A bag and a skirt

I’ve got my goddaughter staying with me and we’ve had a really chilled day today. While we were watching wild child I started working on a masa bag with a really chunky Peruvian alpaca wool that is just gorgeous to work with. This is how far I got during the film

I’ve got to add more to the width as it needs to be 1:3 ratio. My plan is to then sew it into the right shape and then try felting it, but I’m not sure if it might be a bit too ‘open’ to felt as I’ve ended up using a slightly bigger hook than I’m supposed to as I didn’t have the right size at home!

Anyone got any ideas on whether it will felt and the best method of going about that? If it won’t felt then I’ll just have to have another go at lining a bag!! 😂

Then I made my sister’s second birthday skirt. She decided she would like a skirt in the mouse material even though she likes wearing blue as this will be a nice autumnal colour. Isn’t it super cute?

I was thrilled on the waistband that I was able to join two pieces together and almost completely perfectly pattern match them!

I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out… It’s getting easier to hem the curves each time I make another one (this is my third skirt so far), and I’m sure I’m generally getting quicker at it.

I still love doing my double stitching with the variegated thread too!

Only I forgot which way was up when I was sewing the waistband on so the inside ended up with the variegated thread and the outside got plain burgundy. It still looks cool though… Just maybe not quite as cool as I’d have liked (not that anyone is ever going to look that closely at the stitching!)

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Weekend crafting update

My sister came to stay, and her skirt fits (and she likes it)! So here are the photos as promised. I used the we all sew instructions for the wrap around skirt, but reduced the lower hem width to make it flare less.

I love using the variegated yarn and making double lines of stitching. And I’m really pleased at my totally made up pocket.

Also, on Saturday I went to some literature events at the cathedral, and discovered a table in the cloisters where you could have a go at calligraphy. Here are my attempts, guided by David Simons

Here are what the guy did, along with embellishments…. Now THAT I’d like to explore more.

I hadn’t realised that you do this with a pointed pen where the nib splits as you put pressure on it, and depending how far the sides split that determines how big a difference there is between the wide parts of the stroke and the thinner parts. He gave me a proper nib to try with… Now I just have to experiment with finding something to attach it to!

I think it will be a lot easier to make the designs even if I use lined guides rather than just going freehand. Maybe now is the time to bring out the calligraphy workbook my friend gave me for my birthday 😊

I made myself a skirt 😁

I can hardly believe it!

Several weeks ago I bought some seriously gorgeous Lewis and Irene fabric with the idea of making myself a wrap around skirt. I had no pattern so we guessed at how much I might need, especially given the material all needed to be the same way up!

Thankfully mags at the patchwork basket in Newent knows her stuff and it turns out she cut me just the right amount of fabric. Phew!

A bit of Internet searching found me this tutorial by we all sew. It looked simple enough, but boy did it take a lot of courage to get started! The idea of cutting into an expensive piece of fabric…. Making a mistake…. Ruining the whole thing. Eventually a conversation with my ever patient husband concluded that the price of the material was probably less than a sewing lesson (and even if I messed up totally I’d learn lots, and could always use the smaller pieces of fabric to make lots of small bags and pencil cases 😂😂).

So, the measuring started, at which point I discovered that my fabric wasn’t wide enough for the bottom of the back part of the skirt if I worked it out according to the pattern. Oh well, it’ll just flare a little less if I have a couple of inches less along the hem. Hmm… What do I need to do to the other sections to make sure they connect properly? Cue husband again, who employed trigonometry to figure out I could just reduce the other bottom hems proportionally and my angles would work. Phew… Again!

After a moment’s panic when I thought my material wasn’t long enough to get the three sections I needed, I finally put my new rotary cutter to use and cut three parts.

After that it was easy! I followed the instructions and after maybe 3 hours of work in total, I can now wear this!

I may modify the design a bit before making another one, probably reducing the flare even more, and maybe working out how to add some pockets, but I’d definitely like some more of these in my wardrobe in different gorgeous fabrics.