busted

This morning, as i sat in my pyjamas on the settee, happily going through boxes of fabrics and ignoring the mess in the kitchen, P's brother and sister in law with their children turned up at the door! they had texted me 10 minutes before, but my phone was upstairs in the bedroom where i couldn't hear it and P didn't wake up.

I had had some ambitions of appearing to be a tidy sort of person that keeps a lovely and clean house, especially concerning my future family in law, and so far the pretence has worked, as all P's relatives live 2 hours away! But I'm so busted... They had stayed in a hotel yesterday, for a weekend break, and I was vaguely aware of them maybe coming over in the afternoon, but I had expected a call and a half hour or so to tidy up and do the dishes...

Anyhow, after I got over the initial shock, got everybody a coffee and P stumbled out of bed as well, we had a nice day, booked their flights and car for our wedding, played the wii and later went to the seaside, for a walk on the beach, the playground and some nice grub.

This evening i got to take out those fabrics again and one of the things i made was a quick hooks and needles roll (the needles clattering onto the floor as i was trying to discreetly tidy away things, made me feel the need for one)

it's most of the back of a felted jumper and some cotton from ebay, the thing folds into thirds and then ties with the attached pink rick rack.

I'm not sure if i love or hate working with felt, i worry a lot about my sewing machine and it gets uneven so easily, and it can be very frustrating, but it's such a lovely material!

The other things i made are the little camera case below inspired by this all-buttoned-up post , also made from a felted jumper, and a little matching cotton bag for the cable and tripod. the case is really soft and thick, it should protect the camera quite well. how well the felt will survive in my messy handbag is a different story.


I think for the rest of the evening i will just work on my crochet scarve a little more, I might even finish it! The house is returned to an acceptable state, we're going to get some pizza and there are still a few beers in the fridge... isn't life lovely sometimes?

do you ever go into the garden just to have a look around

and end up with hands like this?

i find it very hard to stop once i'm out there pulling at this weed, deciding to move that little plant to a better spot... i ended up raking over all the bald patches in the lawn and spreading compost and organic fertiliser and grass seeds. then p raked it all in and watered the whole thing. it's lucky we have such a small garden!



cup of tea and some sunflower seed bread with mirabell jam, and the last bit of comte cheese



and this evening, while p was next door to play our neighbour's nephew's playstation 3 i made a glasses case for my workmate Ger, from a piece of her donated wooly jumper, that i felted a few weeks ago. the wool, a deep purpley navy, has orange specks, so i used orange stranded cotton to assemble the outer pieces and the lining (recycled T-shirt, nice and soft, won't scratch the glasses) with blanket stitch, then i added the orange
design on the front. i really should learn some basic embroidery stitches, this is just the normal sewing stitch.

fabrics

felted jumpers, waiting for bag inspiration


this apron is from the charity shop, it looks like it was a school project, the seams are quite uneven. unfortunately it has a little stain. Will I cut it up? or try to get out the stain? although it doesn't really fit me, it's a bit small.


these are cotton shirts that i cut up for fabrics, the pink one's my favourite. they are partly from the charity shop and partly donated by P. I might make some more bibs from them,


this is another charity shop find, a big polycotton (that's what 50/50 polyester and cotton is called, right?) duvet, washed many many times, a lovely soft feel to it. i think it might make pretty lining for a tote bag. although all the wool fabrics i have wouldn't really go with pale brown and dusky pink on cream background. i think dark brown soft corduroy would work well though!


i can't claim credit for these, my mum made them for me ages ago, she wen't on a course. they are not pieced but attached to this foundation fabric that has pre printed squares, so it's easier to get the squares at the right angles. she made a good few of these at a course, and also some small star shaped tablecloths, for christmas, they are done on a different foundation fabric, with 30 degree angles on it.

the photos are taken with the new camera that p. got me as a surprise. it's a small compact camera, i haven't quite figured it out yet, it doesn't always seem to be focusing, it's supposed to from 50cm or further. but the menu is well layed out and it has a lot of handy functions. it's also much quieter than my old one (which was a bad value very basic olympus i bought out of the pure frustration of my lovely canon powershot breaking after the warranty was up and i didn't have a lot of money to spend, a bad buy. i should know better, it's probably like spontaneously going to the hairdresser!)

Shoulder Bag / Hand Bag

I finished the felt bag today, and i'm quite proud of myself, i've made shopping bags and coin purses and some drawstring bags before, but not a proper little handbag! here it is!


I went very much with the shape of the jumper, 'work with what you have', the back of the neck opening was higher than the front and therefore ended up as the flap. To make room for the straps I made the pleats at the front, this also shaped the bag a little, as did the boxing out seams at the bottom (not really visible in the photos). I used the blanket stitch to flatten the seams, which were very bulky due to the thickness of the felt.


I finally decided on these yokes called yo-yos that i've seen on several other craft blogs, i covered the centres with appliqued black felt circles, and added some leaves around the 'blossoms'.


For fastenings i went for velcro strips. I placed them the way I did not by accident but on purpose, it's so that the velcro will catch whether the bag is empty or stuffed to the gills.



And another two pictures of the inside of the bag, i made this little zippered pocket, which i boxed out at the bottom. I went for a satin stitch to attach it, to do with being too lazy to find out which of the mysterious attachments is the zipper foot and therefore getting a wonky seam, covering this up with satin stitch and then discovering that it'll be much easier to continue on with that to attach the whole pocket like that which saves folding the edges under, it makes for a much flatter edge as well (...OK it was very late at night and I had to go to work early the next day...) There's a little strap with a hook for a set of keys, the very thing i tend to lose at the bottom of my bags...

Anyhow, I am very pleased with it overall, and hope that my workmate, who gave me the jumper, will like it too! I told her I'd make something of the jumper and if she'd like it it's hers. Maybe I'm secretly hoping she won't want it...

Charity shop finds

a gorgeous coffee pot, i'm not sure, is it fifties style? It goes wonderfully with the wall



blue jumpers (i took them apart and washed them hot so i have lovely soft felt like material now) i think these will become bags, or maybe flowers?



and these funky napkins? placemats? what will i make out of them, the green ones are gorgeous, the others are OK, the material is quite rough cotton or synthetic.

more recycling - felted jumper bag

i finally got round to starting a bag made from a felted (fulled) woolly jumper (sweater), it's lined with cotton (leftovers from making summer trousers (my 'baker' trousers) about 10 or 15 years ago... i had cut up the remainder of the fabric for a patchwork project i envisaged but never started, back then, before i knew anything about patchwork, like it's really important to cut strait lines, and that yoy should decide on the size of your finished blocks and what size of project I had to painstakingly piece the lining together from 4 inch and a bit approximate squares)

I don't know what i'll do for a closing mechanism, maybe ties, or a button? or something like a leather strap that you wind around a button? i have no idea yet.
i'd also like to embellish it a little more, if that wouldn't be too much in addition to the checked fabric and the blanket stitch... i like thr flowers on this, does anybody know how to make them?