29th April 2011

29th April 2011. What a day. My brother's 22nd birthday, Andrew's Mum's birthday. And, obviously, the Royal Wedding day. I'm sure you're all sick of hearing about the Royal Wedding but since I'm an English girl living in Scotland (or a Scottish girl visiting England, depending on how I feel about my nationality that day) with a home counties accent and a love of weddings, it was only natural for me to get ridiculously over excited, put up Union Flag bunting and hold a tea party.

Here are some of my favourite Royal Wedding related items off Pinterest.

The cover of Vogue in 1947, after Queen Elizabeth's marriage to Prince Phillip. From The Bride's Cafe, via Pinterest.



Westminster Abbey illustrated tea towel from Helena Carrington on Etsy. Would look great framed I think!



Royal wedding cross stitch sampler from Bugs and Fishes. So cute!

Care package

I made a little care package for my friend Heather after she had a rubbish week and put it all in a fabric basket I attempted to sew from this tutorial from Notes from a very red kitchen. I was reasonably pleased with how the basket turned out in theory, except I messed up the measurements (in that I eyeballed them and didn't use a ruler...) and ended up with a basket that only barely fit the things I wanted it to hold. Meaning when you picked up up, the basket folded in two and everything fell out. Meaning I eventually had to present everything neatly tucked in the basket, held together by a plastic bag reclaimed from some loose onions I bought. Sigh. It's all in the presentation...



Still, it's a lovely tutorial and I'll definitely try again, measuring properly this time!

Mannequins vs. models

Gosh, it's been a while. I've spent the last 2 weeks pretty much solidly in the library, getting there at around 9am and not leaving until 10-11pm. It's been rubbish, but at least most of my exams are now done with. Until resits in July, sigh. Luckily we find out the results on my birthday, along with a 3 hour euthanasia seminar. Sometimes I wish I'd done law.

Aaaanyway, moaning aside, I've been very much neglecting my shop, blog and crafting in general. I have 3 secret projects in the works, 1 of which is finished already but I can't show you until I've given it to the person in question so watch this space!

In the meantime though, check out the cute new sweater additions to the shop, just in time for the summer! You can't say that we here at Second Fiddle don't work for your convenience.

Lovely salmon/coral handknit sweater



Preppy yellow sweater, very classic



White lacy sweater, perfect for layering



Fairisle wool sweater

Hand made cards

Check out this amazing wedding acceptance card that my very talented friend Karen made! It's for a friend's wedding who comes from a farming family and is marrying a farmer, so the John Deere tractor is very apt. It looks just like the real thing as well! I love hand made cards, especially ones that have been personally crafted with you in mind.



The real thing!



In other craft news, I knitted up a gauge square for the Desire jumper dress from 'Dream Catcher' by Louisa Harding. The book cover, there are several things I want to knit for myself from this book, it's lovely!



I'm knitting it for Vicky from her Mum for Christmas because her Mum was struggling with the pattern. To be honest, I'm not sure I'll do a better job, but I do have Imogene on stand-by to help me!



The gauge square came out really weird, the yarn suggests using 5mm needles but the pattern calls for 8mm, so the square is really gapey, with lots of holes. Also, the smallest UK size is a 10, so I'm worried it's going to be too big for Vicky, even if I get the gauge right but I don't really know enough about ease and whatnot to try and reduce the size. I'm taking it along to a study session with Imogene tonight to ask her opinion and I'm knitting another gauge square over the cable and lace pattern to see if that improves it.

The pattern picture:



The nice thing is that you make the jumper dress in pieces, so if it is a little bit big, I can stitch it together slightly further in to make it smaller, the yarn isn't that bulky so I don't think massive fat hems is going to be a problem. Unless some more experienced knitters out there have better advice?

Shop update

Here are the next 3 to make it into the shop from the batch I procured last weekend, I've got another 4 to go but I'm waiting on Andrew being home and the light being right to take photos of them on.

It took several attempts to get decent photos, but I'm pretty pleased with the outcome!

Scottish tartan scarf from the Johnstone clan



Vintage blue and red scarf



Large paisley shirt made in Scotland

Sneak preview

Here's a little sneaky peak at a project I'm working on at the moment, it's a present for a friend so hopefully they'll like it!

Recent thrifting trip plans

On my recent rummage in Mussleburgh, I came across a few things I'm planning on keeping for myself. Sadly my camera died before I could photograph them all, so the rest will have to wait until tomorrow.



I bought this shirt initially to go in the shop but it's grown on me since I've got it home. I need more basics in my wardrobe, especially to go with my growing number of thrifted and vintage wool sweaters, so I'm going to try this one on and see if it works on me. It's not my size, but then vintage sizes are different anyway so I might be lucky!



This one I also bought for the shop but I really like the print and the buttons so I'm tempted to keep it and do a bit of an alteration job on it! I'm thinking if I remove the shoulder pads, bring in the side seams and bring up the bottom hem, it could work quite nicely as a summer dress. I used to have one a bit like it that was ever so slightly too small so I had to get rid of it in the end. This could be it's reincarnated self!