Sleep masks for the operation

First of all if you read my blog regularly and i know several thousand people from around the planet are regular visitors, I am truly sorry to have let you down with my recent very slack blogging. 

I have been sewing and knitting and playing with a flower loom but because I have tomorrow got my hip replacement I have concentrated on the sewing rather than my blog. 

After the op I will not be allowed to sew for at least 6 weeks so in that time my plan is to get to it and update my blog because I have been collecting photos of my makes so there is loads to show you.

Because my last op I was harassed by other patients who just had to talk to me even when I was obviously listening to music with my head phones on and really did not feel up to socialising I have this time made a sleep mask. Then hopefully they will leave me alone. Yes that is antisocial but seriously some people just want to chatter incessantly and I really felt ill after the last op.

Hopefully a sleep mask and headphones will put them off. I might of course get nicer people in with me this time. 

Anyway just in case I decided to make a sleep mask. Or a friend suggested it. It's a free pattern from the UK burdastyle website. 

Fabric of the best version is woven cotton camo one side then French terry the other.

I did attempt one in just French terry but it's s bit dodgy and wavy round the edges. Probably needs interfacing but I only need this for one day and its tomorrow so  Ijust sewed this as is. Never mind. I only need one and the woven one will work well.

Here you can see the French terry version,  woven and French terry lined and the pattern piece.

These are so simple to make. 

Have a lovely week and I promise to be back soon with lots of sewn makes. And it should be much easier to sew again in a few weeks because in all honesty it's been difficult for at least 6 months now.  Tomorrow the surgeons will fix me. If it's as good as my right leg it will be amazing.

Thanks for visiting and take care

Back soon

Bracken 

Lang yarn men's socks using Winwick Mum techniques

These are not photographed in the best surroundings due to the rain when they were photographed so they are taken in my very eclectic and colourful conservatory. The light is OK its just the miss-matched furnishings!

Well I have knitted several pairs of socks for myself as well as a few pairs of child sized socks. Now my partner wants some and I wanted to get these done well before winter so I really went for it in knitting these. I even did a swatch to work out how many stitches to fit his feet - using the Winwick Mum stitch count method.

The yarn is Lang. I bought it in Krakow several years ago so have no idea of the current price and I also lost the ball band so I do not know the colourway. I am quite sure it, or a very similar colour will still be available if you wanted some. Lang do some amazing sock yarns and they wear really well. The pair I made for myself back in 2022 are still in really good condition despite being worn regularly. In fact I have made a couple of Lang sock yarn pairs and they all wear well but the 2022 ones are my first in actual sock yarn. I have since reduced my stitches to make them a bit smaller but even with the first pair being slightly loose they are still going strong.  My rainbow socks were also Lang and I bought all these sock yarns together in Krakow. That was my souvenir present to myself when we had a holiday there. I still have a couple of balls in my stash in fact that have yet to be knitted. 

Anyway after doing a swatch, in the end I needed 64 stitches to get socks to fit my UK sized 10 shoe partner. And you can see they do fit which made me very happy. You can never be sure until you finish this kind of project after all though we did do several tryings on as this project progressed.

I followed the basic sock free pattern from Winwick Mum so not too difficult and the only real thing is getting your head round using 2.5mm needles. That said its now my 9th or 10th pair of socks. I have actually lost count! Wow! Nit something I would have considered possible a few years ago.

Anyway here se my latest socks. 

Depending on how useful he finds them I may be knitting my partner a second pair. But I am waiting to see if these get worn first. My partner cycles in all weather's so they may get well worn this winter. We will see.

When I made these I wound each part of the sock yarn ball into two separate balls. With Lang thats easy because the centre of the 100g ball has a plain white bit and then sock 2 starts. So its pretty easy to pattern match these Lang yarns. You start at the centre of the balls though each sock on the ball band must be a toe up because I have all the patterns in reverse. Mine are top down socks. That really does not matter about the reversal of the stripe pattern though. 

My only annoyance? 

Well I did exactly the same number of rows and exactly began the yarn at the same point on the ball for both socks but the yarn is not exact in printing because one toe has an extra purple row to the other and I am positive its the yarn not my knitting. Still its not really such a problem and except for me no one will ever know. My partner cannot see it even when I pointed this out.

Thanks for visiting and see you again soon.

Take care

Bracken 

Leggings 3

These are my 3rd pair of basic leggings made in activwear fabric - and made the correct size to fit me!

They are an almost tie dye effect and very summery. Perhaps more than either of the other pairs.

These are my first two pairs:

I have actually made a 4th pair but have yet to get good photos of one of these but they are swimwear fabric so similar, but different. These are a wicking activewear fabric.

I just ordered another 1m piece of activewear fabric in a different print but I suspect the last pair will get made next spring because its already August and I tend to wear fleece lined lined leggings all winter.
I am intending to see how french terry with lycra works this winter. I bought some to try but I really do not know yet if leggings made from French terry will just become baggy and out of shape.
Anyway this last pair are thin active wear fabric ( though not thin fabric it's 210gsm and feels safe for doing "active stuff in and lovely for cooler days in summer. Especially so in this print in fact.

I am hoping to get some photos this weekend of other items I have made because my photographing has fallen behind somewhat meaning its impossible to stay up-to-date with my blogging and that is something I find very frustrating!

Of course it also means when you wear things you made their is also a chance they could be damaged before I get to catalogue them and I like to do this as much for myself as my bog because I find I forget the making details over time and when I want to replace something its very handy to have it available to me to look up so I can do the same again. Or of course make any differences that I decide would be advantageous in my next rendition of this or that item.

I do hope Blogger keeps going because I did start a WordPress account but never got round to moving everything over to it. Its probably something I really should get round to in fact. Ah for a few more hours in the day!

So thats it for this week until I get some photos taken. Have a great weekend and thanks for popping by,

Take care

Bracken

Knitted Clanger- 2 weeks to knit, 7 months to construct!

This toy was incredibly hard to photograph well. Normally I ensure my photos are the right way up and make sense when I write my posts. This time it seems to not matter and when I adjusted one photo I ended up returning it to how it started so please bear with the slightly off photos for this blog post. 

This is a Tiny Clanger from the BBC TV series which despite its aimed at very young kids I still love and have been a fan since the original 1970s series. The BBC released this knitting pattern for Tiny Clanger many years ago and its something I have had on my to-do list for absolutely years. So this toy is made using free pattern I downloaded years ago. It's still free though. The pattern uses 4 ply. I used DK hence my upscaling of the clothing is out of scale. I did ok with the feet I think but not the tabard ( if that's what you would call it?). Maybe Armour is better?

Feet are black felt (synthetic from amazon,) on top but brown underneath cos I didn't want to buy any more so used what I had. It's the same stuff I used for the Easter basket last year. It comes in 50 or so coloured squares per pack. I accidentally ended up with it on subscribe and save and didn't realise till the second pack arrived. Anyway according to the pattern both top and bottom of the feet should be black felt. I added a piece of tupperware for strengthening in side each foot to make them more rigid.

The pattern does not do this but many many years ago myself and several friends got into the Rave movement and I made, for lots of people, velvet baseball caps. To make the peaks I used tupperwares so if you fancied doing that its a cheat way to get a harder but washable strengthened area. It works for the Clanger feet anyway.

You can see here the armour is a bit small!!!

Has to be said though it useful to have two sheets of each colour of felt so if you did buy some with the idea of crafting rather than for children then you probably want two packs. Though the colours are slightly different per pack. Though I received them a month appart so maybe if bought together you get the same mix of colours. The tabard is actually 2 slightly different shades of red. The pattern uses pink but the child this was for chose red. It works. 

The clanger us 100% wool except for the hair. That's acrylic because I had some stashed. The wool was cheaper per 100g than acrylic so I went with the environmentally friendly option. It might turn out to be a mistake. It's meant to be washable but the child who now owns it is 2 so it's likely to need washing quite a bit. 

Small person who now owns this Clanger seems not to care a jot its all a bit small but it is not I beleive going to stand up to play well so I reckon I will ask small person if he would like me to alter it. It occurs to me while writing this I could glue these pieces to new felt pieces which would thicken the rather thin felt sheets and in turn make the armour more substantial. Then just use a sewing machine to sew them together nd cut around each piece to make them larger. 

If you look at the CF panel as well I did the embroidery the wrong way round it should lie the other way so the longer side across the Clanger body not down it.


Anyway the pattern is odd in the way it's constructed and the strange increases and decreases to get shaping buy its easy to knit. It's however in loads if bits. Like each ear has 2 knitted bits plus felt. So I spent just over 2 weeks knitting this then 7 months to finish it. 

Armour/ Tabard is far too small!!!

The tabard is embroidered in gold thread. I bought this when experimenting with using odd bits of yarn. The silver skein was used for my blue aran. Though I still gave enough of both gold and silver for several mire garments. I think its easier to sew with than knit with actually but I am not an embroidered. I am truly rubbish at embroidered so this took ages.

So yes the entire project took ages actually and I am so glad Tiny Clanger finally got finished. Its a project that started to really get to me because it was taking so very long to get her finished. When I began I had ideas to make all 5 of the current Clangers but I don't have the heart to repeat this right now so have just stopped with Tiny. This does mean I still have 4 balls of this pink DK and I am not a pink person so now need to find a way to use that. Hopefully something will come to me because its a good quality yarn. I really don't want to just give it away. 

If I really do want to knit more Clangers I can always buy more yarn.

Ah the yarn is the Drops Karisma that I used for a jumper previously and its a very good prive from Wool Warehouse if you wanted some. Its 100% wool. Red is also Karisma left over from the mushroom season jumper. Black is embroidery thread. Yellow is acrylic from Aldi.

Have a lovely week, thanks for visiting,

Bracken

Notches Kai childrens dungaree pattern - A total rip off!

This is a sewing failure!

It looks OK but read on.................

I bought the Notches Kai child's dungarees pattern about a year ago when it was reviewed on the Pattern review website. It sounded a good deal. Dungarees and trousers and shorts with loads of different options, pockets etc. Because the small people I sew for are all boys the frilly options are of no use but I expected the rest to be good. 

A complete disappointment as well as a waste of money spent buying the pattern and the fabric. Then the considerable time I wasted to get a good finish because its for someone else so I try to make it perfect. As most people do for a gift.

It looks OK here I know but really its not. 

Its awful! 

First problem: the pattern prints on loads of half sheets of A4 so really a waste of paper. I had to lose around half of every sheet yet it appears to be the entire pattern despite its on half sheets ( all lines match etc) so I continue. At this point I contact Notches. They fob me off and say go to pattern review.com where I had bought it. (  Have to say here beware if you buy from this place!) 

Notches reckon the pdf has corrupted. It prints weird on both the 110cm and 116cm so the 5-6years as well. Right now I have no idea about the rest of the sizes. So next anyway I contact pattern review. I have had no response at all from them. It's been awhile now. This all began several months ago so they have had plenty of time to try and sort this out. They simply have not bothered!

So I won't be buying anything again from either Notches or Pattern Review since both gave sh1t customer services. And yes I am mad at these rip off online companies right now! I do not usually swear on my blog even if using numbers in place of letters. I just don't but I want other sewers to be warned and understand how angry I am with this and how ripped off I am feeling, before you buy this or another Notches pattern. And as for Pattern review, well they did not even bother to come back to me at all. So buy if you want but please think how you will deal with a total lack of customer services should you need help.

So anyway this is what happened next. I managed to get the pattern put together despite missing a print off half of every sheet. I found a lovely fabric that appeals to certain small man I am sewing for this time. I went to town with both side and patch pockets. Then having bought this nice digger print cotton I decided to get going and make dungarees. Supposedly in a 110cm so for a 4-5 year old in the UK. 

Even properly interfaced the facings and the top and straps which I admit I often just skip over especially with small children who will wear something for such a short time. This time though I did exactly what the pattern tells you. After all a 4 to 5 year old will test this to its limits when playing so I want it to hold up for every day play for him.

I think I paid 14 Euro for this pattern. It's possibly the most expensive I have ever bought. Single pattern that is anyway. Should have stuck with BTrendy, Burda etc. At least you get decent customer services when things go wrong and they really do try to help. Not at all these two companies!

Its never good when there is a problem but I am used to having some level of customer services and Burda in particular - that is burdastyle.co.uk, burdastyle.de and burdastyle.com have all been helpful at different times. I have not had a pattern problem with Made By Oranges ( Btrendy and My Image magazines) but have had a postage issue and they were helpful too. Thats a good point though. No pattern issues whatsoever with their patterns!

Anyway so I finally get these made and to me they look small and how will small person get into them?

The neck hole seems tight to me but maybe its just how it looks.

Well I have an even smaller person available who currently wears a 92-98cm in RTW or UK 2-3 years and no the dungarees do not go on. In fact I possibly hurt small person trying to squeeze him in! Not too badly and he does tend to object to trying on clothing, but you know the idea was make something nice not an object of torture.

So what to do?

I don't want to scrap the nice fabric. I could remake with normal so buttons and non elastic straps but even then they would be tight I think on top. Not the loose fit I was aiming for anyway. I think trousers will work but for the 2 year old not the 4 year old.

Just to clarify as well I took the smallest possible seam allowance on the pattern that says seam allowance is included. So a smaller seam allowance that the pattern actually reckons it allows for!

Also the facings do not at all fit. I had to draft my own. That's OK I could live with that if the rest of the pattern was right. It's not though.

The pattern is meant for wovens and my reason for purchase was for woven non- stretch fabrics. Summer cottons particularly. Thats what I wanted and why I bought it because I already had several stretch fabric /jersey patterns. However, if this pattern actually has any chance it may work I would make it in a stretch lycra jersey fabric. Just in case it's on your list of to-dos. I might risk some more fabric at some point and try it out. But then why bother when there is a free Sparkle and Roar dungaree pattern that works. Yes I paid for this but it was possibly the worst buy so far. I have only ever made one other pattern so rubbish and that was a long time ago so I ahve maybe so far been lucky but I have to say this experience really does put me off indie designer patterns right now. I like my favourites - How to do Fashion being a very nice one that springs to mind and I used to like Rebecca Page though Rebecca has left the label as far as I know,  but many out there are really not worth paying for. I will probably stick with the small number I currently like now for a while because this has really put me off experimenting which is sad. One rotten apple spoiling the whole barrel as they say.

Right now though I feel ripped off, disappointed and that I have wasted my precious time on a totally cr4p pattern that doesn't print properly and is definitely over priced!

Oh and yes before I cut anything of course I checked the gauge was right.

It's just a completely rubbish pattern so if I was you I would avoid this one. I also will never buy another Notches pattern ever again. What I may have to do though is work through my other small collection of indie designer patterns to see how the rest work because I own loads I have yet to make. Maybe its time to put these indies to the test and see if I prefer the big pattern companies after all. I definitely do not like Notches in case you missed what I have been on about here.

On the positive side I finally finished these as dungarees and I now know what I made and the fact is these can be altered into trousers for the 2 year old who tried them on for me. He wants them. The construction of these has been dragging on since last winter! So at least (once they get cut back into basic trousers which will be fast cos my smallest small person will then get some wear from them at least!) then I will have only stuff for me to make and some of this is on my list for a few years. I have a large pile if washed and ready to cut camo for starters - about 10 different types if camo fabric to be precise that I really want to wear and a long list of patterns sorted to use with this fabric so finally my sewing for others ends for a while. At least the future is looking good. 

Or its looking camo!

Take care and have a lovely week won't you and thanks for reading to the end of this very long text heavy post if you made it this far,

Bracken

Cozy tiger top

 

This is a top I made previously but I did not bother to add the side zip because to be perfectly honest its pointless. The neck is wide so why add a zip you do not need?

Last time I made one of these I did add the zip. I suppose if you wanted to pose like the Burda magazine with the zip open it would be worth having but then the neck falls down off my shoulders so its really not worth having the zip unless you happened to use a very chunky one and it was there just for the look of it - a bit like punk rock bondage trousers. Then it would be worth having. For my purpose though which is to have a cozy warm top - no its a waste of effort and a waste of a zip. So this version doesn't have a zip.

Its been hot for the last few weeks where I live so I was surprised today when I ut this on to realise I was cold because this is a definitly warm cozy top and I am going to like this one I think. I like the previous version but tend to layer it.

I actually began making this top back in January but I decided it would look and work better with cuffs so I ended up waiting to finish it until I had some cuffing fabric. This is sweatshirt cuffing. And they turn back so can be long for winter or shorter as seen on the rest of these photos.

Oh and the jacket itself is the same faux fur as my coat lining. 

You can see the back goes to a point with a high low hem.

Wonderful faithful hound here is my Roger. Hes a GSD x  collie and is now 7 and very lovely.

Well today is the first chilly day for ages and to be fair until I popped this on for the photos I had npt noticed I was cold so no its not actually cold. Its summer in England! 

And really this was made for wearing in winter although I suspect it will get quite a bit of wear the next few weeks if the weather stays dull and chilly so its going to be slightly more versatile than I expected by the looks of it. Have a lovely week and thanks for popping by, 

Take care

Bracken