Why Wearing Own-Made is Good

(I hesitated over the title of this post because I could have put ‘handmade’ or even ‘homemade’. But I wanted to specifically focus on wearing things you made yourself – be it jumpers, hats, jewellery, bags or anything else.)

1. Uniqueness – Even if you have faithfully followed a pattern, you will have used a material, colour, size combination or made some tiny alteration that makes it different to everyone else’s. You are not going to get on the bus and see someone else wearing one of those.

2. Talking Point – When I wear things I have made myself, I invariably get comments and compliments. People can often spot when something is not mass produced and will ask you about it. In my case this is often because I’m wearing something odd. But sometimes it is because I am wearing something awesome....which brings me on to the next point.

3. Pride/Recognition – Even if what I am wearing is odd, I still made it which most people either physically can’t or can’t be bothered to do (or occasionally, such as with my stingray hat, they wisely chose not to). I know pride is a bad thing in some cultures but goddamn it I made something and I’m using it in real life and I am proud of that!

4. Satisfaction – this links closely with the previous point, but is more internalised. Even if no one says anything about what you have made you still have the inner knowledge that you made it and that it is good.

5. Confidence – this is wonderful for those of us who have that little inner voice that casts doubt on our abilities. But then you can look at and use things you have made and can see your skills in action. Plus if you took the time to make something you’ll have chosen a colour and materials that suit you, and nothing boosts your confidence like knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that you look your best.

Welcome to the New Site!

I have been blogging here now for 5 years (five! Count 'em) and recently I have been thinking hard about what I might want to do during the next 5. When I started I was pretty much 100% knitting. Since then I've kept my love of knitting but have also got back into sewing again. So I took the scary step of changing my blog from "Lixie Knits It" to "Lixie Makes It".

I know it might seem like quite a small step but I've built up some loyal readers over the years and don't want to lose any of them with the change. So I hope everyone finds their way here and if you click on 'Follow' on the left sidebar you'll never lose me again!

I am happy because...

1. I wore my favourite outfit today.

I used to wear it with a shiny red and white polka dot belt, but the elastic heart one is much better. The dress was vintage 80s and was mid-calf with sweat band type elastic around the ends of the 3/4 length sleeves. A few chops and some hemming and it was perfect. And of course a dress demands some suitable shoes. 

A very random acquisition from Budapest last year. 

2. My hexagon patchwork quilt is going very well. I've sewn together the whites, yellows and oranges. Here are the remaining 'flowers' to be assembled. 

3. It was our three year wedding anniversary yesterday and Pooch got me some polka dot undies. 

Yay!

Knit Nation and Byrne Bonanza

So, Knit Nation then. I'd said on my podcast that having looked at the floorplan I was a bit doubtful about having paid to go to the marketplace because it looked a bit small - I take that back. It was manageable and perfectly formed. There were an excellent array of stands and old and new suppliers and of course there was Wollmeise.

 

Not that it was very easy to get close. The talk was rife with tales of people spending £200 and even £600 just at that one stall. There were no signs of them running out anytime soon though. Having only seen an occasional skein before, it was the saturation of the colours that amazed me.

These photos are in natural light with no editing or changing of tone and so on. It was pretty overwhelming all together.

I just stood on the sidelines and watched others as they got into it. I talked to a few people who felt it was over-rated and just happens to be the yarn of the moment, and at £15 a pop it is on the upper end of things. But then it is very nice and feels and looks lovely. The colours are undeniably lovely...and yet... Personally the only thing that spoke to me was the artists palette smootherino which is truly lovely. 

I did come back with just one skein of that - and that was it yarn-wise! Other than that it was just my freebie door bag and some Denise tips. 

Actually getting the denise tips was pretty cool because two women from the company itself were there and were very interesting to chat to. 

It has been a pretty action-packed weekend really with my ickle sister coming to stay for the weekend. We went out shopping on saturday to Shoreditch and Brick lane - so handy with the East London line operational again. I scored. 

Isn't that an amazing tin? It's quite big too - about 7" tall. I also got these three gorgoeus scarfs which will shortly be morphing into knitting bags.

As a child-ahead-of-my-time I was one of few of my friends whose parents were divorced so every other sunday often saw me and my other sister bowling with my dad. I am therefore a demon bowler. So when my dad and even ickler brother came up to make it a family party last night, I was odds on favourite. Except...I'm now a crippled bowler because I can't do the action anymore because of my back. So I was using one of those kiddies slide bowling aids, which only added to my coolness. Sadly, no pictures survive. But I did manage to find a few of my other family members. Pater, having just got a strike...

Freddie and Piers, just being cool....

And of course, the Poochmastergeneral. Who was knackered and did his best...

Poor Pooch. 

It was lovely to see everyone and great fun, but it is quite nice to be getting back to my peaceful patchwork. 

Did I mention....

THE PODCAST IS BACK!!!

Click here to listen to episode 18 of Lixie Knits It and to enter the competition. 

You can also subscribe on iTunes and at most other podcast catalogues.

Let me know what you think and what you'd like to hear in a future episode.

If you would like to offer a prize for the competition or sponsor an episode leave your email in the comments areas and I'll be in touch.

Macaroons, but not as we know them

Before I get into it, how good was the latest incarnation of Sherlock Holmes on Sunday? If you have not watched it yet, get yourself to BBC iPlayer toot sweet.

I consider myself to be quite the sherlock aficionado. At the tender age of 10 I was enthralled by the Jeremy Brett series and had the "Return" book of stories with the tv tie-in cover. At the age of 11 for my school prize I asked for and got a copy of the complete sherlock holmes. All in one volume which made my little arms hurt when reading it repeatedly from cover to cover in bed. Later I listened to audio readings of the stories (free vintage ones here), read parodies (Donald Thomas is very good) and even visited the 221B tourist attraction at Baker Street. I loved the Silk Stocking one-off that Rupert Everett made and still love the WW2 films with Basil Rathbone and the perfect Nigel Bruce as Watson.

In fact they are my main go-to film when I'm ill and in need of succour. And I watched not only the recent bromance with Robert Downey Jr but also the mockbuster where SH fought dinosaurs and people, that was loyalty as that is one bad mofo of a film. And so with all this behind me I was quite excited and mildly apprehensive about Sunday. The apprehension was mostly to do with the casting of Martin Freeman who I had always judged to have only one acting face which he used repeatedly in both Hitch Hikers Guide and The Office. But...within minutes of it starting I could sit back and could have relaxed had it not been for the tense pace of the first episode. It was a clever variation of A Study in Scarlet and bodes very well for the other two in the series. Fingers crossed they make more.

Anyway, Macaroons. My colleague is an excellent cook and had brought some in. Under my expert questioning technique she gave up the recipe and I got some. Sadly I am not an excellent cook. I added too much water. Then I overcooked the first batch.

Meh.

I am not deterred though, and anyway...Pooch still ate them. Macaroons are Pooch's achilles heel. But in case anyone else is going to give it a go (it's a packet for gods sake - you don't need to be delia) just remember the dough should be thick enough to pipe rather than splashing about in the bowl, so add the water gradually.

Om nom nom nom.

Kitchener Tattoo

When Ravelry first started there were far fewer groups and so while surfing the forums you tended to get a wider spread of stuff as totally unrelated things were all crammed in together. That was how I ended up reading a thread about knitting tattoos and a woman who had got her first tattoo. It was a line, a straight thin black line, across the bottom of her big toe on her right foot. The line showed the point at which she should start decreasing when knitting top-down socks. At the time my thinking was along the lines of "What a pointless tattoo. Why would you go through the pain of having someone poke you repeatedly with a needle just for that?" But then later I realised I was being stupid and the important thing was it was something useful to her.

Tattoos have always intrigued me. Because you have to be really really certain that you're going to still like that design in 1, 10, 25+ years time because you're going be stuck with it. Facial tattoos intrigue me the most. How can anyone think so short-term? Unless it has a cultural significance beyond "hey cool tat" how can you make such a huge commitment to a lifestyle implied by your tattoo? There was another Ravelry thread more recently started by a girl who had got a job she really wanted but the company had a no-tattoo policy and she had them up one arm, up her neck and onto her jawline. She was asking which brand of stage makeup would hide them most effectively. But from the photo she was only about 25. How long can you wear thick greasepaint to work for before you get caught in the rain, or get hot and sweaty, or just forget?

All this flashed through my tiny mind earlier on today when I realised that for the first time in decades of knitting, I was doing Kitchener. And I was doing it quite quickly and you couldn't see where the join was. I finally succeeded by using Knitting without Tears which is possibly the finest of Elizabeth Zimmerman's books. Actually no, they are all indispensable. But it's pretty damned good. I opened it to the relevant page, drew a diagram in pencil in the margin of needles 1 and 2 and got to it. And if I were to get a knitting tattoo, that diagram is what I would get. Although I wouldn't actually, because I am not that committed to it.

Here it what I was Kitchenering:

It is the Talking Fish Sock which is here on Ravelry. People constantly ask me why I knit, and why don't I just buy stuff and this is why. Isn't the ripple pattern exquisite?

You just don't get that kind of thing in Primark. Of course the downside is I now have to make another one, and that's a lot of Kitchenering. But finding the silver lining, all the practice means I'm less likely to need the tattoo as a reminder of how to do it.

Chez Craft

There's been a lot of sewing going on. Unfortunately I can't blog about 2 of them, other than to offer this taster....

It is one of the cutest things I've ever made and a present for for ickle sister who's birthday it is in a week or so.

Last weekend at Deptford Market I got some really lovely fabric. It's some sort of 80s upholstery thing. I just adore the design though.

I knew as soon as I saw it it needed to be one of the bags from the Making Vintage Bags book that Pooch got me for my birthday. Brilliant book. The lining is perhaps not quite the right shade but who cares.

I like it anyway.

So given that I can't blog about anything else I've been making, that's about it!

Crafty Week

It's been quite an astounding week. Highs, lows, triumph, disaster, knitting, sewing...you name it, it's happened.

Office life was disrupted by the departure of Sam who has left to go back to Uni. We had a great send-off for him but it is going to take a while for a new equilibrium to form. Luckily his replacement, Jonesy, is shaping up well but still, it;s not the same. Luckily I had Dave's first strawberry to console me. It tasted delicious!

Nick, the brother strawberry plant, is yet to fruit. Bit of a slow starter.

Meanwhile my big project has had its contract signed so that piece of trauma it over. Just need the damn thing to be built now. It makes my other office success seem a bit less impressive.

Template is on my tutorials page here.

One bad thing about Sam leaving is that he was organising the cake world cup - started solely because he wanted others to bake cake for him to eat. It's the semi-finals and while the group stages were country based, based on the office sweep stake in which I got England, so I cruised in with a Victoria Sponge, the semi's are free-choice. So I have invested in this.

It's a giant cupcake! I've put the top on the bottom so you can see the shape, but you cook the two bits separately and then sandwich them together. Om nom nom nom.

My project coming together meant I could take Friday as a sneeky day off so I did a little shopping.

It was the box rather than the embroidery threads I bought. I didn't realise how many I had until I saw them all sorted like that. Wheeeeeee rainbow!

It was lucky I wasn't in a rush as the Jubilee Line was all messed up. It meant I ended up at Mile End station. I'd never realised before how much like a New York subway station it looks.

The underground does have such an amazing mixture of styles. On the same line way out west you go so far back in time that you end up with this...

...wooden escalators!

Coming back home was sad as they have been trimming all the trees nearby. Some of them were ENORMOUS!

I know this will be good for them int he long wrong and they'll grown back stronger, but it seems such a shame. Arriving back home I got on with my flower child top. Doing the front in one piece instead of 5 and seaming was so much more sensible.

The colour isn't showing properly - it's the deep purple by Secret Pal got me. Yummy.

While shopping I also got some new scissors since sharpening my old ones seemed to finish them off.

They are weird because they are spring loaded but it actually makes it much easier to cut. My first project with them is covering these nasty plastic tape measures.

I cut a circle big enough to wrap it in. Then marked a place where the opening would need to be to get the tape measure through. Then I made a buttonhole along that line and ran a line of stitches around the edge of the circle. I pulled the stitches tight and stitched a few stitches to secure it. Then I used my birthday glue gun to attach a button to either side.

Not the neatest glueing ever, but only my second time using it. Glue guns are awesome.

So quite a crafty weekend so far and still a day to go. Crafting is so therapeutic. So relaxing and reassuring. Makes it much easier to get through the funny little things life throws at you, like a sister who consistently makes your life a little harder. Half an hour sorting buttons and contemplating what to do with 8 rainbow polka-dot FQs and suddenly she fades into the background. Luckily Pooch is pretty good too. Even when being cutely grumpy.

When your day has been ghastly...

...your only choice is to print a page of nonsense onto a sheet of iron-on-transfer-paper and get busy with your pants.

I even remembered to reverse the text. I'll let you know how they turn out.

Knowing that it pays for my crafting is sometimes the only thing that keeps me from nutting people at work.

Bethnal Green Craftacular

The Craftacular at Bethnal Green yesterday was spectacularly well attended. I got there at midday, which was when it was due to open, and the mother of all queues was already in place.

That was just the bit that went round the corner. When you got round it there was a whole another bend to get round.

Has there ever been such a queue to get into a craftacular?

In any case, it was worth the wait, and the £2 entrance fee, as this is what awaited me.

Stand after stand of crafty goodness, plus cakes and drinks. They sold out of iced tea in an hour (20 gallons so I heard) and anyone making fans would have been minted as I must have been asked a dozen time where I'd bought mine. (Luckily I always carry one, as you do - so handy on the tube, and got my panda encrusted one from Artbox. Love that place and excellent online service.) Truly they could have done with some air conditioning.

You know how in the consumer craft world there are trends and then everyone is suddenly doing them? Here it was screenprinting and shapes cut out of acrylic.

Plus moustaches. The days when Erqsome was a lone moustachio'd warrior are no more, and in fact someone told me tattoo artists were now accustomed to people asking for them to be tattoo'd on their fingers, so they could assume a moustache at a moment's notice.

(Can someone please tell me how they will explain a tattoo'd finger to others in 10 years time? But then I guess some things never get old, and the grandkids are going to love it.)

There were also some highly inspirational things too:

Love those pillows, and the pincushions below likewise.

My actual purchases were modest and consisted of a little leather hairclip,

......a free copy of Bust magazine (feminist mag combining lady porn, music, films, interviews and etsy) who organised the whole shindig, a zine, a few greetings card and a snazzy pair of handmade pants.

I also gathered tonnes of business cards for when I am a bit more in the money. So pretty.

Special mention must be made of the cakes. Polka dot heart shaped lemon tarts anyone?

Or edible glitter covered rose water cupcakes?

Sadly a bit beyond my budget for the evening, so luckily I spied a branch of Percy Ingles near Whitechapel tube and made away with 9 of their best for my evening with friends.

Om nom nom nom.