Back to sewing

When I was at school I always wanted to be a textile artist. I loved playing on the sewing machines and my art teacher at the time gave me a sweet little sewing box which I still have somewhere.  I’m not sure what happened to the dream.  I guess life got in the way and I got too busy with babies/other hobbies.  Although I’ve had a sewing machine for years I’ve never really done much with it other than a few bags.  I spent the day yesterday making bunnies from a pattern from this blog and eventually changed the pattern slightly and came to realise how much fun it is designing your own patterns as opposed to just following someone else’s.

I don’t think I did a very good job on the faces so must try and improve my embroidery skills.  I read today that you should put your sewing needle to the most right position when doing seams close to the edge.   Yeah it makes sense.  So I will do that next time and see if I can do a better job. 

I really like the applique stitch I used to stitch the face pieces on. 

 

I’m definitely an improver on the machine.  Not a total beginner but I  have a way to go to learn new techniques and be a more neater sewer.

Anyway, here is the bag I made last week from the book.Sewn Spaces which I got from The Works for a cheap total of £2.99.  It even includes full size tissue patterns!  That said, I didn’t really like the bag pattern much and it got a bit fiddly doing the bottom end.  You have to close the bag on the external main fabric which was new to me and I had to learn the invisible closing stitch which my friend Paula at sewing group kindly taught me.  The fabric is Amy Butler I think! 

Back to being a textile artist, I have so many ideas but because I lack training in construction I get frustrated and held back.  I just bought this great book on Amazon and it looks awesome for learning how to make stuffed toys.  It’s separated into lessons and each one has projects and skills to learn.  Hopefully going to start it soon.

 

Garter Carriage Blanket #1 – KH970

I’ve been wanting to make a blanket with a border for some time.  Unfortunately, I don’t have Designaknit or an E6000 which might automate this process for me.

I do have a KH970 though and for sometime have not been using it to it’s potential.  There is such a learning curve to this machine but with a bit of time and concentration, it really is worth the effort because it can do amazing things once you learn how to navigate the CB1.

For this blanket, I wanted to do a moss stitch border and I chose stitch pattern #423 from Stitch World book 3.

So the first thing I did was 10rows of moss stitch using my KG95 garter carriage.

So to create the main part of the blanket I wanted to do moss stitch border<main stitchpattern>moss stitch border.  This meant I had to enter the pattern as 3 motifs.

The thing with motifs on the KH970 is that the first one has to be the tallest. The main stitch pattern is 22sts and 34 rows So I made a new stitch pattern and made it taller than 34 rows.  I think about 36 rows.

Using the CB1 I entered the moss stitch motif I made (10sts by 36 rows). I placed this pattern from L-98-L89. one repeat.

Next up motif #2.  I chose pattern #423 and chose to repeat it 8 times from L88-R88

Motif #3, Moss stitch motif again.  In my machine it was stitch pattern #960.  R-89-R98

I did 400 rows of this pattern and then finished with all moss stitch at the top,

I learned a lot from this pattern.  The main thing being that I need to alter my moss stitch motif to an odd number because when I change to section two it starts again with the same row as the row beneath it which means it’s not a perfect continuation of the pattern.

I also need to do more rows of moss stitch at the top and bottom.

I used Bramwell 4 ply for this project.  I hate the colour and it’s pretty cheapy but great for stuff like this.

 

 

A sewing FO!

I went a bit crazy in Smiths this month and bought a TON of craft magazines.  Considering they are on average £5 each, they cost a lot of money!

I would really like to at least make one thing from each magazine each month to justify the cost but that might not always be possible.  Anyway, I started with Sewing World Jan 13 which has a lovely iPad sleeve.  I found the instructions a bit complicated but got there in the end.  Probably just me not sewing for ages and being clueless.

There is a TON of things in Sew Home that I want to make.  I don’t know where to start with that one.  Some of the other mags are more style than substance but it is enjoyable reading through them and they have much more interesting articles than the knitting mags which I don’t buy anymore.

Still, plenty of time left in the month to sew all the things!

 

A hat and ball

I finished a hat a few days ago and I love it!  I made it to go with the toggles on my new coat.

Then I finished up this little ball for the cats.

 

 

 

Where’s Fluffy…?

Fluffy loves finding new places to sit and he has absolutely no concept of how big he actually is.  We think he’s been crossed with a border collie somewhere in his lineage.

Fluffy uses the U100 to rest on,

This chair is in use!

Fluffy squeezes himself into a plant pot

Don’t put me in the washing machine!

You can’t see me.

 

New Workspace

I’ve been working so hard to get a better place to set up and use my machines and in the end I dedicated a whole half room to them!

Set up at the moment.

Duo 80 with U100 lock, auto colour changer.

KH970, KH850 with KRC 900, KG95, Intarsia Carriage, Transfer Carriage, Lace Carriage, Linker.

KH260, KR260

Hague Linker

Lots of wool

My sewing machine which is a Janome 4800 QC

 

Weight Watchers – Week 3 and 4.

Well, I’m at the end of 4 weeks religiously sticking to this diet and I am in total, 9lbs down.  I feel like I could have done better.  This week was going so well and my sneaky peaks at the scales told me I was heading for a 3lb loss this week but I guess with half-term and mostly sitting around doing nothing, I’ve not lost anything more and I also think I am holding on to fluid due to foregoing my 2l water for about 10 cups of coffee for the past two days.  No wonder I can’t sleep.

 

WW- Week 1 and 2

Last week I was a bit disapointed at weigh in because I had only lost a pound.  I know it’s going in the right direction and all that stuff but I’d done 5 days of walking for an hour and had kept to my points.

This week I lost 2lbs which is much better but even so, I thought maybe I deserved a little more.  Not sure why because I did ZERO exercise last week due to the heat.  Damn it.

Yesterday was Day 1 of the famous 30 Day Shred.  That woman as an evil torturess for sure!  Today I did the second day and I think I might leave it for a while as I don’t think it’s doing my knees any favours at all!

This week I’m going to try and use no weeklies and see what happens.  Sneaky peak already shows me just over 2lbs down from Thursday morning weigh in so we will see!

 

Weigh in – Week 1

The cheap £7 scales my partner had bought me hadn’t shifted all week so I went to my weigh in skeptical of any weight loss at all as well as the diet itself.  I was so delighted to be told I’d lost 5lbs!  Amazing! I’m down to 39 points a day!

Unfortunately I dropped my pedometer in the toilet and didn’t really fancy buying another at nearly £17!  So I downloaded this great app to my phone.  It’s called Cardio Trainer and it tracks you by GPS and tells you how fast you went and how many calories burned.  Much better than the WW pedometer!

Week 1 – All daily points eaten.

44 weekly points eaten

21 AP’s earned – 0 eaten.

Loss this week 5lbs  – Total loss 5lbs.

 

Weight Watching

I was nearly sick as I caught myself in the mirror the other day.  I don’t recognise this massive person!  A new app on my phone looked promising and it had a website too but myfitnesspal just wasn’t going to work and so on Thursday morning I found myself back at Weight Watchers.  I recognised  some faces and the leader is the same as always.  I think she has put on weight though and I don’t like to sound nasty but she is much bigger than most of her customers and I think that’s a bit weird really.

Anyway, I’d called in to my friends and dragged her along with me.  She was horrified to have put on a stone since last time.  I had to tell her to shut her face as I’d found out I was 4 stones heaver than her at 18st 1lb!  I was expecting it really.  Last time I was there I was about 17st 10.  I really want to at least get back to a size 18 as I have many nice clothes in that size.  At the moment I am wearing size 24 jeans from Asda.  I have tons of nice clothes from Monsoon and Per Una that I’ve had to put in the loft to get them out of my sight.

I’m on 40 points a day which is not too dificult at the moment.  I’m bulking things out with free veg, salad etc.  Today is Day 3 and I think I’m undergoing some sort of detox as I feel rather weak and have spent a lot of time in the bathroom today.  Both numbers!  So I’m just relaxing and trying not to push it.  I think I’ll wait to do any more exercise than walking because so often I push myself too hard too fast and it’s too much.  I’m going to just do some walking for now when I feel up to it and concentrate on my food.