Drawing and Knitting

Thank you so so much everyone for your supportive and lovely comments on my last post. They all made me think and feel a bit better. I have to say I shouldn't be shy to change as I made a radical big change almost 9 years ago. And that was to leave my home town with a suitcase and a one way plane ticket to London. In retrospective it was brave but I did well. And I'm very happy I did that, I would have never met and married Rob if I hadn't :D

Anyway, enough mushy-ness, onto this week very short and picture-less post! No progress has been made on the sewing front. I'm faced with a deadline on my courses' Illustration unit and running quite behind so drawing most of the time. When I haven't been drawing, I've been watching TV/ movies and when I do that I knit. So hurrah! I finished the front on my cardigan and started one of the sleeves.

Finally, if you live in UK and are a knitter and happen to have some remnants of DK or 4 ply wool you wouldn't mind parting with, I am collecting some to donate to my local animal charity Hula, where I also volunteer. They have an army of crafty ladies who knit blankets for the animals and are in need of wool. If you'd like to contribute email me at suzysewingblog[at]yahoo[dot]co[dot]uk

PS: No post next week as it will fall just on my course deadline. I will be back the Tuesday after! Ta muchly!

This week...

...I have been busy with different things! Still I managed to finish basting my couture dress (hurrah!) but lack of light and an unfashionable Sunday face/hair prevented photo taking. I also managed to advance with my knitting (even after having to unknit).
But I have a few unrelated to sewing deadlines which I procrastinated and left till last minute. I have also been busy doodling. I am not the best at drawing but keen to develop and practice. I'm doing a Fashion Design City & Guilds and it's definitely helping me.

Unrelated to sewing, all my recent low mood has made me think a lot about what I want. I think it's important to re-evaluate what is important and what makes one happy but boy, it is hard work and unsettling!!
Have you ever had a time in your life when you want to radically change something? How did you deal with it?

A belated Kelly Skirt

I have probably wore this skirt more times that the number of sentences in this post. Finished sometime in November and photographed in December I'm not quite sure why I didn't blog about it sooner.

This is the Kelly Skirt by Megan Nielsen. A super easy and very comfortable skirt. I used a remnant of a woollen fabric given to me by my mother in law and apparently given to her by some lady who didn't need it.

Photos were taken by my colleague, so I couldn't harass her for 10 or 20 takes. The scenery around my workplace is beautiful, lots of trees and a little stream, where you occasionally can spot kingfishers and small deer. It's not very private though and being quite a "stuck up" environment I don't feel confident with a tripod for self portraits.

In construction, other musings and your feedback welcomed!

Sewing has been slow here, but I reckon you already noticed that. It has been slow for quite some time but it's not because my love for it has waned. The reasons are far more annoying but I won't dwell on them. I have been sewing and knitting and have some works in progress.

First my Couture Dress from Crafsty Susan Khalje class. I'm not quite sure when I started this, probably  a year ago. I almost chucked this project to the UFO bin, I'm just not loving it. The class is fantastic and the sewing tuiton by Susan amazing. But I'm not loving the dress. It doesn't help that it's intended to be a work dress, I know...how exciting! Still, I decided I need to overcame this and just get it done. I'm in the process of assembling (hand basting) the whole dress to check fit once more. When this is done I'll get a photo of it, below is an earlier photo of the fitting of the muslin.

Second the last episode on my Skirt trilogy. This is actually the first skirt pattern I decided to use and the fabric will be familiar as well. Fabric is cut and all is ready to sew.

I was planning on sewing the vintage dress briefly mentioned here and have traced all the pattern pieces but after thinking long and hard decided not to start a complicated project before I finish the one in progress.
I have also been knitting this lovely cardigan from A Stitch in Time. The back is all done and currently doing one of the fronts.

A few other important musings:

• I changed the look of the blog (and will tweak a bit more). I want to revert this blog to a personal sewing blog.
• That is why the Suzy Patterns banner is gone. Suzy Patterns hasn't been scrapped though, it's still a work in progress. When I am ready to launch, a new website, separate to this blog will be launched. This might be a while, a proper while. A Suzy Patterns tab will be added where any news or a current status will be available.
• I am also adding an "About me tab". Something different from the conventional and pre-set about me in blogger.

So I welcome your feedback? Do you like the new look, anything that looks bad and anything else you'd like to see? And is there anything about me you would like to know? Ask me any question!