Don't Begin with an Intermediate!

Well, I did say that I would share both crafty successes and failures…so here is my first failure! This is very hard for me to admit, even on an anonymous blog that no one reads! When I proudly show off my ‘I made these’ fingerless cable gloves, I show off the right hand with delight, shoving my left hand in my pocket or behind my back…because yes, I messed up the left hand.

When I got the urge to begin knitting, I bought a beautiful Amy Butler book with beautiful designs in and naively thought that this pair of gloves would be a good place to start as they required minimum shaping and looked nice and simple. Soon I was balancing four needles at a time, swearing profusely and googling each and every step for some kind of guidance. In my excitement I completely missed the diamond ratings for each pattern and got stuck straight in to a two diamond ‘intermediate’ pattern without realising. Oops. The lovely 1 diamond head band or mug cosy really would’ve sufficed!

The 'right' right hand :)

Spot the difference?!

However I thoroughly believe that diving in at the deep end is the best way to learn. It is just unfortunate that the left glove took the brunt of my learning and the right glove was to benefit from my new found cabling skills. I unfortunately didn’t realise that I needed to adjust the pattern with any increases and decreases to keep the pattern continuous, I just bulldozed through the pattern as it was. Oops again. But all is well now. I can now successfully cable knit and I have demoted myself to the 1 diamonds for the time being J and done the mug snug I should’ve started with.

Cozy tea :)

Union Jack Cushions!

My sofa is now the proud bearer of a pair of shabby chic union jack cushions, made by my fair hands! I did plan for them to be shabby chic as I like that look however they are probably slightly more so due to the fact that my sewing skills are somewhat underdeveloped! But I think they look great and go with my living room colour scheme so I’m happy, even my other half likes them, who has taken to calling me quite unsavoury names thanks to my newfound love of craft. I was making some progress on my knitted jumper in bed the other night (I have done the back and am halfway through the front-yay me, longest running knitting project to date!) and he claimed that it was like “being in bed with my grandma”. Sigh. I think that he is just nervous about becoming a craft widower!

As before, I have used scrap materials from my local fabric store, each random sized piece costing between £1.50 and £2, and I still have plenty left over to use on other projects. My usual nice and simple envelope style cushion is the basis (until I learn a new method!) and then very simple strips of plain cream cotton and slightly slimmer strips of gingham appliquéd on the front in the classic union jack shape using a zig-zag stitch. I left all of the edges raw as I want to encourage a slight fray to the fabric as they get used.

I have already starting ploughing through my two, rather bulging, folders stuffed with ideas and patterns galore for another project. I really should complete another one before going on to the next…but I can’t help it! I’m thinking Christmas things now, either decorations or gifts, which is tormenting because it seems so far away and I’m not keen on how it gets earlier and earlier each year however it is only 11 weeks away! And the time it takes me to do stuff, especially learn how to do stuff, I’d better get cracking!

So...Sewendipity Begins

Ooh my first crafty post! Very excited! Not just because I can witter on about lovely pretty things but also because I feel like I’m stepping out of the dark ages with this new fangled thing called a ‘blog’, hell, I am even on Twitter (@Sewendipity) so I can witter on Twitter too! I just really wanted a way to record my adventures of discovery of all things crafty, vintage, handmade, thrifty and lovely. As a bona fide beginner I will try and share my successes and failures just in case another beginner stumbles on this blog one day!

I already do some form of making in the guise of machine embroidery – I sell personalised items for weddings and hen parties etc on a very as and when basis by word of mouth, which I love and is growing more that I thought it would, quicker than I thought it would. But my skills are very limited and I desperately want to develop them not just on embroidery machinary but in all areas of crafting and making.

Luckily my new found love and curiosity coincided with the lovely new craft magazine Mollie Makes, so I had a starting point and have built up from there! Knowing that my craftiness was starting to burst out, my lovely mum bought me a sewing machine two weeks ago and I am proud to share my first ever project on it! I had a huge cushion with no cover on it sitting around the living room for months, so I knew that should be the first thing I should tackle! With a couple of scraps from the scrap box at a nearby fabric shop, a few pieces of A4 paper taped together to make the heart template and a bit of common sense to figure out how to muddle together an envelope cushion cover…voila!