Needle felting: Moogle!

Back in April I tried my hand at needle felting properly for the first time and made the doglets that had been featured in Mollie Makes, and shortly after that I made a Moomin.  The next item on my list of things to make was a moogle, which probably won’t mean much unless you’re a fan of Final Fantasy.

I wanted to get stuck into making a moogle straight away after the moomin, but work got a bit manic and the project had to be shelved for a while.  Only a little while, though, and now the first of my moogles is complete!

He’s come out pretty well!  The bits I’m most pleased with are his wings (which are fully needle felted, although the temptation to just cut them out of regular sheet felt was very strong) and his little ears.  My only slight disappointment is that he doesn’t stand up on his own, but I’ve not figured out a way to solve that problem short of wiring him to a stand – I reckon he’ll be just fine propped up against something for now.

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Fantastic Mr. Fox

Yes, that’s four new balls of yarn.  No, I wasn’t supposed to be buying any more until July… but I fell in love with another Tiny Owl Knits pattern and just had to try it out.

The pattern is this one, and the author also put up a vlog about it.  I can’t even remember how I stumbled across this pattern, I was clearly looking for something but whatever it was, it was driven clean out of my head.  I thought the Mr Fox stole was great, but it was the mini fox that drew me in utterly and completely.

So I ordered some yarn from Jamieson’s of Shetland (and was pleased with their service: I placed the order on a Friday afternoon and it was delivered on Monday), and as soon as the yarn arrived I made a start.

I was a bit wary as I thought the pattern would be complex, but it’s suprisingly simple.  The hardest bit by far was making the ears, which involved four double-pointed needles and nearly resulted in me throwing the whole caboodle across the room.

I persevered though and I’m so glad I did, because mini-fox is possibly the cutest thing ever.

He’s adorable, isn’t he?  I’ve named him Roadkill (for obvious reasons) and am currently a bit frustrated because I started him last Monday, finished him on the Wednesday, and the magnets I ordered on the Monday still aren’t here.  The magnets are going to be added to him so that he clings on around my neck, and until they get here I can’t wear him because he won’t stay put!  The magnets were ordered from Amazon, in case you were wondering which seller was so abominably slow.

Hopefully the magnets will eventually arrive and I’ll be able to wear Roadkill out and about.  I’ve got loads of yarn left over (I ordered two balls of the main colour just in case) so I’ll be making another mini-fox at some point, and I think that next time I’ll make the body longer so that it’ll fit round my winter polonecks which are quite thick. I’m also tempted to make an arctic fox version in grey, but that would involve buying more yarn and I’m not supposed to be doing that am I?…

Would I recommend this pattern?  Yes, absolutely.  It costs $5.50 (approximately £3.50), and I spent £13.83 on the wool (including postage, and there’s definitely enough to make two mini-foxes).  I used glass beads for the eyes, purchased from a local shop for about 30p each.  The pattern itself is clear and pretty easy to follow and Stephanie provides a stitch glossary so that newbies like me can follow what she’s talking about.  I did have to look up how to use stitch markers, and how to knit on four DPNs, but it’s really not hard to find that sort of information.  I’d rate this pattern as intermediate difficulty, just because the ears were SO fiddly to knit: I’ve been using 3 DPNs while making hexipuffs so didn’t think I’d struggle too much adding a fourth needle into the equation, but the addition of that extra needle made a huge difference and I did struggle a lot!

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One hundred hexipuffs

Just over seven weeks ago I started working on the Beekeeper’s Quilt, and two days ago I hit the magic hundred mark!  That’s pretty amazing to me and I keep tipping out my bag of ‘puffs and gazing at them adoringly (a bit like Gollum with his ring).

Although I do have quite enough wool to be getting on with, a couple of weeks ago I gave in to impulse and ordered a couple more balls of that merino wool – in cream this time.  The pattern suggests decorating some of your hexipuffs using duplicate stitch, and includes a couple of patterns to follow.  I liked this idea but wanted to create my own pattern so I sat down and worked out a pattern for heartsease (which was my dad’s favourite flower).

I had a very specific idea of the colours I wanted to use, and I didn’t have any yarn that fitted the bill, so I bought some tapestry wool to use instead.  It worked out very well…

Those are definitely flowers, and I think they’re recognisable as heartsease!

I’m carrying on with my hexipuffs (working mainly with the willow tweed yarn this week I think), but I did take a wee break to knit something else last week… and I’ll post about that soon, check back in a few days to see what I made!

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Cross stitch corner #2

A couple of weeks ago I posted about my new love of cross stitch, and now I’ve finished my first proper cross stitch project here are the results…

Not bad eh?  Here they are one by one

I have to admit that I lost my way a bit with the carrot foliage and ended up making it up a bit as I went along, but it seems to have turned out ok!

Verdict: I’m still enjoying it…but it really does play havoc with my eyes, especially as most of the time I have to do cross stitch is in the evenings when the light isn’t so good.  I’m going to attempt the Witchy Washy pattern next, but not for a little while as I have a few other things on the go at the moment.

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Round round get around…

… I get around.  Yup, I’ve got the Beach Boys stuck in my head, but for quite a good reason.

A couple of weeks ago I bought some lovely merino wool.  It was a complete bargain at only £2.49 per ball (that’s over 50% off, it would have been a crime not to buy it at that price), and if you’re looking for similar bargains then visit Kemps.  I bought 18 balls and then had a crisis over what to make with them.  It was suggested that I have a look on Ravelry to see which patterns would match the yardage of the yarn I had, so I did and I fell in love with The Beekeeper’s Quilt.

To learn more about The Beekeeper’s Quilt you should pop along to the designer’s site.  Click here and it’ll open in a new tab.

It’s a beautiful pattern and there was only one problem… I’ve never been very good at knitting, and had never tried knitting in the round.  Bah!

Time to learn a new skill then.  So I got myself some DPNs (Double Pointed Needles) and settled down to give it a go.  My first attempt was fairly successful…

Can you spot the mistake?  I got the increases and decreases right, and I successfully managed to knit in the round… but I was concentrating so hard on the increasing/decreasing and juggling of the three needles that I completely missed out all the rows which weren’t an increase/decrease.  A very daft mistake, but I did laugh about it!  On the bright side I did feel that I’d got the hang of using the DPNs enough to start using my pretty new wool, so off I went.

My first proper hexipuff, such a proud moment!  It turns out that although I’m a rubbish (and very slow) knitter when using normal needles I’m actually pretty good with DPNs.  This is an astonishing discovery but I think it’s down to two things.

1. DPNs are short.  One of the things I’ve really struggled with when knitting in the past is the needles being so unwieldy (I know, I know, this is probably an issue with my technique).  DPNs are more like a crochet hook so I’ve been getting along very well with them.  I did have a bit of a Goldilocks moment though: the first set I bought were 20cm long and they kept getting caught on my sleeves (see, unwieldy), so I bought a set that were 10cm long… and they were too short to get a proper grip on… I finally got a set which are 15cm long and they are just right.

2. I hate purl stitch.  Vehemently.  I find it fiddly and a nuisance.  Knitting in the round, with this pattern at least, there is no need for purling.  Yay!

So I’d mastered knitting in the round and I was very keen to know how many hexipuffs I’d get out of one ball of yarn so despite being hugely excited by all the colours I had, I resolutely worked my way through an entire ball of blue.

I was pretty sick of blue by the time I’d finished, but I think it was worth it because I now know that I can get 16 hexipuffs out of a single ball of this particular yarn.  I’ve got 18 balls, so this merino wool should make a total of 288 ‘puffs.  That’s about three quarters of the quilt, and that works out perfectly because I want to introduce some other colours too.  Namely these pretty yarns I bought at Stitch & Craft.

I think they’ll go well with the main colours, and I will be keeping an eye out for any other posh yarns I can use too.

Anyway, having worked (im)patiently through one ball of blue I was very keen to play around…

… and didn’t just go for one different colour, I went for two.  Stripes!  Very exciting, a bit too exciting really, no one should get this excited about a bit of knitting should they?

Stephanie (the woman who designed the pattern) suggests that this project is perfect for working on in between other things because each puff is relatively quick to make (it takes me somewhere between 45 minutes and 1 hour to make one).  I like this idea, especially as she suggests taking it with you to waiting rooms etc., but I don’t really go anywhere other than work or home!  I can’t knit while I drive, and I can’t knit during tea breaks at work (grubby hands, the joy of being a gardener), so for me this has become my evening project and I’m turning out hexipuffs while I’m watching telly at night.

My aim is to complete the quilt within a year, and I reckon if I can average ten ‘puffs a week that’s a reasonable target.  At the time of writing I’ve got 35 finished ‘puffs and I’ve been at this for two weeks so, thus far, I’m on schedule.  I’ll post another update in a few weeks

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Cross stitch corner #1

It was inevitable really because I do seem to have an insatiable need to learn new crafts, but I have picked up a new hobby: cross stitch.  My interest was piqued last year when a friend sent me a minature cross stitch kit, I enjoyed it a lot but didn’t have the time to look into it further when I’d completed the kit.

A year on and I’ve definitely caught the bug.  When I visited Stitch & Craft a couple of weeks ago I was fascinated by the variety of cross stitch patterns that were available, and did buy a pattern which I’ll be attempting soon.  I also ended up getting a subscription to CrossStitcher magazine, and on my way home picked up a copy of the March issue too.

The March issue of CrossStitcher has got loads of vintage style patterns in it and I was particularly taken with these vegetable ones.  I thought that, as they’re small, they’d make a good starter project for me before I attempt the larger pattern I bought at the show.

I started off quite well really although I didn’t have all the right colours.  I had to make do with the selection of threads I had in the house so there were a lot of substitutions and trying to match colours as closely as possible by eye.  I finished the first one this afternoon and I’m really proud of it.  It’s not perfect but it’s pretty good!

I think I’ll tackle the tomato one next, and as an added bonus these little cross stitch patterns have given me another idea…

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Adventures in quilting – part 2

Last week I told you about my first steps towards quilting, and said that I’d have a smaller project to show you very soon.  Well, here goes.

After sorting out the squares for my own quilt I had an awful lot of scraps left over so I decided to get a bit more practice on the sewing machine by making a miniature quilt.  I followed the same process, just using smaller pieces of fabric (and a much smaller template!) until I had a whole miniature quilt-top sewn together… and then had to stop and think about what to do next.  The next stage in quilt-making is to baste together the top layer and a layer of cotton (or similar, for the bottom of the quilt) with a layer of batting sandwiched between them.  I didn’t have any batting, but wanted to crack on with the project so I had a rummage through my stash.  Oooh, look, fleece!

The fleece is quite thick so I thought it would do perfectly: I could use just the fleece and the patchwork top without having to use any batting.  So I did.  I pinned the fleece to the patchwork and then sewed along the seams first to secure it, then I had a play with the fancy stitch-types available on this machine and sewed some zigzags on the squares.

The back of the quilt shows how neatly I managed to do this (although let’s face it, it was a small quilt so the straight lines weren’t too much work – the quilt only measures approx 12 x 8 inches).

And the finished quilt?… Ta da!

To see who’s using the quilt, click here.

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He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother

The vintage Singer I’ve got (sewing machine, I don’t have an old crooner locked in my shed) is beautiful, and works perfectly but it’s heavy, and as I don’t have a permanent table for sewing at yet it means I have to haul it in and out of its case whenever I want to use it.

Cue the little Brother.  It’s lighter, and although nowhere near as pretty as the Singer it makes up for the lack of aesthetic appeal by having lots of different functions.

A variety of different stitches, all available just by sliding a switch or turning a dial.  Marvellous!  Being so new to the world of sewing machines this is actually incredibly exciting for me   The machine has another trick too (which excited my mother):

Apparently this is A Very Good Thing because it means you can sew things like bags.  Who knew?

So, that’s a little tour of my second sewing machine (which was another boot sale bargain at just £10).  It’s not pretty, but it is very useful and I suspect it’ll get a lot more use than the beautiful Singer.  From a practical point of view it also sews more slowly than the Singer, which means it’s less scary for me (despite spending a full day on the Singer last week I still have that irrational fear of sewing over my own fingers).

Do you have any sewing tips to pass on to me?  This machine only came with the one foot, and I might invest in some others if I think I’ll get some use out of them – but, being a complete novice, I don’t know what I might need!

 

 

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Adventures in quilting – part 1

Back in September I bought a rotary cutter and took my first step towards quilting.  I cut up a load of my old pyjamas into neat squares and then stashed them away.  A couple of months after that I got my first sewing machine, and last week I finally learned how to use it.

I don’t have a proper workstation for sewing at yet so I had to set up shop temporarily on an old drop-leaf table in my mother’s room.  Not ideal, but it did the job.  Now, I’ve not been taught how to quilt, just given advice by people and looked stuff up on the internet.  Pretty much all the instructions I found said to sew my squares into long strips and then sew those strips together.  Hmmm.  As a complete novice with a sewing machine straight lines aren’t that easy… I can manage to sew straight for a short stretch and then it all goes a bit pear-shaped.

So I decided to sew the squares into small strips, and then turn those small strips into a larger square.

First one was a bit wonky and the seams didn’t all meet up, but yay!  This seemed like a good way to proceed as it would be easier to keep track of how the pattern was going (I only had 9 different types of pyjama fabric, so it was definitely fate), and I’m hoping it’ll be easier to sew the larger squares together than to sew lots of very long strips.

Now, I’d thought that my squares were all nice and neat.  Nay nay.  I made the mistake of not ironing the fabric before cutting out my squares (yes, I’m a lazy moron), so they were all a bit on the wonky side after I ironed the cut squares.  So I made myself a template out of paper and used that to help me sew them together at the right spacings (the template is 5 x 5 inches).  First I’d sew two squares together thus:

Then I’d get my next square ready, line one edge of the template up with the seam I’d just sewn, pin the whole lot together and sew along the opposite edge of the template.

That photo’s a bit blurry isn’t it?  Sorry about that.  Anyway, that’s how I got around my wonky squares, and I’m sure there’s a technical term but I don’t know it!

My confidence grew as the day wore on (although I did get confused at some points and sewed the squares together in the wrong order, leading to much swearing and unpicking of stitches) and my large squares got more even.

See, the seams line up!  I’ve now got 20 of these larger squares all sewn together and that my friends is how they’ll have to stay for the time being.  The next step will be to sew the big squares together (probably using another, bigger, paper template) but that will have to wait a few weeks.  In the meantime I’m very proud of myself for finally conquering my fear of sewing machines, and will be posting details of another, smaller, sewing project very soon…

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Name that foot…

So, this is a bit of a follow-on from my resolved to sew post of a couple days ago.  I was as good as my word and on Thursday evening my mother and I sat down and played with both the Singer machine and the Brother machine until we had them threaded and working.  All good.

However, the Singer machine came with a selection of different feet and although we know what some of them do, others are a real mystery.  Can you help?

Foot #1

This seems to be the normal bog-standard foot.  It’s certainly the one I was using all day yesterday!

Foot #2

Absolutely no clue what this does.

Foot #3

Another mystery.  It’s got numbers on it so it’s adjustable… but adjustable to do what?

Foot #4

My mother says this one is for turning the fabric over to make a hem, is that right?

Foot #5

Something similar to #4 perhaps?

Foot #6

For gathering/ruching fabric?

Foot #7

Saved the best for last.  What on earth does this one do?!

 

So, if you can help identify my feet (gosh that sounds strange) then I would love to hear from you.  In the meantime I’m ploughing on with the normal foot on the Singer machine, and a normal foot on the Brother machine (and I’ll be posting an update on my progress next week).

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