The Gift in the Machine

For Christmas I was given £50 by my Aunt and Uncle (thank you very much). They said it was to spend on whatever alcohol it was I drank (they have expensive tastes in alcohol, and, I have to admit, mine aren't exactly cheap); I, however, like to spend gift money as a lump sum. So rather than buying five £10 items, I'd want to buy one, big, £50 item. Why? Because chances are I 'll save up enough money to treat myself to a bottle of  quality  spiced rum or gin at the end of the month, while something that's worth £30, £40 or £50, well, on a student budget I'm likely to not get there.

I was wondering what to spend my money on when I saw some little sewing machines for sale in the local supermarket. They were £50 and very, very pink. I'm not much a sewer, but this is partly because I always have to use my mum's sewing machine; because I don't have any sewing equipment of my own. I do really want to learn; as a historical re-enactor I feel it is an almost compulsory skill and yet I've got away without it for nearly ten years now. That and my mother provides all the clothes for me, my brother, my father and herself. Bare in mind that I've physically grown a lot since I was twelve and have needed multiple sets of historical clothes, plus the fact that my father and I now do multiple periods. To date, I have had eight sets of historical clothing made and only one was made by me (and even then, only half of it). I feel that if I want to continue this hobby that it is unfair to continually rely on mummy dearest to cut, shape and sew every garment I might want.

A little machine, but my machine.

So, yes. I want to learn to sew. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not passionate about it like I am knitting, but I do want to learn and, hopefully, as my skills increase so will my enjoyment (currently, I often find myself getting frustrated by my projects and I often try to finish them in much too short a space of time). Anyway, I went home and voiced the idea of buying myself a sewing machine to my mum; she thought it was a good idea but when we researched the brand of machine available locally, the reviews were... Not so great. To eBay it was then, looking for older, but higher quality, machines with a top price of £50. I managed to stumble across a wonderful little gem; a Singer Featherweight Plus 324, made in the 70s/80s, barely been used for a whole £30. Now, there were a couple of other listings for the same machine, both which were upwards of £50. Bargain, I thought. Bought it and then the next day I went round to pick it up. 

I feel that the spool is in an odd place on this machine.

I spent the remaining £20 on various other sewing bits. It was missing a zipper foot, for example, so I bought one of those, a handful of threads, pins, fabric scissors, tailor's chalk, etc., so that by the time the weekend was out I'd gone from having no sewing equipment to pretty much everything I would ever need. Money well spent, I should think.

I have found that the need to use brand new Christmas toys has not faded with age and, with the sewing machine next to me I was desperate to try it out. My mum and I had a discussion; it was the evening, so no time to go and buy fabric or a pattern. Fortunately, our spare room is a bit of an Aladdin's cave of sewing stuff (I think it's a prerequisite of being a re-enactor, that at least one room in the house needs to be drowning in craft materials) so we went upstairs and rifled through what we had. Mum suggested that I make a simple bag to use as a project bag for my knitting (the one I had was actually a book bag and a little too small). Easy enough of a project and it meant that I got to play, so that's exactly what I did.

I cut a rectangle of some heavy weight gold and red fabric (so that my needles won't pierce it), a white linen lining and a pair of triangles to make the flap. I started with the latter most; they were easy enough to do, just sewed the two pieces together, leaving the long edge open to attach to the main bag later.


To the lining I added a couple of pockets. One tall and thin for any extra needles I might need (some patterns require a needle change) and a low, fat one for any other extras. Notably, my row counter and usually the pattern (or scribbled notes) itself. I accentuated these with a red thread trim. Chances are that you won't see them anyway because they're inside the bag, but, hey, the devil is in the details, right?

Now, this was my first sewing project working without a pattern, Honestly, we were working out of my mum's head. It wasn't a difficult pattern, but I do have to admit that, even after many years  of sewing, my mum's one downfall is insides. If you sew, you'll know that everything is done inside out, so that you can't see the seams; this can get a bit complicated when you're already working everything backwards and then add a lining which is the reverse of everything and not inside and and blurgh. It confuses my mother, especially when it comes to sleeves (she is forever making two left ones). So if adding a lining to a simple tote bag was going to confuse a sewing veteran, I had no chance. We spent pretty much the rest of the evening sewing and unpicking the lining because somehow or another it ended up being on wrong. Hey, I'm still new at this!

We finally gave up on trying to make the inner of the bag completely seamless. Instead, all unpicked, we (I) folded the heavy fabric in half, wrong side facing, with the lining, right side facing, folded around that. Then zip, zip, up both sides. Sew the completed flap to one side of the opening and there you have it. The basic workings of a knitting project bag.

The beginnings of handles.

All that was left was the handles. I could have done regular, normal handles but this is me. I cut six strips of the heavier fabric sewed them together to make flat tubes and then proceeded to plait these together. They were originally intended to be two handles, but it was forgotten just how much plaiting something shortens the over all length. So instead these two finished plaits were sewn together to make one longer plait. The seam was bound with thick, black tread to hide it. This binding didn't look too out of place, as it also bound the stitches by the d-rings, that attached the handle to the bag proper.

I'll admit, it was far from an adventurous first project, but it was something, something I could call my own and the first thing I had made on my very own sewing machine. Proud? Yes. Okay, it is no mesmer coat, I'll grant you, but mine none the less. And it was a damn site easier than what was to come (a silk A-line skirt; why do I torture myself like this?) in the following weeks.

A preview of things to come...

Knitmas '13; Tudor Cow Pat Hat

I know it's well into February and I'm still talking about Christmas but, hey, there were a lot of crafts around that time and I'm updating far slower than I intended to. One day I might start putting up regular posts (or, more likely, not, and they'll remain sporadic forever).

A Man in a Black Cap,
John Bette, 1545

Anyway, I knitted three things for people for Christmas. The second item I knitted was a cow pat hat. A what? Sounds awfully rude, doesn't it? It's no where near as messy as it sounds. A cow pat hat is a sort of flat, circular hat that was worn in the late Medieval through to Tudor periods of British history (although I suspect they, or a variant, were worn on the continent, too). The reason behind knitting this, was because I, and my family, are all re-enactors. My father and I began with the Tudor period, which then spilled out into Medieval, Dark Ages, Victorian and (due to the centenary), World War I, and eventually spilled out to my entire immediate family.

Let's rewind a little. I learnt knitting during the summer before last (2012), while I was at a Tudor living history event. I was working in an ale house at the time, but when there was no public I found I had very little to do and needed a way of keeping my hands busy. I had a friend there who would knit after hours and I questioned its authenticity; it seems that knitting was around way back when, but not like it is today. It was not a craft that was done by everybody, but instead only by those in the Cappers Guild. Only women married to men in said guild would have been taught the skill (as it was primarily a male orientated skill; oh, how times have changed!). Shapes were simple, no patterns, purling, cables, etc. and most were knitted on the round. Or so I have been told. There is a lot of debate about the history of knitting and how well a protected secret it was, so no body is really sure, but this is what I have been lead to believe. Anyway, it meant that I was allowed to knit at the event, providing the needles and wool were authentic. Fortunately, someone there sold authentic needles and the gift shop sold hand spun, hand dyed wool that had been made on site. I ended up with a set of four 2.25mm (UK 13) needles and a lovely deep green, 4ply wool. To those of you who know knitting, talk about throwing me in the deep end. Once you've learnt on the round, straight knitting seems ridiculously easy.

Six OC needles...

Okay, so that's where I began. I realised I enjoyed knitting far more than just wanting to do it at events, to which my mother bequeathed my Gran's needles unto me along with a load of spare wool she had (my mother is not a knitter) and, well, the rest is, if you'll excuse the pun, history. Summer 2013, I'm back at the Tudor living history event and my mum decides to treat me to some more authentic wool; a yellow-green colour, Aran/worsted weight. We spent some time discussing what could be made with it (as I really ought not to waste authentic wool on a non-authentic object) and eventually it was settled. I would make a hate for my dad for him to wear during the event.

Before stitching; looks like a
mushroom cloud...

This seemed like a great idea, until I noticed one teeny, tiny problem. Re-enacting and living history, while not unpopular hobbies are far from mainstream. I suddenly realised that I did not have a pattern. I asked around a few friends and they told me 'you increase to the right size, then decrease to the right size and then increase and decrease again'. That was it. That was pretty much all I had to go on.

Do you know how hard it is to even knit a flat, patternless circle when you have no idea what you're doing? It isn't easy. So I was stumped, didn't know what to do. Then, by a stroke of luck, when I was flicking through knitting books at the local book shop I found a book that was all about knitting circles. Brilliant. They had a pattern for a flat, patternless circle. It wasn't a hat pattern by any means, but it was a start.

Mostly done; just need the under brim

So I began with that; now is probably a good time to mention the sheer quantity of needles used in this project. Normally, patterns (at least, those that I have encountered) are four plus one needles; that is, the knitting is held on four needles and one extra is used for the knitting. This pattern called for six plus one. So I was using seven needles (actually, I was using eight, but that's because I'm a little OC, and had four red needles and four teal ones as I'd had to buy two sets. So I'd keep swapping the seventh one so the needles were always alternate colours). It certainly looked impressive, although the number of needles were no more complex than a lesser number (the fact it was a flat item rather than a tube was what I found to be particularly difficult). I started with three plus one initially, to make sure the centre was tight and without a visible hole, then gradually increased as I worked in more stitches.

The centre looks really small, but it does fit.

The finished circle was not as large as I needed it to be, but after some thirty odd rows I'd worked out the pattern to get it to the right size. Well, then I realised I had a problem with 'the right size'. How do you measure the diameter of a circle that is currently hexagonal? I realised I was going to have to take it off the DPNs and onto some string/wire, so that it could form it's natural shape and be measured. A simple, but time consuming task that I would have to repeat twice over in the course of the knitting. Once it was back on the DPNs, it was time to decrease and I was on my own from here on. Measuring the size after decreasing proved to be more difficult, given knitting's tendency to curl; even on string I could not get it to stay flat for an accurate measurement, so guesses had to be made (as numerous  repeats of the measuring).

Top down; a perfect, patternless circle.

I'm really surprised that it turned out as well as it did, given that I didn't really know what I was doing. But it worked. Well, turns out I didn't quite have enough wool, so the under portion of the brim was about ten rows off. When I stitched the two parts of the brim together though, it pulled it all not place.

The only changes I would make if I were to make another, would be to make the top of the hat a slightly lesser diameter than the brim; this hat, they are the same size. I just think it would look a little better. Dad seemed really very pleased with the finished hat, which made me rather proud of my efforts. We have yet to do another Tudor re-enactment though, so he has not yet had chance to wear it with the rest of his Tudor period clothes. Should look good though.

I think he approves.

As always, the figures. 39 rows (with every other row being increased by eight) for the top of the hat, with 160 stitches; 21 for the first decrease, with 72 stitches; 19 rows for the brim, back to 160 stitches; finally, what should have been 21 decrease rows for the reverse of the brim was about 15, finished with 97 stitches. The flat circle pattern came from Nicky Epstein's Knitting in Circles. I used 6mm needles. The top was knitted to 30cm diameter, the circumference 58cm, or 18cm diameter.