This Week....

I have been really busy..  On Sunday the family all came for Lunch, followed by afternoon tea (and Cake) as a prequel to Little H's Birthday, then in the evening I dashed off to DD's ready to dog sit on Monday so that they could all go to The West Midland Safari Park . Tuesday was 'the' BIRTHDAY with Pink Balloons and lots of gifts for a VERY EXCITED 3 year old! This was followed by a trip out to buy the 'birthday girl' her first bicycle plus of course the all important cycling helmet and lunch where DGD managed to eat not only Fish & Chips but most of her Dad's ice cream, some of her Mum's and some of Mine as well!!

Here she is in our garden yesterday on her bike, the 'passenger' is Schnitzel von Crumb her favorite soft toy

Wednesday saw me back home and off to a workshop No not sewing... but you've guessed it KNITTING!!! After my lovely day in the Wool Stop last Saturday the lovely Tina gave me a free place on one of the workshops. Thursday I set off for Knit & Knatter but discovered that I had the wrong week so I did a bit of shopping instead, then on Friday after a visit by DD & Co (Ted is staying for the weekend) I went to help a friend with packing up his home prior to moving house. Few!!!! 

So about that workshop. It was a 'Finishing' workshop with the lovely Jacqui Harding, knitting designer extraordinaire, she took us through the why's and wherefore's of how to finish our knitting projects in such a way that they look 'professional'. We we spent time learning a few different buttonhole types, below from the bottom we have a teeny tiny eyelet buttonhole, next is a vertical one worked using 2 balls of yarn (usually in the same colour but this way was easier to see!) followed by a 2 row buttonhole using the cast on/cast of method (I hate doing those!) then a 2 row one with a slip knot cast on (didn't like that either!) then a 1 row buttonhole over 3 stitches using the Elizabeth Zimmerman method. (shown here)

We had a go at picking up stitches for borders without making any annoying little holes. 

We learned how to cast off smoothly on the shoulders to avoid the annoying little 'lumps' which make the seams look so huge. We were instructed on how to block knitting before sewing up, and how to work Mattress Stitch, which I found fascinating, I have seen it in books and on patterns, but have never tried it.. in future I shall use it at every opportunity. Visit Jen, a young lady who was on the workshop with me and has a knitty blog with a great tutorial for Mattress stitch. (Here)

So as soon as I got home I vowed to make 'Maisie' look better, as you know I was not hugely pleased with it all along and it took for ever to get done as you may remember from previous posts. So without further ado I got up early today and took apart the the neck ribbing and the shoulder seam and here are the results so far. The top piece is the seam BEFORE the new cast off method and below is the new smooth cast off. 

See what I means that girl is a wizard! I then proceeded to soak the pieces in some warm water with some shampoo (yes! SHAMPOO) for a couple of hours before squeezing out most of the water in some towels, rinsing with some conditioner, then patting it into shape on another towel on the garden bench, I covered it all with a towel and left the sunshine to do it's work. Well I think it already looks a whole lot better than it did and the shampoo has made it very soft and cuddly, what do you think?

I now can't wait to sew it all together so she can take it home on Monday when they collect Ted. While it was drying I made a little knitted doll.

Then a friend called in to drop off some items I had ordered. Jo makes lovely Cyanotype (not sure of the spelling here!) printed cards and I just love em! here is a picture of my delivery today.

she also dropped off some useful note pads too..

Oh and I almost forgot, I received my Needle-books from my swap partner this week too, they are so cute she also put in this little needle-felted mug rug which will be used by the computer when I am busy there enjoying a nice cuppa!!

note the cute detail inside the larger book.

Well that's it for this time see you all soon.
Lx