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.

Fiddle Faddle

When I showed Corlie my practice glasses case, she said she thought it needed some sort of padding or reinforcement. To protect the glasses, that makes sense. I thought I'd do a practice run before tackling the real deal. Just as well I did, because it turned out to be much more difficult than I visualised!. The first one, with a loose stiffener, is a lumpy mess. For the second one, I ironed the stiffener to the fabric. It's better, but adding the lining still resulted in lumps. A different approach entirely was required. For the third one I used felt. I used fusible web to fuse it to the fabric and the lining. All this has taken a lot of time and I'm still not sure I've got it right. Sigh. I don't think I'm a perfectionist at heart.

Needs Tatting

It's a little strange to buy fabric based on the scraps that will be left over. I bought lilac satin to make a nightie so that I can use the off cuts to line my embroidered glasses case. I do like the colour (the colour of the jacaranda trees that are flowering here at the moment), but the nightie is very plain. Tatting, it needs tatting:

The motif, lurking in my stash, is from The Tatted Artistry of Teiko Fujito.

Crochet Progress

I'm making progress on the crochet top. I think it'll look better when it's blocked, at the moment it's rather dense and solid.

I took some time out of crocheting to practise tatting tallies or clunies and then trying muskaan's little butterfly with tally wings:

Four Shirts

Right, that's four new work shirts for Jack. Hopefully that's the job done for a few years. I won't count on that though, because there are a lot of hazards around here, from barbed wire fences to welding sparks.

Shirt one already has some weird stain on it and it's only been worn once!