Outfit: Grey knitted jumper

Now that the clocks have sprung forward an hour and the sun is blazing everybody round my way is dressing like Nick Grimshaw on his way to throw a frisbee around the local park. But this is Manchester. Next week an Arctic weather front might roll in from the Urals and I'll be skating on the lake in Platt Fields. And that's when I'll be glad of this recently knitted grey jumper.

Instead, the design is an improvised homage to a jumper by Swedish label S'nob de Noblesse, because the 'real' thing isn't in my budget. 'Not in my budget', incidentally, is my polite way of saying that I'm feeling a bit price sensitive. Or, you know, monetarily inflexible. Or, let's be honest, cheap. Wool can be expensive, and time certainly is. Personally, however, the cost for raw materials and time invested in clicking the needles together is worthwhile. As Elizabeth Zimmermann writes in Knitting Without Tears: 'a well-made sweater, knitted with good will and good wool, is beyond price'.

Notes for the knitters: I used 12 balls of Drops Alaska from Purl City Yarns on 6mm needles.

Spice Girls collage

Looking back at my first ever knitting project made me feel nostalgic for my craft achievements of yesteryear. So today I present a fabric collage, diligently stitched for a textiles project at school. Look at the attention to detail: the handpainted Union Jack, the belly button piercing on Scary, the stitched daisies on Baby's dress. Truly a modern masterpiece.

Teacher Mrs Jansen, a woman permanently dressed in a shin-length floral shirt dress, didn't agree. She examined it silently, turning it over to check the finishing at the back. 'Out of ten...' she sniffed, '...eight.'

I suppose my interpretation of the theme - water - was fairly lateral. Personally, I think it's obvious that the Spice Girls are on stage (probably at the Brits, judging by Geri's outfit) and the stage is flooding, causing them to exclaim in shock and dismay. I wasn't a Spice Girls fan and would have liked to see them fail in a spectacular and damp fashion. After all, this was 1997, the year when you couldn't go ten minutes without one of the Spicies trying to sell you a packet of crisps or roll of toilet paper.

Oxfam Originals photoshoot

It's not every Sunday a girl gets to have her hair crimped in the chilly basement of a Northern Quarter, but this wasn't just any old Sunday. I spent all day dressed up, dressed down and directed in the downstairs of Soup Kitchen for an Oxfam Originals photoshoot.
The hard work was done by others, including outfit styling by Lauren Reyhani and makeup expertly applied by Katy Brody (even though I started twitching as soon as she sharpened her eyeliner pencil). The images above are just quick snaps, but Proper Photos taken by a Proper Photographer will follow at some point in the future.
My favourite look is the white suit at top right. Combined with the French plaits it's giving off a Liz-Lemon-dressed-as-Princess-Leia-vibe, don't you think?

My first knitting project

These days I might seem like an Olympic-standard knitter (for example, consider these stockings, or this hot water bottle cover) but this scarf is the first thing I knitted on my own. YES THAT'S RIGHT, ALL ON MY OWN. Using my very own hands and fingers and brain powers. OK, my grandmother did the casting on and off. But the rest of it was my handiwork. Apart from when stitches multiplied on the needles without my bidding, and Gran had to take over. So about 80% solo. The neon, 1990s colour scheme was all my own design.

After weeks (months, even?) of accidental slipped stitches I presented it to my mother. If she'd said 'wow, this is really good, now let's store it away so it doesn't get damaged [and no other humans need to look at it]' I would have moved onto other childhood pursuits. Like painting or rollerblading or dancing to Spice Girls videos in front of The Chart Show. But she wore it to collect me for primary school, and the pride my seven-year-old self felt encouraged me to keep knitting. Parents, be warned: if you don't want to encourage your child to pursue a time-consuming and potentially costly hobby, don't praise them.

Reading material

Books. I love 'em. For me, the glow of words on a screen are never as appealing as paper and ink.

Craft books are especially appealing because they can be annotated and introduce me to new ideas. And two craft related books have recently joined my bookshelf: The Illustrated Guide To Home Needlecrafts (a charity shop purchase) and Tomoko Nakamichi's Pattern Magic 2.

The former is an indepth guide to knitting, crochet, dressmaking and homeware sewing. Published in the 80s, there's much more detail than contemporary craft books. If I ever have the urge to make an accordion-pleated lampshade this is the book I'll refer to.

The latter is where dressmaking crosses over into wearable art. A lot of the structural forms might not translate into everyday wear - could you imagine running for the bus while wearing an oval cocoon? - but I'm excited to discover my ability to transform a flat piece of a fabric into a 3D form. I first read about the Japanese version of these books on sewing blog Iro Iro, but they're now available in English translation from Laurence King Publishing.

Hopefully I'll soon have some completed projects, inspired by both books, to show you.