I’m making these socks with the very first supply of yarn from DT Craft & Design (UK). It’s a beautiful blue, purple and green mixture of 90% alpaca and 10% nylon sock yarn which she hand dyed inspired by the colours of Wimbledon.

I’m writing down how I have made this sock, obviously so I can do the second sock to match, but also to add to here if anyone would like to make a similar one.

I’ve started to knit it from the toe up so that once I reach the leg I will start knitting the second sock and continue with both simultaneously to ensure that I use as much of the yarn as possible but don’t run out on one and have to unravel the other to match.

Tension:
Using 2.25mm needles approx 8 st and 12 rows to an inch.

I recently joined a sock club with DT Crafts and got into work this morning to find a lovely packet waiting for me on my desk. I was off work last week so it was a nice surprise for a Monday morning.

It is a lovely purple and green wool which I will take pictures of later – I don’t think my co-workers would quite understand if I were to start taking pictures now!

edit: pictures added

I think I have just the pattern to start knitting with, however I am in the middle of a jumper for my little girl and want to finish that first as I have completed the back and most of the front. Only another couple of evenings knitting and I should have it finished, probably by the end of the week I imagine.

I started to knit this lovely lacy top for my mum for her birthday.

Unfortunately it’s just over a week now until her birthday so I think I’ll have to keep this for her Christmas gift instead. Still I’ve managed to get quite a bit done this weekend and have finally figured the pattern out so that it now makes sense to me.

I know that mum will love the top as she saw it in one of my books and said how much she liked it – I just hope that she likes the colour.

As this is the first quilt that I have ever made, I wanted to start off simple and therefore I decided that the easiest way to start would be to buy pre-cut squares so that all I had to do was to piece them together. I went for the easy option and searched on eBay to find the fabric to make the quilt. I ended up buying some pink floral 4inch square fabric and some pink stripes/gingham/spot 4 inch square fabric.

Step 1: Designing the Quilt

In total I have just over 100 squares and therefore will be piecing them together so that they alternate between the floral and stripey fabric. To work out the best way to piece the quilt together I used the dining room table and laid out all the squares to sort the pattern out and then kept the fabric in the required order ready for sewing.

At the moment I plan to sew a 10 piece by 10 piece section and then after that add material around the edge to get to the right size for a single bed. I’m just concentrating on the 10×10 section and will work out the rest when I get there.

Step 2: Marking the Fabric

To start I marked on the first 10 patches a 1/4? border all around each patch as my sewing guide – each sewn square to be 3.5inch square. The markings being done on the back of the fabric since they will be pieced together right-side to right-side and then the markings will still be seen.

These markings are used as guides so you know where you need to sew, therefore they must be marked accurately otherwise when you piece the quilt together it will not fit. I decided that it would be best to just mark 10 pieces out at a time otherwise it would get too boring and I wouldn’t mark the rest accurately thereby ruining the whole quilt.

Step 3: Hand-Sewing or Machine-Sewing

I decided to hand sew this quilt since it was my first – I want to take it slowly and ensure that I sew the pieces in the correct order and also that I sew in the right places. If I were to machine sew I know that I would rush the sewing and make mistakes; and then waste more time unpicking. At least with hand sewing I aim to spot any errors as I’m making them!

I have always loved the old fashioned quilts that you see but they cost an absolute fortune to buy and I just cannot justify the price. But at the same time I realise that the beauty of them, to me at any rate, is because they have been handcrafted and usually made for a special occasion.

I have finally realised that the best way that I can own one of these beautiful items is to make one myself, and therefore this is the place that I will log my progress as a beginner to quilting in making my daughter her very first quilt. She is only a year old at the moment and not yet ready for a “proper” bed, but I have notions of the first night that she will spend in her very own, grown up bed along with a pink patchwork quilt that I have lovingly made for her, and if the temperature is very cold, then a hand-crocheted blanket that I’m also in the process of making for her.

I have begun work already on both the quilt and the blanket but I’ve been taking pictures and will update on the slow but steady progress that I am making… already they are both taking shape and are giving a hint of how they will look when complete