Today is the day I opened my Etsy shop. I always knew Etsy was in my future, I’m just that kind of person you know, but I never thought my shop would be selling vintage knitting patterns. A couple weeks ago my great grandmother passed away at the impressively old age of 97. She was knitting obsessed, I remember her teaching me how to knit when I was 5, I never remembered how to do it but I remember her snapping needles in half and filing the ends down on the garden wall. I desperately hoped I would find those tiny knitting needles when I inherited her collection, but I couldn’t find them, I’m over it though because I have around 500 vintage knitting patterns instead.

I want to keep all 500 of them but that’s probably just because I am a hoarder. I can’t keep them all my room is just too small. I’d never knit them all anyway, at least 70% are children’s patterns which will be no use to me for a reaaaaally long time. Around 80% are aran knitting patterns, which to her were probably all different, but to me, they look identical. For this reason I’ve decided to sell a chunk of them on Etsy, hopefully this will help me fund my sewing costs.

I got up at 7am this morning and it is now 8:50pm and I’m only just winding down after my first day of “work.” Etsy is damn hard by the way, it takes a long time to write those listings and scan the pattern covers and set up the shipping but it’s all done and I’m ready to send out orders. Not that I think I’ll get any by the way. My items seem to be showing up high in search but Iit will be a while before I make my first sale. I’m just happy to have it there for now though. My main priority this month is to film everything I make and ACTUALLY upload the videos to youtube so I’m not bothered if I don’t have Etsy money.

If you are a knitter and you love vintage stuff please consider taking a look 😀 I hope you find something you like. xx

Here are some of my favorite listings so far, click on the images to go to the listing.

Again, I apologize for not blogging enough. I really need to get my life together. It’s been hard recently because it was freshers week and even though I only went out twice, and I’m not even a student, it got in the way of some projects. I haven’t physically created anything over the past couple of weeks, I’ve just been learning and planning stuff so that October can be extremely productive. I’m not sharing too much on here about what I’m working on as its too early, but I’m working on a really exciting project I’ll let you know about soon.

I’ve been looking at social media a lot this week, and ways to build a fashion, sewing related personal brand and figuring out which social media platforms to invest my time in, and which ones to leave for later. I’ve spent the last 3 days playing with Polyvore and I am honestly obsessed with it, and excited over the potential.

Polyvore is basically a fashion community where you make these.

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It seems simple enough, but it’s really addictive, and the potential for views is exciting. Polyvore is the largest online fashion community, it has millions of active members and it’s really easy to get followers. I’m not sure how much conversion there would be in terms of gaining Instagram followers/ youtube subscribers, but with year old accounts having 500,000+ profile views it’s bound to drive some traffic to your other more important platforms.

The images themselves are exciting too, from October to December I’m going to be sewing every day and posting to Instagram as often as I possibly can ( I actually just ordered a phone with a better camera to make it easier to take better Instagram pictures). I want to post twice a day which should be possible, but there are bound to be days where I don’t have 2 things to share, enter Polyvore, It’s going to make my life so much easier.

This has been the best second-hand haul EVER! Even better than the time I found a Jimmy Choo dress for £5. I am genuinely more excited about these items and I can’t wait to start using them. Today me and my parents went to Abergavenny to look around the market and some camping shops. My parents went without me a week ago and picked up some vintage books for me, they knew I’d love it so much that they took me back and I found so much amazing stuff. I’m going to show you what they got me, as well as what I bought today 😀

My parents bought me these cross stitch books when they first went to Abergavenny market. I don’t actually know how to do it yet but I’ve wanted to learn for a while. I just think that cross stitch is absolutely beautiful. It was my grandmothers favourite past time before her dementia got too bad and I inherited a load of charts from her and I’d love to be able to use them. I’d like to try and incorporate it into garments & accessories I’m making. I’m feeling really inspired by  Dolce and Gabbana right now.

The best book find… was this!

This is a 1946 reprint of a hella ancient sewing book. I knew as soon as I saw the grotty cover and the word “modern” title that I needed it. I love old books about sewing, they never skimp on information and the focus is always on getting the best result. I feel like new sewing books gloss over information to make sewing seem easier than it is. It may encourage beginners to pick up the books, but it won’t encourage them to keep sewing when their projects turn out badly. I had  a quick flip through and I think this is going to be my new favourite sewing book. Not only does it have information about general sewing, its gives guides to drafting different pattern cutting blocks from your measurements. It has a section in the back showing you how to use those blocks to make new clothes out of old. It has a section on mending clothes and making ill-fitting clothes wearable again. I have quite a big collection of sewing books, I’m thinking about doing a post about them. Most of them are vintage but you can usually find them online. Let me know what you guys think?

I found these bags of cross stitch fabric for £5 each, there’s a lot in each bag so it was a bargain. The stall I was looking at also had like 1 million buttons all in cute shapes.  I could have bought hundreds if I was left there but I instead just got a few strips. I’m going to be making some blouses (the Mimi Blouse from Tilly Walnes’ book seems good) and these buttons would be so cute! I also found some tubes of old buttons that I picked up. I don’t really have a lot of buttons lying around so I want to have lots of different ones handy for projects.

 It’s not really relevant but I thought I’d mention it anyway. I picked up some new books to read. These three look like fast reads so I picked them up. I also picked up a new poncho and a light for my tent in Mountain Warehouse. Festival season is on the way so I’m gonna be stocking up over the next few weeks. I also ordered a new tent today, my old Vango Ark 200 was fine but I wanted a little more space so I ordered a Vango Ark 300+. If you want to know more about what I take to music festivals I have a list here. 

So that’s everything! It’s been an expensive day :/… let me know if you enjoy these hauls and tell me what other posts you’d like to see if you have any requests. Thanks for reading! x

This post contains affiliate links for some of the products used/ mentioned. All opinions are 100% truthful. Please read the disclosure.

Hello! today’s post is a review of the 6843 Skirt pattern by New Look.I chose to make pattern A. I’ve been making this for the past few days and it’s turned out really well and I couldn’t wait to share it with you.

This is the first commercial pattern I have ever used. All of the things I have made in the past have either been made without a pattern, with a basic self-drafted pattern or with an independent pattern with lots of  clear instructions. From what I have heard, commercial patterns have a reputation for being quite vague and confusing for beginners. I would be inclined to agree, but a quick bit of research online or in a sewing book I was never stuck for long and the skirt turned out really well.

I wanted to use this pattern to review the skirt part of Linda Lee’s solo fitting class on Craftsy. I followed all of her instructions to measure myself and compare my measurements to the pattern, and then when I made my fitting tiole, it fit perfectly. This was great really but it meant I couldn’t review the class because I didn’t need to adjust anything. The review will probably be up soon, it just depends on how lucky I am with trousers fitting. I did alter one thing on the pattern however, I prefer my skirts really short (because I’m really short too) so I cut about 15cm off the length. I did this my just freehanding a new line at where I wanted to shorten it too. Here are some pictures of the original pattern and the new pattern I made.

Like I said earlier, I did find the instructions a little vague. I have quite a large collection of vintage craft/ sewing books, and there was one, in particular, I found to be extremely helpful in figuring out what to do. I picked up the Readers Digest Complete Guide to Sewing years ago for £1 in a car boot sale and I honestly am so grateful that I did. I was completely lost about how to attach the waistband, and this book really did save me. A small warning, It’s really big and super intimidating but the amount of information packed inside is crazy.

My only real complaint of this skirt is that it says on the front that takes 1 hour. That’s just not true. The sewing of the skirt goes along very quickly, but you have to slipstitch the entire waistband in place. I don’t know maybe I’m just crap at hand sewing, but i’d say that took me at 45 minutes alone. Don’t get me wrong though, its a simple enough pattern as long as you have other resources to help you. Easy enough for a beginner like me anyway. I love how it turned out, I’m going to make another one in black this week. I’d also like to make version C of this pattern in black too. It’s such a wearable and versatile pattern, definitely worth adding to your collection.

This post contains amazon associates affiliate links. Please read the disclosure. The products recommended are all products  I use and honestly recommend.

Helloo! Welcome to my ladies festival pack list, similar to my general pack list only with a higher focus on hygiene.

HYGIENE & TOILETRIES

Shewee/ whiz freedom– It depends on the festival but if you’re going to reading I recommend getting these so you don’t have to squat over a metal tank and then still get 50 people’s pee all over the back of your legs. I use the whiz freedom because it’s flexible and easier to aim. Just practice with it first. I was speaking to a girl last year at download who said she’d never use one again because she dropped it mid- pee and weed all over herself at reading festival. This can be avoided by mastering it before you go. The shower is a good place to do this.

Feminine Wipes– you can buy individually wrapped vagisil wipes that are really easy to carry around with you. They are a bit more pricy than buying in a pack but you don’t want to be carrying entire packs of wipes with you to the arena. Really good for freshening up especially if you are on your period.

Pads & Tampons- Periods are really sucky at music festivals but here’s what works for me. Wear a pad all day, and use tampons with the pad. Try to change the tampon when you get a chance but try not to leave it in for more than 8 hours. If you find tampons start to leak after around 4 hours for you then don’t worry too much because the pad will save you. Festivals aren’t all that discreet in terms of disposal so take some nappy bags/ dog mess bags and put your used stuff in there. I recommend getting applicator tampons because they are a lot more hygienic. If you prefer using menstrual cups then I really don’t recommend them for music festivals. It’s impossible to get your hands squeaky clean at festivals. And the toilets are disgusting, the sinks are really public too. I’d be too worried about getting an infection. Also the thought of rinsing a mooncup out in a public sink full of spew in front of loads of other people seems gross.

Face wipes/ makeup wipes- I really like micellar water so I either recommend taking a little bottle of that with cotton pads or you can get micellar wipes. Micellar can also be used to clean makeup brushes (post coming soon) so if you are taking brushes it’s a good choice. Other than that your favourite brand of makeup wipe would do. You could even use baby wipes, I just feel like they break me out.

MAKEUP

Make-up is like 5000% unnecessary at music festivals. But I’m not here to shame you for wanting to take some. I do sometimes. Here’s what I recommend

• Foundation you can apply with your fingers
• Concealer
• Setting Powder
• Bronzer
• Powder Brush
• Blender brush
• Lipstick/ tinted lip balm.
• Eyeliner
• Compact mirror.

If you have good skin, you could skip the foundation & concealer. Or you could skip foundation and just use the concealer to cover your blemishes. You can use the blender brush to apply the bronzer to your crease, and then you can also use it to contour. Use a light hand while contouring with a small brush otherwise it will look streaky. The eyeliner and lipstick are optional, I never take them.  This should all take around 2 minutes to do so it won’t get in the way of having a good time. I usually get lazy and stop around Friday though.

HAIR CARE

Brush, hair ties & headbands for keeping your hair neat. I recommend a tangle teaser because they are small, light and will get through any knot. Give up on your hair looking nice. Keep it in plaits/ buns, ponytails. You can pay to use GHD’s at the festival if you REALLY want to but I’d rather save my money and look like a scruff.

Dry shampoo- if you’re hair gets oily take some dry shampoo. Lush has a good one that comes in a tiny bottle. I pour it out into a little sifter jar and take that because it’s even smaller.

Hair oil/ serum- if you hair gets dry I’d take some hair oil/ serum. I like this one because it’s really affordable. This should make it more manageable. I used to use it when I bleached my hair and it makes looking after it during festivals so much easier.

That’s about it for extra things to pack for girls. I’ll be doing a women’s clothes packing list which will be up soon. Comment if you have any other suggestions! Hope this helped.