deadlycraft

So I have tonsillitis :(  Happily this is a secondary infection to the cold I had a few weeks ago, so it's not accompanied by all the cold symptoms.  Even more happily, I have codeine and live in a lovely place (I mean Tasmania, not the place you live in when you have codeine hahaha!).

So despite my best efforts to do nothing but be crook and sit on the couch...today was just a lovely day.

There was cardboard castle building with the kids:



And a wander in the garden while collecting lemons:


A coffee at the beach (hot choc for the kids):





And some knitting on the couch too! (Oddly enough not pictured...considering this is a blog for sewing and knitting and crochet!)

Am hoping to finish off the day with some gentle sewing or knitting and then score a lie-in tomorrow - despite being unwell this could be the perfect weekend :)

I suddenly find myself as the owner of four sewing machines (and an overlocker).

FOUR? FOUR???

I don't know how that happened but I am extremely lucky that three of them were gifts and the fourth was second hand.  I recently took the three (non-electronic) to a local guy who services them and he gave me lots of information about the older machines - I was surprised how old they are.

Having them all out made me think that a sewing machine tour was in order, so here they are:


This was given to me by my mother-in-law when I first started sewing.  She didn't use it anymore and I must have whined sufficiently about the logistics of sharing my mum's machine.  I haven't used this since I got the Bernina, but am planning to use it with Issy instead of the world's worst "toy" type machine.  I really want to get her the Janome Hello Kitty machine mentioned in that post, but it seems extravagant when I already have this basic Janome sitting there doing nothing.  Pl…

Though nothing finished off to actually report...

Much in the way of super organisation-ness this week over here.  I have been annoyed for about a month by the number of projects on the go (which are getting in the way of the projects I want to do) and the number of times I open a cupboard to get something and find a number of other totally random things shoved in there the last time we tidied up to have someone round...

I have decide to finish off (in order...ish):


Marcus' jumper from Bouton d'Or (picture above).  Is it done; bar blocking, sewing up and a bit of neckline ribbing which is added post-construction.Replacement of laundry basket (not even blogged yet as a work in progress)Cardigan for Oscar, my friend Jennie's new bubba (a Sirdar pattern but can't find a nice picture)Renfrew top with first ever FBA (yet to blog)Knitting bag for me - made up pattern from weird Hatami Japanese mattress webbing roll thing I bought at the craft fair
They aren't strictly in…

We got Issy a pretendy sewing machine for her birthday.  Part of doing that was that I was going to be World's Greatest Mother and do lots of sewing with her - how idyllic?  Everyone and everything would be cooperative and shiny and lovely.

So at which point did I think that buying a craptacular pretendy toy sewing machine would be a good thing?  What I really wanted was this:

But I couldn't find anyone then who would ship here (though excitingly I just did!).  What I ended buying as a stop gap was this:


Which is just awful.  It's kind of cool, in that it works off two bobbins, it has a light, a variable stitch length, forward and reverse and slow/fast mode.  Except that it's not cool.  Because I use a Bernina.  And it spoiled me for everything that isn't the world's greatest sewing ever.

Ignoring the above, what was super cool was how excited she was to do this with me.  She did some cutting out (with The Good Scissors):


And some actual sewing, though she like…

I have had this "finished" (knitted, blocked and made up) for at least three or four weeks now, but was stuck as to what to do with the closure.  This was started here, really quite a while ago...but is finally, finally finished!

This is the bolero from my Bouton D'Or knitting book.  It is a rib design with some slipped stitches in between the ribs and a picot crochet edging.

Here is a sleeve edge showing the close up of both the pattern and the edging, both of which I really like.  The pattern called for a tie closure on the front flaps of the cardigan, but I thought it let the pattern down.  It looks shoddy compared to the rest of the garment, plus my small person is only 5 and the tie would be beyond her a bit.  So I added a snap:

The snap still isn't ideal.  She tends to try and yank the thing apart which obviously puts a lot of stress on the yarn around the snap, but we will see how it goes.  I can slightly see the snap from the front, so am tempted to add a dec…

This is the last time I will put myself under this pressure.  The eternal: I *should* make something for these kids birthdays.  It's lovely and exciting to make things for people, but my daughter wants me to do some sewing with her and both the kids need trousers as they are growing like weeds.  I need to do a bit more creating for us and when I do it for others I need to stop putting myself under (self-imposed) deadlines for their birthdays or similar.

Having said all that - these were really good fun to make:


This is the kinder girls pattern from vintagericrac (scroll down past all the other lovely patterns to see them).  The pattern has three different girls in it (hair differences only), plus the clothes.  

The hair is really all that separates the different versions, though there is a clothes pack and a kinder boys pattern so you could have one with a dress on, one with trousers, one with separates etc.  I made mine with slightly different brown hairstyles - they are for two …

So last year's craft fair was interesting to me.  We made a trip (from down here in Tassie) to Melbourne, and I was interested in the craft fair itself.  I wanted to buy a jelly roll and also ended up with some screen printed (I think) linen and so on.  See the other post on what I wanted to buy and what I ended up doing with it / what I bought...

During that trip I also visited the store whose blog I happened to read.  A place called Tessuti fabrics.  At that point I didn't know much about much and just wanted to pop along to see if they were any good. This year, things were different.  With a cupboard embarrassingly full of quilting fabrics, I don't need or want any more of that action right now.  I lust after Lotta Jansdotter's Echo range, but I know by the time I got some and thought about it and made the quilt, the echo "thing" would be over.  I should have got them when I first saw them, but I didn't.  Meanwhile, after three quilts in two months ove…