Purl and Seam

Fabric : Fibre : Family

Learning to Spin

Image shows a traditional wooden spinning wheel.

Learning to spin has been on my “to do “list for more years than I care to remember, or, for that matter, admit to.

I suspect it started way back in childhood with all the princesses in their towers, merrily spinning their lives away whilst they awaited their handsome prince and his crack skills at riding mighty steads, scaling tall buildings, rescuing damsels in distress and having fabulous hair.

But, for many years, learning to spin has been on the back burner whilst firstly my priority was putting a roof over my own head, then raising our children. However, over the last couple of years I’ve been working with the incredible Emmy Brunner to work through some things. Part of this process was revisiting some of the practices or dreams that had gone by the wayside. Spinning came back into my mind and I searched for a class.

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Hello, again, hello! Pattern roundup for 2022

Well, it’s been a minute since I’ve been in this space. Or even picked up much in the way of a pattern, yarn or fabric. It feels good to be back, although I wasn’t sure I ever would. The last 16 or so months have been…….interesting.

There’s been a lot going on in all aspects of life, but we’re the other side of 90% of it now and life is good. But also very busy with a new business in the pipeline, teenagers, home, and just life in general.

With all this going on there hasn’t been much making going on. Even the decorating in the hallway isn’t finished and we started that before the Covid pandemic! The few things I knitted have mostly been frogged, and sewing has been sadly missing from my life.

However, I thought I’d take this opportunity to document everything I made since we last spoke, which won’t take long, and then hopefully there’ll be new stuff coming through so that I don’t go into crafty hibernation again. I miss making. I’m itching to sew. I even have new fabric as well as some remaining stash, so time to crack on.

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Best laid plans and all that!

I had an inclination to write a sort of “line in the sand” post with the hope that the coming year would be more….amenable…than the past two. Summer is just starting to study “Of Mice and Men” and the quote which inspired it seems so apposite for the last couple of years:

The best laid plans o’ mice and men

gang aft agley*

and leave us nought but grief and pain

for promised joy!

Robert Burns – “To a Mouse” – 1786. *often go wrong

Never a truer word spoken. It has been such a time of grief, and pain, stress and worry. Many have lost loved ones, and those who haven’t have lost time with their people.

We’re into the second week of January 2022 and ‘plus ça change’!**.

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DIY Oversized Shirt – Vogue

Hello there! I can’t believe that we’re heading towards the end of August and it’s been nearly 3 months since my last post.

Between the dance lessons (all in Liverpool, which is a 2 hour round trip), the ongoing pandemic, fires, earthquakes and Afghanistan falling to the Taliban again, it’s felt so frivolous to be posting in this space. I’ve been almost as sporadic over on Insta too.

Add into the mix the long school summer vacation and almost interminable rain. It’s meant that not a lot has been happening other than keeping small folk occupied and from fisticuffs!

All this means that creative ennui is a real thing at the moment, but I have finished this blouse and a pair of socks. I’ll share the socks next time. Hopefully not in another 3 months, because they’re lovely!

Anyhoo….this shirt!

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DIY Shell Tops – Cashmerette Springfield Top

My sewing of the Cashmerette Springfield Top has, for the first time ever, been serendipitous. This week the weather in the UK has finally changed from the dreary grey and rainy days of these photos to glorious sunshine. We’ve even needed to break out the SPF!

In my quest to a) sew up all the damned fabric in the stash and b) move my wardrobe to more handmade, I needed some basic tops. The Springfield Top fits the bill perfectly. It was also one of the patterns on my TNT pattern wish list spreadsheet that I drew up last autumn. So it ticks another sewing plan box, too. I get to put a ‘Y’ in the TNT column!

The pattern was already in my stash so it’s a double win for using both fabric and a pattern that had been languishing. I’d printed the pattern off a while back, so happily taped it up, did the FBA that I knew I’d need, and cut a toile.

This is what happens when you don’t check your measurements and you add the total amount of the FBA to the pattern piece rather than just the required half!

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DIY Alabama Chanin x Blackwood Cardigan

I have finally finished the Alabama Chanin School of Making (ACSoM) cardigan.

It’s been a total labour of love. I started it in July 2019 and finished it in March of this year. I’ve been waiting to photograph it because, after all that work, it was a wardrobe orphan. But I’ve now got a Cashmerette Springfield top that works perfectly*, so here we go.

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DIY Men’s Henley T-shirt – Patterns for Pirates review

The next of Dave’s Christmas gift garments is a Patterns for Pirates men’s Henley T-shirt. This is actually a selfish sew because I love how good he looks in a Henley. Also, I’ve never sewn one so it seemed a good opportunity to learn a couple of new skills. Knit necklines are a mystery to me, and the placket neckline would, hopefully, be a fun challange.

Patterns for Pirates (P4P) is a new to me pattern company. I had heard of them but never tried them. Men’s patterns are thin on the ground. Men’s patterns to fit these shoulders even more so. I had planned on making Thread Theory’s Strathcona Henley, but it only fits up to a 44″ chest.

So, I did a quick Google search, and found P4P. This was the only men’s Henley I could find that was drafted for larger sizes, but which also had agreeable style proportions. I felt that $9 seemed a reasonable price to pay to explore this new brand.

Grab a beverage. This is a long one!

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DIY Men’s Lounge Pants – McCalls 2586

Dave has been dropping not so subtle hints about me making another pair of McCalls 2586 for a shamefully long time. So, for Christmas, I bought him 3 lengths of fabric to make him garments of his choice. I had a good idea what he’d want, but wanted get the fit exactly how he wanted it.

Although I’d made them previously I want to check the fit before sewing. I know I would fit a pattern from 12 years ago!

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