So after my mammoth 11 days working in a row, I’ve had the last 5 days off (hence the many posts – I’m almost caught up on ones I had meant to post during the epic working). This has been bliss, and I’ve been pottering around and deciding what to make next.

Usually with crafty things, I make presents for other people as it seems a good way to justify the money spent on the materials. I managed to make a lot of gifts for Christmas this year, most of which I have yet to write up on here.

But I have decided that I want to make some stuff for myself, especially because that means I can do it all year round (without having to wait until Christmas or birthdays). With this in mind, a couple of days ago I went shopping! In the process I discovered a few great sewing shops I didn’t know about before, namely MacCulloch and Wallis (how did I now know this place existed, and just across the road from John Lewis, which always disappoints me?!) and Rolls and Rems in Holloway (I live in North London), which has a really good selection of fabric at reasonable prices. I also went back to The Cloth Shop, the little sewing and knitting shop in Wood Green Market place which took me ages to find the first time. They have an especially good range of wool and buttons. And I tried to shop in Wools and Crafts on Blackstock Road, but I find it really awkward to browse in there as they follow you around.

Anyway, enough of where I went, onto what I bought:

Anyone who knows me will know that my favourite colour is blue (as you can guess from the design of my blog), but I have recently been wanting to expand the number of colours I wear and I’ve been thinking how useful it would be to have a red cardigan to act as an accent for the blue/black/grey I wear a lot. So I’ve decided to knit myself one. I’ve never knitted clothes for an adult before (I’ve done a couple of baby cardis, with varying degrees of success) so watch this space for whether I have the skill and/ or patience to complete it. This wool was a bargainifourous £13 for 1000 yds, which seems to be roughly how much you need for a small-sized cardigan. I have decided to use this free pattern which I found on Ravelry (more on Ravelry another day). I’m going to see if I can knit it with long sleeves in stead of 3/4 length, but again, I might not have the skills to do this!

I’m way behind on the ‘let’s all sew New Look 6000′ fest that Scruffy Badger organised last year (mostly because I wasn’t making clothes then), but it looked like a good, easy pattern for my first clothes sewing in years, so I bought it and some fabric! I especially like the versions by Tilly and the Buttons and Dolly Clackett. As of writing this, I’ve cut out all the pieces and hope to have it finished by next weekend.

Here is a close-up of my fabric. I thought it would make the dress a bit less formal, so I can wear it regularly. I can also wear it with my new red cardigan (once I make it)!

I thought I would share this picture in case anyone had any ideas what I can sew with these 3 gorgeous pieces of fabric my friend Fran gave me for my birthday. I love them all! They are 50cm square, so I’m thinking to use each of them with a plain fabric on a top (or something) that needs 2 fabrics (for an accented yoke or something like that). They’re too nice to make into a cushion cover, which was my first thought, probably just because they’re square.

I also was given (also by Fran) some bits of her stash – so I’m building up a nice one of my own. I especially like the brown fabric with the turquoise and orange pattern on (bottom left) and the plain grey (top right). There is quite a  bit of some of them a small pieces of some others – again, any thoughts for using them would be great!

Well, back to the sewing machine……