A Couple More Balls To Juggle

 The market on Saturday was a quiet one, with fewer stalls and fewer visitors than usual. But I sold six bath puppets and had a pleasant morning, so I was happy. Sarah sold some soap, not a sellout, but definitely enough to cover the cost of the table, so she's happy too.  

I've been involved with a craft group in a retirement home for a couple of years, as assistant. The lady who was running the group has moved house and decided she can't do it any more, so I'm it. The challenge is to come up with a different project each week! A project that is easy enough for everyone to do, but not childish. I'd love to teach them all to tat, but I don't think that's feasible. 

The small boy who modeled my towels was hoping to learn sewing at school this year. But it turns out that we're still in the Dark Ages here, or the school is anyway, and only girls can attend sewing classes. Right. So I've agreed to give him sewing lessons once a week. This afternoon he's coming for his first lesson. I thought we'd start by making a pin cushion in felt, decorated with different stitches and his initials. I have a feeling he's going to want to use my sewing machine, but I think we must start with hand sewing. I've been trying out some stitches in preparation:

A Busy Week

 I seem to have been very busy this week. I'm working on the fourth curtain of the week. This morning I went to a retirement home for a crafting session, after making samples and getting everything together, including cupcakes for tea.  We made birthday calendars, using a template I printed out from The Lettering Tree

Tomorrow is a market, I'll be trying to sell hooded towels and bath puppets.  The weather is bright and sunny now, so it shouldn't be cancelled for rain this month! 

Hanging

 

Making curtains is a fairly tedious job, let's face it. But seeing them hanging up is encouraging! The curtains look pink in the photo, but actually the fabric is beige:

A Break From Sewing

 

I sewed curtains three and four and then decided that I would take the weekend off from sewing. I worked at finishing my cushion instead. The two sides have different colourways, but I finished both in blue so that I could crochet the two sides together using blue yarn. It was quick and easy and looks neat:

So that's it, I've finished with the pattern, Grace blanket, designed by Lucia Stepankova, and have very little yarn left over.

Dress Three

 

Dress One and Two fit perfectly. Too perfectly. The lady who is going to wear the dresses would like a bit more ease. I pondered for a while and decided to cut out the pieces as before and then use an 8mm seam allowance instead of 10mm.  Those extra millimetres on each seam add about 3 cm overall. I hope that's enough. 

This fabric is called Daisy. It's 100% cotton. 

Doris

 

 Well, we've come to the end of the tat it and see, and Doris the dragon is revealed. My Doris looks rather scruffy compared to Jane's. I guess some dragons are just naturally more scruffy than others. 

Day 14

 

 We're nearly there. I might look up 'flying lizard'. Is there such a thing? 

Day 13 And More Sewing

 

I don't think my reptile guess is even correct! Oddly, my thread doesn't like doing lock chains. I have to dangle the shuttle a lot more often than normal. 

I've undertaken to sew the curtains for a friend's cottage - nine windows, 18 curtains! Marietje delivered 24 metres of material, which is not going to be enough for the whole job. Unless I've misunderstood the instructions. It's not easy working from someone else's measurements. I've made two curtains and will deliver those and check that I'm on the right track before I continue. They're tab top curtains. I worked out mentally how to sew them, then consulted Pinterest to make sure. I found this tutorial. There were details like having the seam of the tab on the inside that were useful. 

The facing at the top keeps the back neat. Here's back and front:

Correction And Dress Two

 

I wasn't paying enough attention. The last few days of the TIAS were supposed to be lock chains, not ordinary chains. I wasn't the only one. Jane's advice was to undo the last long chain of 15 and redo it as a lock chain, leaving the others. That's what I've done. I guess a lock chain around the tail would have made him look more spiky, Sorry about that! 

I finished sewing dress two yesterday. I put contrasting pockets and collar to make it slightly different to dress one. Traditionally, a domestic worker uniform comes with an apron. I wouldn't want to spurn tradition, so here are aprons for dress one and two:

Day 12

 

Jane has really kept us guessing this time. He's a reptilian something, I think, but beyond that I can't say. 

Dress One

 

Our electricity supply was restored eventually and I was able to finish sewing the first dress. I had planned to deliver dress one and make sure it was right before making the next one, but I have another possible sewing order ahead, so I think I'll assume this is correct and carry on regardless. 

The fabric is called 'negative leaf', appropriately enough:

Day 11

 

I have an extra ring somewhere. I'm going to fudge it I'm afraid and give the creature an extra long tail. Of course if we now go over the top of the 'tail', I will have to do more fudging. It's a slippery slope....

Day 10

 

I had hoped to have the dress finished and delivered by now, but after a lightning strike, our power has been off for two days; sewing is stalled! We have a generator on for a couple of hours, so I'm trying to catch up on things. Luckily the tat and see portions are small, so I have time to download the pattern, tat it and send off the picture to Jane. And to blog about it. I'm not going to sew though, that will have to wait until the power is restored. 

Sewing Order

 

I have an order for five dresses, uniforms for a domestic worker. Grace gave me a dress which fits the recipient. She said the style didn't need to be exactly the same, but since I couldn't find a better pattern, I took half the dress apart to use as a pattern. I know it's possible to make a pattern without dismembering a garment, but I don't know how to do it. I used my quick-unpick and embroidery scissors very carefully so that I retained the seam allowances. Then I laid the pieces out on my table so I could work out how much fabric to buy. Two metres for each dress. Here's the first one on the fabric. 

Some of the pieces have tucks in them, but I'm ignoring that. I think the original dress is a nurse's uniform, necessarily white, so the tucks are to add a bit of interest. I'm using patterned fabric, so there's no need for tucks. 

Day 9

 

It's beginning to look like a leguaan. Or a frilled neck lizard? Some sort of lizardy beast.