More Upcycling

We had a gift exchange at a meeting last week, and I received this bag made by Wilna from an old pair of jeans! She has appliqued fruit from a tablecloth on to brighten the bag up. And a neat touch is that pockets have been left on:

Clever!

Smaller Version

I thought the children would prefer zippy bags to the more open market bags I have been making. These are smaller than the market bags, with an outside zipped pocket, inside zipped pocket and a zipped opening on top. Each one has a different lining:

I had to juggle a bit to get the lining out. It made me think of my mum, who used to by less fabric than stipulated on the pattern envelope and then spend hours moving pattern pieces around to get the garment out!

Owl

Owl comes from the same book as the little mouse. I still have his wings to make, but otherwise he's done. He's much larger than mouse.  I think he may be too big for a small baby, and not easy to post. I may have to make another mouse. That's fine, the right home for owl will come along sooner or later.

Julie's Angel

I'm not big on angels, but I really like Nicola Bowersox's patterns. When I saw this angel on Craftree, I just had to try it. It has Nicola's signature 'doodle look', like her Kiss Curl Heart. I'm thinking of sending it to Linda with yesterday's crosses, as a bonus for her order.

Reconnected

Our wifi internet connection was off for a week. It's a little disconcerting to realise how much we've come to rely on it. Anyway, I'm glad I don't have to use a very slow phone signal now to connect to the world.

I guess I underpriced the crosses I made for an order, because Linda promptly ordered five more! Luckily I enjoy tatting this pattern, so I was quite happy to make another five. There's a link to Grace Tan's pattern on the right side bar.

Offline

One of the towers that enables us to connect to the internet has been damaged. Apparently it will take several days to sort out, we'll be offline until then. I'm writing this on my phone, but that's impractical for proper posts.

Done

I decided to go with the cap sleeve. I've spent way too much time and energy on this project, enough now. I hope that the shiny red cotton will mean it qualifies as an 'evening top' without the addition of beads or ribbons. I found the pattern on Pinterest. I don't know if this link will take you to it or only takes me there! I had to adapt the stitch count because my cotton was finer, but I pretty well followed the pattern.

Heatwave

Phew, it's been hot here, the thermometer on our veranda registered 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) yesterday. It's hard to be productive and enthusiastic in the heat, but I did make a start on a smaller bag with zip pockets. I had to make the pattern first, ruler and pen to the ready,  newspaper and a lot of  measuring.

Here's a close up of the box on the table, which my grandchildren sent to me:

I like the sentiment! I have reels of cotton and bobbins in there.

Coming Along

I've been working away slowly on my crochet top. I had to redo the upper back because it was too narrow. I felt like Penelope as I undid it and started again. I'm working on the bottom edge, will neaten the neck edge, and then decide whether to make the cap sleeves a bit longer. I was worried that I'd run out of thread, but it looks as though I'll have enough for longer sleeves. It'll mean doing another Penelope and unravelling the ones I've already made.

A Few More

I made a few more market bags over the weekend. The lining fabric is much narrower than the animal print one, I have to cut very carefully to get the lining for two bags out of a metre.

Little Brown Mouse

I made Little Brown Mouse for a neighbour's newborn granddaughter. This is the second mouse I've made. A lot of counting is required. I write myself markers in pencil on the pattern, so I could just rub them out and start over. 

Simpler Still

When I went to the fabric shop recently, I saw this wonderful fabric with African animals printed on it - kudu, zebra and springbok:

 Since I'm currently in bag-sewing mode, I went back this week to buy some to make bags for gifts. It'll work well for bags because it's cotton drill. I also bought an array of bright cottons for linings, so that I can make the bags different to each other:

I used the same pattern as for the bag in the previous post, minus the pockets. I thought a simpler market bag would fit well with the current trend for reusable shopping bags. And be quicker to make! I did put a plastic pocket on the inside, but no zips. Here's the first one:

And inside:

Bagged

I think I have the hang of carrying a bag with a lot of pockets, so I decided to make another one, using fabric left over from recent projects. I like the contrast between the plain exterior and the bright lining:

I was a bit short of lining fabric, so I made one of the pockets in clear plastic:

That should make it easier to find things, so I might use that idea again.

Tatting Order

It seems a while since I tatted, so I was happy to make three of Grace Tan's Jane's Bookmark Crosses for an order. The pattern is here and there's another link on the right hand side of this page.

The Answer

After more head scratching and a couple more trials, I came up with a way to  construct my glasses case. Felt works much better than stiffener to reinforce it. The answer was to cut the felt 1 cm smaller than the finished fabric size all round, to create a sort of gusset. This made it much easier to manipulate the pieces. I also ditched the boning at the top that Corlie had suggested. It didn't really work to keep the case closed and made it very difficult to get a neat finish. Instead, I sewed on a button and worked a loop:

I made the lining shorter than the fabric, so that the fabric would fold down:

Don't tell anyone, but after all that, I realised that I had put the embroidery upside down!  There's no way I'm going to redo it, so it has to remain as an homage to imperfection.