The Wedding Quilt

On the subject of completing goals, I’ve conquered another one!

I said I’d like to finish my wedding quilt, preferably by July but definitely by the end of the year. Well I’ve already done it!

My Nan cut out about 100 6″ squares and then we left them on tables with fabric pens, glitter glue and pearl pens for people to sign. I knew for a fact that a guestbook would get buried away somewhere and rarely looked at but I can’t sit on the sofa without a quilt and so this gets used all the time.

Sewing the squares together was a lot more painful than it should have been.

1) My Nan didn’t cut the squares all exactly the same size!

2) People wrote write to the edge of the fabric…

Both of these things meant that some messages had to be chopped off a bit and there are a few places where all 4 corners don’t meet exactly.

After I’d done that I thought it’d be a really fab idea to have a decorative quilting pattern and an even better idea to quilt it all BY HAND.

This is why it’s taken me 10 months to finish the darn thing! That’s a King Size (5ft wide) bed it’s on- I worked out it took me about 100 hours to quilt it all and when I was near the end I wondered whether actually it would’ve been better to just tie it. As it goes I like it, especially now I can see the whole thing at once in the photo and it provides a nice pattern on what would otherwise have been a very boring back.

Not that I’ll forget our anniversary (one would hope!) but I embroidered the date in the centre

We got some really lovely messages:

To some weird drawings

(I think this is us, naked. Drawn by Mark’s Grandad…)

I’m not entirely sure what this is

(Somebody said it’s a rat- I think that’s the best interpretation so far. Any further guesses?)

 

To this:

Yeah, we got married on Mark’s brother’s 18th birthday. We’re such pricks.

Happy New Year to you and me!

It has now been 1 whole year since I started this blog. Imagine that, a whole year! So Happy Birthday to Makesphere and a Happy New Year to you all!

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas (yes I’m saying Christmas, I’ll say it any time of the year, I’m not afraid. I’m like Harry Potter; I’ll say Voldemort. Voldemort, Voldemort, VOLDEMORT. Christmas. Ha!)

And I hope you all had fun seeing in the New Year. If you didn’t do anything and simply went to bed then I hope you had fun with that too. I can’t say I blame you- I never really got why we celebrate it reaching midnight like it does 364/5 other days of the year but I’ll use it as an excuse to see my friends and family and have a bit of fun.

I’m setting myself some goals this year. Not resolutions as such, just things to aim towards but I won’t get too pissed at myself if I don’t reach them.

Sewing goals:

This year I want to really increase my handmade wardrobe. Word’s starting to get out that I can make my own clothes so it’s really disappointing when someone says “I love your dress, did you make it?” and I have to hang my head in shame and very quietly mumble “no”. I’m not going to chuck out my shop bought clothes because that would be a huge waste (and I’m a clothes hoarder. What?) but I would like to increase the percentage of homemade vs crapmade (i.e. in a shop)

That’s kind of a vague goal, so let’s add some numbers to it:

1. I’m going to make 3 skirts this year… 

That’s not even a challenge. I have these completely planned out in my handy new sketchbook. 1 Kelly skirt, black, purple or denim, and 2 Miette skirts in red and black.

… and wear them often.

That’s the challenge. I actually own a few skirts but don’t wear them often because I don’t own enough top halves. Which leads me on to…

2. Make at least 2 tops/blouses/shirts 

I made one top once, and hated it. I tried to draft my own from a dress pattern but I don’t wear them often enough to really know what I’m doing. It would be like if an alien came to Earth and you told him to make a women’s top. He’d be like what the eff is that?!

I mean I do know what a top is, I am from Earth, but…

it was recognisable as a top but also recognisably handmade so I chucked it.

3. Make 10 dresses

Easy peasy I reckon. I’ve got 3 planned already, one of which I’m going to start on in just a moment. What could hold me back is lack of finances (never, I’ll starve before I give up fabric) or being consumed in all my other projects.

4. Finish my wedding quilt.

I don’t think I mentioned this but we had all our guests sign a fabric square as a guestbook which I have pieced together and am halfway through quilting. But I decided to hand quilt it and it’s taking FOREVER. We got married in July so yeah, forever. I hope to get it done by this July but if I finish it at all this year I’ll be happy.

5. Make something for Mark

Gah. This is easily my hardest goal. I have no experience in men’s sewing whatsoever. I find men’s clothes terribly boring too- it’s all shirts and trousers *yawn*

He started a new job which requires him to wear a suit so we went shirt shopping and it was so stressful. I thought buying a shirt would be easy, but no. Let’s just say he’s come away with a complex about having a fat neck and now asks me how thick I think the neck is of EVERY SINGLE MAN WE SEE. I might make him a shirt. I might wimp out and do something easy like a t-shirt or a light jumper. It’ll be very difficult to get inspiration to strike involving men’s clothing.

Knitting & Crochet Goals

So many WIPs…..

1. Finish them.

The WIPs I mean, not the aforementioned alien attack on Earth. I have a zig zag crochet blanket, Mark’s jumper (and this could very neatly accomplish two goals if I cheat a little) and an owl jumper. This is considerably less than the last time I posted about my WIPs so a medal for me please.

2. Reknit Hetty’s sleeves.

I know. I’m literally crying inside. Constantly. I knit Hetty up all nice and lovely but the sleeves are too small and too short. Guys, you know how much I hate knitting sleeves. Reknitting is 10 times worse. No, 100000000 times worse. *sob*

3. Sort out Chuck

I committed a knitter’s sin. I bought different lot numbers.

It’s the worst thing ever. I only needed about 20 yards to finish my sleeve (fucking sleeves, I hate them so much!) and I had absolutely no idea what the number was and anyway, I purchased the yarn like a year before so it wouldn’t have mattered much if I did know it. The jumper is cream- how many shades of cream can you really get?

Oh the naivety. It looks absolutely terrible. I have to do something about it. My solution thus far has been to dye it. I think if I dye it it’ll all kind of blend together and look ok. But the yarn is part acrylic, bugger. I looked up dying acrylic yarn and some people have managed it apparently but that’s about as far as I got.

4. Knit 2 cardigans

Planned. Hiro which I’ve started (I’m so sorry WIP God) and Miette. 2 cardigans doesn’t sound like a lot but I probably only  knit for a few hours a week and I have a ton of WIPs to finish!

5. Knit a pair of socks. 

Also planned. And technically started- I did a few rows because I bought some really awesome yarn that I wanted to see how it knit up so I’m not counting it as a WIP. Nope, definitely not.

Life goals

Please feel free to skip if you’re only interested in sewing/knitting. I wouldn’t blame you at all- just good for me to keep it all here and look back on. And maybe someone’s interested, somewhere.

1. Lose some weight

I’m not miserable about my body. Some days I get really pissed that I can’t just wear ‘normal’ clothes but this is happening less frequently now I make my own. My problem actually isn’t so much being overweight but my shape. I have a massive arse, I know I do, and it doesn’t fit into anything! My boobs are rather… booby too and also don’t fit. To get things to fit in RTW clothing I have to get big sizes and then it flaps about at my waist which is rather irritating. Now I make my own I can get them to fit better but I still would like to be smaller. I know it won’t change my shape but I’m a cheapskate and being thinner means less fabric. Also, it would mean I’d feel more confident to try some different styles out which is always exciting.

2. Get a better job

Or better yet, start working for myself. I’m getting sick of my job- nothing in particular and it’s nothing against the place I work at but it’s just not for me anymore. You might know that I teach flute lessons part time. I would love for that to become a full time thing. Mark’s got his new job so I want to get a new job and live like proper grown ups. (Except I just said ‘he’s got one so I want one’ exactly how a 5 year old would say…)

3. Blog more! 

Last year (ewww, 2013 is so last year now!) was hectic. Excuses, excuses I know, but I did get married and that takes a lot of bloody work!  Apparently I wrote 28 posts last year. This year I’m going to aim for 40. Now I’ve written it down I’m thinking ‘shit, 40’s like nearly one a week. I can’t do that.’ Well suck it up bitch- some people are writing like one a day so pull your finger out. Or camera out, as that is my main problem. With all these goals it shouldn’t be too hard to find 40 things to blog about.

Here’s 1, so only 39 more to go!