Interchangeable Needles!

After getting some serious finger ache from my cheap metal circulars, I went crazy and splurged on a gorgeous deluxe set of knit pro symphonie interchangeable needles from GetKnitted. I ordered these around New Year while there was 10% off every order and free delivery, so these worked out at around £45. Which is how I justified it to myself - so much off the RRP!

I'm completely happy with my purchase though! They are the most beautiful needles, the colours are amazing. The more important part though, is the knitting. These knit like a dream. They're so smooth! No more tugging the stitches around the cable, and it's great to have the option of a shorter cable length for hats and mittens. I don't have that annoying loop of extra cable getting in the way any more! 

I've been using them to knit the Ashley Worsted hat at the moment, and changing up needle sizes after the rib was so easy! Just twist them off the cable and twist the new needles on! 

Progress so far!

I'm hoping these will be an investment - I never have to buy any circular needles ever again! 

IKEA!

I went on a trip to Ikea with my best friends a little while back.. I love it there for the cheap, useful homeware  but I really wanted to check out the fabric this time.

Photo by Fimagine 

When we finally got around the whole store and into the market hall, I walked straight past the fabric. It was only once I got to the end and asked an employee that I realised. It was hidden away with all the quilts and bedding! I dragged my friends back and was completely spoilt for choice. I eventually picked out two prints. A gingham red cotton (£6/metre) and a thinner white cotton with numbers printed all over (£3/metre).

(On a side note, are the scissors at IKEA quite possibly the worst, most blunt scissors in the world? I think so!)

I'm happy with my purchases though, and I'm thinking of trying a Colette Sorbetto with the white print. 

Nintendo DS Case

I've finally jumped on the DS bandwagon, now that my brother got bored of his and passed it on to me. I've been playing Pokemon Pearl on my train journeys, but I've been a bit worried about it in my bag.

So of course, I made a case for it! I had a look at a lot of other tutorials, but none of them were exactly what I wanted, so I designed my own. It's closest to this tutorial, which I used for some construction help.

I used my newly delivered Walk in the Woods fabric, which I am still so in love with!

I still need to add some velcro as a closure, but I love the result so far! Now my DS can travel in safety and style!

With Fabric and Thread

After seeing all the pictures of this book on other blogs, I had to give in and get it. I'm so glad I did! My sewing machine is buried under moving boxes at the moment, but as soon as I'm settled into my new flat, I can't wait to try out all the beautiful patterns in this book!

The hard-cover ring binding makes it feel so much more hard wearing, as well as making it easier to keep on the right page while you're making the patterns. 

These pincushions are so cute. I want to make them in all sorts of colourways. 

These slipper boots are by far my favourite pattern though. I suffer from seriously cold feet, even in summer, so these would be perfect for keeping me warm in style!

My sewing machine will definitely be the first thing I unpack!

Knitted Bows

I'm waiting to move in to my new flat in just over a week. This means, however, that I'm living at my parents' house, with boxes everywhere, all over the floor. It's not really conductive to sewing though, as I can barely get to my sewing machine. So I've gone back to my first love, knitting!

I just wanted some small projects to work on. Something with instant gratification.

So I made these! Knitted bows. Each of them takes under an hour to make, and they're so cute! They're pretty addictive though. I can't stop thinking about all the different combinations I can make!

I'll probably end up sticking them in my etsy shop at some point. I'm still not sure whether to make them into brooches or hair clips. I think they'd work great in both ways!

Cinnamon Sugar Bread

With all the unseasonable cold and rain at the moment, I've started to crave cold weather foods. One of my favourites of these is anything cinnamon. My boyfriend and I decided to take a rainy day to do some baking, and a look on pinterest led me to this recipe for Cinnamon and Sugar Pull-Apart Bread. 

To start with, butter is melted in a saucepan with milk. Then water and vanilla extract is added.

Then mix flour, sugar, yeast and salt in a bowl.

Add the butter mixture to the flour mixture and mix well.

Beat eggs and add to the mixture, mix well. Add the remaining flour.

Cover and leave the dough until it's doubled in size. (We used this time to watch another episode of Game of Thrones season 2, which we've been saving until summer to watch!)

Knead in two tablespoons of flour and cover again for 5-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the filling. Mix sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl. Melt some butter.

Then roll out the dough and cover with butter and the sugar mix.

Cut into squares and stack in a dish.

Bake!

And eat!

It's delicious. Reminds me a lot of Danish pastries (or cinnamon rolls, as I've heard them called). Perfect dessert to cheer us up from the horrible weather. Hopefully now the sun will come out and I can blog about some more summery treats!

Card Holder

I've been needing a new holder for my Oyster card (payment card for the London Underground trains) for a long time. I go through these plastic ones at a rate of about one a year, and they're just not pretty. 

So I decided to cut in to one of my lovely Lecien fabrics. I used this tutorial from The Crafty Cupboard, which is really for business cards, but works just as well for this. 

I cut out all the necessary pieces, opting to go for fewer different fabrics than the original. 

Folded, pressed and topstitched a double hem onto the pockets.

Pinned the pockets to the lining. Ironed the fusible fleece to the top layer and pinned it, right sides together to the lining piece. I inserted a small hair tie for closing purposes. Then sewed all the way around, turned inside out and used an invisible stitch to close the gap. It was around this point that I realised that the metal part of the hair tie was now on the outside. So I cut it off and sewed it back together. Not sure how well this will hold with time, but the metal part made it difficult to close. I then sewed on a button (I agonised over which button to use for ages, but decided the blue went well with the blue flowers on the fabric). 

Now I have a much prettier holder for my Oyster card, and hopefully a much more hard-wearing one!