I’m a little bit in love with the adorable and whimsical knitting projects on tiny owl knits. Maybe it’s a little weird to be thinking about scarves and beanies when it’s still 40C, but I’m a slow newbie knitter and need to start early! Some of these patterns are available in her shop, and some are free – I’m so tempted to make that deer hat, even if it earns me some odd looks.
Category Archives: Crafts
DIY Moleskine passport cover
I’ve started packing for Singapore, and decided that whilst lovely my Kikki.K travel wallet is too chunky for such a short and straightforward trip. Lacking a nice passport cover, I ripped out the pages from last year’s Moleskine diary – which turned out to be the perfect size!
If you want to do this, use an old mini size Moleskine and tear out the inner pages, leaving the cover pages and back pocket. Paste the front cover page down onto the cover, to hide the exposed inner spine. My passport fit perfectly into the pocket when all the pages were removed. The elastic keeps everything together nice and snug – unless you look up close, it’s hard to tell it’s not just a notebook! You can probably do the same with any similar sized notebook or diary.
Happy Friday everyone!
Link Love: Various Things
Happy Friday all! I’m putting Freelance Fridays on hold as it takes some time to put together the posts, and I’d rather have quality posts every so often than less good ones every week. So this week here’s a link dump!
This recipe for a Rosemary Gin Fizz cocktail sounds just about perfect for these warm days. I don’t have a rosemary plant but there’s a house down the road with massive hedges of the stuff – I’m sure they won’t mind me scavenging some.
I’ve been trying to avoid big supermarket chains in favour of little guys lately, so this compilation of posts about local Perth farmer’s markets on libertine eats is a great read. Midland Markets is on my list to try next.
Slightly old news now, but how awesome are these Lego taxidermy kits by Brooklyn based David Cole? Although I think I just love everything Lego!
Saw this recipe for raspberry vegan ice cream on Souvlaki for the Soul today, and can’t wait to try it out! I am a little skeptical of vegan alternatives that claim to taste ‘just like the real thing!’, but I have to admit it looks pretty amazing.
Came across this How to Make a Proper Pot of Black Tea guide on Kitchn – apparently I’m doing it all wrong! Honestly I don’t really have the time or inclination to do much more than pour some boiling water on a tea bag most of the time, but I think it would be nice to set aside a bit of time at least once a week to make a really, really good pot of tea to enjoy with a biscuit and a good book. I’m even considering knitting a tea cosy (yes, I’m such a nanna).
Heart Amigurumi
Happy Valentine’s Day! Or if you don’t celebrate it, happy Tuesday. The Boy and I don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day, as our anniversary is just a few days beforehand and this year we went all out with a lovely degustation at Divido. After that, I was happy to just celebrate the day by eating ice-cream and watching the new Walking Dead episode together.
I came across this great pattern site for amigurumi (which is basically Japanese for cute crocheted things) via How About Orange. There’s heaps of great free patterns on there, including this heart pattern which I tried out (pictured above). I’ve never done any crochet before so mine has some odd bumps and holes from missed stitches, but it’s actually much easier than I’d thought to learn. If you want to give it a try, I found these video tutorials on Hook & Needles very easy to follow. I kind of want to try this longneck dinosaur next.
Sewing the Pastille Dress muslin
The Pastille Dress
Okay, so I still haven’t actually done the proper version of my Meringue Skirt yet, but I’m trying to keep up with this Colette Sewing Handbook sew-along which is now up to the next project: the Pastille Dress! I’ll have to come back to the skirt when I get a chance to get some appropriate fabric.
In the meantime, I’ve been working on my Pastille dress muslin. This one requires some serious tailoring (which is why it’s in the chapter about alterations and fitting techniques), so I didn’t bother trying to make the muslin wearable and just used some cheap calico I had left over from another project. It’s nice to be able to just write, draw and hack up a muslin as necessary.
Before fitting
I put the whole thing together first to get a general idea of what needed to be done fitting-wise (next time I won’t bother attaching the bodice to the skirt until the end, as I had to rip them apart for alterations anyway). I managed to choose the right size this time, going with a size 8 to fit my waist and planning to reduce bust and hips as necessary. I’m a shorty so had to make a skirt length adjustment straight away; I also decided to work with the length the skirt will be with the completed pleats in the final version. So far, so good!
Here’s the adjustments I’ve determined I need:
- skirt length adjustment (shortened 6cm)
- reduce bust
- reduce hips and taper skirt more towards the bottom
- sway back adjustments
I decided to start with the hardest one: the sway back adjustment (this is necessary for those with extra curved backs, which results in excess fabric bunching up in the lower back area). I’ve always had a sway back, but the bodice ended up with so much bagginess that I had to take a huge chunk out. The book’s instructions on how to alter for a sway back are not extremely detailed, so I’m a bit at loss at how to redraw the bottom darts or the sides of the back pattern piece. I’m on my third bodice muslin and still not completely happy that I’ve solved this!
After a little research I’ve found that other people have had the same issue with this pattern, even people who don’t usually have a sway back. I also found some great instructions for sway back adjustments with handy diagram on The Cute Octopus, which I think I’ll try out for my fourth attempt. I think it’s likely I’ll need to make the same adjustment (to a smaller degree) to the skirt piece too. Argh!
After giving up on the bodice for a little while, I reduced the hips on the skirt piece which now fits much more nicely (but somehow manages to make my waist look bigger =/ ). Everything else I’m going to have to tackle next weekend.
Helpful hint: if you don’t have anyone handy to pin the back pieces together for you for fitting, sew up the back and leave a gap in the side seam instead. Much easier to pin yourself in on the side than the back (unless you are some sort of contortionist).
Anyone else have sway back fitting issues? I’m excited to have a tailored dress which accounts for my sway back, but getting there is such a pain! I’d also very much welcome any fitting tips or resources you might have.