Sewing

 

It could be Janemacsews for a while. I've just finished sewing 15 masks. I had fun trying out the different machine embroidery patterns, learning which ones show up better than others. Now I'm starting on an order for ten men's shirts, in five different sizes. The idea of bespoke shirts is catching on! I'm a bit daunted by the thought of altering Jack's pattern to fit different measurements, so wish me luck. 

Round 10

 

I love the little picoty flowers on this round. I saw someone else's round 10 on Facebook and noticed that their alternating chains were different from each other. Oh gosh, had I misread the pattern? I checked, and no, the stitch count for all the chains is the same. I think they must've blocked it like that. 

Round 9 And A Cover Up

 

After round 9 the doily measures 25 cm, 10 inches across. I'm working in size 40 thread.  I haven't blocked this round, I think it makes more sense to join it to the next round before blocking. 

A friend asked me to convert two beach wraps/sarongs into more wearable cover ups. She gave me a sample to copy. It's a simple shape, so it was easy enough to trace round it onto the fabric. Then I used this tutorial to remind myself how to make bias binding to neaten round the tops and form the straps. This is the second one. I did the other one last week and gave it to Phyl without taking a photo. 

Lemon Marmalade

 

I've just finished making lemon marmalade, using this recipe. It's still hot; I'll wait until it cools before labeling the jars. I was given a big packet of lemons and thought lemon marmalade would be a good way to use them up. It's not really, because one batch only uses four lemons. But I've given some lemons to my neighbours and I could always make another batch of marmalade. The lemons are fairly green, so they should last for a while while I think up ways to use them! 

Working on Round 9

 Well, I sold a couple of items at the market on Saturday, enough to cover costs, if not make my fortune. I think that once again there were more sellers than buyers, a sign of the times, but the venue was pretty, the weather pleasant and I enjoyed the day. 

I'm now working on round 9 of the Spring doily. 

This is a 'suspended' round, clearly waiting to be joined to the next one.

 At 12-12 the rings are too big for me to use my usual method of avoiding enlarging the ring by removing fingers! Instead I'm working half the ring in that way, then letting the shuttle dangle and increasing the thread around the hand before doing the second half. That way I only have to pull thread once.

 I had some thread left on the shuttle from round 8. Rather than unwind it, I used the 'false CTM' method - I tied the shuttle to the ball and then wound some more thread onto the shuttle so that the knot would be further along and I wouldn't have 4 threads at the beginning/end of the round. 

I promise to measure the doily when this round is complete. Picotsnkeys asked me how big it was after round 8, but I didn't answer her. 

Eye Catching?

 Our lockdown has been eased and things are beginning to normalise. I'm going to a market on Saturday.  At the last market, it was a little disconcerting to see people walk past my stall without even seeing it! Clearly I need something to catch their attention. I got inspiration here and there, experimented some, chucked out this idea and that idea... Eventually I've come up with this:

  I also covered a couple of boxes of different sizes in grey fabric to put bracelets on:

Good thing Jack's shirts were in a colour that lends itself to the job so I could use the scraps.  Anyway, I hope this market is more successful than the last one I did, even if only in terms of holding interesting conversations!

Felted Soap

 

A friend of mine makes soap, so when I saw this tutorial for making felted soap, I asked Sarah if she had any 'ugly' soaps that would benefit from being covered in felt. She gave me two for me and seven to give back to her.

 I started with the jade one in the bottom photo.  I thought I'd dye it after I'd felted it. That worked ok, but I'm a bit worried that the dye might not be fast enough - Sarah said we could call it a Smurf soap! The felting is not as smooth as it might be, but that'll need practice. For the second one, I added a bit of tatting, instead of using dyed wool. I covered the tatting with a thin layer of wool, but that obscures the motif and I decided it probably wasn't necessary. 

Yesterday I dyed small amounts of blue and yellow wool before felting.  I'm pretty sure the dye is properly fixed.  I did the oblong ones with different colours of wool and added tatting to the round ones without covering them. It worked pretty well, I think, though it would take some practice to get them looking really good.