Bit of Sewing. Bit of Knitting, Bit of Crochet

....and any other bits I can think of!

I'm into my third week of retirement and it doesn't feel quite so much like a holiday now.  I've joined a local knit and natter group, although I will miss tomorrow and next week's meet, which I'm enjoying.  Going on long walks (as I had a small Dorset walks book and walking longer distances locally too).

I'm still keeping busy, with some sewing, mainly quilting, but no more skirts at the moment.  I have bought a couple of books from Amazon by Wendy Ward about skirt making and also sewing with knitted fabrics, which might be a good skill to learn.  I bought a small amount of plain stretch fabric and I discovered an overlock foot that comes with my sewing machine and tried out a few stitches to try seaming and hemming.  There are patterns included in the books which will need tracing onto pattern paper, which I will get around to and will try a t-shirt top next month.

I found a block that my Mum had made along with some fabrics to match.  She had started on a disappearing nine patch block which didn't quite work out for her.  While David was out all day I took the block and fabric pieces and played around.  This made a little quilt 25" square, which isn't that big, but may be ok for a small baby or to drape over pram/buggy, but definitely not a cot quilt.

I didn't have the blue fabric for the strips but chose one that matched really well.  From the middle picture I joined up square of the cream fabric but the print is quite busy so it doesn't notice as you can see in the bottom pic.  I quilted and bound it at the weekend and finished off the ends and it doesn't look too bad.

I chose a length of green fabric with coloured wavy stripes, with goes well with the green fabrics on the front for the backing.  Its labelled too so the quilt is properly finished.

Yesterday I made a 'Dodgy Bag'. This was a make along hosted by Ali of Little Drops of Wonderful video podcast.  She labelled this term for the knitting project bags that she makes as she was learning to sew and the name has stuck.  So I decided to make one (one can't have too many bags!) yesterday using some leftover fabric from my Mum that I rather liked although it is pink!

There are two different dark pinks for the base and the ribbon casing.

 It's big enough to hold 3 x 100g balls of yarn

 There is even a pocket for bits and bobs

Trying to think of a solution to finish off the ends of the ribbon I made to small hexies and joined together on each side.  There is also a little tag with a D ring on which stitch markers can be clipped on to.

For the bit of knitting I have been using the Crocus colour way from Lay Family yarn to make the Spring Bandit Shawl.  This is not going well at the moment and I think my inclination is to undo the final edging rows and do some more of the rows in the body of the shawl as there is quite a bit of yarn  to do this.  The original pattern uses Aran yarn although a few projects on Ravelry have used 4 ply/fingering weight wool.  So heres how it looks, sorry if the edge looks a bit funny but thats the cable on the circular needles not lying flat.

Lastly the Crochet bit.  I'm picking this up of an evening when watching the television and keeping track of the colour changes on the Notes on my iPad. When I've worked each colour I put an asterisk next to colour's name.  Here's how it looks now

I hadn't turned this photo so that the green with the markers is on the bottom.  I've nearly finished part 4 (of 6 parts) of the colour changes and it is getting quite big.  The last blanket I made, the Granny Stripe one I didn't continue to its full length and I am not sure if this one will either.  It is a really good pick up, put down project.

So that's my makings for now.  David and I are off on holiday to Yorkshire tomorrow and touring around, ending on a trip to Gloucestershire on our way back home on Bank Holiday Monday.  No doubt some pics will appear on Instagram or Facebook (links on my sidebar) but will have a proper catch up when I get back.

Meanwhile I will leave you with some pics of my walks.  See you soon.