Knitting, Travelling and DIY: The Urban Cottage in 2014.

I've spotted lots of people doing a year in review on their blogs, going through their blog stats to see what has been most popular each month. Never one to miss an opportunity to look at the numbers I decided to join in, so here I give you 2014 at The Urban Cottage; a year of knitting, travelling and DIY.

January. The year got off to a rocky start as we confessed that our house had sprung a leak. We never did find the source of the problem, and it hasn't dripped since - waiting to surprise us on a wet and blustery day I've no doubt.

This year we've been writing about our favourite games, and in February it was our post about Go, the 60's travel game, that won the most visits.

In March the latest series of the Great British Sewing Bee finally gave me the courage to play with some tartan fabric I'd bought the year before resulting in an a-line skirt.

April was a sad month as we has to share the news that we lost Fizzy to un unknown illness.

Making our guest room a proper bedroom proved very popular in May - with the big reveal making the top spot for the month...

... while in June we continued our DIY stint with some extra wiring for our bedside tables.

July's blog peaks both came courtesy of some good friends with a tantalising extract from Chloe Banks book - The Art of Letting Go, and photos of her son in some of my knitting vying for top spot.

In August you all helped us get excited as we explained the details of our plans to flee the country for three months, 

and finally we were off with September's highlight being our Canadian travels from snowy rockies through to sunny Kelowna.

October was the month that saw us leave our WWOOFing hosts for five weeks of camping, only to have our tent break 10 days in! Our post explaining the change of circumstances and the run for the North Island and campervan hire was the winner on this occasion.

Of course no-one can resist the charms of the hobbits - and it seems you couldn't either, with our photos from our trip to hobbiton in November becoming one of the most popular posts this year.

Finally, December's post about my travel knitting - the Vernal Equinox Shawl - finished off the year nicely. 

And so it just leaves us to say a massive thank you all for your visits, comments and support over 2014 - it means a lot to know that our writing here is appreciated. Have a happy 2015!

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Creativity for the Uncreative by Chloe

Until recently I shied away from being described as creative. As an author, I suppose it was a reasonable description, but even when my first novel was published I didn't feel as if the title suited me. Creative people wear smocks and multiple piercings, they practise mindfulness at sunrise and stay up half the night discussing philosophy. They don’t wear jeans and spill fruit juice down their t-shirts just before they have to go out and watch trashy documentaries when they’re tired.

But I think it’s time I re-claimed the word ‘creative’. My university degree – my first love – is science, and I always rejected being ‘creative’ as it seemed to be the opposite to ‘scientific’. What rubbish! Scientists are some of the most creative people out there. If you look at the way inventions were refined, mathematical equations defined and new theories opined, it is a world of rich, extraordinary thinking. Creativity is “the use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness”. There are no limits as to where you use that creativity.

I’m sure many of you are as creative as Joe and Jenny, Rulers of this Blog, are. I cannot claim to match them in terms of the width and depth of their creativity but I do dabble with knitting and sewing, I love baking and I make up lies for my day job. All these things are, of course, creative, and most of them I’m not much good at. But I've come to believe, that true creativity isn't in mastering these skills. True creativity is in learning new things. You might not be the first person to knit a sock or make a special cushion so you can sit on the stairs more comfortably (OK, you may be the first person to do that), but if it’s new for you then you are creating something in your life – inventing a new part of yourself.

In the last five years I've tried to teach myself all sorts of new things. I taught myself to knit, to touch-type, to write in Teeline shorthand and to use a sewing machine. I've made a Christmas tree out of baubles. Not all of those things would be considered creative by most people, but they have sparked my imagination and enriched my life. Creativity doesn't just mean crafts.

As I write this I have just taken possession of a DVD containing 48 lectures outlining the classics of British literature. This was something of an impulse purchase when I stumbled across the company The Great Courses. Have you heard of them? They provide over 500 courses – from meditation or calculus, to world history or the appreciation of art – given by leading university professors and experts. Is it creative? I don’t know, but it’s new, it’s making me use my brain (as a full-time mum of a young baby this is something I value!) and it’s widening my experience of the world.

I'm no longer scared of being called creative. Somewhere, deep down or on the surface, we are all creative. It’s part of being gloriously human. We just have to decide what we want to spend our time creating. If we never stop learning new stuff, we’ll never stop inventing new parts of ourselves. And isn't that an adventure?

What new things have you been learning recently?

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Chloe is a long-standing friend and has appeared on this blog a few times in the last year . Chloe is a teller of tales - some short, some long, some prize-winning. She started writing by accident a few years ago and forgot to stop until it was too late. Her first novel, The Art of Letting Go, was published in July 2014. Chloe lives in Devon with her husband and son, where she makes puddings, avoids spiders and wages war on misused apostrophes. You can catch up with her on her website, or chat to her on Twitter.

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Pots from Old Jeans by Wendy

I'm very proud to say that I am Joe's mum and fortunate that Jenny is now part of our family. Joe's old bedroom is now a guest room ( with a fold down bed made by his dad ) and my workroom were I can surround myself with fabrics and be inspired.

This week I have made a couple of fabric storage pots from the legs of old jeans. One pair were black the other standard blue ( slightly harder to sew as they are stretch ones). I tried to find some with the least flare from my box of discarded jeans. 

I used an 8 inch section from a leg plus a circle. If you can't cope with working out how big to cut the circle, by measuring across the leg x 2 to get circumference and doing the maths, try putting "circle calculator" into Google and it will work out the maths for you. Do remember to measure the denim tube along the seam allowance not the bottom raw edge and add the same seam allowance to the circle either on the pattern or as you cut it.

      

For the lining I used some cotton fat quarters from my fabric stash and some extra firm heat and bond interfacing. I would normally iron the interfacing to the outside fabric but I did not want to unpick the side seams so fused it to the main body of the lining on the sides but to the denim on the base.

Folding the lining fabric and placing the leg section on top, so one side of leg is along the fold, I cut out the lining the same size at the top and bottom but leaving a seam allowance down the side which I marked with a prym trickmarker. This seam was then pinned and stitched.

This tube was attached to the denim tube ( wrong sides together ) at one end. Pulled right side out and pressed, then top stitched on the denim through the layers of the seam.

The base circle of denim and a matching circle cut out of the lining were pinned then machine tacked together. I marked both the circle and the denim end of the tube in 4 equal places along the sewing lines ( not the edges) to help join them together. I pinned then machined along the stitching line twice to make it strong. You may need to tack it first to ensure you don't get pleats or puckers.

      

     

Clip the curves then fold the lining down the sides and ladder stitch into place by hand.

Turn right side out and fold down the cuff.

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A Toe and a Bag

It's been quite a while since I shared some knitting here on the blog so I thought you might like to see the start of my latest project.

I'm attempting to knit some socks for Joe. Yes, attempting. The element of uncertainty here comes in the size of Joe's feet - somewhere around a size 11 or 12. Since most sock patterns aren't aimed at this I'm making it up as I go along. So far I'm finding the challenge quite fun.

I'm working toe-up as then I can knit the leg until I've used half the yarn before moving onto the second sock and I'm keeping the general pattern quite simple. If this all goes horribly wrong then either someone with smaller feet wins a pair of socks or Joe can wear them on top of another pair when he's cold.

On a related note, Friday was my birthday and I had the day off work to do whatever I wanted. I had a lovely relaxed day and as part of it I took a couple of hours to make myself a little project bag for keeping my current work-in-progress tidy and easy to cart around. I followed the pattern here and found it all came together very nicely. I was worried it would be too small as my sock needles are 8" long and the bag is only supposed to be 7.5" tall, but I hadn't taken into account the volume of the bag. The needles sit diagonally with room to spare.

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Tartan A-line Skirt

So here's the deal. For many years I had worn jeans, jeans and nothing but jeans. They were comfy, they were safe, they went with all my tops and jumpers making wardrobe choices easy. Then last summer, feeling a little guilty for the small collection of skirts gathering dust in my wardrobe I decided to give them an airing. To my greatest surprise I discovered I now love wearing skirts (quite a change from last time I'd worn them). To top up my collection I had a go at making one - and it went well, then I made a second - even better.

By the end of the summer I didn't want to go back exclusively to trousers for the winter months so I stocked up on tights, packed away my brightest summery skirts and bought some material to make another skirt that would be suitable all year round.

Have you guessed it yet? Yes, it's March and I still have the material and no skirt.

Until now...

I had two main dilemma's that had stopped me progressing with this project. Firstly, that I wanted the tartan on the diagonal, which meant dealing with the material on the bias - something that sounded very scary. The other problem, was when I got it out and looked at it closer (about November time) I realised that the squares on the tartan weren't, well, square. This meant that I couldn't get my head around how the pattern was going to meet at the side seams and I packed it all away for another day.

After watching the Great British Sewing Bee episode on patterned fabrics a couple of weeks ago I felt it was time to go for it. No more faffing, or dilly dallying. The material was £5/mtr so if it all went horribly wrong it wasn't going to break the bank (I was still going to try my darned hardest to make sure it didn't of course).

The grain runs top to bottom (ish)

I took the pattern I'd started from when making my previous a-line and used my quilting ruler to mark on the 45 degree line. Then lined this up with the grain on the material, made sure that the pattern was fairly central, took a deep breath and cut out the first piece. Phew. Then matched this piece up exactly on the fabric pattern and cut a second one. I realised my saving grace was that this material looked identical (to my eyes at least) on the back and the front, so I didn't need to flip one of the two pieces in order to have "right sides together". I could use them both as I'd cut them which meant everything would meet at the sides after all. Hooray!

Knowing that no matter how well I pin things they have a tendency to shift a little as they go through the sewing machine I decided to take my time with this one (very unusual) and tack it all together before I sewed it properly. It would only take the pattern to be a little bit off and it was going to show - not a very forgiving project, and I wanted it to stand up the scrutiny of the more experienced dressmakers around me.

Side seams tacked, zip tacked, darts tacked. Time for the machine. A few minutes later and the main body of the skirt was done and pressed. The zip took a couple of attempts to get close enough, but generally time spent tacking really paid off. It's not 100% perfect, but I'm pretty pleased with it.

Then I spent a while trying to decide whether to line it or not (you'd think I'd make these decisions sooner in the process wouldn't you? Maybe next time...). I tried it on as it was and came to the conclusion that it was clinging to my tights rather a lot so lining was the way forward. I ordered some online and then progressed as far as I could with the waistband while I waited for it to be delivered.

I used the same technique here as my first skirt attempt; making the waistband into a tube for the first couple of inches, complete with button hole; sewing the length of it to the top of the skirt; pressing it in half; pressing a seam allowance under at the bottom and (later) stitching "in the ditch" all the way round to finish.

When the lining arrived I made a second copy of my skirt - this was nice and quick, no pattern matching to do here! I then popped this into the waistband before doing the final "stitch in the ditch" to secure the two parts together. I decided to leave it loose at the bottom.

Finally there was just the hemming to do. (Ha ha. Just the hemming - what a laugh. Must have got close to spending more time getting the hems right than the rest of the skirt put together. Remind me of this next time I get that "it's almost finished" feeling and I still have hems to do). I went for a blind hem on the outer skirt in the end and Joe kindly made me a rolled hem on the lining. Joe also did the buttonhole, it's his machine and apparently it makes buttonholes only for him. When I try it just ties me a beautifully huge knot!

I'm so proud of myself for actually tackling this project. I'd bought the material in a fit of skirt making enthusiasm but bottled out of making it on several occasions. When it came to it my original mental picture of how it would come together worked out perfectly - I should have had more faith!

Sneaky photo of Pepper...

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December's unseen crafts

While we were absent we tried not to be idle. Christmas for us was a wonderful mix of busy family moments, and quiet corners in which to sit and craft. Joe found time to get his spinning wheel out for the first time in several months.

This wool was bought at Christmas last year as pre-dyed tops. Joe has been slowly blending and spinning it in occasional free moments all year. He doesn't yet know what project this is destined for, but is pleased with how is has turned out. 

Meanwhile I've finally made a hat out of the alpaca wool I excitedly brought back from Scotland earlier in the year.

I decided to follow this simple pattern, which gives a good texture to the hat, while being quick (and not too dull) to knit.

 Finally, last month I was keeping quiet about the Christmas present I was making for my sister. This is Hoot, from Jane Hissey's Old Bear stories. The yarn was incredibly soft so when it came to it this one was rather hard to give away!

What did you get upto over Christmas?

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2013 Christmas Cards

As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago one of our Christmas traditions is to make our own Christmas cards. I enjoy card making all year round, but when it comes to making Christmas cards it becomes a joint effort because some very different skills are needed. While I might happily put an hour or two into making an individual card, we don't have the luxury of that sort of time when we're making several dozen in a short space of time and so it all becomes about engineering a design that can be reproduced in a few minutes. All the emphasis goes into producing that first card, so that the rest can flow off the production line.

This year we came across a fabric shop in Chester when we were there in October. Spotting their selection of Christmas material got us thinking and we quickly decided to make Christmas tree cards using three triangles from different fabrics. Simple.

Do you have any idea how much time it can take to settle on the size and shape of three triangles? We tried to do it by eye, with mathematics and got through a lot of sticky-notes. There may have been a few rude words exchanged. We tried triangles of equal size (definitely no), equal shape with decreasing size (didn't quite look right), equilateral triangles, isosceles triangles, nothing quite ticked all the boxes. The breakthrough came when we realised that we needed three completely different triangles. The top triangle needed to be pointier than the base triangle and setting the middle triangle half way between the two finally solved the quandary and we were finally on our way.

Design now sorted, here's a guide to making your own Christmas tree cards:

1. Make cardboard templates of your three triangles to the below measurements.

2. Use these templates to cut out equal quantities of big, medium and small triangles. They should tessellate nicely allowing good use of the material.

3. Make another template that is the size of your base card and has your final tree shape cut out of it - this is all about speed!

(Optional: We printed a short letter into the inside of our card before assembly. If you decide to do this you'll need to make sure that the line of stitches we'll be adding later won't interfere with your text. )

4. Set up your sewing machine with a shiny thread and do some tension checks - metallic thread can be a pain!

5. Position your card, with the template and three triangles under your machine and carefully sew a line of stitching through the middle of each triangle, and overshoot at the bottom to make the trunk of the tree.

6. Release the card and the template from your machine and tuck the ends of the threads through to the back of the card. Trim the threads and secure with a little bit of tape if needed.

7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 until all your cards are made.

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