Hi, I’m Ava.
I started sewing my own clothes in August 2018, as I wanted more control over what I wore. As well as sewing in general, I’m really interested in fashion history. I’ve been through phases of being obsessed with the fashions of the 1930s, the 1940s, and the 1960s, but my favourite decade is the 1920s (Louise Brooks is my style icon!). Many of my favourite films feature interesting costumes: God Help the Girl, Pandora’s Box, Ghost World and anything French New Wave (in particular the TV musical Anna).
Whilst I love historical fashion, I mainly sew modern clothes. Partly because vintage-style beginner patterns are hard to find, but mainly because I want it to be easy for me to get dressed in the morning. I want my wardrobe to be full of comfortable, beautiful clothes that all go with each other, and I’m into such a mish-mash of different eras that this cohesiveness wouldn’t be possible if I only sewed vintage.
When I’m not sewing, I’m probably knitting! I learned how to knit as a child and made the obligatory scarf, but only picked it up again recently. I’m by no means a monogamous knitter, so I generally have one large project and a couple of smaller ones on the go at once. My favourite item to knit is socks; I love how portable they are and view them as a mini canvas to try new techniques out on a small scale. Recently I’ve also been dipping my toes (only just noticed what I did there) into designing my own sock patterns.
Other things I like doing:
- Drawing and planning future sewing/knitting projects
- Listening to music on trains
- Studying the tarot
- Watching strange films from the 1960s
- Yarn fondling
- Drinking interesting teas
- Cuddling my dog
This blog originally started as a place for me to share book reviews; then it became a book/sewing hybrid; and now it’s entirely sewing-focused. You can still read all my old book reviews here, but I don’t publish any new ones anymore.
Happy sewing!
oolong stitches 
Hi, Ava! I loved your posts about socks as I am a beginning knitter myself. I really like the variations you did to the socks for your Doc Marten’s and for the larger toe box. Do you have an actual pattern written that an intermediate beginner could use? I would love to make some socks for my own anklebiters (15 & 18) who need wider toe boxes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Traci! I haven’t written out a proper pattern, but I’ll write how I do the wider toe variation here. I originally found it in Cookie A’s Sock Innovation 🙂
(These instructions assume that you are using 4 dpns, and that the beginning of the round is in the middle of the sole of the socks)
Even round= knit all sts
Decrease round= Needle One: K to last 3 sts, k2tog, k1
Needle Two: k1, ssk, k to end of needle
Needle Three: k to last 3 sts, k2tog, k1
Needle Four: k1, ssk, k to end
So basically I knit 4 even rnds and then do a decrease rnd, then knit 3 even rnds and do a decrease rnd, then 2 even rnds and do a decrease rnd, then 1 even rnd and then a decrease… Just reducing the number of even rnds by one each time. I recommend writing this all out round by round and making yourself a little tick sheet to keep track of where you are!
In total this makes 15 rnds, so to work out when to start doing the toe: work out how many rnds per cm/inch you have, use this to calculate how many cm/inches 15 rnds will make, and then start the decreases when you are this far away from the end of your foot.
You could easily do this method using magic loop as well, just use stitch markers where the gaps between the dpns would be! Because it works using a ratio and not stitch counts, you can use this method with pretty much any stitch count, so just combine it with your favourite vanilla sock pattern.
Hope this helps, and good luck with your socks! 🙂
LikeLike