Next on my to-make list...

From the book Dressmaking: the complete step-by-step guide, by Alison Smith (Dorling Kindersley, £25), I'll be making two skirts from two pieces of fabric I've had for too long. Click here to buy it for £8.99 from the Book People, saving £16.01.
The book has patterns you can scale up on dressmaker's paper, or you can do what I did, and download the patterns from the DK website. Print them out, and stick them together. Cleverly, the pieces are coded so you know what to stick where.
The first pattern, a classic fitted skirt, is for a beautiful silky green sari-style fabric bought from an offcuts bin in Berwick Street.
And the second, a classic A-line skirt, is for a piece of red velvet cut from the bottom of a curtain from Ikea - waste not, want not!
The curtain is made from cotton velvet and intended to be hung at a window, but ours is hanging across the doorway of our open-plan(ish) kitchen and living room. As it's hanging from a lower-level pole, there was a very big hem to be taken up. And a piece of scarlet velvet big enough to make me a skirt simply cannot be wasted...
I'll let you know how I get on!

Our very own stitch and bitch

Exciting! Our local pub has been taken over by a new manager, who was keen to know what events he should run. I suggested a craft club... and this weekend I was in the pub (another one) talking to his girlfriend and another creative friend, and she's keen on the idea and so it's all going ahead this Thursday. She's calling it 'stitch and bitch' although I don't think it's (yet) affiliated to the official Stitch 'n Bitch site, so we're turning up with our knitting and crochet. There will be at least three of us (it's a small village...) . It'll be a great opportunity for me to finish my treble crochet edging for my knitted squares blanket, and to have a little refresher on how exactly the purl stitch goes. I know, it's really easy but I just can't remember.
I did run a craft club at work for a while (about the same size community as the village I live in) but it was very hard to find a time that suited everyone, and despite massive initial interest, people just didn't turn up regularly enough. Hopefully, this one will go better!

How to take in trousers

While it's very satisfying to make something pretty, it's equally so to do something practical.
I've lost quite a bit of weight over the past year (deliberately). One of the disadvantages - OK, probably the only disadvantage - is that some of the clothes you love no longer fit. But it can be quite simple to adjust them. Take trousers; if they have a centre-back seam you can just rework that.
Put your trousers on and pinch in the excess fabric at the centre-back waistband. Pin if you can ( or get someone to help), or just note the difference with your fingers.
Take trousers off and turn inside out. Fold trousers so that centre-back seam is lying flat. Put a pin in to mark the amount the waistband needs to be reduced by, then pin towards the crotch in a line that gradually blends with the original centre-back seam  - see left.
Try your trousers on - carefully! those pins are sharp. If all is well, the waistband will now be a good snug fit and the backside of the trousers will sit smoothly with no obviously excess fabric. If all is not well, remove trousers and adjust line of pins. Try trousers on again. Repeat as necessary.
Tack your pinning line if you want, then machine-sew. I leapt straight to this step without tacking because it's the second time I've done this and I was feeling quite confident.
Cut off excess fabric beyond new seam line. Zigzag-stitch along the cut edge to prevent material fraying. Probably you should zigzag along the edges before sewing the new seam, but this way round worked fine for me.
Put 'new' trousers back on. Enjoy a smug little smile...

Block draughts under the door: make a draught excluder

'Draught excluder' always sounds to me like some hi-tech cutting-edge device, rather than a fabric sausage.
I've been meaning to make one for ages and now it's getting chilly and those draughts around the windows and door are getting more noticeable.

How to make a draught excluder
Measure the width of the doorway and cut a piece of fabric this wide plus a length to give you enough girth in your sausage. A small side plate is about the right size, so measure its circumference (right around the edge) and there you go. Then draw around the side plate on to the fabric twice, for your two end pieces. Sew one end piece onto the fabric length, and up the side seam. Stuff the draught excluder with a fairly heavyweight stuffing. (I used bits ripped out of an old pillow but it's too light to stay in place at the bottom of the door so will have to be replaced. Learn by my mistakes!). Sew the other circular end piece onto the sausage. You'll probably have to finish the sewing by hand as it's too hard to manoeuvre a stuffed sausage around under your needle plate. Position the excluder at the base of the door and enjoy enhanced cosiness.

More home makes...
More on sewing...

Make a rough-and-ready autumn leaf wreath

This is simply some twigs with reddish leaves, picked up while out foraging for wood for the stove.

How to make a leaf wreath
Start with a long twig, bend into a rough circle, then weave in another twig. Try to get the leaves appearing evenly around the ring. Tie twigs together as necessary. Hang on door.
As you can see, mine is very rough-and-ready indeed.
In the past, I've made autumn wreaths with different foliage types but I think the single-species version looks good, too.

Martha Stewart on QVC!

Let's get one thing straight: I don't watch shopping channels, but I saw the name and thought: 'is she actually on it?' And she actually is: demonstrating her fancy hole punches accompanied by her glamorous (male) assistant. For all I know, she's on QVC all the time - but blimey, that's pushing the product a bit hard, isn't it?
I think Martha (or her team) has some good craft ideas (see Martha's craft channel here), but her approach is a little all-encompassing. I get the feeling she can't have a wee in the night without crocheting up a toilet roll cosy and stencilling the cistern en passant.
In 1995 I made my first trip to New York and I saw a book in Barnes & Noble spoofing Martha Stewart called something like Tarmac Your Own Drive with Martha Stewart. I've just done a quick search and I can't find it. However, I did find Martha Stuart's Better than you at Entertaining, with a walking-on-water Martha lookylikey on the cover, which I may be adding to my Christmas list...

Stylish sewing box: too much to ask?

I desperately want a new sewing box. Where I currently keep my thread, needles, pins, tape measure and scissors (plus a small slate cat called Gwynedd - no I don't know what she's doing in there either) is a black and pink spotted cardboard box. And it just doesn't work. The unspooling threads are tied together in a multicoloured spaghetti knot, the needles keep escaping from their case to stab my exploring fingers, and the mass somehow expands every time I take the lid off.
Most of the sewing boxes I've seen are, frankly, naff in the extreme. I don't want a padded design that looks like a commode, patterned with Scotty dogs, shaped like a cupcake, emblazoned with 'make do and mend' or faux-vintage floral prints. Anyone have any suggestions?

I wish I was on the Arctic tern's migratory route...

..no, I haven't diversified into a wildlife blog. The Arctic terns above are on show at The Lighthouse in Glasgow from Oct 5-28. Apart from looking cute, they were knitted to reflect on the plight of the migratory birds affected by our environmental meddlings and climate change.
The exhibition is part of Luminate Scotland, which is Scotland's creative ageing festival, celebrating creativity as we age. And let's face it, we're all ageing - wish this was a nationwide initiative.