Miaou

I love clothkits, they are so cool! Both the original stuff and the new relaunched version. I was commissioned to make up a kit for a friend who couldn’t sew herself but was desperate to have a clothkit skirt.

(I wish I had thought to iron it first before I photographed it!)

This is the Big Birdie skirt, in fabulous purple corduroy. It was great fun to sew up.

I even managed the zip ok, despite not having a zipper foot (it seems impossible to find the right one for my machine, I have bought a few “wrong” ones now!). I like the attention to detail on the back of the skirt too, not just the front.

And there was a very funky lining for the inside!

I had quite a few bits of material left over, so I couldn’t resist making this little pouch out of them:

And I LOLed a lot at the spelling mistake and felt I had to immortalise it on the back:

(please excuse the wonky sewing on the back, it was v. late when I finished it!

Anyway, the skirt has been sent and the recipient is delighted, so I am a happy person! (Am secretly hoping that I get to make another one soon!)

At last! My rainbow fish blanket is complete. I started it at the beginning of January and finished it a few days ago, so not bad going really. Here it is in all its glory:

I knitted an equal number of fish in each colour, half in a dark shade and half in lighter colours. I knew how I wanted to lay them out and spent quite a bit of time laying them out on the floor until I was happy with the arrangement. I then labelled them all (and didn’t have any sticky labels so this entailed 196 little bits of paper and 196 little bits of sellotape!!) with a column and row number, then bundled them in rows. It took me about an hour to sew a row of fish together and attach it to the row below, and there are 25 rows, so that’s quite a bit of time! However I was so excited about the finished project that I was very motivated to finish.

I then set to with a 6mm crochet hook (yes, I know what I said about crochet in my last post, but this kind of crochet I can handle!) and created a wavy edging with some turquoise yarn to suggest the sea. Four rounds of crochet later I was satisfied and handed over the finished blanket to my delighted daughter Eilish. (I have hopes that her bed might look as neat as this a little more more often, but they are not high )!

I think I am done with fish for now (there was a LOT of sewing up to do!) but it was a really enjoyable project and I can see myself making another one in the future.

Ok, so - number of projects underway in my last post: four

Number of projects underway not in my last post: a further four

Number of projects completed since last post: none

Number of new projects started since my last post: erm …

But - I did complete one!

Look - I made a messenger bag for Eilish’s best friend for her birthday:

Bag for Erin

I made it really quickly last night, and finished it off this afternoon. I used the first messenger bag tute I came across, which happened to be this one , which was incredibly easy to follow and the bag was a great size when finished. I had just enough purple material for the outside of the bag, and used a light denim fabric to line it and make the straps.

There was a wee bit of the purple left to make a pocket inside too:

Close up of the pocket

Eilish is thrilled with it, hopefully Erin will like it too! She happened to mention that purple was her favourite colour, but I didn’t have any purple fabric. Then the following day I was walking along the promenade when I came across a garage sale at one of the houses on the seafront. Hey presto, vintage purple fabric for a small charity donation. Serendipity, aye!