
Of course, I’d rather have a nice table and a beautiful cupboard for this (like the one we have in the kitchen) and I’d like to paint those walls and hide that hole. But that will come. Some day. For now, I love seeing this every time I walk into the house. Or actually, most of the time I see this:
Yes, I am actually sewing! Being able to take stuff out, work on it a bit and then leave it out until I have time/want to sew works like a charm!
Last week I actually did great on the knitting goals, if I say so myself (ah, the benefits of aiming low!). On the sewing, not so much (not at all, actually). I did (partly) clean up and organize the entry room though and I have now a table ready to sew on. So who knows what will happen next week?
Last week’s list:
Knitting:
✔ work on green cowl (actually finished it! – show & tell next week) ✔ maybe start a beret for my mother (started one, finished it – turns out to be wearable, but rather tight, so I started another one – sneak peek in pictures above)
Sewing: X purse for daily use X quilt (or maybe start small and make a table runner?) X drawstring bags to use in my suitcase while traveling (I love the packing cubes like these that I see all over the internet and of course I could either order them or try to make them, but I think simple drawstring bags could help with the packing chaos too, so I’m trying that first).
This week’s list
Knitting:
– finish second beret – knit some of these slippers (the pattern is no longer online, but I have it written down in my notebook) to keep my feet warm when we’re in Holland – decide if I could make more of them as gifts (maybe better than hats?) – use up the rest of the Christmas yarn (granny square to use as decoration on the table?)
Sewing:
The fact that I’m not sewing doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about the things I want to do. I keep adding to that list… Oh well, we’ll see.
– hem that plaid cotton I bought to use as a tablecloth – make placemats (the ones we’re using are stained and not washable – not my smartest buy) – purse for daily use – quilt (or maybe start small and make a table runner?) – drawstring bags to use in my suitcase while traveling (I love the packing cubes like these that I see all over the internet and of course I could either order them or try to make them, but I think simple drawstring bags could help with the packing chaos too, so I’m trying that first).
I’m hoping for a productive, creative weekend, though there’s also this other list of things I need to do… Wishing you all a great one too!
Though it feels more logical to post to-do lists at the start of the week, I’m going to try to post my crafty goals on Friday. Always the one going against logic… Well, actually not. This morning I realized that I do most of my crafting at the weekends (because I try not to work and to stay away from the computer on Saturday and Sunday), so it would actually make sense to think about what I’d like to do on Fridays. And it would be fun, looking forward to the weekend (and the weekdays after the weekend) like that.
So here it goes.
Knitting:
– I’m still working on that cowl. It’s going rather slowly, but I changed the needles I was using and I think that makes a difference. The ones I was using weren’t slippery enough for acrylic yarn and the thread was twisted too much. I won’t say I want to finish it this week since I think that would be too much, but I really would like to get a lot further than I am right now. I used one of the three skeins I had and I think I need to use one and a half more to make it the size I’d like. And I would really like it to be finished in time for me to use it when we’re in The Netherlands next month.
– The cowl is actually the only project I have on the needles right now. I finished a hat last week and haven’t cast on for a new one yet. Because of the above, I’m not planning to start another project. But well… you never know. I want to make my mother a beret since she told me she’s wearing them every day now to cover her balding head. She says she likes the berets better than fitting hats these days because she feels her head is so small now (she lost a lot of weight). But I keep worrying about the yarn (good quality not available here) and the pattern (no headspace for intricate cables or things like that). Which is silly, since she’s my number one knitting fan and she’s been wearing and saving every single hat I ever made for her.
Sewing:
I don’t know if I’ll be able to sew, but I’d love to. On my list of things I’d like to make: – purse for daily use – quilt (or maybe start small and make a table runner?) – drawstring bags to use in my suitcase while traveling (I love the packing cubes like these that I see all over the internet and ofcourse I could either order them or try to make them, but I think simple drawstring bags could help with the packing chaos too, so I’m trying that first).
Oh my. I could also have titled this post “the art of letting go”. Despite my babbling about “making for the love of making” and things like that, this bag caused me so much trouble…
It started with time pressure. I somehow put the idea into my head that I could only sew when T. was away (there is absolutely no reason for that, though my days are full and busy). So when it turned out that making three of his pants shorter and three of my skirts smaller took a much longer time then I had planned, I slightly panicked when I was finally ready for some fun.
And then I was looking at my stash and had a hard time to decide what fabrics to cut into. I was so happy to finally have fabric again, that I felt it was a really big deal to just start cutting without a pattern. But part of the fun in making bags (at least for me) is just that. Just start cutting, see what I can come up with. I knew I wanted something big to hold my projects and needles, something made from fabric I liked and something that would look nice in pictures. Ahem. I know, that shouldn’t be important, and it isn’t, but I do love pictures of beautiful baskets holding beautiful knitting. But baskets are not made for this climate (salty, moist and hot – they get smelly and moldy), so a bag it will be. Anyway. I kept taking out fabrics, combining them, putting them back and then I decided to drop the wish for beautiful moody pictures (I’d have to make something brownish to mimic a basket but a. I don’t have brown and b. I don’t want brown), and just pick something fun. After all, the beauty of making something yourself from thrifted fabrics is that you can always decide to make something else if you don’t like it (and cut up the discarded bag for another project too). So I took the blue/green I loved for the outside and added the fun chicken print for the inside.
Step one taken. But then the sewing itself… It was the first time for me using such heavy interfacing. And though it does work beautifully to make the bag sturdy enough to stand up by itself, it was so hard to wrestle such a big project with that stuff through my simple machine. I almost gave up, but then I didn’t.
And I’m glad I didn’t. Even though the end result is far from perfect (I would never give it away or sell it – it’s not my best work), it’s actually a fun bag that holds my knitting projects, my needles, my notions and even the book I’m reading. And it doesn’t look too bad in pictures, I think. Mission accomplished.
Lately, I’ve been feeling… well… sad. Unsettled. Unhappy. Overwhelmed. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. There are reasons for that, of course. Worries about my mother and the girls, lots of work and some of that with really harsh deadlines. The biggest one of those I imposed on myself by the way. So nice of me to promise to be done editing that novel before the author went on vacation, but it really was too much work in too little time. I’m going to stop myself from doing that again.
But anyway. Last Tuesday I felt it had to stop. So I asked T. to force me to go down for a swim (we used to go almost daily and I love it, but somehow it was two weeks since the last time). And then I decided to leave all other chores hanging and organize my fabric stash. I do have a stash now, you see.
My shopping that one Saturday was really successful. The thrift shop that was supposed to be almost all books also had a clothing department. I found two dresses and a blouse and when I asked if they had fabric, sheets or tablecloths, the lady behind the counter pointed me to the bins underneath the tables. Oh my. There was a lot of rubbish in those bins, but also some real treasures to be found. At first, I tried to keep myself from going overboard, but then the kind lady said: “You can take it all free. Nobody wants it. Just take it off our hands.” Well, that’s all the motivation I needed. So I kept digging and filled up a box with all kinds of fabric. When I showed the ladies what I was going to take and asked what to pay for the clothing, the first lady said: “I told her she could take that fabric for free.” But there was this Dutch woman who said (with that sour expression lots of Dutch women seem to have these days): “Well, a small donation wouldn’t hurt one bit.” Um, no. Of course not. It was for a good cause and everything But it wouldn’t have hurt her to ask nicely. Oh well, I mostly feel sorry for people like that. Anyway. I paid 12,50 guilders (about 7,50 dollars) for a whole bag of fabric. The same amount of money for the dresses and the blouse, and then 35 guilders for a giant box of books. Consider my donations made. I washed all the fabric when I came home, and then it sat in a laundry basket for two days. Until last Tuesday, when I decided organizing my fabric would make me happy.
Let me show you what I’ve got.
First of all, this. I think it’s a jelly roll. There are 50 strips of this blue fabric and most of them are different (only four or five duplicates). Someone cut a little square out of every one of them, but I think I could easily make a quilt out of these. I’m really amazed that I somehow was able to unearth all 50 strips from that bin.
Then there’s this lot. Three bandanas in vibrant colors, a Christmas kitchen towel and a few smaller scraps of fabric. I love the brown flowered one, but it’s really tiny. But I think I can use it somewhere as a pocket or something like that.
Next are these bigger pieces. Most of it is cotton, I think. There’s also some denim. Will be fun for bags, and maybe even skirts. I love the yellow fabric with the chickens, but I’m not sure what to do with it. A cute vintage apron maybe? Or large shopping bags? Or maybe I’ll defy all fashion rules and make a cute dress. So many options…
You can hardly see the black fabric in the picture above, but it’s rather nice. It has embroidered stripes and there’s enough to make a sleeveless blouse.
These are synthetic. The left one is enough for a dress, the one next to that is just a little bit and kind of weird feeling, but perfect for a bag or a zip pouch, the plaids could be blouses and the beige will make a nice lining for bags (if I can get the stains out).
Forgot to include this one in the other pictures. Not really sure what to do with it, this is a very big print. A table cloth maybe, or some pillows. I do like the color.
Last but not least: this piece of faux leather. I love that color.
I had hoped to find a cheap but beautiful little wooden cupboard to house my fabric and yarn, but alas. No luck in that part of my shopping. So, for now, I’m just using this plastic bin. I do love seeing it all organized like this (the three on the far left are the two pieces of fabric I bought a while ago and the sheet I found in the house when we bought it).
And yes. I did make me happy to fold and organize and dream of all the things I can make with these.
Good morning! Hope you all had a great weekend. We did. I decided to shake things up a bit and move the weekly goals list to Monday (easier to prepare ahead, I’m all about making my blogging easier and more fun these days). I did pretty well last week. I did underestimate the time it would take to shorten T.’s pants and resize my skirts, so I didn’t get to make a purse. I did make a bag for my knitting. Posts about the hats and the bag will follow later.
Last week’s list
✔ finish Christmas yarn hat ✔ finish dark gray hat ✔ work on cowl/showl (not finished yet, but I moved on to the shoulder part) ✔ make three skirts I bought at thrift shop smaller to fit into them (I liked them, but they are XXL – I’m S) ✔ shorten T.’s pants (three) ✔ make a bag/basket for my knitting (to hold current projects and bring them outside) X make purse to use daily (bigger than the one I’m using now, smaller than the other one I have) ✔ organize fabric and yarn (The yarn wasn’t much to begin with, but I’ll show you the fabric tomorrow)
This week’s list:
Knitting – cast on hat – work on cowl/showl
Sewing – make purse to use daily (bigger than the one I’m using now, smaller than the other one I have)
– start quilt? (I like this one – I have a lot of blue cotton and could use a sheet for the white)
Since these lists work so well for my knitting and sewing, I thought I’d add work, house, garden and life goals too.
Work – work on novella (23.000 words, have to finish it this month, I am at 2.500 right now, hope to get to 10.000 this week) – edit a new novel (just got that one in the mail – oh my, it’s going to be a busy month) – monthly taxes
House – declutter and organize entry room (it’s a mess!)
– paint (part of the) bigger bathroom (someone painted red over some graffiti, I have to paint it white before we can hang our medicine cupboard there).
Garden – prepare chosen spots to plant shrubs and trees that are in containers now, but need to be planted – work on clearing the part that one day will be my orchard/garden – “sow” avocado (prepare the pit and hope for the best) – sow kalbas (I hope the partly dried fruit I found has the right seeds)
Life – stay away from sugar (had a hard time with that lately, even though I know I can’t handle it. Went through the whole detoxing thing last week -didn’t have any sugar since Tuesday-, not willing to do that again soon, oy!) – go for a swim often (daily would be ideal, but at least a two times this week) – limit screentime (both computer and phone)
Let’s see if I can get this list checked off. I try to remember that these are just goals, ideas, and plans. Fun to write them out, nothing lost if I don’t get them all done. What are your goals for this week?
Oh, I’ve been dreaming of sewing for a while now. If you’ve been here for a long time (E.!) you know I used to sew lots of bags and sometimes even quilts. But these past years have been hard. I sometimes tried to get back to it, but I never really did.
Until last Saturday. I brought home a nice stash of fabric from my trip to the thrift stores (I’ll show all of them next week) and was ready to dive into that, but then I didn’t, because I’m a good girl (sometimes). Some of the fabrics were stained, others were brand new, so they all needed to be washed before cutting into them. Bummer! That didn’t stop me from sewing though. I was determined to sew something, no matter what. Luckily I had this old sheet that I found in the house when we bought it. I already washed it (twice – it was filthy) and it was ready to be cut. I actually had been thinking about using this to make me some simple project bags ever since I found it. So that’s what I did. Three simple drawstring project bags, rectangular bottoms, unlined.
Not really a project to show off with (and not the best picture – above – either). But then again, I love them.
I love the vintage print, I love that the yarn of my three WIP’s doesn’t get tangled up anymore in my knitting box, I love how they match my beloved notions pouch (E. made that for me years ago) and I love, love that I was able to make this without even thinking that much.
This Saturday I will be home alone again. And I think I’ll be sewing all day. Skirts, bags, quilts, the possibilities are endless. Isn’t that a dream come true? For me it is.
And yes, maybe I’m crazy to be so happy about sewing. But you know, over the past few years, I lost parts of who I used to be. I lost my creativity, my joy in making just for the love of making. I lost it to the gnawing feeling that every moment had to be spent useful and productive and commercial and making money. Or at least dedicated to someone else’s fun, not mine, because otherwise, I’d be selfish. I know. That’s not right. So I’m trying to change it, one little blogpost, knit hat or sewing project at a time.
Allowing myself to find this part of me back again makes me very happy indeed.
NOT A STATION 