Hello again, as the title says, and as you may realise if you’ve noticed the date since I last posted, I’ve accidentally taken an impromptu month off. No reason really, other than just… well, life really. It happens sometimes.
I finished my thesis – it is finally complete, submitted, that’s all folks, the end! It was such a strange feeling for the first few days after I uploaded the final version to the University website and received formal confirmation of my award. I don’t know if you have heard of imposter syndrome (I am sure you have, I think a lot of people suffer from it), but basically I had an attack of that. Not unusual for me. For about 2 weeks after submission I was literally just waiting for the email to come, saying there had been a mistake, that I hadn’t finished it after all, and there were still a few other things I had to complete. As a result I’ve hardly told anyone, literally because I could not deal with anyone congratulating me at the same time as trying to deal with my imposter syndrome!
However, a little bit of time, and pespective and a weekend away in Chichester, and it slowly started to sink in. So a few people that know me know now. And I am mentioning it here, obviously, but I feel like this doesn’t count as real life!
As well as dealing with that, I’ve been away a couple of times, once for the aforementioned weekend in Chichester, but also a longer week to Cornwall. So it feels like it has been a really busy month.
Needless to say, crafting has carried me through. I haven’t done very much knitting, but there has been a fair bit of sewing. I’m started to feel like I am really getting the hang of patchwork, and I’ve even done some quilting!
My proudest sewing achievment to date is this cushion cover, which I made for our living room.
I mostly used Liberty print quilting fabrics that I bought online for this, with a couple of Tanya Whelan designs thrown in. It is a simple 4×4 square patchwork, with a border all around and a zip closure. I was a bit nervous about doing this, partly because I was worried about whether my sewing machine would be able to cope with sewing through layers of quilting wadding and fabric, and a zipper, I didn’t have a pattern (so I was making it up as I went along!) and I have struggled with sewing in zips before. However, it was relatively easy! The sewing machine seemed to have no trouble with the zip and quilting. I also used a Janome adjustable zip foot for the first time (rather than the snap on zip presser foot which came with my sewing machine). I have to say that the adjustable zip foot was a heck of a lot easier than the basic snap on foot, and I got really good results, which I was thrilled with. I doubt I will ever bother to use the basic foot for anything again.
I’ve also made a cushion cover, which is destined for my parents’ living room (I am hoping to see them next week, for the first time this year!). This was an even more basic 3×3 patchwork square with a tie closure on the back, but quite sweet I think. I added some interfacing to the inside back of the patchwork front, and was suprised how sturdy the whole thing felt once I had done that.
As a knitting, new to sewing, of course I have also had to dip my toe into the waters of project bag making. So far I’ve made four….here are two of them.
All the bags that I have made so far have been to the same pattern, from Kandou on Etsy. A couple of months ago, I would never have thought that I would be able to make something so professional looking, so I have been thrilled to be able to turn these out, and I really recommend this pattern, if you want to make something similar for yourself. The pattern provides instructions for 3 sizes of bag. So far I have made a small, a medium (shown in pictures) and a large. I think you could easily size up to make an extra-large, so I may do that some time.
I have also been knitting and crocheting, but haven’t very many finished items at the moment (probably due to all of the sewing). At the moment, the only thing which I have recently completed and actually got around to photographing is this scarf:
This is a very basic scarf, made without a pattern, simply to use up some odd balls of yarn that I had hanging around. The scarf was made with Rowan Fine Lace, and Rowan Kidsilk Haze, using one strand of each yarn held together throughout. Just a colourblock design using my favourite grey shades. The fabric is really soft and snuggly and luxurious, and I’m looking forward to wearing this once the weather gets a bit cooler (still 23 degrees here today!).
I do love to knit a scarf, so I started on another one almost as soon as I had finished the one above. This one is using the Zick Zack pattern, which is freely available on Ravelry. I’m using 2 yarns, one is a OOAK from Hedgerow Yarns and the other is a skein of Misty Woods (can’t remember what base though) from Eden Cottage. I think they complement each other beautifully.
It seems that I need a little motivation to get on with my knitting lately, so I also treated myself to this cute autumnal bunny progress keeper from Sew Sweet Violet.
Well, thats all (and probably quite enough!) from me for now. I hope you and yours are all safe and well.
x
lavender & rose 