A 'weather safe' merino turtleneck

In 2016, when I went to Australia on holiday, I picked up some absolutely lovely merino jersey from The Fabric Store. Most of it was used to make a Maria Denmark Rachel wrap dress, which I've shown on Instagram a number of times. But the second make from this fabric, made from the scraps that remained after the dress, has been hidden away like a well kept secret. Actually, there is nothing secret about it. It's just that it's usually layered underneath lots of other clothes (like in the photo above) and rarely gets photographed.

I'm talking about the best turtleneck ever.

It's unfortunate that the shutter went off just as I was pulling up my jeans, but the tee looks good here, so forgive my wardrobe adjustment.

As you know by now, I love turtlenecks. Not least because they are a fantastic layering item but also smart enough to be worn on their own. And the perfect pattern in my opinion is the Named Paola turtleneck tee.

So naturally I had some make one in this lovely merino. However, when I made it, I don't think I realised quite how much I'd love it.

It has become my 'weather safe' turtleneck. What I mean by that is that I can rely on it to keep me warm and comfortable in most winter weather I might encounter. I've worn it in the Alps, far up in northern Sweden and most recently in the Scottish Highlands. And it hasn't failed me yet.

It's like a great merino base layer, but looks a lot nicer.

These photos are from a reaaaaaally windy walk along the canal in Inverness. It might look sunny, but can you see in the first photo that I'm holding my hair? It's because in every photo that I don't you can't even see my face.

Later that day my friend and I were heading out for a few drinks and dinner. All I did was change my trousers and shoes and put on some lipstick. The turtleneck stayed.

And this is another reason why I love it so. It's versatile and can look perfectly smart too. In fact, its first ever wear was to one of my PhD interviews, tucked into a black skirt and worn with ankle boots. It was cold but I didn't want to wear something bulky or too many layers. The turtleneck did the trick to keep me warm.

So now I'm thinking that ahead of next winter I'll order more of this lovely fabric from Australia and make a few more of these turtlenecks in different colours. A grey and a black one are a must in my wardrobe.

Especially as there'll be many more trips like this one to Scotland. Which brings me onto the reason for the trip. A very close friend and her fiancé have moved up to Inverness. They moved some time ago but life has gotten in the way on both sides and we haven't found the time to meet up in either Inverness or Manchester until now. But last Friday I got on a 7h train and spent the whole weekend with them. And it was amazing!

Here are a few photos from the first day, before the snow melted:

(PS. Photo credit for the photos of me goes to Victoria.)

Fairfield button up for Josh

The first post of 2018 (not counting my year summary post) stars one of my favourite people and an unselfish make...

When I first learned to sew shirts I made one for Josh, but it didn't fit well at all. I only took measurements before starting and didn't check fit throughout the process and it came out too big. Since then I have wanted to try again, but never gotten around to it.

This Christmas I was knitting presents for my family and I wanted to give Josh something handmade too. He doesn't really like knitted/woolly stuff, so it was a great opportunity to try my hand at another shirt. I had the perfect fabric, this plaid brushed cotton from Fabworks. Josh likes plaid shirts, I like him in plaid shirts, simple! In terms of pattern, I decided to try the Thread Theory Fairfield. Last time I made him a shirt I used the Colette Negroni, which I think is a really great pattern, but I liked the more classic look of the Fairfield for this shirt.

Only trouble, this time I couldn't fit it to him at all, because it had to remain a surprise. So I used one of the most reliable tricks in dressmaking - I took the measurements of another shirt that fits him well and matched this one to those. Which led me to cut out a size M, with a bit of grading towards L at the waist for a more straight fit.

Because of the plaids there is a lot of pattern matching and I dare say I did fairly well...

...except for the back, where the box pleat goes across two stripes. In hindsight I should have cut it so the box pleat is on one of the brown stripes. But you live and learn.

Although, check out how nicely the back yoke and collar cut on the bias came out! I'm pretty chuffed with that! The yoke took two attempts to get the dark brown diamond where I wanted it.

I also cut the front pocket on the bias, and like it, although I see now that I should have moved it a few millimetres towards the button band.

In this picture you can also see that the shirt stretches a little bit across the chest, so for the next one, I'll have to make it a bit wider in that place.

Because I was sewing this shirt as a surprise and I live with Josh, I had to work on this only when he wasn't home. Which shouldn't have been too hard this autumn as he was travelling a lot for work. Except I was too. So finding the time was tricky. I did the cutting one day and started the sewing another. And only a few days before Christmas I spent a whole day finishing it. That day was massively rushed, because I only had until Josh came home from work and that was it. So the sewing towards the end is quite sloppy (I finished it 20 minutes before he got home). But, because the cutting was done meticulously, I don't think it really shows. So much of good sewing really is down to the cutting, and this project confirmed that for me.

So I'm happy that I cut it out on a separate day. I'm not sure I would have been as careful in my cutting if I had made it part of a bigger job instead of its own job, allocated a whole afternoon. I think this is how I will work in the future too.

And overall...I think it turned out well! And Josh likes it (a lot more than the first shirt I made him!), which is the main measure of success here.  I love sewing shirts, so now that I've figured out the measurements I think there'll be many more.

We visited our friends in the North of Sweden over New Year's, where I took these photos. Gorgeous, no? They have an amazing log cabin (parts of which you can see in the first photo), and visiting them there and just hanging out in the snow always is the most relaxing time of the year. And a time to wear lots of plaids, obviously!

My 2017 summary in Instagram pics

So this year summary in Instagram pictures has now become a bit of a tradition and towards the end of 2017 I found myself quite looking forward to writing it.

However, for some reason my pictures have come out really blurry. I have this problem now and then with Blogger and think it might have something to do with how it compresses them, but I'll just live with the blurriness for now and resolve it for future posts.

So, with blurry photos and all, here is my 2017 review in Instagram pictures.

January

In the autumn and winter of 2016 I was applying for PhDs after spending years making the decision to go back to school. I applied to several, but only really wanted one, the one I'm doing now. I had the second interview on January 11th and spent all my free time until this date preparing. After the interview I had a few hours to kill before getting the train home, so I visited the Abakhan store in Manchester and bought these buttons.

The rest of January is a blur as I waited for the result. (I didn't get the funding straightaway, but got on the reserve list and eventually received a studentship.)

February

On February 1st Josh and I hopped onto a flight to Rotterdam. I wrote about it a bit here. We don't go on a lot of holidays together, so it's supernice when it does happen. This one was extra nice because it was so chilled!

By mid-Feb I started getting over my annual winter blues and started getting excited about spring. The appearance of snow drops was magical.

And before the month was over I decided to join in on the Moneta party, last minute, on the closing day. And to my great surprise I was a semi-finalist! That was the biggest boost to my sewing confidence ever!

March

March brought new hobbies and new love for old ones.

I decided to learn how to garden! Did my research, ordered my seeds and got to work. It was a project filled with love and happiness and I miss that garden dearly. Scroll down to July for more details.

And I bought a new sewing machine! I went for a computerised one with lots of lovely features, and am so happy with this purchase. It's supposedly great for quilting, which was a factor in my choice, but I still haven't tried it for quilting.

April

In April I was making beautiful things on my new machine, like this blouse, and enjoying the fab weather...

...which warranted walks in the woods among the bluebells. Magical.

Meanwhile I had more than plenty of Spanish bluebells in my garden. This is probably the prettiest weed ever.

May

May is usually one of my favourite months of the year (along with October and December), and this year was no different. I only posted photos of my Me Made May outfits, partly because I really didn't get up to much else this month. It was probably the busiest month in the garden, and every free moment was spent tending to it.

The one massive event of May (and the year!) is that I heard about my PhD funding!! I got it! And one week later I gave my (3 month) notice at work!

While choosing the PhD over my job at the time wasn't that hard, because I'd made the decision a long time ago already, it was really, really hard to give up my life in Oxford. I was tired of the city, but I had just began to explore the countryside and I LOVED my country life and everything and everyone in it.

June

June is my birthday month and I am slowly turning into one of those people who celebrate all month long. The weekend before my birthday I went to Brighton with one of my best friends, and it was amazing. The day was hot and sunny and we had so much lovely food, delicious frozen passionfruit daiquiris and even dipped our toes in the sea!

My birthday itself was in the middle of the week and because I was about to leave my job and needed every last day of annual leave to house hunt in Manchester, I decided to not take the day off. But it was really lovely anyway. It was a hot day. I had lunch with two friends in a local farm cafe and after work I mowed the lawn (as you do) and then got dressed up and cycled to the pub with Josh.

July

The beginning of July was fab! The weather was good and life was sweet. The evenings involved drinks with friends and the weekend mornings plenty of lazy al fresco breakfasts in the garden.

The garden vegetables finally started being ready for harvesting!

And this is when the garden looked its best. Everything was blooming or bearing fruit. This was my happy place. I can't begin to tell you how much I loved this garden. I dedicated a sewing project (the Turia dungarees in the photo) and a blog post to it.

And then at the end of July Josh and I went up to Manchester for a few days to look for somewhere to live. We had a pleasant enough first day, with nice weather, a run in a beautiful park (where I run regularly now) and dinner out. But the remaining days it rained relentlessly, we got car trouble and the house hunt process was wearing us down.

August

Ok, one last picture from the garden before we moved. My sweet peas. These were amazing. It took them the longest time to blossom, but once they did they didn't stop. They bloomed all summer and when we moved away they were still in full bloom.

And then we moved to Manchester. And frankly, we don't love it. Maybe because we had such a fantastic life in Oxford and our life in Manchester is so different. Maybe because we haven't been here long and don't yet know it. Maybe because we don't know many people here yet. I don't know what it is. But we're here for the next three years, so 2018 will be about trying to find our favourite things about Manchester and build the kind of life we actually want.

September

September was a long month of settling in and starting the PhD. The former was not so easy, the latter was fab!

A close friend was moving to Australia forever, and I went down to the south east to say good bye. The photo is from brunch with friends the next morning. The friends in question moved away from the area themselves a month later, to Scotland, and in less than two weeks I'm off to see them. Can't wait!

October

October is usually my favourite month and I love going for long walks in the country and foraging in the hedgerows and making bramble jams and sloe gins, but this October I wasn't feeling comfortable with my life, so I didn't do any of that.

Instead, I turned to the two hobbies that always lift me out of an unhappy mood. Firstly, running. And secondly, sewing. This Nina Lee Kew dress was my first make since moving to Manchester, and I love it both for its beauty and for cheering me up.

And finally at the end of October I went to Paris for a conference. I stayed with a close friend I don't see often and just hanging out with her and having fun was tonic for the soul. The conference is the biggest in my area of research and the presentations and talks were the biggest boost of inspiration ever. I came back and couldn't care less about my unhappy life in Manchester, the next few months were going to be all about work!

November

And the next month I went to Obergurgl in Austria to attend a training course organised by the Human Brain Project, where I got to present my research to fellow junior neuroscientists. Came back even more motivated, inspired and committed to this PhD.

December

December was a mad race to finish the first draft of a literature review and some other bits and pieces. On the 22nd Josh and I finally got on a plane home to Sweden for two weeks. We had a lovely Christmas with my family and as her Christmas present I took my mom for afternoon tea in Stockholm.

And then we went to the very north of Sweden to visit our friends. We chilled, rode snow mobiles and just hung out. It was perfect. This photo is the sunset on New Years Eve from a mountaintop. Shortly after my friend and I had a sauna bath and rolled around naked in the snow in -24 degrees C to cool off. Spoiler: it worked. This is the good life.

We stayed in Sweden until the 5th, and now we're back in the UK and ready for 2018!