December 12, 2015 Sam Conway

Confessions of a non sewer-upper...

So I have a confession to make. I’ve never made clothing. Not sewn, crocheted or knitted. Shocking really. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted to do. Because I am lazy primarily. It’s such a faff. All that sewing up. And adult clothing is so BIG. And then when I had the Sconchlet, I was just too BUSY. So no clothing for me.

Even when I fell in love with the Pineapple top (see left hand side bar!) I got one of my lovely ladies to make it for me:

Pineapple top...

But then we started stocking King Cole crochet patterns. And I started to get tempted. Beautiful adult tops, cute little kiddies clothing and the MOST adorable baby wear. But still I resisted. And then one of my friends told me they were having a baby. And I kept picking up the King Cole Cottonsoft and flocking through the baby patterns, and somehow, I came home with 3 balls of Sage and a pattern for a little hoody. With pockets. And turn back sleeves. Because obviously starting with a plain cardi was out of the question.

And I flew through the pattern. King Cole patterns are written quite straight forwardly, and it was quite a simple pattern. Within a couple of evenings I had crocheted most of it up. Plenty of time to spare. Until that is, I had to sew it up. And suddenly I remembered why I don’t make clothes. Because, like I said, I am lazy. I was so put off, it just sat there for two evenings in my bag, looking all sad. But then Karen went and gave birth… which was a bit rude really, when I hadn’t finished making it! So back out of the bag it came. Time to conquer my fears…

I learnt a lot making this hoody. Firstly, if it says place a stitch marker in at the end of a section, then you know what? PLACE A STITCH MARKER IN AT THE END OF A SECTION. Because once you’ve sewn the hood on, well, good luck trying to count the stitches at the top of the back.

Secondly, mattress stitch. Genius. Janet and Karen, two of our regular Craft’n’Cake ladies revealed that to me. I had been pondering the best way to sew it up, but mattress stitch gives you a flat seam, which is really what you want when sewing pieces of hood together.

And measuring. Don’t flip between using inches and cm! I had started measuring using my cute little HiyaHiya tape measure. But I had brought it on a car journey and left my tape measure behind, so had to grab what I could of my bag. I just so happened to have my Crossstitcher magazine freebie in it from years ago (don’t ask me what it was doing in my knitting bag, probably something to do with the Sconchlet). But it only has cm on – no problem I thought. WRONG. Turns out 6cm is very different to 8inch. So it is really important to stick to one or the other. Luckily I questioned this BEFORE crocheting the next section…

In the end, I was looking up the inch conversion on my phone so I could use the cm gauge. I also used just about every measuring tool possible, as I kept forgetting to bring my tape measure with me…including Mr Sconch's tape measures and a Winnie the Pooh ruler...

Going back to stitch markers - mark the right side with a stitch marker. I can easily tell front from back, and if it was unclear, am able to work it out from looking back at the pattern. But even I was losing the plot when doing this and sewing it together. I am not the most spatially aware of people (to say the least – you should see my parking), and I just kept doubting myself. If I had just stuck a stitch marker in, I’d have saved myself literally hours of double checking. It was getting a little obsessive towards the end…

But LOOK. Isn’t it cute?!

Cute little hoodie...

I didn’t want to give it over when I had finished. I was so proud. Apologies to every customer that came in that I forced it on, to show it off to. I was so overexcited when it was done, I just HAD to show everyone.

Look at the cute little pockets!

Pockets...