How have you been? I know, it's been a while, I have been really busy in the real world. My goal this year is to carve more time to make crafts and I have been lucky enough to manage to do it in February.

The first thing I did is to finally manage to repair myfavorite sewing machine, all by myself! It had tension problems for years, and I had it serviced several times to no avail. So I decided to learn how to do it. There's some good websites and videos out there to learn the basics, from cleaning to oiling, etc... to how to regulate the bobin tension. I noticed that the little part that hold the tension screw on the bobbin holder was broken, bought another bobbin holder, discovered that the kitten was into throwing things from tables, bought the piece again after chasing it and dust bunnies under my furniture, and then voilà, repaired. Perfect stitches, like new!

My first task was to fix my little project bag, where I can now keep my yarn out of reach of the kitten. She's the sweetest little thing but quite mischievous, and her goal these days is to get to my yarn and play. Yarn can be dangerous as a toy and I like my skeins as toys for myself, lol.

Since I had a project bag for my yarn I began a little shawl, in a sweet mohair yarn from which I really like. A few weeks ago I made another one that was ridiculously ugly and very slow to make. Ugly was my fault really, I made it with old sock yarn from my stash and it wasn’t a good idea. But the slowness was due to a very dense crochet texture, and a shawl pattern that was really half a big square. If you want a square to have enough drape to make a comfortable shawl, you end up with quite a lengthy big thing, and it does not wrap prettily either. Armed with my first mistakes, I spent a very long time on Pinterest looking for a model with an obtuse isocèle triangle, with the third angle at 120°, that would start by the lower point so I can stop it any time I wanted, with a nice lace motif, and preferably a shell motif because it gives a nice drape and it’s a pretty texture. After a few hours or research I finally found a nice Japanese model by Ronique , you can download it here (look for the download button to get the diagram) . I think I will add a nice, simple border, it will be very sweet. It goes very fast and doesn’t ask for much yarn, I think I will get a little shawl with 2 skeins of 50g of Drops Kid Silk, or a bigger one with 2 more. I love Drops yarns, they’re not too expensive and the color palettes are sophisticated. It’s a bit difficult to find here, but worth the effort.

Did you think I stopped there? Non non non, I had other ideas. Doing all my research for a shawl on Pinterest I noticed that my iPad really could use a new sleeve so I went through my fabric stash and found pretty fabrics to make one.

I’m not too happy of it, I like the colors but I think a bag-like one, with handles, would be more practical for me. I also think it needs a block of bright color on the outside, to make it more easy to find. And a pocket for the accessories would be nice, too. Hopefully I have enough fabric left to make a new version.

Do do you think I stopped here? Well no! Le Prezd went to Santa Monica and remembered I wanted notebooks for work and ideas and stuff, so he bought half a dozen at the Muji store. I really like the paper on these little books, and the format is just perfect. But Brown and black covers don’t help to recognize the books, so I covered them properly with papers I collect for years now, Japanese chiyogami, pages from the Flow Paper books, Korean papers I found in Toronto...isn’t it pretty? It gave me another idea, something we did with Le Bu best friend and was quite a thing , but I will tell you next time!

Winter projects