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Knitting Christmas gifts is a lovely thoughtful idea that should fill you with generous Christmas spirit. But oh my goodness, you have to give yourself enough time!

Unfortunately, I’m no stranger to knitting on a deadline. It’s not my favourite way to knit, but boy, it helps me get stuff done. I started this one with three weeks to go - so I intentionally picked a simple pattern to maximise my chances of finishing it in time. I’m pleased with my choice - the On the Porch Blanket by Fifty Four Ten Studio. Even though it’s clear from the photo what needs to be done, I bought the pattern as I wanted the simplest smoothest route to success. Incidentally, I’d say it’s a great pattern for beginners as it’s really clearly written!

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For the fashion design course I’m taking, I designed, drafted, fitted and created a summer top. And I’m so proud of it! Summer might be a distant memory, but I just rediscovered my notes about the process of creating this, and I had to share.

The Design

I started with a sketch, vaguely inspired by some silhouettes I saw earlier in the summer. I iterated on a few ideas, but ultimately landed on this empire-band peplum top. I wanted something that would be a fun challenge to draft, and I was really into under-bust gathering at the time.

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One of the key features I wanted to build for this website was a custom gallery. I previously had a basic one on Wordpress - it was entirely manually managed through their visual block editor. Huge hassle, and very slow and awkward. Eventually I did actually build a database-driven Wordpress plugin to automate it, which turned into a custom page type, but then before I ever put it live, I got fed up with Wordpress and decided to leave the whole ecosystem.

On the other hand, building my gallery in Hugo has been pretty straight forward. The gallery was one of the first things I did in Hugo, so I was learning the tool as I went, and yet it still came together rather quickly! And that’s also considering that I spent ages faffing around with the stylesheets.

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I’ve nearly finished re-knitting the Loki jumper by Istex Lopi - and when I say re-knitting, I mean I am making the same jumper in the same colours for the same person. Not because I am crazy, but because I knitted the first one as a present for my husband for our wool wedding anniversary (7th), and he loved it, and then I absentmindedly put through too many spin cycles in the washing machine, and it shrank.

I was absolutely heartbroken, I tell you. It was one of the loveliest things I’d ever made, and it was the first jumper I’d ever finished knitting for him - after literally three failed attempts at another pattern over the years. So I promised him another, in whatever colours he wanted. He asked for a replica of the original. Which is nice, because it means I chose well the first time!

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Alternatively titled: Stepping away from toxic content culture. Or: The dangers of consuming too much content aimed at Instagram marketers.

I’m not leaving Instagram, but I’ve re-evaluated my relationship with it. Over the last couple of years, I’ve felt shackled by content culture, and it became very toxic.

A lot of this is my fault because I watched a lot of Instagram marketing content that was aimed at small businesses and influencers who use Instagram as a marketing tool. Candidly, this is because I was thinking of starting a small business (but I’m not anymore). The trouble with watching all these Instagram marketing tutorials is that they blurred my understanding of what Instagram is for. They made me think that the goal of using the platform is to increase your following for its own sake.

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I’m so excited about this new website, I can hardly even express it. Over the last week I’ve been furiously, obsessively, hyperfixatedly putting this thing together, and I am so happy about it.

I’ve been on the web since around 1997. To me, that era of the late 90s to early 00s was the golden era of the web. All those little websites that were entirely mad, entirely chaotic, and entirely human. I guess it helped that everyone was a nerd too, so it felt easier to connect to people.

I’ve recently been feeling nostalgic for the web of that time, and I’ve since learned I’m not alone in that feeling. A few months ago someone pointed me in the direction of the 512KB Club, which showcases websites that are less than 512KB in size, and although I love that, that didn’t exactly scratch the itch for me. Then last week, I stumbled upon the idea of the Indie Web, which led me to the idea of the Small Web… and well, let’s just say I was overjoyed to discover that there is a movement of people building little personal websites in the old-school hand-crafted way. That there exists a rebellion against the huge siloed internet giants that do all the hard work for you, and take away all of your creative freedom, while simultaneously turning you into a data object. Armed with this knowledge, I’ve spent the last week voraciously learning and building myself a brand new website.

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I keep thinking about the Pinyon Pants by Sew Liberated. I’ve been fascinated by every pair I see on Instagram. I bought the pattern – and even got the printed copy (I never do that!) but I haven’t started on them yet. I haven’t got the fabric, and I’m mid-way through another project right now. But this Pinyon Pants pattern, man. I feel so excited thinking about it.

There’s something about this moment between committing to making a pattern and actually starting work on it that feels so optimistic. This huge sense of potential. At this moment, the trousers I end up making from this pattern could be perfect, fit me like a dream, and be the best garment I’ve ever made.

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Here’s another sewing pattern review for you: the Natalie skirt from Forget-Me-Not Patterns. I made it in this beautiful lightweight denim, and I’m over the moon with how it came out!

Full disclosure though: I am a part of the Forget-Me-Not patterns Insider program, which means I get free access to their patterns in exchange for social media posts about my makes. This blog post isn’t related to the programme though - I just want to talk about my new skirt y’all!

What fabric and size did I choose?

I made my Natalie skirt in the A-line view and the shorter length. I’m 5'6", for reference.

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