Ta-dah!

Here's the famous top! My first sewn item from a pattern. I can't say it was easy...

...and the top looks a little big on me...

...and I'm not sure it's my colour...

But it's an achievement all the same, thanks to a lot of help from my partner in craft, Esme.
Proud, moi? 

It's from a Burda style pattern. Not super-easy to follow, I must say, but the next thing I make should be done a whole lot quicker, as I've learned some of the lingo now! 

And here's that book everyone in Miskin Makes is talking about...

Esme! Two blog-posts in one day, oh my! 

Drones and Spanners and Crafting in the Deli

Wow, so let's update on Miskin craftclub from the last few weeks. A lot has happened, this is just the highlights.

 

We had an interesting craftclub night at Amy's house which turned out to be fairly masculine in fact. Firstly, Mikey joined in with the crafting with some birthday Konstructor and made a mighty fine miniature drone, with it's very own controller pad. NEAT!

 

 

While the drone was being constructed, Amy was cracking on with her top she's sewing, but had a bit of an issue with a dodgy needle, and a whole lotta man-tools were brought in for damage control.

Needless to say, it was lucky we had some vino to sooth the frustration, and it was a great craftclub.

 

 

Last week was controversial - morning craft? In the Pontyclun deli! Undoutably, our breakfast was going to be epic.

 

Craft was put aside for a short while, when Lego on the PS4 deviated our concentration. Fun, but not craft!

 

And, last but not least, great craft was done on Tuesday 13 May too, when the lovely Bethan joined us.

I've recently had an urge for some new jewellery, so took along my tin of beads.

And Beth wowed us with her free-form dressmaking technique, (how very chinello?!). Although smiling for the camera is evidently not her strong point!

And NEWSFLASH! Amy finished her top! She is officially a sewing queen! It looks fantastic, and also a triumph she was able to get to the end of such a puzzling pattern - (Baste? Like a chicken? What?!)

Adios for now......I'm just going to go and read the new Tilly book.

 

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Bobbin busters and reverse knitting

Another great craft club was had on Thursday evening.

 

Although home made cake was mentioned earlier in the week, night shift sleeping resulted in a quick dash to co-op for craft snacks. Home made nibbles next time!

 

So on with the crafting.....

Amy faced some fears by cracking open her sewing machine, and after some initially stressing.....

 

.....How the flip do bobbins work anyway???

She created some tip-top darts, and it won't be long before there is a fully wearable sewn-by-amy top!

 

In the meantime, I was getting on with crochet rabbit número 2, which needs to be finished by Easter Sunday. Time is ticking.

 

Also this week, I have been doing to reverse knitting (surprisingly therapeutic)

 

Turning an old scarf (it was ghastly with my complexion) into a ball of yarn.......with hopes of finally turning it into a mummy sheep. How ironic?! As Mikey gleefully pointed out. It's to go with previously blogged about lamb.

Cheerio.

 

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Bats and hats

Good craft club round our house this week, with the Esmeister and myself. I started work on my first sewn outfit from a proper paper pattern... so far it's taken me three days and I've only just cut out the pieces of the fabric. And that's WITH help from Sez-cat:

But I've been busy finishing off some knitting projects. I knitted a hat for Steve for his birthday, made from yarn from San Francisco, and some real Welsh wool, nice and chunky.

Also I finished a baby blanket. It's from a pattern called Wool Leaves and it's really lovely, lace knitting but with chunky yarn (I used 2 strands of Bergere yarn, bought from the great yarn shop in Cowbridge called La Mercerie. It ate up yarn; 8 balls it took!

And...I've just finished knitting a bat. A vampire bat, called Boo. Here he is! I love bats, and so does a friend of mine, so I knitted him for her new baby. The pattern is by Anna Hrachovec, and she has some awesome patterns of cute creatures, check out her website Mochimochi Land. 

It's the final of the Great British Sewing Bee next week, must make a special appointment to watch!

Rabbits and lambs.

Just a quick spring time post today.

 

I've been pretty impressed by issue 38 of Mollie Makes. Although I love reading it each month (and drooling over the pretty pictures) there has been a lack of projects I've been inspired to actually nuckle down and try myself for a while now. This month however I've made Monsieur Lapin.......

Who turned out to be pretty smashing, even if I do say so myself.

 

And I've also made the super-cute little lamb pattern by E&G Creates. I'm not going to lie, it wasn't my most favourite project of all time, as it is extremely fiddly (maybe because I chose to use a 2.5 size hook) and I lost interest when the different segments look so un-lamb-like. And urgh....the underbody had to be re-done so many times!

But I trooped on through and......Oh me of such little crochet faith - trust the pattern. Because once all assembled he's turned out pretty flippin' cute. Look.

 

No Miskin craftclub this week. More next week hopefully. Also, my material for the Colette Juniper trouser pattern has just arrived. Time to tackle a fly zip. Gulp!

 

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Amy's quilt

Hello crafty blog readers.

Thanks to Esme for setting up the Miskin Makes blog, which is going to a lovely place where we can collect photos of all the magical crafty things we make.

I thought I'd post some photos of my most epic craft project - my patchwork quilt. I started making this in 2011 I think, when I began going to St Fagan's quilt club run by Sian and Samantha (they both have blogs http://sianlilemakes.blogspot.co.uk/ and http://samanthamakes.tumblr.com/ ).

My quilt has taken a few years so far...

March 2012 - laying out the hexagons

Seren cat loves craft too

January 2014 - hexagons are all sewn together (with help from my mum)

Pinning the hexagons to the batting and back sheet

Now all I have to do is quilt the layers together! I may be making this quilt for some time yet...

Miskin Makes on Tour in The Boar

So the first ever Craft club post starts off 'on tour' in The Boars Head pub......

Main news......Amy was knitting a bat, and here she is with it's very pointy derrière

And I was crocheting the Mollie Makes Monsieur Lapin, he's a little lop hop-sided in the picture.

Interesting points of note include:-

Do bats have pointy bums?

What should we call the blog? Many suggestions (including craft raft,life craft, clwb craft, Miskin too tight, I laugh in the face of roundabouts......clearly it became quite abstract towards the end of the evening)

How awesome is Wheelies new guitar pedal? It really is a piece of art!

We all learnt about Erins recent love interest.....tbc

And what has more calories - Beer or wine?

That's about it for now. More makes from Miskin to come.

 

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