BOOM! 1 hr Snood/cowl....

Last night I made a Snood / Cowl for a colleague at work as a thank-you for all her help during Men's fashion week, without her support our job would have been so much harder last week and would have meant me travelling on a grueling two day trip to Milan, which I really didn't want to do!

The design for this snood was really easy and only took me 1 hour, so gratifying :)

It was inspired by *THIS* design, the Around the way Cowl from *Pickles.no* and is just garter stitch on 12mm needles, knit using Lion Brand Thick & Quick yarn (which I bought in March last year in NYC!) and I just kept knitting until it was wide enough to go around the neck, plus a bit more, and then seamed the ends together, I'm calling it the 'BOOM! - 1hr snood/cowl'.

This year I am trying to make more effort with wrapping and presenting gifts for people, so my new favourite thing to do is to use textures from a Jpeg library that my friends and I have built up over the last year, which I then alter or resize in Photoshop and then print out and use as gift-wrap, above is how I wrapped Giulia's snood to present to her today.... I hope she likes it!

Crocheted shrug

This is a little crocheted shrug / cover up, that I made a couple of years ago and never really got round to photographing it or even wearing it! So in our current hot climate I threw it on over a little dress that I made the other day and it served just the right purpose, enough shoulder coverage to be demure and loose enough to still be cool on a hot day :)

The pattern is from Stitch n Bitch Crochet : The Happy Hooker, and is 'Short n Sweet' by Angela Best. Its a little tricky to get the hang of but I found close inspection of the charts helped me along when I got stuck.

Summer Wardbrobe challenge!

I recently bought a copy of Heather Ross's new book Weekend Sewing.

I love this book, the simple and beautiful designs which are also printed patterns at the back and front of the book, really appeal to my idea of comfort sewing side (ie - not having to think about the drafting myself - laaaaaazy!) and are so inspiring, easy to adapt to your own style and enable you to easily add your own design details.

Heather launched a Weekend Sewing design challenge just after the launch of the book, and although I missed the deadline, it really inspired me to set a challenge of my own to design a completely handmade summer holiday wardrobe!

So far I have made 2 shirring sundresses, one in White cotton with big blue polka dots, and one in Navy blue jersey and last night I made a pretty cotton poplin top which I adapted from a 1970's dress pattern to suit the style I had in mind, it actually turned out exactly as i wanted it to - pretty unusual because there is usually some alteration to be made :)

I hope to post up a design sheet like the ones that Heather gave as a template to illustrate my ideas and give me a goal to work to!

I will post piccies as soon as i get a chance to photograph my bits and as soon as it stops raining....grrrrr the british weather!

Weekend sewing - things I have made recently!

I have been pretty busy with work recently so have let the blog go a bit......but i now have a couple of days off in which to craft my socks off :)

So - over the last week or so i have made the following items..... for my best friend Lara who is giving birth as i write this (so exciting!) I have made a little denim bib which is bound with a light chambray, and a baby kimono from Weekend sewing by Heather Ross - in Chambray with bright orange binding and ties.

I have also made myself a green clutch bag - which is based on a pattern from the latest Burda World of Fashion magazine, having a few problems with figuring out a suitable closure for it though, I dont want everything falling out!

The favourite thing I have made so far is a lovely shirred sundress which I downloaded from the Weekend blog by Heather Ross, the Mendocino Sundress.

I plan on making a few more of these as tops for the summer, they are so easy to make and look so pretty!

Photos to follow soon, the camera is out of action at the moment....