Monday’s Meander Round the Garden

Posted on May 22, 2023 by craftycreeky

Everything is growing so quickly at the moment, including the weeds unfortunately, the garden has been sadly neglected over the last few weeks as I’ve been recovering from an operation. Well I’m back to work tomorrow and hopefully I can start gentle gardening at the weekend.

My favourite shrub at the moment is the cream rose in the front garden. It’s an early flowerer and a single flush, but what a glorious flush! It is covered in simple creamy-white blooms at the moment and it smells beautiful too. I think this is called a Scottish rose, it’s very prickly and I’ve never actually pruned it as I’ve never been able to find any information on how to prune these roses. This year however I’ve decided to give it a trim, it’s getting rather big for one thing. As it flowers so early it obviously flowers on last years growth so I’m waiting until it’s flowered and then I’ll give it a good prune, I might even be rewarded with a second flush of flowers! I can give it a feed too with some manure round it’s base.

I have several different irises around the garden, both Dutch ones and the bearded ones, they’re just starting to come into flower. The yellow one is down by the conservatory, this is one of the irises my mum ordered for me from France, so it’s a bit precious. It’s a bit of a muddy yellow but still very pretty. The dark purple one is up in the Amber and Amethyst garden, I love it’s deep velvety colour.

At the top of the garden we have a gate through to the back lane. A few years ago I decided to put an arch over the gate with a clematis Montana. It is known as a mile-a-minute clematis but I had the idea that I would train it along the fences. Well I wasn’t thorough enough with my training and it’s decided to escape up the ash tree instead! It does look stunning this year however the metal arch has completely collapsed, you can see it’s at a 45′ angle and we’re concerned it’s going to bring the branch down. I’ve decided to cut it right back once it’s finished flowering and build a new arch with my son’s help hopefully as it’s not going to be as straightforward as other’s I’ve made. The bit where it stands is on a slant, there’s three steps up to the gate, so I’m going to have to have back legs shorter than front ones, I can’t just make it on the flat and then put the sides and top together.

Another clematis is flowering too, this is a gorgeous purple large flowered one, it’s on a little obelisk in between the autumn bed and the amber and amethyst garden.

The deep bed by the big fence is mainly shrubs, it’s not the most exciting bed but it fills a big area. The purple sambuscus looks lovely but does need bringing under control a bit. There’s a wisteria on the back fence which I need to learn how to prune so it will flower. The pale pink flowering shrub on the right is a daphne, that’s another one that needs pruning after it’s flowered – I think I’m going to be busy! Although it’s a very green border at the moment, there are little pops of colour mingling through it, there’s the purple alliums at the front, a perennial cornflower and some aquilegias too. The peony will be the next to flower, together with the philadelphus at the back, then it will be the turn of the roses…

I’ve always found it a bit tricky choosing plants to go in the border right in front of the conservatory. The soil level is only about 8″ below the sill, so plants can’t be too big or too dense or they’ll block the view and light, they need to look reasonable from both sides too. This spring it’s actually looking pretty good, the shrub in the middle had a bit of a prune earlier in the year as it was blocking my view of the bird feeders! The seedlings on the windowsill are sunflowers waiting to be hardened off and planted out.

The view from the upstairs window does show just how high the clematis has been trying to go! The lilac behind the summerhouse is flowering, though parts of it are getting swamped by a honeysuckle. The mass of pink flowers in the middle is a variegated wiegela. It’s all looking very green!

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Peacock Dress

Posted on May 21, 2023 by craftycreeky

We had a family christening today, always a lovely day and today we were blessed with beautiful weather too. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been making myself a new dress.

I chose some gorgeous soft cotton from my stash, I’m pretty sure I bought it from Maggie Tuite on facebook, it feels as beautiful as it looks. I was actually looking at the inside when I pulled it from my stash, thinking that’s a pretty muted design…then I opened it up and thought Wow! I fell in love with it all over again! It’s lightweight whilst retaining a little body so it’s lovely to sew too. It also goes nicely with a linen coat I made a couple of years ago.

Having lost weight this year (1.5 stone award this week woo-hoo! -21lb) I tried on some of my older dresses and found Mccalls 6696 fitted me nicely again. This will be the third time I’ve made this dress and I still love it. Here’s the other two from 2017…

I had about 3.5m of fabric which would have been sufficient had I been making it below knee length as per pattern, however I do like my skirts long, so I was adding 10″ to the skirt pieces, talk about juggling pieces, I literally had a small pile of scraps at the end! The yoke and the waistband are lined with lining fabric and I could only fit everything on with reasonable pattern matching if the everything was cut out across the fabric rather than than down, luckily the feather pattern still worked that way, in fact I think I prefer it that way. The only piece I had to put the other way was the front band, luckily I don’t think it shows too much.

It went together nicely, my machine even managed fourteen buttonholes without too much complaining. The buttons came from my stash too, I actually had 13 which went beautifully and I found one which was very similar which is on the waistband so it’s not really noticeable.

…and yes it has pockets! I do like a dress with pockets! I love this dress, the fabric feels lovely to wear and I love the way it has worked out. It’s my new favourite dress! I think I might be making another one soon 🙂

Posted in Dressmaking | Tagged , , | 23 Comments

Sewing Room Wreath

Posted on May 17, 2023 by craftycreeky

Wreaths seem to be all on trend here in the UK at the moment, door wreaths are no longer just for Christmas, there’s ones for all year round. Well I’ve made one for my sewing room. It’s actually a kit I bought a couple of Knit and Stitch Shows ago and as I’m trying to declutter my sewing room, I thought I’d make this in between sewing projects.

The kit is made by Tee Pee Crafts and contains everything needed to make a sewing room wreath, wooden bobbins, lace, ribbons, fabric, buttons, trimmings generally. The colours provided are neutral, I wanted a purple slant so I added fabrics and trimmings from my stash.

The instructions are somewhat minimalistic, referring frequently to the picture when describing how to fold burlap or how to make the flower, for example. The only photo is on the packet, the whole wreath is less than 3.5″ in the photo so I found it difficult to see any detail clearly and certainly couldn’t tell how things were folded.

Once the ribbons and burlap were folded into loops, all the cotton reels needed decorating mainly with lace and trimmings. The smallest bobbins I just wound embroidery thread round them as I decided they were just too little to fiddle with lace. The body of the bobbin was also curved (outwards) which did make things extra fiddly as the thread kept slipping on the second half, I ended up smearing it with a thin layer of glue. There are some tiny ones too which again I used embroidery thread. I used the Roxanne fabric glue for these, I think if I’d used the glue gun I’d have glued my fingers too!

The largest bobbins are like standard wooden bobbin size, I wound fabric round those. One lovely touch was that Dewhirst’s Sylco labels were supplied for the two traditional ones. I only discovered on Monday on a trip to Skipton Museum that the Dewhirst mill was in Skipton!

Here’s all my trims ready to go on the wreath, glue gun ready for action…

Everything was stuck on with my glue gun, which is what they recommend as it is so instant. I tried arranging it all first but it was impossible to do it on the wreath and difficult to imagine how the curves of the wreath would affect the arrangement. In the end I just went for it.

I did find it difficult to get it to look balanced, I think I could have done with another fold of burlap on the left, I added some extra ribbons instead. It’s certainly very full! I like the way the colours worked out, but I think if I did it again I would make my flower a bit smaller and maybe use less generally, but it’s a bit of fun on my sewing room wall. I hung it up straight away…

Having looked at it for a couple of hours, I felt the purple flower was a little too dominant, I wondered about adding to it to reduce the block of purple. I tried ivory lace first, thinking it would pick up with the lace to the left of the flower, but it was too much of a contrast. I then spotted on my desk the flower I’d made first but discarded as looking a bit too drab. I trimmed it in half width-wise and frayed the edges, I tried it with both a purple button and a wooden one. I then stuck it all on top of the first button and added the wooden button in the middle. I think it looks much better…

Posted in Crafts, kits, sewing room | Tagged , | 14 Comments

Non Slip Mat

Posted on May 16, 2023 by craftycreeky

I’ve done a fair bit of sewing over the last few weeks and one thing I’ve found increasingly annoying is that as I sew my machine foot slowly slips further and further away, or leans against the desk side so it won’t press smoothly. I then have to hoik it back closer again…and off we go again! I’ve got a vinyl floor which is great for sweeping up sewing threads but there is nothing to stop my pedal just gradually slipping away.

I decided to google non slip mats for sewing machine pedals, and yes you can buy them, but I also found a free pattern on the So Sew Easy website. The design uses the non-stick matting you can get for kitchen shelves and that sort of thing. I popped into a general hardware shop in Otley to see if they had any. The assistant was very apologetic that they only had pink or purple…purple is perfect, I said, it’s for my purple sewing room!

As suggested I made mine so it was about half an inch wider than the pedal on both sides and long enough for my foot to rest on it too. It took me less than an hour as it’s just two layers of the mat bound with quilting cotton. As the mat tends to stick to the sewing machine too she recommends sewing with paper underneath – it’s easy enough to remove afterwards as by then it’s perforated. A covered roll of batting is hand-stitched to one end just as extra support.

The instructions to make your own mat were very easy to follow, for anyone not familiar with the quilters way of applying binding there is a link to a video too.

I’ll let you know how well it works!

Posted in Dressmaking, Sewing, sewing room | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Owl and Hare Hollow SAL

Posted on May 14, 2023 by craftycreeky

I was hoping to have completely finished one block by now but other sewing with deadlines has got in the way, I’m nearly there though. This is a SAL by Natalie Bird of The Birdhouse Patchwork Design, it’s being published in the Homespun magasine which unfortunately takes weeks to reach the UK, so many on the facebook group have finished all of month two and I’m still on the first one, it’s nice seeing all the colourway ideas though.

Three weeks ago I was stitching the embroidery for the first block…

These embroideries have 1/2″ hexagons all round the edge and there’s quite a few embroidered blocks, so whilst watching the coronation last weekend I set up a tray and a little production line for mini hexies. I made half a dozen or so from each fabric and also made some coffin blocks which are for the other blocks in this month’s magasine. I’d bought the pre-cut papers for the quilt, definitely a wise move! The fabric is then glued round the paper template with as little glue as possible, it’s fabric glue which washes out.

Once the embroidery was stitched I could then arrange the hexies round the embroidery. They were to fit within a 7″ circle, when I first laid them on I thought it was outside the ring and even then I didn’t think I could fit twenty round, but stitching them into a chain did make a big difference, though I’ve still only got nineteen!

To start with I chose one hexie from each fabric, but some just didn’t sit well, their styles were just too different or they were too light. In the end I decided that the main hexie I would repeat was the one whose colours was the inspiration for the fabric choice, a teal/jade background with big pink and peach flowers, others just had one or two hexies. Having arranged them they then needed stitching on, and that’s where I’m at now, I did do a few whilst watching the Eurovision Song Contest, so hopefully it won’t take long now to finish.

I’ve also started the second of the embroidered blocks, this will also have twenty-ish hexies round it. Then I’ve just got four blocks to make using coffin wheels and mini hexies, they shouldn’t take as long in theory! I’m hoping that the other fabrics will work well together in these blocks

Hopefully for my next update I’ll have a few more blocks completed.

Hand Quilt Along Links

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, and Connie

I’ll also be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the links to see what everyone has been stitching.

Posted in embroidery, Owl and Hare Hollow BOM, Quilt-a-long, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Knick Backpack

Posted on May 11, 2023 by craftycreeky

I’ve been thinking of making a pretty backpack for a while, mainly to use for work as I end up taking two bags when really one well planned one would work. Having looked around I rather liked the look of the fold down tops, so I started searching for a pattern on Etsy.

The one I chose looked reasonably straight forward, it’s by a German company called Dozing Hound Crafts. It has two side pockets, a central clip fastener and a hidden outside pocket, which pretty much ticked all the boxes of what I wanted.

I chose some furnishing fabric I had in my stash, with hindsight I don’t think it will stay smart for very long as it’s like a woven jacquard, I think it may snag easily. However it’s pretty, a fairly practical colour and I’ve used a sturdier brown fabric as an accent fabric which includes areas like the base and the back.

I know from experience that bags take an awful lot of pieces and this one is no exception, 40 pieces in all took me quite a few hours to cut out! There’s the main fabric, accent fabric, lining, interfacing, fleece… The pattern is all in centimetres, all my quilting rulers are in inches, I was just about to get all complicated with a tape measure when I remembered the reverse side of my cutting mat is metric! I only fussy cut the main fabric, getting a nice big flower in the middle of the front and then trying to pattern match it for the lid – in the end I cut the lid longer than I needed so I could work out the overlap once the backpack was half made up.

The actual pattern went together fine, but the instructions were not good, more of that later! All the different sections are stitched before the whole bag is put together, so there’s the side pockets, the straps, handle, hardware, zip pockets. Here’s a photo of the front, back and sides before the final construction…

The back is quilted with some batting, it was meant to be firm fleece, so I added some interfacing and it does give the back some strength and body. I’m just waiting for some webbing to arrive to connect the shoulder straps to the tabs in the corners. I did order some dark brown but when it arrived it was more of a tan, so this time I’ve ordered natural and ruby, fingers crossed one of them will do!

I don’t think I’ve made a full gussetted bag before, I’ve just made a bottom by squashing the corners, I know the issue is lining up both sides so you don’t get a twist in the side piece. With this pattern the sides and base strip is in two halves so at least you don’t have to worry about lining up the second accent seam after going round two corners. I was a little concerned though about the strength of the corners as the strip had to be snipped almost to the seam – I put copious amounts of fraycheck on each corner!

Once the outer bag was stitched the lining was pretty straight forward. The pattern adds volume fleece to soften the bag, I bought the recommended vilene and it certainly softens it, it takes away the crispness of the finish though, especially on the flap. I’d be tempted next time to either miss out the fleece or just have it on the inside, not the flap.

Now, the pattern…

The pattern is from a German company and the instructions have not been translated at all well, Google translate comes to mind! When it comes to sewing the opposite of right sides together is wrong sides together, not left sides! Seams were sometimes fixated, sometimes it seemed to mean with pins, other times stitching. I did have to rack my brain back an awful long way when it talked about halving the hypotenuse! I had to really concentrate and read the instructions several times to work out what I was meant to do, when it came to the stitching of the top closing strap I did my own thing in the end as I couldn’t understand how it was going to work otherwise….and I’m sorry but a pattern that had been properly proof read in English would not have a piece called Front Bottom!

Having said all that, it’s finished and I’m pleased with it. The actual pattern went together well, I think the only design change I made was to line the pockets…and I put a little key tab inside the front pocket. I’m pleased with how the top flap pattern matches-ish with the front, though I thought the flap would sit a bit neater, it maybe that once there’s stuff in the bag and it’s had a few weeks wear, it will settle down. I’m entering it in Otley Show next week, then it will be my work bag. At the moment it seems like a good-size roomy bag, though with the flap opening it’s a long way down to the bottom – I hadn’t thought of that aspect when I chose the design! If the concept of a work backpack works out, then I have my eye on another length in my stash for another one.

Posted in Serendipity, Sewing | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Tuesday’s Totter Round the Garden

Posted on May 9, 2023 by craftycreeky

Yesterday it was raining heavily nearly all day, definitely not the weather for meandering round the garden! Today it was warm and sunny so I sat outside for my morning cup of coffee…

As you can see everything is growing pretty quickly. The tall blue spires of flowers are camassia, I’ve quite a few clumps now as they seem to do well in my soil., you’ll see them in quite a few photos at the moment!

Behind my seat is this gorgeous aquilegia, it’s right outside the window where I sit in the conservatory, I love watching how the petals unfurl themselves. Behind them is another clump of camassia, the brighter blue next to it is brunnera Jack Frost with a camelia above which is near the end of it’s flowers.

Up in the Amber and Amethyst garden the bluebells have gone a bit mad, these are Spanish bluebells which can get somewhat invasive, I think I’ll be thinning these a bit once they’ve finished flowering, maybe move some to the front garden. With the camassia as well I have quite a sea of blue!

The beech hedge behind is starting to green up, it’s strange how it turns green, as different trees within the hedge green up at different times, there’s not even a pattern according to how much light they get. We have a stripy hedge at the moment!

At the other side of the arbour, just in sight peeping through the roses in the foreground, is my tree peony, my pride and joy! It was a big investment for me at the Harrogate Show a few years back, I seem to think it was about £25 which is a lot for me on one plant, (comparable to a rose but at least with David Austin roses they’re guaranteed for 5 years!) Luckily it has thrived and this year has a lovely display of it’s huge pink, blousy blooms. According to the picture on the label they were meant to be more purple, so it’s lucky really that it flowers before it can totally clash with it’s neighbours!

The pond area is starting to look good, the hostas are spreading their leaves and the stripy iris leaves are shooting up. The tall plants with tiny white dangling flowers are Solomon’s Seal, we did thin it last year, but I think we need to reduce the area they cover a bit more, they’re pretty but once they’re done that’s it for the year. The pond as you can see still needs clearing out, having picked up a pond specialist catalogue at this years Harrogate show I’m quite enthused again, I just need to sort out the pond weed and the duck weed.

Back down by the patio, the cytissus is stunning at the moment, these are more common in yellow but this one is a gorgeous creamy white. It’s scented too and the bees love it. Unfortunately I’ve planted it in the wrong place, it’s just too big for the spot it’s in and it’s only going to get bigger. My plan is therefore to prune it once it’s finished flowering and try and move it to the border at the side of the house. It’s a hot dry border there which I think it will be happy in, so long as it survives the move.

Hopefully in another three weeks or so I can get back to a bit of gardening, at the moment I’m still in the 6 weeks post-op of no heavy lifting, I’m sure the weeds will still be there waiting for me 🙂

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Stitching my Garden SAL

Posted on May 7, 2023 by craftycreeky

Three weeks ago it was happy dance time as I had just finished the second of three detailed embroideries for my garden book…

…which means I’ve just got the Amber and Amethyst garden to do.

It took me a while to plan this one as I wasn’t sure how much to include, just behind this area is the autumn bed where the chickens used to be, I’ve also just started planting up another corner here with gold leafed plants. It was difficult getting the proportions right in the space I had on a page. In the end I’ve just concentrated on the AA garden.

This is the area I’m trying to portray, it’s the left-hand side of the garden.

We have a thick beech hedge at the back and walls of varying heights on the two sides, gravel in the middle with a split log roll edge. I used the smudgy cotton background again as it does help to break up the background a bit, I’ve got calico behind as a stabiliser.

I decided to use a pretty beige print as the gravel, it’s actually tiny flowers but I think it works pretty well. At the moment I’ve just edged it with back-stitch, it’s stuck on with bondaweb. I’ll probably go round the outer edge with a brown chain stitch for the log roll.

At first I was just going to use green running stitch for the hedge, maybe two or three rows, a bit like I did for the fences in the other pieces. However I realised that the hedge was too much an integral part of the garden and in particular the arbour, so I found a green fabric which I’ve just blanket stitched down one edge and a running stitch down the back.

The arbour took a bit of thinking, in the end I decided to couch some heavier thread for all the main beams and uprights. I’m still not sure I’ve got the proportions right but it’s staying! I’ve still to suss out how I’m stitching the chair underneath.

I’ve started the climbing rose, I need to make it wider and add some clematis too, but at least I’ve made a start.

Stitch-a-long

This SAL is organised by Avis, from Stitching by the Sea, we post our progress on a project every three weeks, just enough to keep the motivation going! Please follow the links to see what everyone else is stitching…

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, 

Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, 

AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie, Cindy, MaryMargaret

Posted in embroidery, Stitch-a-long, Stitching my Garden, Textile Books | Tagged , | 22 Comments

Patience…

Posted on May 5, 2023 by craftycreeky

…is a virtue I clearly haven’t got! Having seen the photos on our Whatsapp group of everyone’s tea-dying, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer!

This was the piece I started at a Deb Cooper workshop at my Skipton Stitchers meeting a couple of weeks ago. The workshop plan was for us to make a strip but she also gave us the option of making a fabric book, which is what I chose to do, I do have a soft spot for textile books.

Just to remind you, this is what the pages looked like before I soaked them in tea…

…one to take note of is the left hand one on the middle row on the left, the gold and copper coloured silk stripe. The idea behind this page is that when overlaid with the round window, it would look a bit like a setting sun. I used three different colours of silk dupion which were left over from my ballgown making days. The middle one is a lovely copper colour shot with crimson, alarm bells didn’t ring at all when I included this silk!

I included a few leaves and flowers from the garden in between the pages, added a sprinkling of iron filings and bound it tightly between two pieces of wood. I soaked it in green tea as it’s meant to give a nice blue/grey colour, rather than the brown of standard tea. I added a drop of white vinegar to the tea too in case it was needed for the dying process. I added my bundle to the mix in a large pan and simmered it for about an hour, I then left it to cool and popped it in a bag, supposedly for a week…

I lasted four days, to be fair I’m not convinced extra time would have changed anything.

When I first started leafing through the wet book, I couldn’t work out where all the pink had come from, then I got to my silk page…

Whilst it has faded a little after rinsing and drying, it’s still pretty pink! For over half the book there are smudges of pink, luckily I like the effect!

Silk does take up (and lose) dye very easily, the embroidered silk in the centre of the book is now a lovely mix of old gold, blues, greens and pinky-purples…

Having allowed the book to dry, I looked through again and felt the later pages didn’t have much colour in them, so I wet those pages and dabbed some silk paints on in greens, blues and purples. I put them on wet fabric and added lots of water until I got a nice gentle blend of colour over the last four pages. I then hung the book on the line to dry.

With the drying process a lot of the silk paint colour seems to have faded, some pages more so than others. The back page has quite a heavy cotton lace, this has taken the colour beautifully, I love it! Whereas two strips of cotton broderie Anglais haven’t taken much at all, so it’s not even the fabric base. Interestingly the strip of gold sari silk took very little colour during the whole process.

The leaves and flowers I added didn’t do much, but I did get some prints. I think the pages had too much texture to get even pressure. The page above had a leaf over the circle, hence the patch, however you can also see the veins of a leaf through the window. I love this one. I’m not sure what kind of leaf it was, possibly purple sage, it has three or four leaves imprinted, together with the stem and veins. This was on a simple linen page with the window opposite, so both pages with not a lot of texture.

The book needed a pretty cover. I’d used some ivory 100% wool felt for the cover when I was stitching the whole book together, this had dyed to a nice warm oatmeal. When I was binding up my book I’d included some scraps of linens and cotton with the idea of maybe using some of it on the cover. I played for ages until I was happy with my arrangement. I embroidered the name of the workshop onto a piece of coarse linen with some variegated thread which nicely picked up colours in the book. I frayed a square of cotton before stitching them onto the felt with simple running stitch, continuing the lines across the cover. The back has a square of eucalyptus fabric so I ended up with a nice criss-cross of lines. The centre needed a little something so I found a tiny scrap of lace which just nicely filled the space.

There’s nine double page spreads altogether so too many to photograph, but I’m wondering about trying to video it so I can put it on instagram, I’ll let you know if I have any success with that!!

I love my little book, I’m not sure how much I’ll dabble in eco-dying but it’s been interesting trying it and at least I know sort of how to do it now! The workshops I attend at my stitch-group are often ones I’d never think to go on on my own, they’re often just not the sort of textile work I’m drawn to, but they push me out of my comfort zone and I always end up really enjoying both the workshop and the piece I’ve created. I really enjoyed this workshop by Deb Cooper, encouraging me to trying lots of new techniques and to create something completely different from my usual style. She’s based up in the North-East of England if anyone fancies going to one of her workshops, I would certainly recommend them. She’s very approachable, she has lots of inspiring samples, she explains stuff simply and takes the mystery out of eco-dying, using common, everyday products!

Posted in embroidery, Skipton Stitchers, Textile Books, Workshops | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

A Flip Clutch Wallet

Posted on May 1, 2023 by craftycreeky

It’s our local agricultural show in a couple of weeks time, it’s the oldest one day show in the country, it’s the 212th show this year! As well as livestock there’s also handicrafts and baking. Over the years I’ve entered the competitions lots of times, mainly handicrafts with the odd foray into baking or flower arranging or maybe photographs. I haven’t entered for a while but I decided this year to put a few things in, especially when I worked out if I entered ten items and therefore got a free ticket, it was cheaper than buying a ticket on the gate!!…and you have to support these shows if you want them to continue.

I’ve entered a couple of cross-stitch pictures and two bags. The cross-stitch ones are pieces I’ve done recently, but I still had to make the bags, so they’re on my to do list whilst I’m recuperating.

My first finish is a Flip Clutch Wallet, a clutch bag pattern by Spencer Ogg. I wanted a clutch bag that will fit in other bags and contain my essentials, bank cards, cash (a rarity these days!) my phone etc. The idea being that this will fit in my handbag but easily transfer to another bag if needed. I like my handbag for general shopping etc, but when I go to work I end up with two bags as I need somewhere for my lunch etc. My next make will be a backpack for work!

The Flip Clutch Wallet had all the elements I wanted, it’s a pdf pattern too and I found fabric in my stash, the patterned ones inside are fat quarters I’ve had for ages, I love the colours and the patterns but I could never find a place for them in a quilt. The outer fabric is a bumbleberry fabric from Lewis and Irene, it’s nice and bright so I’ll hopefully be able to see it in the bottom of a bag!

I’ve made a few bags now, there’s always lots of pieces and stages and you just have to methodically work your way through the instructions. I’ve not used a Spencer Ogg pattern before but on the whole the instructions were really clear with lots of photos. There were a few head scratching moments and the seam ripper came out more than once, but that could have been my post anaesthetic brain too! I think some of the problem is when I don’t necessarily understand how the pattern is working, sometimes I just needed a short break then re-read the instructions.

This is the two main halves ready to be joined! You can see lots of space for bank and shop cards, behind both sets is a notes pocket.

My biggest fiddle came with the zip, it all went in very neatly, but when it came to sewing down both sides it was very messy at the end as you can see in the photo below. It also sat on the side of the purse, rather than proud of the edge like the picture showed.

I might have cut the zip too short, or rather measured to the wrong bit of the zip. Anyway I fiddled and faddled and got it vaguely respectable, though not sure it’s prize-winning stuff now! – to be hoped the judge doesn’t read my blog 😀

It is all finished now except for a wrist strap, I made a cord one initially as I don’t have a split ring small enough to go through the zip pull, I was hoping to put beads etc on it but my beads didn’t have a big enough hole and it looks poxy! I’ve thought of a shop in Otley that might sell the split rings, a cobbler, so I’ve fabric cut out for a proper strap.

And the inside…you see how the zip is on the side, I think it’s meant to be along the edge!

The phone pocket is behind the top card slots, under the main flap. It’s a bit of a squeeze getting my phone in but I have got quite a chunky phone case..

…and opened up, lots of slots for bank and store cards, I like the way this central bit has a magnetic closure too…

For such a complex construction, the instructions and the design in general are amazing, it’s very cleverly put together! I would certainly recommend Spencer Ogg patterns if this one is anything to go by.

I’m hoping the backpack will be a slightly easier construction!

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