I’ve been doing a little sewing and stitching for my big holiday – we leave on Tuesday to go interrailing round Europe for six weeks, just me and my daughter, I’m so excited!!

I’ve not been sewing clothes for my holiday, but a sewing bag! I’m sure you will not be surprised to hear I’m taking a little stitching on my travels, both something to stitch on long train journeys and something to record our holiday in stitch.

I decided I needed a new bag for my embroidery, the one I’m using is a simple draw string I got with an order, it suffices in my handbag, but it’s quite bulky and space is tight on this trip so I wanted something which would slip easily into my cross-body bag.

I rummaged around in my stash and found a fat quarter of sewing themed cotton, nice and cheerful. I made a very simple bag by folding it in half and sewing the side and the bottom. I then turned the top over twice to make a channel for my ribbon. I realised that only having one side seam meant there wasn’t a seam to leave open for the second ribbon. I decided to make a button hole at each side, I folded the fabric and marked with a Frixion pen where I wanted the button holes to be. Somehow they ended up higher than I planned but it all worked out OK as the button holes are across the top fold.

I threaded two lengths of ribbon and the bag was finished, it wouldn’t win any prizes but it’s pretty and it will do the job!!

As you can see, I’m taking some of the bird alphabet patterns.

I also want to make a record in stitch of our trip, my idea is to just stitch a little something in each place, it might be a flower or a simple scene, it might just be abstract stitching. I found a long thin piece of linen in my stash, it’s a lovely duck egg blue sort of colour. I’m not sure where I got it but it had already been overlocked down each long edge. My plan is to stitch a long running stitch for our route the length of the linen with places etc stitched along the way. I’ll then turn it into a concertina book.

As I want to make it into a book I decided to divide the pages off so I wouldn’t end up with a lovely bit of stitching folded in half. I just finger pressed it to start, but thinking ahead to packing and travelling, the creases could get lost! Instead I did a big running stitch in some basic sewing thread up each crease.

Thinking ahead, I thought the blank pages of linen could get a bit overwhelming, so I’ve cut several snippets of fabric and lace so I can add to the pages if I want. I’ve packed some of my favourite DMC colours but I’m planning to use the colours from the bird alphabet, it’s a lovely palette and I’m taking plenty of each colour.

You can also see on the photo above that I pulled a thread out top and bottom. I realised it hadn’t been cut straight, at first I tried to trim it straight, but then I thought the overlocked edge would be quite useful on the trip, so I pulled one thread out to show the top and bottom line of the finished piece.

I’m hoping to write short posts on here along the way, but they will be short as I’ll be writing them on my phone! First stop is Ghent 🙂