Malcolm McDowell is trapped in the future. He's being pursued by a cyberpunk from the past, played by Rutger Hauer. Erm, terrible idea. No one will watch that. I've not thought it through, Lynn. I'll call you back.

Hola pups! How's everyone doing? I've just had a lovely, fun-filled weekend with family and I have the rest of this week off to recover, thankfully. For their Christmas present this year, rather than try to buy something for my parents, Nic and I decided we'd treat them to a little mini-break by the seaside, and we all agreed that arranging it to coincide with our first wedding anniversary would be a good way to do it. They arrived on Thursday evening and on Friday morning we drove down to Folkestone so that we could all spend a few days by the seaside with Nic's family. It was a very busy few days and we managed to fit a lot in. We stopped for lunch and an explore around Windsor and Eton on the way down - we had chips next to the castle and Nic had his photo taken outside Frank Marker's office on Eton High Street. On Saturday we spent the morning with Nic's grandparents in Dover and the afternoon strolling around Folkestone and on Sunday we all got a little bit sunburned on Sandgate seafront. After wanting one for years, last week my dad bought himself a Canon 5D MkIII camera and, understandably enough, he wanted to really experiment with it. I was happy to oblige, as I had a new handmade item to photograph! Good old Daddy really got into the spirit of the shoot, bless him!

The item in question is another cardigan - this time, Andi Satterlund's Marion cardigan. I was keen to learn how to knit cables - mainly so that I would know how to do them, to be honest, and I had the Marion pattern in my stash as I won it as part of Andi and Lauren's Outfit Along last year. It's a lovely pattern, almost completely knit in stockinette, with some inset cabling at the neckline to add interest. I knitted this very quickly - I think it took under two weeks, all in all - but sadly, the finished item just doesn't work on me at all.

Andi Satterlund Marion cardigan, worn with the Together Alone dress (By Hand London Kim dress) and green Swedish hasbeens peep-toe super high sandals

So you know the way some projects look better in real life than how they photograph? This cardigan is totally the opposite of that. It looks pretty cute in the photos - hell, I almost like it in this photo, but it's a mess in real life. This isn't due to the pattern, I should add. This is me. Here are the things I did wrong with this cardigan:

• I knitted it too long. It's not cropped and it's not full length and it looks sort of odd, and the ribbing at the waistband flips up in an annoying way
• I used a very stretchy cast-off technique for the waistband and the cuffs, and it makes them both sit funny
• My buttonband is a total mess and is much tighter on one side than the other, so the neckline pulls in a funny way
• I'm not sure I knitted the right size. I think a size down would give me a fit closer to the fit that I like in cardigans - which is to say, very fitted.

The other issue I have is a fitting issue, and one I have noticed on all of Andi Satterlund's patterns on me, which is that they are a little wide across the shoulders and the shoulder seam is at the top of my arm, rather than on my shoulder. This is especially pronounced on this cardigan and it's something I'm not sure how to fix. I bought a knitting book but I'd be really grateful if any of you knitters could point me in the direction of good resources for fitting in knitting?

Side view! This is why I think I would like to knit a smaller size - or at least to grade down to a smaller size around the waist decreases - as I think the fit on this is a bit on the frumpy side.

WINDSWEPT. Here's where Daddy decided he wanted to get a bit experimental with the photos! You can see more clearly in this photo the issue that I am describing with the fit across the shoulders.

Initially, I had asked Nic to take some photos as I didn't want to bother Daddy, but I ended up with two photographers shooting me. It's a pity this was for a garment that I don't even like, but these photos do make me smile. We had a lot of fun and I know Daddy really enjoyed playing with his new camera.

I would say this is the least flattering photo of me ever (except it isn't - there are worse photos*), but this is such a happy memory it doesn't matter!

I love this photo. Also now I want a DSLR...

As for the cardigan... well, I have it on time out at the moment. I wore it for most of Sunday but I didn't feel good in it. Well, you know, I felt good because I was having such a lovely day, but I didn't enjoy wearing the cardigan. I'm trying to decide whether it's worth frogging it and re-knitting it with some modification or just chalking it up to lessons learned and moving on. I did enjoy knitting it though, and I am very happy to have learned how to do cables, so even if I do just relegate it to the island of unloved handmades for it to become the Mandy Hampton of knitwear, it was still worth knitting.

I've moved on for the moment and, in the car on the way down to Kent, I cast on my next knitting project - Andi Satterlund's newest pattern, the Vianne cardigan.  I'm going to take part in this year's Outfit Along and pair it with a dress I'm planning to make from some fabric I bought in Birmingham earlier this year. I've been making an effort to wear my hand knitted cardigans as part of my unofficial participation in Me Made May, and I've been enjoying it - even with the odd bum note like this cardigan, I'm certainly finding knitting a worthwhile pursuit.

We left Folkestone on Sunday afternoon a little bit tired and sunburned after our adventures on the beach, and drove back up to Leamington. We had planned to stop at High Wycombe on the way up but a diversion instead took us to West Wycombe, and we had the chance to climb the hill to the Dashwood Mausoleum.  The mausoleum is visible from the train on the journey between Leamington and London and it's a landmark I always look out for - I've been throughly curious to visit it ever since I first noticed it. We didn't have time to visit the Hellfire Caves, sadly, but the amazing views over the Chilterns more than made up for it.

I love this photo... for some reason it reminds me of Clip Art, and that really makes me laugh!

My parents went home yesterday afternoon, but not before they took us to the shops to buy us a new television set. Nic and I have very little interest in having access to live TV, so we had been holding out on replacing our very old CRT TV. I didn't want the hassle! However, as a belated wedding present/first anniversary present, my parents wanted to upgrade our technology and bought us a lovely 32 inch smart TV. We still don't get live TV to it but we are able to watch DVDs and whatever we would have been watching online on it, so that's fancy. It makes the flat feel very posh! We've been celebrating by watching episodes of the original series of Star Trek - which I am thoroughly enjoying trash-talking my way through. Like seriously what the fuck is Bones's problem? What a miserable bastard. Lighten the fuck up, dude. YOU'RE IN SPACE.

Anyway I'm away here to watch that and crack on with a bit more knitting. Hurrah for holidays!

*So the photo above really isn't the least flattering photo ever taken of me. THIS one is. I've cropped everyone else out of the photo to preserve their dignity but I think that I was expressing sympathetic dismay over the sad state of Dover High Street. Whatever I was doing, this photo really made me laugh because I look so much like Lynn Benfield.

Here's me, watching Poirot on UK Gold. I'm dead to the world.

Charlie, tell the president he will eat his salad, and if he doesn't like it, he knows where he can put his salad.

Hello! What's the craic, boys and girls? I'm grand - I'm just back from a few days working in London, which were pretty good days, all in all. Although, man, TIRING. I was staying in Bloomsbury, and walked everywhere, and I have the legs walked off myself. Nic joined me so that he could get in some research time at the British Library, and we managed to replenish our energy with pizza from Homeslice and pastries from Maison Bertaux. I'm a country mouse through and through so, all things considered, I was glad to get on the train back to Leamington this afternoon.

So that's the craic with me. Thank you to everyone who took the time to comment and get in touch about my last post. Since then, I have been feeling a lot less stressed about work, which is a good thing! It helps that I only have a few days before I have a whole week off, but in general I am feeling much more in control of my work-life balance. I could have ended up working over the weekend on a project that isn't going well (to put it mildly) but, instead, I recognised that I had done everything that was within my power to do and I put my work laptop away. Nic was out during the day on Saturday, and I spent the morning cleaning and the afternoon sewing. It was a sunny afternoon, I put Silk on autoplay on my laptop (that show is such, such balls, but I love a bit of Rupert Henry-Penry) and I got cracking on a sewing project that has been bubbling away in my brain for a few months.

Mostly, I think pinterest is kind of pointless, but a few months ago someone I follow pinned this dress  from Lena Hoschek's 'Hot Mama Africa' collection:

Lena Hoschek Nairobi dress

It's gorgeous, isn't it? It has a beautiful v-shaped back and a midi skirt. Lush. It's way, way beyond what I would be willing to pay for a dress but then, that's the beauty of being able to sew. I pinned this image to my sewing inspiration board and then I kind of forgot about it until I saw it on Liebling Vintage's instagram, and it went right to the top of my list.

The fabric is one of the things that makes this dress so beautiful and, unfortunately, I didn't have that fabric. But I did have some lovely lengths of wax cotton sitting in my stash, because I find it very difficult to resist when I come across it. Now I really want some in this gorgeous shade of yellow, and I will be hunting for it, but I did have this unusual brown and orange print...

Filthy Names dress - modified By Hand London Flora dress in wax cotton, worn with Swedish hasbeens Suzanne sandals

So, given the shape of the neckline of my inspiration dress, the bodice of the Flora dress was an obvious contender for this dress. I also liked it for this print, as the high neckline would allow me to show off maximum print. It wasn't very difficult to alter the back of the pattern to give this dress a v-shaped back - I just retraced it, drawing a diagonal line down from 5/8 away from where the straps go to the height where I wanted the zip to start. It was very easy, but I stabilised that diagonal edge with some cotton seam tape.

The v on the back of my dress comes down lower than the one on the inspiration dress and I like it, but I don't love it - I think I will experiment with this shape a bit further to get it just how I like it. But this will definitely do for now!

I bought the fabric in January or February from Shepherd's Bush Market. I bought two lengths from one seller and the other one was completely un-usable because it was so badly off-grain, so I was a little bit worried that this would be the same. Thankfully it wasn't - it was slightly off-grain, but as it was only £10 for 5 metres, I think that's fair enough! At the time I bought it kind of because the salesman talked me into it, but now I am very glad that I did, because it's so vibrant and bold.

Here's a close-up of the print. Actually, I think that the brown is more of a very dark purple, but that orange is very definitely orange. I'm having a bit of an orange thing this year - since January, I have bought an orange sofa, orange lamps, orange sandals (the lobster ones!) orange yarn, and an orange satchel. I blame Nic - he bought me an orange anglepoise lamp for Christmas. I do want to get some orange clogs now, because I am predictable.

The Lena Hoschek dress has a matching belt and, based on the close-up photos, it looks like it's one of those where it's a length of elastic in a fabric tube, with a metal clasp on the end. Like the kind that come with those puffer coats? Anyway, those belts give me the creeps... no, I don't know why, so obviously I didn't make one. I don't really do belts, especially not superfluous ones, but maybe this would benefit from a belt. What do you think?

I wore this on Sunday with my orange Myrna cardigan...

I'm still not totally convinced by the sleeves on this cardigan. Maybe I need to knit another orange cardigan with sleeves I like a bit better?!

So, all in all, I'm really happy with how my experiment turned out. I wore this dress for a very long day on Sunday and felt great in it. I'm tempted to make another one from some more of the wax cotton that's lurking in my stash. I'm also going to start lurking the Lena Hoschek shop for more sewing inspiration. I mean, I need to make something inspired by this, right?

Lena Hoschek Makeba Sunflower dress

Anyway, I'm going to head off here. I have a potato to eat and a cardigan to finish. I told you I was a country mouse.

I'm a panhandle hick and my wedding will be just another panel on my mother's family history back tattoo.

Hello! How's the form? I'm mostly very well, although I have a bit of a sore throat that is annoying me. I mean, really, throat? Again?

I had a very stressful and annoying week last week at work. I was let down very badly by the senior leadership in my team and, after all the hard work I have put in over the last few years in my job, it was a massive disappointment. Having been told that I had met the criteria for a (small) bonus and a small (not even at the level of inflation because I work in the public sector and we're in a pay freeze) pay increase, this was then withdrawn on the basis of issues in one project that I am responsible for. It was extremely frustrating because, despite the issues, the project was signed off on time, and it was signed off on time because I put in a huge amount of work to rectify the issues. It made me very angry that, rather than considering my good work and my many achievements throughout the year, I was punished for fixable errors in one project.

It was very upsetting on the day I found out, but since then I have been able to take a bit of a step back. I'm constantly stressed about work. This is, in large part, because I work in a stressful job, but it's also because I have been putting myself under huge pressure to be basically perfect at all times. To do this, I have worked long hours and made myself ill by pushing myself to the point of exhaustion. It's made me suffer physically and the anxiety has, at times, been crippling. And it's stupid, and it's still clearly not enough. So, in a weird way, although it was incredibly discouraging to see the evidence of that first-hand, it's also curiously freeing. I'm not going to stop trying hard to do a good job, and to do my job to the best of my ability, but I do feel now like I no longer have an impossibly high standard to live up to - because I know that the standard is totally bogus.

There are still so many things that I genuinely enjoy about my job - my colleagues and my line manager are fantastic and I find the job challenging and interesting. But I'm not going to let it dominate my life in quite the same way. So that feels weirdly good. I sincerely hope that I'll have far fewer reasons to write here that I've had a stressful week or that I've been too busy to enjoy my life. I even have a week off coming up to look forward to, so that will be good!

Anyway - that's a non crafting or shoes-related digression, so let's bring on the crafting and the shoes, right?! Those are the much more fun things in life. Nic and I had a little day out in Birmingham on Saturday and I took the opportunity to get some photos of my most recent hand-knit - an Andi Satterlund Hetty cardigan. This cardigan seemed very daunting to me because of the all-over lace pattern. I wasn't sure if I would be able to keep track of the pattern while I was knitting the decreases at the side, and I really wasn't sure if I was going to be able to manage the sleeves. However, this was much less difficult than I had anticipated and Hetty turned out to be a really interesting and enjoyable cardigan to knit.

Andi Satterlund 'Hetty' cardigan, Frog Princess dress and Swedish hasbeens pearl braided sky high sandals

Purple cardigan! The yarn is Cascade 220 (obvs) and the colour is called Iris, although I think it has been discontinued. There are little flecks of blues and pinks in the yarn that make it very pretty, although it feels slightly scratchier than the other colours I have knitted with. It's grand to wear, though.

I knitted the size small and, as I said above, I largely found this to be a really enjoyable cardigan to knit. I had to rip it back to the armholes twice because I had made stupid mistakes but, by the time I had done that, the lace repeat was very firmly implanted into my head. This is a good thing - one of the reasons that I find knitting appealing is that my short-term memory for numbers isn't very good, and knitting is helping to improve that. My tip for knitting this cardigan is to memorise the lace repeat because, if you can read where you are in the pattern, it makes it much easier to keep the pattern straight and to know when to begin and end the lace repeat when you're knitting the short rows at the sleeve cap.

I have bought some pink yarn to knit another Hetty cardigan and I will make a few small changes. I really like the overall length but I would like the waistband to be deeper, so I will stop knitting the lace a few rows earlier and knit more ribbing instead. This will also allow me to fit another buttonhole and button in at the bottom! I'll also do as quite a few people have suggested for binding off the sleeves, and switch to a larger knitting needle for doing that. I did use a stretchy bind-off technique but the hem (is that the right word?) of the sleeves is a little bit tighter than I would like.

Those are only minor things though, and I've already worn this cardigan quite a lot since I finished it. I wasn't sure initially if the lower and wider neckline was going to be practical - so many of my dresses have higher necklines than this - but actually, I like how it looks. I love the shape of the neckline, and I think my ribbing there is really pretty and neat! I am very happy with how the cardigan fits - basically, I have learned to stop worrying about the button-bands pulling a bit because, as I gather, this is not unusual on cardigans that are designed to be worn with negative ease. Or maybe I'm just telling myself that. Whatever.

Here's the back! I'm standing awkwardly, I know, but this way you can see how lovely and straight my lace patterning is. Yay! I do think this would look better with a deeper waistband ribbing though, so I am definitely going to do that on the next Hetty cardigan.

And here's how it looks unbuttoned. Yay! So, although I have been broadly happy with the other cardigans I have knitted, this is the first time I have been straight-up totally delighted with one. It's partly because I feel like I learned so much with this project and it really built my confidence - it was genuinely very pleasing to realise that I understood where the pattern was going and what I needed to do to get the lace repeat to work evenly on the sleeves. That felt like a big breakthrough. I can understand why so many bloggers start out by knitting Andi Satterlund's patterns because, while the instructions don't hold your hands, the designs allow you to learn techniques in a very manageable way. I can knit a lace repeat! And, as I discovered at the end of last week, I can do cable knitting! Yes, I have already cast on my next project - a Marion cardigan in bright green yarn.

I didn't sign up officially for Me Made May 2015. I wear handmade clothes almost every day and I knew that I would have too many things going on this month to make taking daily outfit photos anything other than a chore. I do often instagram pictures of my handmade clothes though, and tag them as such, so I decided I would unofficially play along. It's felt good, on days like Saturday, when both my dress and my cardigan were handmade!

Also, I like to instagram things that make me laugh. So there's that, too.

Birmingham shops have a strong pun game. I like the honesty that Mother Cluckers bring to their marketing.

On that note, I'm off to eat dinner and then crack on a bit further with my next cardigan. Maybe I'll even start thinking about my next sewing project. I do still sew, you know! Catch you on the flippedy-flip, my friends!

No wonder he changed his name. You don't get many Nigel the Greats, do you?

Evening all! I've emerged, blinking, from a lovely bank holiday weekend to another week at work. Dramatic sigh. It was a very good weekend, in which I was able to find the time to do lots of my favourite things. I bought (and drank) some gin, made a dress, did some knitting and spent time with friends, laughing and eating tasty food. It's a hard job, but someone had to do it!

I had had a very long day on Thursday - a 12-hour work day followed by dinner in the pub with friends - so I sacked off work at lunchtime on Friday, the better to get the value out of my bank holiday weekend. It's a lovely feeling and I'm looking forward to having a proper break at the end of the month. It was really cold on Saturday - or at least, it felt really cold - so I spent the afternoon holed up indoors, sewing. It's been ages since I spent a whole day sewing and I really enjoyed myself.  I was feeling inspired because, when she was in Paris a few weeks ago, my friend Emily bought me some amazing fabric from Petit Pan. It was a complete surprise and typically thoughtful of Emily. the fabric came to me via her sister Amy (who I happened to see before I saw Em) with the message, "I hope you're not offended by this!" Errrr what. The fabric is awesome:

Grenadine Menthe fabric from Petit Pan

I did a little dance of happiness in my chair when I unwrapped this and immediately started plotting what to do with it. The print obviously called to mind a 60s-style shift dress, but I had 2.5 metres and I wanted to make something I would wear often. I wanted a full skirt, basically. So, on Friday I went and bought a bunch of yellow buttons and I made myself another McCall's 6696 shirt-dress.

Telescope dress and Swedish hasbeens peep-toe sandals

Holy bright sunshine, Batman! I was running late for a party at Amy's house when we took these photos, so we didn't have time to find a better location. In a way, though, the dazzling sunshine kind of works with the ridiculously loud print.

This is the fourth McCall's 6696 that I've made and I'm finally happy with the fit. It's still not perfect, but it's as close as I'm going to get, I think. I didn't get any photos of the back but it still blouses a bit more than I am strictly happy with - but, you know, I can't see it so I've decided I'm not going to fight that good fight any more. I have shortened the bodice by an inch and a half and, on this dress, I sewed the buttons on off-centre, and that helped. I also did my own button placement around the waistband, sewing three buttons close together to keep the fabric closed over my widest point - my stomach!

I bought the yellow plastic buttons in a local fabric shop. Green might have been a better choice, but all I wanted to do was accessorise this fabric with yellow and, indeed, I wore it with yellow button earrings (which I annoyingly forgot to get a photo of.) I think it also looks great - in a totally kitsch way - with my yellow Agatha cardigan:

You'll not lose me in a crowd

Annoyingly, this is one of those projects that doesn't photograph as well as it looks in real life. I really love this dress. The fabric is beautiful - it's a very high quality cotton lawn and it is really enjoyable to wear. Also, I think the shirt-dress shape shows it off really well - I like the fact that it's quite a demure shape and style in such a wild print. In any case, I hope to wear this a lot over the summer.

Here's a wee close-up of the bodice. I'm not entirely sure why I'm so dramatically not looking at the camera but I was honestly very hungry when these photos were being taken so my mind was elsewhere. The gaping there between the second and third buttons isn't there when I am standing straight, just so you know. I think having my hands on my hips was pulling the fabric a bit oddly.

I'm still not finished with McCall's 6696. I have another Liberty Carline one to make in purple, and I have plans to make one from the same wax cotton that I made the Bedelia dress from... and, no doubt, other fabrics will present themselves as being perfect for this lovely pattern. I'm really proud of the finish I achieved on this one, particularly the collar:

I found Andrea's tutorial at Four Square Walls to be particularly helpful, and following it made sewing this collar enjoyable. There's something very satisfying about the precision required, I think.

I spent most of Saturday sewing this dress, because I knew I'd be seeing Emily on Monday and I wanted to be able to wear the dress. Nic and I were out for most of Saturday - we went to Coventry with Amy and Barney to go to Ikea and the Coventry Transport Museum, and to go for a meal in Cosmo. I'm not usually one for all-you-can-eat places, because they're not usually too good for vegetarians, but the food is pretty good in Cosmo and the whole experience is charmingly insane. As our friends were driving, and were kind enough to park in Ikea, I finally succumbed to the siren call of the Tastrup rug and now our bedroom is approximately 300% more colourful:

After such an exciting day, I was in no state to do anything other than lie on the sofa and watch trashy TV, so it was just as well that I had finished the dress on Saturday. Also, after eating so much at Cosmo, I'm pretty certain I'd have had someone's eye out with flying buttons. HEALTH AND SAFETY FIRST, PEOPLE. 

Emily seemed delighted to see the fabric made up into a dress, and she even got to see a blog photoshoot in action, as Nic and I attempted to take some photographs that weren't completely sun-drenched:

Here it is in its natural state: drinking wine

This dress was perfect for drinking wine in the sunshine with friends. It's a very happy dress - I enjoyed making it, and I am so touched by what a thoughtful and kind gift it was. I'm already looking forward to wearing it again! Maybe next time, I will try accessorising it with green. In fact, I have some bright green yarn on its way to me for another cardigan, so that's a distinct possibility!

Right-o. I'm old these days, so right now I want nothing more than to go and put my pyjamas on and have a nice cup of tea. So that's what I'm going to do!