French General: Home Sewn review

Kaari Meng of French General has put together another great book of projects, this time a collection of designs for the home entitled French General: Home Sewn, published by Chronicle Books. I was interested to see what projects would be included in the book and was excited to see that several of the 30 projects were for the bathroom and bedroom. The book focuses on using vintage fabric and notions, but of course each pattern could be made with modern materials. Meng gives tips on how to find and care for vintage fabrics, as well as age newer fabric.

The book has designs for three difficulty levels: beginner, experienced and advanced and you must be familiar with using a sewing machine for all the patterns. Bed and bath projects include sheets and pillowcases, a bed skirt, bath towel and wash mitt, bath mat, shower curtain, and lavender filled cushions. The book is beautifully designed with lots of pictures and well drawn diagrams in addition to easy to follow directions to make creating any project as easy as can be.

Another bonus about the book that I love is that it is spiral bound, making it easier to work with when following the patterns. There’s also a techniques section to help with new or forgotten skills.

With 30 projects for every room of your home, you’re sure to find inspiration in this eye candy-filled book! And with the holidays coming up, the book is also a great resource for handmade gift ideas.

Find the book at Chronicle Books or Amazon.

I’ve kind of fallen into a loom knitting rabbit hole lately. Long story short, I got burned out a needle knitting, so I figured loom knitting would be similar but not the same, and I am enjoying it, although it is slower than knitting with needles for sure (that might also be a good thing right now).

Most people start their loom knitting adventures making a hat (Marching North has a great basic beanie pattern that’s sized from preemies up to large adults, depending on the size of loom you use) or a scarf, where you just knit in rounds until you have a piece long enough to be a scarf, the sew the ends closed.

But there’s a lot more you can do, even as a person who is new to loom knitting, so let’s check out some more fun loom knitting patterns.

The first thing I made when I picked up a loom again was a couple of knit pumpkins. This is a super simple and fast project, and if you know me, you know I can’t get enough pumpkins (they are everywhere in my house this time of year!).

If you want to add a little cuteness to your loom knit hats for kids, check out the fruit hats from 5 Little Monsters. These don’t include a pattern but you can use your regular hat pattern and add the details.

Knitting looms are typically used in the round, which makes a stitch that looks like stockinette stitch, but you can also work flat and use a purl stitch to make fabric that looks like garter stitch. I want to try this garter stitch scarf from Loom a Hat (which I’m sure has lots more great projects you can try!).

And once you know how to purl you can also knit ribbing, so you can make projects like this loom knit coffee cup cozy from Good Knit Kisses. It reminds me of my Halloween coffee cup cozy, and since it’s knit flat you could duplicate stitch a face or anything else you want on there.)

Another easy flat knit project is this twisted headband from Marching North. It’s worked flat then joined into a loop, twisted and seamed. There are good photos in the post to show you what to do. And because it uses super bulky yarn it works up super fast.

Every time I went looking for loom knitting patterns I would run into this loom knit pickle pattern from One Little Project, so you have to see it, too. This would be a fun one if your family does a Christmas pickle ornament, though it’s worked with blanket yarn so it comes out pretty big.

Have you read?