Draught Excluder

My lovely boyfriend decided to take me to Hobbycraft yesterday and since he knew I've been wanting to buy a sewing machine for a long time got me a mini one to practise with while I save up for a "real" one.

It just does one type of stitching and can only stitch through thin material, but it's perfect for a beginner wanting to practise some not-too-taxing sewing projects.

And speaking of which, I decided to make a draught excluder for our back door.  We've been looking everywhere for one and can't seem to find any in the shops at the moment, and this was a much cheaper way of doing it anyway!

I looked on Youtube for some inspiration on how to make one, and watched several videos, but I basically ended up making it up as I went along, and it worked a treat.  So here's what I did.

First of all, since I'd decided I wanted to do a patchwork pattern, I cut squares out of some 

material I picked up at Hobbycraft after ironing it, using fabric scissors, and then decided how I wanted the patchwork to look by laying it out on the floor.  

I was a little worried that the squares weren't perfect (I don't have the ideal measuring or cutting materials usually used for these types of projects), but that didn't seem to matter in the end.

I started sewing the squares; sewing them together wrong side out.  I checked the length of the rows of squares I'd made against the door and decided I needed one more square of patchwork on each row to make it the correct length for the door.  Again, I did this because this project wasn't an exact science.  Had I been able to properly measure the squares and been able to do all the seams the same size, I would have been able to measure the door width and measured out the material accordingly.  But this was an experiment, and experiment I did!

Once I'd sewn both rows of patchwork together I ironed down the seams on the back to make them flat.

Then I sewed together the two rows, wrong sides out.

I continued by sewing the other edge shut to make a tube and the sewed one end shut before turning the material right-way out.

I then stuffed the material with super soft toy filling (again, picked up at Hobbycraft) and double folded the open end and sewed it shut.

I'm really pleased with how it looks, and am very proud of myself for having worked out how to use the machine and how to make this little project without following specific instructions!

Also, it definitely saved on money, since buying a draught excluder would have been expensive, and my little draught-stopper is now helping to keep my home nice and cosy and warm, while looking really cute too!

Now all I have to do it decide what my next easy-to-make mini-machine project is going to be!

Cable Knit Bag

This is my first attempt at cable stitch, and it turned out quite well I think!  I followed one of the projects in my Knitty Gritty (knitting for the absolute beginner) book by Aneeta Patel. 

There are a couple of mistakes on the bag, but I'm trying not to be too much of a perfectionist and remember that I'm only a beginner, so mistakes are normal, and it hasn't affected the look of the bag too much.

The main mistake I made with the bag is that I accidentally put an extra row of knitting in at some point which turned the cable stitch to the other side of the bag, as you can just about see in the picture below.  But since it's near the handles, it's not very noticeable, so I don't really mind.

Also, when stitching on the handles, I attached them to each side of the bag instead of giving each side of the bag its own handle.  It's not really a mistake as such, because it works, but it's not what was suggested in the book and was an absent-minded change to the pattern suggested.  The book doesn't actually explain how to sew the handles on in detail so I sort of made it up as I went along, but you can't actually see the stitches used to attach the bag so I think I did a good job with it.

At some point I had a major disaster when I got to the end of a row and counted the stitches... I'd dropped a stitch at some point without realising but then couldn't see in the pattern where it was.  I did undo the row carefully and found what I thought was the dropped stitch.  It took a lot of creative thinking and I thought I'd rectified it correctly until I knitted the next row and noticed a random big loop in the row below, but apart from it looking a little odd, it's not very noticeable and the work isn't going to unravel, so never mind!

I like the look of this little bag and was pleased with the finished product.  You can adjust this pattern quite easily to make bigger or smaller bags as needed, so I'd definitely experiment with this technique now I know how to do it!