Lacy Grey Cowl by Whisper Twister

I bought my first crochet pattern off Etsy a few months back, as my easy project to make on the honeymoon.  I chose the Lacy Grey Cowl by Whisper Twister, a pattern labelled as 'Advanced Beginner'.  "Sounds super simple" I thought to myself as I clicked 'add to basket', "perfect for some beachside crafting".  Well, like many things on the honeymoon (or VomFest '14), things didn't go according to plan...



I used the remains of the lovely Studio Donegal left over from my green cable knit hat.  There wasn't quite enough for the 6 rows of fans detailed in the pattern, so I made do with 4 and a half.  The result is a rather skinny cowl, totally wearable but definitely more suited to late summer/early autumn weather, as opposed to the almost-winter type temperatures we've had recently.  As you can see from the photos, it does tend to hang with a bit of decolletage on display (read: exposed chilly gooseflesh), which I think may just accentuate the fact that it's just a WEE bit too skinny.





The pattern itself on the whole was easy enough to read, but the author definitely assumes some prior knowledge that I found myself sadly lacking.  My normal attitude to this is 'plough on and see what happens'...meaning I spent a decent amount of time frogging.  Boo.  When holed up in a Premier Inn with a vomiting husband on what is supposed to be the first few days of your honeymoon in the Caribbean, this was more upsetting than normal, rational Amy would find.







Saying that though, at one point I emailed the author to look for direction.  This normally puts me right off a pattern, since a well written pattern shouldn't need guidance from the author, but to his or her credit, they got back to me within the hour.  Great customer service there!



Overall, I'm pleased with my cowl and it will definitely get a lot of wear on warmer autumnal or spring days.  I like that it matches my hat and I love love LOVE the yarn, it's super soft and I heart the colour.  I'm not sure I would buy another Whisper Twister pattern, but now I've got this one and I know better what I'm doing, I would probably make it again.  Another wider cowl, possibly in slightly chunkier yarn would be nice for those winter dog walks.

Goodbye 2013...hello 2014!

It's the traditional Hogmanay post, where I look back on the year passed and reflect on the coming new year.  This time last year I was still blogging under Second Fiddle and wrote a new year's resolution post over here.  Lets see how I fared, shall we?



Oaked hat in action!  May in Scotland = wellies, bodywarmer, hat.

1.  Craft more for me!  I was definitely better at that this year, completing the Oaked hat, Still Light jumper dress frankensweater, Brick sweater, upcycling teacups to plantpots, converting a t-shirt to a vest, upcycling old sweaters to cushion covers, making myself a scrub top from vintage sheets and making myself a mobile sock.  I also redesigned a tote bag and made my first Sorbetto top for me.  Much better than the 4 projects for me from 2012!

To help with this resolution, I entered the Did You Make That? Sewlutions challenge.  I foolishly stated the following:

Ooo, count me in! I’d like to pledge to make 6 items of clothing for me over the course of the year. I think one every other month is manageable!  

Now, the key word here is 'make'.  At the time I meant 'sew', since it's sewing that I struggle to find time to practice.  Knitting is easy and portable and you can do it for 20 minutes no problem.  Sewing is difficult and requires concentration and space to cut out and lots of moving around and up-and-down from the machine to the iron to the table  = MAJORLY NOT RELAXING.  This year I have only sewn myself 3 items, only achieving 50% of my sewlution.  Cringe, I hate failing.  If by 'make' we include knitted projects, then I count 6 items so yay, success!  No, don't be silly, you failed.  Hang your head and try again in 2014 missy.

My one and only Sorbetto this year.  It's had a lot of wear so far though!

But!  I'm all for learning from your mistakes.  My issues with sewing are as follows:

- I don't know what I'm doing so I guess and bodge and end up with something sub-par.  This makes me disheartened and reluctant to try again next time.

- I'm quite time limited for my crafting, so I prefer to prioritise projects I know I can succeed with i.e. knitting.  Sewing involves lots of setting up and tidying away, which eats into my actual crafting time.  

- Sewing is more expensive in terms of patterns and notions.  I have a lot of stash fabric but to make a specific pattern you need to buy said pattern and the appropriate notions, which is often more than I can afford to spend, especially when a lot of the lovely indie patterns out there that I'd love to try are £7-15 a piece, before notions.  Since I can't guarantee a good, wearable outcome, I'm worried about spending the money, ruining the pattern and having nothing to show for it.

Sewaholic's Hollyburn skirt

I've decided for 2014 that I need to start again from scratch with a nice, easy beginner pattern.  Something that will guide me through but leave me with something I will actually wear and use.  Something ideally in digital format, so if it goes wrong, I can print it again!  Or I need to learn to trace patterns.  To this end I intend to make more Sorbettos, try Sencha (also by Colette patterns) and try Sewaholic's Hollyburn skirt.  These are all patterns that would fill gaps in my wardrobe, but allow me to practice my skills and start again from scratch. In the meantime, my sewing machine and I are taking a break from each other.  There's no point continuing to force it when it just ain't happenin'.  I've got plenty of knitting to be getting on with in the meantime.



2.  Start giving regularly to charity.  This is something I can proudly say I've managed.  I set aside a small amount of money every month to give away and have given to several different charities over the course of the year.  I couldn't settle on just one as there are so many different good causes so I decided to give to a different one each month as caught my eye.  I've given to friends doing sponsered runs or growing body hair, I've given to bucket collectors in the street for national charity days and small, local charities collecting outside Boots.  I saved the last 5 months of the year and gave a lump sum to the Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home as it's the local charity rehoming centre from which we got Badger and I work with them through the vet school neutering programme.

- Next year I'd like to continue this resolution, it's given me a good feeling to be able to start giving back to the world in a small way.  Hopefully when this internship is over and I'm back on a normal wage I'll be able to increase my contributions as well.

3.  Start doing exercise.  I did really well with this for the first 3 months of the year, training 2-3 times a week for the half marathon.  Then job hunting took over and I got disheartened and ended up giving up training.

I'm not going to keep this one next year, it's not a priority for me at the moment and I'm OK with that, I've made my peace with my health and body for the moment.  Plus, talking about exercise is BORING.  Hand me the wine bottle.

So!  Instead I'm substituting the following:

By the end of 2014, I want to have a better work-life balance.  This internship will be over in 7 months (and counting) and I want my next job to allow me more time to indulge my extra-curricular activities and spend more time with friends and family.  I love being a vet, don't get me wrong, but I love other things too!  How am I going to learn how to sew my own wardrobe when I work 12 days on, 2 days off??

I'm excited about 2014 - it's the year I get married, hopefully get a new job and possibly move house.  Plus, with all the exciting craft projects I've got on the brew, what's not to look forward to?  Have a lovely time with your friends and family and I'll see you all on the other side!

Enagagement photoshoot with Zoe Campbell

I'm warning you now, this isn't a majorly craft-filled post.  But I really wanted to share these here because, y'know, it's my blog and so what I says goes.  Haha!  There is a minor homemade element for the eagle-eyed among you, to be spotted in the photo below...



Image credit - Zoe Campbell

Andrew and I had an engagement photoshoot with the wonderful Zoe Campbell last week and honestly, I can't sing this dear lady's praises highly enough.  For two slightly awkward, hugely unphotogenic people, Zoe made the whole experience so relaxed and we're both so delighted with the results so far (we've only seen the sneak peeks!).  We took the dog to Longniddry Bents, one of our favourite places for dogwalking, thinking it would make a nice background for the photographs.  It was a cold, grey day but somehow Zoe managed to capture the beauty of the beach and landscape.  You can see all of the Edinburgh skyline from this side of the firth, as shown in one of my Instagram photos, it's one of my favourite views of Edinburgh.



Image credit - Zoe Campbell


Zoe was so relaxed about Badger, who was delighted for his first foray off-lead in 6 weeks since he had knee surgery and proceded to dick-punch everyone in sight.  He made it his life's mission to get his snout into Zoe's probably very expensive camera bag but she took it all in her stride.



Image credit - Zoe Campbell

Although I'm a lover of thrift and bargains, there are some things in life you just shouldn't scrimp on.  In the past this list for me has included sanitary products, mayonnaise and sewing thread but this list most def needs to include wedding photography.  We are going to look back on these photos for years to come, when we're old and saggy and the dog wears reading spectacles and reminisce over what beautiful people we were in our youf.  Because we are all beautiful people, despite our wrinkles and cellulite and dick-punching tendancies.  And clever people like Zoe know how to capture that on film for generations to come.  I honestly can't wait to see the wedding photos now.



Image credit - Zoe Campbell

P.S. The eagle eyed among you will have noticed the Transformer gloves (still in use after 3 years, though they needed some serious darning at the start of this winter season!).  The flowery top I was wearing will be the subject of a future post as I won it in a giveaway from the lovely Handmade Jane and it has spawned it's own knitwear giveaway, to be announced in the not-too-distant future.  Watch this space...

Kirstie Allsopp enjoys sausage

Ohemgee, the last episode of Kirstie Allsopp's Homestyle was HILARIOUS!!  I was slightly on the fence about whether or not Kirstie and I would get on in the real world (I adore her, but am slightly intimidated by her jolly-hockeysticks-competitive-head-girl demeanour, as the nerdy kid of the class I think she would have ignored me at school), but no more I say!



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After this episode, which saw me almost crying with laughter while she made sausages, I'm sure we'd be firm friends in no time.  As soon as they introduced the 'making sausages' segment of the programme, my brain erupted in a flurry of inappropriate jokes for that time of night before the watershed.  I mean, come on, you can't use words like 'meat', 'length', 'girth' without attracting some raised eyebrows.  Or in my case, mischievous, school girl giggling.  Watching Kirstie attempt to squeeze sauasage meat (tee hee) into long, girthy tubes of pig intestine (hahaha) whilst simultaneously trying to keep her hair out of her face, her cheeks going pink with the effort of holding in the laughter....HAHAHAHA, I can't keep it in, even as I type this!

Ahem.  Rearranges self.



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There were some lovely recipes in this episode.  The Christmas Ham is definitely one I'm going to try as soon as possible, no way am I waiting for Christmas to cook that bad boy.  Sure, I'm going to try a smaller scale, less expensive version for 2 people instead of 12 but my mouth is watering even as we speak, thinking about it.



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I'd also love to try the mulled cider recipe from this episode.  Especially if I can make it outside over a camp stove "like a witch" in the lovely lady's own words.  This would be perfect for autumn, there's already a nip in the air after all.  I had my first port of the season this weekend...any excuse for a tipple to be honest.

Kirstie Allsopp's Home Style

If you're reading a blog entitled 'Craft and Thrift', then chances are I don't need to tell you about this marvelous new TV show from Channel 4.  Kirstie Allsopp's Home Style is a new series from Kirstie (who I have loved since her Location, Location, Location days, we'd be besties in the real world I reckon), where she implores the viewer to recycle, upcycle and craft your way to the perfect home.

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In this first of a four-parter, she shows us how to make a simple set of coasters from tiles & paper napkins (plus PVA glue - love it! So Blue Peter), how to paint, distress & reupholster a chair, how to gild a thrifted photo frame and create a personalised doormat (hello, housewarming present).  These projects are simple, thrifty and accessible to most normal folk, encouraging and inspiring the regular, non-crafty person to take up a paintbrush and create a lovely, homely nest for you and yours.  I love that a lot of the projects can be done with very minimal financial outlay and possibly with objects already in your home, gathering dust in a garage or "under the stairs".  Who doesn't have a half-used box of white tiles sitting on a shelf, somewhere in their abode?  I personally have half a dozen boxes of gold leaf, mouldering away between my caviar and my quails eggs.  

I jest Kirstie, I jest.  Please don't come after me with your lacrosse stick...

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Unfortunately, the practical, attainable crafts are interspersed with segments where Kirstie takes regular folks (i.e. white, middle class Guardian readers in their 30s/40s) and forces them out of their comfort zone by teaching them New Skillz.  One couple spend a pleasant afternoon in a pottery class (a clip from a previous series, please note.  I'm watching you Allsopp), making very pretty plates.  Another couple try their hands at screenprinting onto a sideboard.  I like it, encouraging people to try new things, great, 10 out of 10.  However, the next couple, somewhat bizarrely, are forced into a cement-sculpting-light-fitting class.  This ain't your gramma's version of craft.  I love the pushing-the-boundaries aspect of the concrete class, I don't like how bloody random it is.  The dude teaching the class is called Junior and has a dreadlock beard that is so long, I'm surprised he doesn't get it stuck in the cement.  Tie back yo'hair Junior!  I don't approve of your lax attitude to health and safety.  It's a cool idea in theory, but really, how many of us are now lining up at our nearest art school, clamouring for lessons on concrete sculpting?  Neither practical, nor attainable.  For shame Kirstie, for shame.

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Overall though, I love this show.  Anything on TV that encourages craft, thrift, recycling, sustainability & liberates the regular person from their Ikea and Primark prison gets two thumbs up from me.  Keep 'em coming love.  Ooh, and I spy Phil in the teaser for the coming episodes...!