Vikki Makes Things

Hello there Autumn! For the past few weeks, there have been hints of autumn starting to crop up: the odd leaf on the floor, an occasional cooler morning, the evenings drawing in, the kids finally returning to school after many months off. Unfortunately, this year, those signs of autumn have brought with them an increase in cases of Covid, so our region has just gone into a local lockdown. Since the kids had gone back to school, I had been getting used to being able to see friends again, and spending days at the park enjoying the last of the summer's sunshine. The next few weeks promise more time at home again, but with the kids still in school (for the time being at least), which has me somewhat optimistic about the possibility of additional crafting, sewing and baking time!

I seem to have amassed quite a pile of sewing materials over the past few months and years, and I would love to be able to turn all of it into wearable items: last week I stitched a dress for me! I genuinely can't remember the last time I did that. I remembered to make the length adjustments as I went, and the fit is pretty good, so the dress is definitely wearable, which has filled me with a renewed enthusiasm for dressmaking.

Cooler, darker evenings always inspire me to return to the kitchen - there's something so welcoming about filling the house with the aromas of baking, and the kids are always enthusiastic to sample my baked goodies. Great British Bake Off also returns to our screens next week, which never fails to fill me a desire to try out new recipes.

Last year I loved knitting my way through a yarn advent calendar, adding a square to my mitred square blanket every day in the run up to Christmas, and I'm hoping that I might get the blanket out early this year and start adding squares using the leftovers from all the socks I've knitted over the past year or so. The mitred square blanket has got to a scale now where I can't work on it during the warmer months as I have to sit under it to add extra squares!

The past couple of years have seen me add a few knitted garments to my wardrobe - my Lush by Tin Can Knits that I knitted last summer is pefect over a dress with tights and boots, and the Love Note I knitted this summer is similarly versatile. I also have a Pavement sweater that I knitted three years ago that pairs well with jeans and is good for layering. All these knits have given me confidence to keep on knitting garments, so last weekend I cast on a Chuck sweater that I want to have finished by the end of October - it will be a welcome addition to my wardrobe as it is winter-weight without being festive! I own several Christmas jumpers, which get heavy wear in December, then put away for the following 11 months, leaving a gap in my wardrobe in January and February when jumpers are much needed.

Of course, all of these things are projects that I am enthusiastic about, but that definitely can't be defined as 'work', and this is the blog for my business, Vikki Bird Designs. I still want to share all of these makes with you all, but to keep them separate, so this weekend, I finally set up an Instagram account for all my non-work makes: vikkimakesthings In all likelihood, there will be a good mix of baking, sewing, knitting and crochet, plus some other things I haven't thought of yet. If you fancy following, you'd be very welcome.