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Wild cat Duathlon Shorts

Now that the LDN medication is actually giving me some energy (see this post if you missed my recent health update), I can finally start rebuilding my body, regaining my fitness, and losing the huge amount of weight I’d put on while being stuck in bed.

But I have zero activewear shorts or leggings that still fit me. Zero. Since the medication started making me feel a little better in June-July-ish, I started off doing a strict “10min only” of stretching every day, which I’ve gradually now increased to about 30min daily, plus the odd walk and e-biking (and some rest days too, because this is not my first rodeo).

A black bamboo Vampire Lestat hands tee

I’ve been planning this shirt for a few weeks, but it was serendipitous that I already had the perfect fabric in my stash – some leftover black bamboo jersey from Fabrics Galore. The 2.5m I bought ended up making my Paris Sucks Versatili-Tank, the Dead Inside tank for my friend AND this tee! So it was excellent value on top of being perfectly soft, and somewhere between a viscose and cotton jersey in terms of weight and drape.

This time around, I printed off a Loose Fitting Top Block from “Sew Your Own Activewear” in size XL (shortened a bit to match the length of the Versatili-Tops, which I prefer). I’d have made a Versatili-Tee again but I knew I wanted wide writing on the back and didn’t want the back seams interfering with the vinyl.

A quick broderie anglaise tee

I’ve got a few garments to share over the next few days/week, but I wanted to start this off with a shorter post about a top I made with leftover fabric, but also a health/Long Covid update (scroll down to the photos if you don’t care!).

Two black bamboo vest tops

Ok I didn’t lie when I said in the last post that those were my last vampire shirts for a while… because I already had the vinyl cut and weeded for these by that point, and these were always planned. I just needed to make the shirts for the vinyl to go onto!

Year end knitting and lingerie

Sorry for the radio silence, but I’ve been suffering with an awful ear infection on top of my usual Long Covid for the past two months(!!), despite three trips to hospital and four prescriptions that did absolutely nothing… I’m finally starting to feel like my ear infection is dissipating, putting me back at my standard, awful Long Covid baseline fatigue again (so, err, please don’t offer congratulations, okay?).

So I’ve got a few makes to show you before the end of the year…

Many vampire bat gifts

First of all, I must apologise because I am SO far behind on blogging my makes, but I’m trying hard to catch up. The problem is that I have such limited energy for sitting up that I’ve got to ration it, and when I do, I tend to want to actually sew than sit at my laptop and blog! So I’ve got well over a month worth of makes to show you, and only two weeks before we go away on a short break, so I may just end up taking photos while we’re away to make it a bit easier.

In any case, today’s round up contains a LOT of makes, some of which stretch back into March, eep.

So many bat plushies!

It all started when I saw this BeeZee Art Bat Plushie pattern and posted it to my vampire Discord, where everyone went nuts over it. Which prompted me to buy the pattern and make it for myself, and then a few for friends, and now I’m at the point where I’m pretty much making these for all my friends’ birthdays, hahah!

Black linen Bob trousers & a slate blue Versatili-Tee

I’m still not sure whether I actually like this design of trousers or not, but my previous StyleArc Bobs are one of like three non-legging bottoms that still fit and aren’t uncomfortable, so making another pair was a necessity sew.

My waist is 20cm larger due to being mostly stuck in bed for the past 8 months, but I hope to not be like this indefinitely. As a result, I don’t want to sew much for this body. I’m kinda thinking of this as a “loaner body” while my real body is in the shop getting fixed, so I’m basically sewing the bare minimum that I need, unless it’s something that will also fit my real body later (like teeshirts and the cropped Hamilton jacket I’m working on).

Holiday lingerie sewing

We recently spent a week down in our favourite corner of Cornwall, but instead of staying with friends, we ended up renting a house for the week. J worked at a local coworking centre for a few days (The Workshed in Liskeard – highly recommend! Friendly, great space, super affordable, and extremely safe air quality!), but as I’m still on sick leave with Long Covid, I’d be alone in the house for three days.

For some this might seem boring but to be honest I was really looking forward to the quiet, and it gave me an opportunity to bring my JL Mini (which John Lewis no longer makes! Boo!) travel sewing machine along and do some sewing while I was there.

Tropical cats Duathlon Shorts and Tenacity Leggings

Even though I sewed these at the end of November, they’re my final makes of the year. Despite having a week of feeling “kinda okay” (able to take 15min walks outside) around the end of November, I’ve felt truly appalling for the rest of December and am yet again spending 23hrs a day stuck in bed with post-Covid fatigue. It’s now over 100 days since I got Covid and I still can’t sit up or stand for very long, let along have a normal life.

But now that it’s crunch time at the end of the year, I want to share these before I forget the details, even though I’m not able to share anything more than flat photos of both…

These both started with a photo of a maxi dress that was doing the rounds earlier this year (or last year? It all runs together) with big blue and purple flowers on a black background, with black cats peeking out of the shadows. I really wanted to recreate the fabric on my own, but didn’t quite get to do it. And then I saw a similar print on Creative Market so I purchased it instead, and changed the colours to suit my vision.