5 Things I Love About Knitting

Knitting runs in my family. It's a skill that has been passed down from generation to generation. My Grandma taught me to knit. She started me off with big needles and some thick petrol blue yarn. I 'knitted' two large rectangles over a period of weeks which she sewed together to make into a tabard. I wore it with pride. Note that 'knitted' is in inverted commas. That's because I now realise that what I actually did was grapple and fight with some yarn and needles, it wasn't what I now know as knitting. I pulled the yarn too tight, fought to get the needle into the stitches, had more or less stitches at the end of each row than I started with. But Grandma patiently and skilfully unpicked rows, picked up stitches and 'fixed' my mistakes. More importantly she gave me the encouragement to continue. And continue I did.

If you haven't given it a whirl, then you really should. There are lots of knitting groups around these days with expert knitters happy to pass on their skill - Google 'Knit and Natter' and see what you find.

Here are some of the reasons I love to knit:

1. It's therapeutic. Getting into the rhythm and hearing the clickety clack of needles is actually quite relaxing. It's good for your brain too apparently - Albert Einstein allegedly knitted between projects to relax and calm his brain. If it was good enough for Albert.....

2. I'm not bilingual. Foreign languages are gobbledygook to me, I just can't learn them. You either can or you can't.....and I can't. However, I can read, speak and understand knitting fluently. It really is like another language - psso, c4b, sl1p, k2tog, yfwd etc etc then throw in parentheses, brackets, asterisks, double asterisks - if you can't read a pattern, then you are basically screwed.

3. Knitting is totally portable. I also work with leather, but can only do it when I'm in my work room as the numerous tools and materials are too big/heavy/impractical to carry around. But stick your needles and ball of yarn in your bag and you can knit 'on the move'. What a pity they won't allow needles on aircraft as it would be the ideal way to pass the time on a long haul flight.

4. With a simple ball of yarn and a couple of needles you can make fabric - brilliant! And combine that same single ball yarn with different stitch combos and voila, you can create texture, patterns, bobbles and twisted cables. Work with multiple balls in different colours and you can let your imagination go wild and make intricate designs, pictures, words - the possibilities are endless! Change to circular needles and you can make seamless 3D fabrics - wow!

5. Knit a gift for someone and they'll keep it. My friends daughter is in her second year at Uni. When she was born I knitted a matinee jacket and bonnet. It took ages as there were hundreds of stitches and each row was in moss stitch. My friend loved it. And she still has it. Highly unlikely she kept the mass produced outfits from Mothercare that she was also given. It's easy to go and buy a present, but making something takes time and shows how much you love the person you're giving it to.

Case in point - here's a pic of my dad from the 1960's wearing a cardigan featuring Canada geese, lovingly knitted for him by mum. It took her ages! He wore it, kept it (even after they divorced) and when he died my sister took it. She still has it. I wonder if Mum ever imagined it would still be around 50 years on?

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A bit of Vogue Pattern Sewing - happy days

I recently became a member of White Tree Fabric blog team (you can read my introduction by Lisa below) and they generously gave me an opportunity to select a sewing pattern of my choice, make it and tell you about my trials and tribulations.

In the 1980s, when I first started sewing, I was introduced to Vogue Sewing patterns. Mainly the Vogue Designer range. They seemed expensive but you got a woven label stating this was a Vogue Designer Original so I was hooked! I never had a bad pattern or instructions - and so my decision was made, I browsed the Vogue patterns and spotted an Issey Mayake design.

Ah, Issey Mayake - my friend and I made many of his patterns in the 1980s (good job that Facebook didn't exist then - the evidence would be available for all to see). I found him to be a study in fabric origami and the reviews of the pattern I have chosen make it sound like nothing has changed.

I have selected to make the tunic in pattern V1309 and some Cloud 9 cotton to make it in. Black and white isn't me but luckily blue & white is.

As you can see, it is dramatic and my husband says 'very 1980s' but that is good with me.

So I will pre-wash my fabric and get cracking!

My White Tree Fabric bio: http://www.whitetreefabrics.com/news/alison/ 

More blogging!

What a week this has been!

As well as blogging for the fabulous William Gee (awesome supplier of all things sewing & creative) I have just been accepted as a blogger for White Tree Fabrics.

There is a big difference between the types of blogs you will now see from me - there will continue to be William Gee blog posts, dedicated to small projects and information but with the hook up to White Tree Fabrics, I will be sewing real patterns for real clothes. Detailing the trials and tribulations. Detailing the "oh no, look what I've done! I'm such a dunce!" Moments - hoping to make you laugh, cry and sew along with me.

So watch this space - my first project has been selected and the pattern, fabric & supplies will hopefully be with me soon. Watch this space!

What to do, what to do

You know the feeling, the weekend is looming large on the horizon and you feel a wave of excitement - no work! Relaxation! Sleeping!

But then it dawns on you - you've no food in, the teens are bringing friends round (who you aren't allowed to interact with in case you're embarrassing), the in laws are due on Sunday and you wanted to do some sewing or knitting or drawing, whatever is your thing.

How do you motivate yourself to get cracking?

In my mind, I break the day  into chunks - my time for doing my creative stuff, interspersed with sorting out the household stuff and relaxing doing nothing (ha!). My husband works shifts so I also have to take his start/finish time into account.

Recently, I have started a calendar of sorts with all the projects I want to start/continue/finish. Sometimes, the planned stuff goes out of the window but it doesn't matter, does it?  Our Etsy shop is stocked with items ready to ship so I am not against time constraints. 

A 'bionic gear bag' can take several evenings spread over a week so I chunk it up and do other things in between like cutting out, drinking tea, watching a bit of MLB baseball.
When I am sewing garments, I don't stop in the middle of an important bit like adding shirt cuffs or sleeves as you can easily lose your thread (no pun intended). As I said in an earlier post (http://www.williamgee.co.uk/sewing-mistakes-no-one-will-ever-notice/#.VdRXR5c7cyg) for WilliamGee.co.uk, I have sewn shirt sleeves on the wrong sides of my shirts because I didn't mark the pieces properly and so picked up my sewing after a break and it all went horribly wrong.

So how do fit your crafting into your otherwise busy life? Are you one of the brave ones who crafts & creates full time? Let us know, we'd love to hear from you.

And thanks for reading!

5 things I love about sewing

I am a computer nerd, using & maintaining computer systems at work. I avoided Home Economics at school, loved fixing my old cars. I've never considered myself as having much of a creative streak.

But everyone has a creative streak, in some shape or another.

Sewing patterns appeal to the techie in me - pieces that go together in a certain order, in a certain way, allowing a 2D piece of fabric to become something 3D. 

I like seeing a detail on an item of clothing and working out how it was made. But I do not have the creative juices to come up with original designs except by combining details from various sources.

But fabric? Designs made by super creative people!

It is a tool and as such I am amazed at the designs made by clever clogs like Tula Pink and Amy Butler. And I mean clever clogs in a good way - talented, talented people.

Colours that go together.

Textures that can make a garment zing.

All from the creative vision of designers.

I can make things that no-one else has.

I can make things for other people in colours and combinations they want.

Not creative? Think again!

What I love about my bionic gear bag

As is normal for crafters, we use items daily without even thinking about it - items we have made as well as tools for crafting.

I am at the point where I cannot imagine not having my bionic gear bag to hand. Let's call it a BGB, saves me mis-typing it (and my spellcheck still hasn't quite learnt what it is that I am trying to type).

My sister is the seamstress, I am the leather crafter, hand stitching all the leather items in our Etsy shop (scissorsistas.Etsy.com in case you haven't seen it). She wasn't 100% happy with a specific BGB she had made (no idea why, I cannot see what is wrong with it) so I snapped it up and stuffed it full of my leathering tools.

I kept ringing her up, telling her how much I loved it. Telling her how much it was perfect. Telling her that I used it every day. She stopped taking my calls about it after a while!

And what is it about a BGB that means once you have one you won't be able to manage without one?

Compartments. Lots of them. I can keep my knives and blades safely zipped in their own place, so no fear of cuts when rummaging round.

A 'tray' to stop stuff rolling off the worktop. My awl is a perfect example. If I had a pound for every time it's fallen on the floor...... No problem now I have a BGB.

I can craft 'on the move' and have all my gubbins safely stashed in my BGB. No more Quality Street tins or carrier bags.. The BGB is pretty damn neat and super stylish. Better than a Lidl bag for life.

It's like a tardis. It's astonishing how much 'stuff' I can fit in there. This is what I have stashed in there at the moment:

Dressmakers scissors
Shoemakers knife
Snips
Small scissors
Tin of leather needles
Pack of Stanley knife blades
Stanley knife
Tub of pins
Ribbon
3 pens
4 pencils
Beeswax
Linen thread
Awl
Bone folder
Roll of double sided tape
Pricking iron
Edge crease
Parcel tags

It goes on. And yes, I can zip it all up. It really is like Mary Poppins carpet bag. Buy one and see for yourself. 

Scissorsistas.etsy.com

5 things I like about leather

1. The smell. Everyone loves the smell of leather, right? And it's a smell that lingers, it doesn't really fade. Walk into the room where I store numerous hides (half a decent sized herd at the last count) and the smell hits you - boom! And I love it.

2. The perfect imperfections. No two hides are the same - obviously. This isn't a man made material, so every piece of leather is different. I love to see the natural scars and veining on a side of leather. The ragged edges. I study each hide I buy and it tells me what style of bag to make.

3. The substance. A piece of leather is not like a piece of fabric. It is thicker in places. Softer in others. That's why bag making is an art - it's knowing that parts of the hide should be used for straps, but never for gussets and vice versa.

4. It's green. Not the colour green, I mean it's environmentally friendly. Contravertial maybe, but no-one ever bred a cow for it's hide. Leather is a by-product of the meat industry (or fishing industry if working with salmon or carp leather - yes, really!) so using it is actually a form of recycling.

5. Its' versatility. Give me a piece of leather and I'll show you the bag, the journal, the belt, the phone case, the dog collar, the cuff, the manuscript cover etc etc. A good tannery offers a wide range of hides and with skill, the right tools, some creative flair and a bit of knowledge you can make all sorts of amazing things!

See our work in our Etsy shop - ScissorSistas.etsy.com

Sunshine and surfing

This is now the second week of my holiday and have realised a few things, the main one being how fantastic wifi, email and the web as a whole are.

I can take and send photos home at the drop of a hat, keeping my Mum appraised of the safety of her grand-daughters. I can fill my phone with holiday photos then upload them to Flickr to ensure my phone is ready for several hundred more pictures of food, sunshine, rain.  I can see a book that we want to buy, check if our bookshop back home has it and then make a decision on purchasing or not. I have also searched for local useful stores.

Even 3 years ago, when we were last on holiday, wifi wasn't as widely available but it was accepted and we just carried on.

Has technology enhanced our holidays? Having got teens trailling around with us (aka non-paying adults) it is a bonus. After all, they can't be out of touch with their friends or they'll be forgotten about, won't they!

My husband sketches each of us while relaxing in the evenings. The common element of the pictures? We are all on electronic devices!

A sign of the times


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Inconvenient Timing

After 6 months, we are starting to see more regular sales in our Etsy shop. It is great - the other week, each morning I checked my notifications and had an order nearly every day. And they have gone around the world, mainly the USA. Who would've thought that!

But I go on holiday next week, leaving 50% of Scissor Sistas behind to run the show. Which she is more than capable of doing but what if we sell out of something and need some more making? She is the leather guru, knitting maniac and in charge of supplies and posting. I only sew and do the Social Media. I tweet like a tweeting fool (apologies to our followers who sometimes think I am tweeting like I've had too much caffeine) and hope that I keep our items for sale visible.

Despite being real-life sisters, we are 80 miles apart and stock has had to be sent across the Pennines, to and fro, to cover holidays. We need to build up more stock, we need to extend our stock lines but cannot continue to have to sent it around to ensure we can meet potential orders. When she goes away in September, do I have to try and run the ribbon printer?

So I need to sew more duplicates. I need to stop drinking tea and do more sewing.

And go on holiday without worrying that it is an inconvenient time!

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Busy, Busy

This has been a great week for us on ScissorSistas and we hope we continue to make things that you all want.

Only 2 weeks until ScissorSistas is down to 50% when I go on holiday. But don't worry, our Etsy shop will still be open and the other 50% will still be creating! In the meantime, in between holiday sewing & making sure the family have everything we need, we are still creating.

A friend is undergoing chemo and I made her a shaped cushion to rest her arm on, to alleviate some of the discomfort she is experiencing. She loves it so I will be listing some in early August - you can't beat a happy friend, can you? Her cat is being fostered until later in the year and the very kind lady looking after it is going to receive a couple of bandanas from me for her dog, Lemmy. He is very cool about having a cat around so it is my treat. Luckily, cats don't like bandanas so the fostered cat doesn't need one! Here is cool Bat Cat, as he is known..

So I will be listing some dog bandanas shortly as well as some baby bandana bibs too, to co-ordinate with some other baby items in the shop.

And I MUST stop buying fabric......

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Interesting times

I had a comment this week: "I didn't realise you were Scissor Sistas, I thought they were a professional company". On the face of it, I knew what my friend meant - "wow, you're Scissor Sistas" but it could also be taken as an insult - "I didn't think you could make stuff that good".

Hmm, the dilemma of crafting then raises it's ugly head. Hand made crafts don't always look like 'shop bought' items. Some aren't finished with great care but the majority have beautiful touches and are one of a kind. And with that comes a price tag that a lot of people think isn't worth paying.

My husband suggested I made some cushion covers to sell - there are too many beautifully made ones already so I won't be trying to compete but I compared the cost of hand made with shop bought. Not a great difference in price between a large department store price and a lot I have seen on Etsy, for example, but no comparison between the options & workmanship available between the two.

Economies of scale and a staff of hundreds (or more) are not within our grasp but we still need to make a living.

Unless a talented crafter themselves, our customers need to consider our time & effort as being worth a few extra pounds on what they would pay from a department store. While I was a student, my then-boyfriend-now-husband and I used to spend our food money on art. Not art that cost us thousands, or even hundreds, but art by local artists that we liked & would enjoy. Craft items are the same to me - you buy them because you love the item and want to use it/look at it and this in turn rewards the maker so they can make something else (or buy food).

So go and support your craft fairs, spend your money on something that no-one else will have. And feel smug about it!

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To blog or not to blog

Do you think you want to sew but don't know where to start? 

Do you go in clothes and housewares shops and start thinking "surely I could make that?" 

That means you should give it a whirl! 

Some-one you know will have a sewing machine tucked away that they'll lend you. Your Grandma will produce a needle case full of rusty needles and ancient thread. Asking family & friends isn't always the most productive idea as we all have opinions about what you should and shouldn't do, should and shouldn't use.

But where do you start? 

Make a list of what you think you want to make. It might be a set of swag curtains in shot silk or a felt brooch. It might be a dress for a New Year's Eve party or a baby outfit. Bunting or a pincushion. Write it down. Be excited about what you want - it is your list and no-one will judge you.

Now stand back and breathe. Congratulations! You've started your sewing journey.

Next time - kitting yourself out