Wish me luck!

I know this is supposed to be a blog about crafting, but there is another pursuit that has been taking up quite a bit of my time and effort this year.

Tomorrow I am racing in the Taunton Deane Triathlon. That is 400m swim, 23km bike, and 5km run. And the weather forecast? Heavy rain and 20mph winds... fun.

And, the latest baby in our family, and recipient of these gifts, was born at 5.30 this morning, 8lbs and all present and correct. Whoopee!

Easter Tortoiseshell Cardigan

Last night I finished my Easter cardigan, my first proper knitted garment (I don't count the tiny hand warmers) and the first time I have followed a pattern. I am very glad to have it finished... here it is blocking this morning.


The cardigan is riddled with mistakes, mainly made during the making up... how annoying is this stage? I can totally appreciate now why people have a love for seamless knitting, and knitting in the round. However, even with all it's mistakes, I think it is quite cute... just about passable! The size is 3-6 months and I don't think the style is right for such a little one. In hindsight I would have looked harder for a pattern that was looser - more of a bed jacket. I don't think a tiny baby really wants to be in something with ribbed cuffs or waistband.

I did find the making up of this was very difficult, there were a lot of pieces and it felt very fiddly... it being my first pattern, I'm not sure if this is the norm or not? I have learnt a huge amount, through my successes and errors on this. Hopefully it will get some wear from the next baby in the family (due any day), and I think that only then will I be able to judge the success of this cardigan.

Yesterday I also finished another quilt. Another baby one, just like the first. Again, as a gift for the next new cousin. Here is a picture of it all folded nicely on top of... what's that?


...on top of my brand new spanking sewing machine... hurrah! I LOVE it. It is a Janome Memory Craft 4800 and is a dream. My little Elna got me going on sewing, but it was time for something a bit more serious.


One of the marvelous things about the new machine is how quiet it is. My last one was so noisy it sounded like a jump jet taking off and so when I woke up early, and the boy was still sleeping I never wanted to sew as the vibrations would shake Mil awake in the next room, but no more!

Yesterday morning I got up early and pulled out my Millie Moon quilt which has been sitting untouched since September. Time to get this one finished now I have a sewing machine that can cope with it.


I would also like to say a big thank you to Fieldy who posted me her latest edition of Sew Hip. Fieldy operates a 'pass it on' system with her Sew Hip subscription, picking one commenter a month at random to post her latest issue to, once she has read it. It feels like I never get picked for anything (but we probably all feel like that, no?), and I try not to splurge on magazines too often, so what a treat, thank you Fieldy!

Cluck Cluck

It was my hen do this weekend just gone... Friday to Monday full of hilarity and joy with 12 of my best girl buddies. I had an absolute ball. I returned a shell of my former self having been the last to bed and the first up each day, desperate not to miss any of it. We ate like kings, drank like fish, dressed up for our own amusement and I wept like a baby at the love, kindness and generosity of my friends.

Most of the pictures are not for public consumption, but of those that are, it shows that there was also some serious girl fun in the way of...


...long walks (not forgetting the pub lunch half way)...

...sea swims (not forgetting a quick vodka to see off the cold)...

...and bank holiday car booty.

The only thing missing were my boys, and boy, distance sure makes the heart grow fonder.

Bring on the wedding.

Bags of fun

I am very conscious of bleating on about this wedding malarkey, but it is absorbing rather a lot of my active and creative time at the moment. I sense that I am going to bore you one way or another - either by telling you all about it, or censoring it entirely and have nothing to talk about. So I shall tell you about a few things.

There are 13 kids between the ages of 1 and 6 coming to our wedding, plus 3 very new babies. I am concerned that everybody has a good time; that's the parents, the kids and those who are neither. So I figure let's keep the kids entertained.

We decided to do party bags for them. Party bags that they would get at the beginning of the day, that contained things to keep them occupied during the day. Things like:

Colouring in books...

I did want to just buy some, but I could only find expensive rubbish, so a bit of a google search for colouring pages, some coloured card, and a whizz up and down on the sewing machine... hey presto!

Pens, now I have to get pens.

Easter Knitting

This Easter weekend, I have been mostly knitting.

I have been thinking about starting my first proper knitting project and thought a simple cardigan for the boy would be a good place to start. It was either that or socks, but my trips to the local yarn shop are always slightly fraught as Mil is not a great one for shopping... I think I just went 'Cardigan, I'll knit a cardigan' with that crazed and harassed look of a mother to a two year old. I then realised that I had better make a very tiny baby cardigan first in case I make a mess of it and waste a fortune spent on yarn. There seems to be a steady stream of babies being produced at the moment so should it be a success it will not go to waste.

So here I am making a thing, a real item of clothing, and I am having a ball following the pattern.

This is the pattern, and this is the yarn.

I have also been eating quite a bit of chocolate... yum.

Buttercup Bag

I did a bit of bunting making over the weekend for the wedding (which is in 9 weeks - ARRRGGHH) and was struggling with using some fabrics I had acquired that I wasn't too keen on. With the bunting, it is more about an overall effect and the fabric I use needs to be nice enough, but not too nice. This led me to suffer that fear of using something nice, not wanting to tear through the loveliest things in my stash but, as I realised this weekend, sewing the fabric that doesn't do it for you is no fun at all.

So, I was in desperate need of a sewing project that would revive me, and when I saw this buttercup bag pattern over at made by rae last week I printed it out immediately, and it had been sitting on my sewing table until Monday night when I gave over to it.

I struggle with starting projects, and need to remind myself to get stuck in, but once I'd started with this one there was no stopping me. What a lovely pattern... thank you Rae.

In making it up, I have totally fallen for the floral fabric, which was a charity find. The colours are really warm. And a bit of jazzy green lining... lovely.

And these are the fabrics sitting on my table at the moment... not sure why I am going all woolly just when the sun is coming out? It seems that although I am embracing spring in all other areas of the house, it hasn't quite reached my sewing space... I'll see if I can't do something about that!

A quilt, a quilt!

Yesterday Brendan, Mil and I hopped in the car first thing, and drove to Herefordshire, eating a picnic breakfast en route, to go and meet the latest arrival in our family - my nephew, and Mil's third cousin... all boys!


And as far as I can work out, babies means quilts, and so I made a quilt... My first ever quilt! I'm pretty pleased seeing as it is a first, and I am looking forward to making the next.


All the front fabrics are American Jane Recess, and I have been coveting these for a while. The backing fabric was an old duvet cover I picked up in a charity shop.


It was a good day, the baby was a cutie, and the bigger cousins got to do some hanging out.