I’ve almost forgotten the anguish of now that the sweater-dress is finished and worn. Once I’d found the motivation, it didn’t take too long to re-knit the sleeves and finish it off.
With the detailed set of measurements I took in day one of Custom Pattern Cutting and Fitting, day two was spent drafting a bodice block from those measurements. The block is a representation of the shape of the body on paper, which is traced to make patterns. This starts life drawn on paper as a [...]
A few months ago I did something I’d been meaning to do for a really long time; I took one of London College of Fashion‘s short courses, in Custom Pattern Cutting and Fitting. I’ve got to say it was excellent, well worth the money. What was it all about? Designing and fitting clothes based on [...]
Sometimes, just occasionally, it’s nice to partake in crafts that don’t involve wool, or even fabric, so I was delighted to be invited round to my friend Sofie’s house to learn how to do lino printing. Sofie’s BF, illustrator Tom Messenger, does amazing things with lino printing and he kindly offered to show us the [...]
Yesterday I suffered the most traumatic experience of my knitting life. So traumatic in fact that even non-knitting friends empathised with my distress.
Mooncalf has declared 1 April official Flash Your Stash Day, so here are my highlights:
The last time I saw any of my work in print I was about 7 years old, a poem I wrote was published in the South Cambridgeshire Education Bulletin. Sadly that was the end of my poetry career. Imagine my excitement when I heard from @KLgrant1971 that It’s A Stitch Up had been featured in this [...]
In general, I’m not keen on surprises. I guess that’s why sock clubs/yarn clubs have never really appealed. But somehow, I managed to sign up for one of Fyberspates‘ many clubs back in January. Well… it seemed like a guilt-free way to acquire some very nice yarn – by the time each parcel arrived I [...]
I enjoyed Saturday’s dyeing session so much I couldn’t resist doing a bit more on Sunday. Here are the results: The logwood purple extract gave a good strong indigo-purple. My book told me that with alum mordant, the logwood purple is not very washfast, so I added iron sulphate to the pan. The dye bath [...]
Just a quick note to say thanks to everyone who entered the with Stitch and Bitch London. It was really encouraging to have so much interest in my pattern. Three runners up Frederica Eckstrom, Sarah Griffiths and Jan Pratt received copies of the pattern, and two grand prize winners, Sophie Barnes and Lizzie Page also [...]
Yesterday, I had a couple of friends round for a day of dyeing experiments. I have spent the last few weeks procuring and preparing. It was very hard to resist dipping into the supplies until the big day. We had a range of dyes at our disposal; natural dye extracts, Procion acid dyes, Kool Aid and onion [...]
I had an exciting idea a few days ago, and set about designing a credit-card sized, metric needle gauge with 5 cm / 2 inch rule and WPI gauge. After much battling with Illustrator the design is ready. I was planning to use these as promotional items, but it seems that getting them laser cut [...]
When I bought my wheel back in April 2009, although I ordered a range of fibres, I got hooked on spinning dyed merino top because of the amazing range of colours available. With hindsight this wasn’t the easiest thing to learn with – it has a tendency to make a wirey, compacted yarn, even after carding. It’s [...]
I hinted about it last week and now I’m excited to be able to reveal the details… Stitch and Bitch London - my fantastic local knitting group – are running a competition to give away five copies of my latest pattern, , and two grand prize winners will win some very special yarn to go with [...]
I’ve been experimenting this week with Procion MX textile dyes. I put a few different yarns in a dye bath and I’m amazed at the colour variation from the same batch! The superwash merino sucked up the dye and is almost black in places, while the silk blend is pale and much bluer.