Getting ready for summer

In a fit of optimism and making good use of an extra long weekend away from the office, I've been getting ready for summer.

I dusted off my 'old faithful' trouser pattern once again, this time to make it up in some light-weight cotton, perfect for summer. I'd actually bought the fabric last August but didn't get around to making the trousers immediately. I then thought there was little point making light-weight trousers in the autumn, so put it away and got on with some more seasonal projects.

It has felt like a particularly long and cold winter. We normally only get snow every 7-8 years, so having had 4 lots this winter I am very pleased to finally see the tulips making an appearance in the garden and feeling a distinct warmth in the sun when it does deign to make an appearance. So, to ensure I don't end up leaving it too late with the fabric languishing in the cupboard for yet another season, I decided it was about time these trousers were brought into being.

This is now the fourth pair I have made from the pattern. I absolutely hate buying trousers as I really struggle to find ones that fit, so to find a pattern that is not only incredibly simple to make but that fits without any adjusting is a dream come true. This pair are made from a blue and white striped cotton.

I'd bought 2 metres of the fabric, since it wasn't quite wide enough to fit the leg pattern pieces on side-by-side. I therefore cut out the trouser pieces away from the centre fold of the fabric, leaving me with a decent width, 2 metre long strip of fabric over. I then used this to make a bag for my yoga mat.

My yoga mat doesn't normally stray too far from the spare room, where it gets used most mornings with the help of the fabulous Down Dog yoga app. However, this summer I'm off on a Cornish retreat and the yoga mat will be coming too. The bag has a strap that is long enough to fit diagonally across your body, keeping your hands free. It also has a small pouch pocket for simple essentials. There's even enough room to roll a towel around your yoga mat or fit a water bottle alongside. What's not to love?

It may be another few months until I get to take my yoga mat away with me, or even for the weather to be truly warm enough to wear thin cotton trousers but Sun, I'm ready and waiting for you!

All change

I can't believe I've not done anything creative since June. Well, perhaps I can. The weather had been so nice I seem to recall that I was making the most of it and also getting organised to go on holiday. But that is all now a distant memory thanks to the dip in temperatures, the arrival of rain and the fact that I managed to pick up a cold on the flight home from sunnier climes and so have spent the week cowering indoors, sneezing and blowing my nose.

It was largely to do with this depressing reintroduction to the UK that I decided to reacquaint myself with my most recent creative project, which had been lying unfinished for some eight weeks. I had ceased work because I needed a couple of zips but I actually managed to get them fairly easily, so they too had been sitting around for about seven weeks. No more excuses - the project was to be finished this weekend!

The project was, in my head at least, called 'The Orange Bag', which was being fashioned from an old mohair wrap cardigan that found itself in the wrong washing machine cycle and no longer fitted me. This had been created but, by my own admission, was looking fairly ragged. The next step was to create a lining for the bag and this was to have all the helpful pockets and pouches in order to keep my things in order and, importantly, easy to find. I'd planned this all out and cut out the fabric so the first thing to do was begin construction.

Not having any instructions to follow and being a bit rusty, this took me a good few hours as I tried to recall my original plan and execute it. However, shortly after lunch I was very pleased with the lining I had created.

On one side I had inserted a small, flush zipped pocket with three pouches in front.

I had decided to leave the bag with an open top so for added security I had decided to make another zipped pocket, this time using the whole of the other side of the bag lining.

The next step was to insert the lining into the bag. However, this is where the whole plan fell apart. It fitted, of sorts, but my grand ideas of using the curved edge of the original cardigan to add a feature to the front of the bag, with the lining making up the difference with a flash of contrasting texture and colour. I just couldn't get it to work. The lining was so pristine and beautiful I also didn't really feel it worked with the fluffy, soft, rather more organic fabric of the cardigan.

I therefore had a bit of a rethink, delved through the fabric box and came up with some denim that toned with the orange striped lining and added a fun and casual element to the whole thing. So, it was all change! In no time at all I had whipped up a new outer shell from the denim, along with a shoulder strap and put all the elements together.
 

The full length zip so close to the top edge of the bag meant that I couldn't top stitch around the top opening of the bag to anchor the two elements of fabric together as I would normally have done but felt it needed a something to finish it off. I opted to add a small running stitch by hand to the top opening and the handle using a twin strand of dark orange embroidery thread.

I am very pleased with the finished bag and am still referring to it as 'the orange bag', which is really rather pushing the description.  I'm desperate to show it off but feel that I need to get back to more casual days out to show it off. It feels eminently large enough for my usual bits and pieces but will also fit a book/kindle and water bottle, perhaps even a small lunch box. However, if I'm out having such a leisurely day, when am I going to have time for all my other creative projects?

I guess if you don't hear from me for another eight weeks you can guess what I'm up to!

As much in the mind as in the execution

If the number of blog entries posted recently is anything to go by, I'm not being very creative at all. On the one hand, this could make me a bit sad. Fortunately, the other hand is full of excuses which get the thumbs up for not making me sad. These are a combination of me either being out and about making the most of the good weather  - going on walks, gardening, visiting gardens, and spending time with friends; and new responsibilities at work which involves the occasional trip abroad. Oh, and I've also been trying to perfect the art of Martini-making which could, at a pinch, be classed as me being creative. Or am I stretching the definition somewhat?

Anyway, it was Craft Club yesterday so I did actually get a teeny bit creative. After all, that is the whole point of Craft Club - to put aside one afternoon a month to creativity (and catching up with friends).

The first task was to line a summer skirt which was a little too transparent for comfort. This was a fairly simple task so didn't take long so I was soon getting my head around a new project.

Last month I finally decided to try to make a few things from old woollen garments that had accidentally been through too hot a wash in the washing machine. Continuing with this theme, I had selected an orange mohair wrap cardigan and matched it with some brightly striped cotton I'd bought some years ago. The plan was to make a handbag.

The key thing about making something out of old clothing is to treat the garment almost like normal fabric but, if possible, also incorporate any original features. In this case, the only 'feature' of note was the v-shaped edge to the front of the cardigan. Of course, this could be ignored but when you have taken into account the shaping around the arm holes and the widths of the sleeves, you haven't really got many large pieces of fabric to make a bag of any decent size.

Anyway the first task was to cut open all the seams. You may think that cutting is drastic and that you will lose fabric but unpicking a knitted garment is very hard, particularly one that has been felted in the washing machine. Cutting is also a whole lot quicker!

In the end, I selected the back to form the back and base of the bag; one of the sleeves was shortened and cut in half vertically to form each of the sides; and the left front forms the front of the bag. I am hoping to make a feature of the sloping top edge, which you can just about make out in the photo below.

As with another bag I have made out of machine-felted knitting, the woollen outside is really just the cosmetic bit. It's the lining that does all the hard work. This new orange bag is really no exception. Not least because the wool is quite thin and so rather flimsy. I'm therefore going to use iron-on interfacing on the main bits of the lining.  This will sit between the lining and wool so will not be visible.

But first, a good bag should be designed in a way that means you can lay your hands on exactly what you want when you delve into it. If it's pouring with rain and you have to stand outside rummaging through your bag trying to find your door keys, which will invariably have slipped to the bottom, the bag is not really adding much value to your life. You may as well just sling everything into a plastic carrier bag. Well, that may be a bit harsh as I would hope your bag was a little more stylish than a plastic carrier bag and style certainly should be valued. However, I'm a practical woman so I need a bag that is stylish and practical. I'm also security conscious so I want a bag that unwelcome hands can't slip into and grab my valuables.

For organisation, pockets are key and need to be thought about before you begin construction of your lining. I've decided to go for a zipped pocket in the lining one one side and a series of pouches on the other side for phone and purse. These are all now cut from the lining fabric but I have hit a problem in that I don't have a suitable zip for the pocket. This has been added to the shopping list but won't get bought this month thanks to another work trip and another weekend away walking.

In the meantime, I'll get thinking about how I'm going to secure the top of the bag. A fully enclosed, zipped top ticks all my security boxes but I'm also considering some sort of fastened flap. The outcome of this decision may come down to how I end up fixing the lining to the bag. It is all very well making a feature out of the original cardigan's v-neck - where I'm hoping to show off the lining - but it has left me with another challenge.

However, if I didn't like a challenge the cardigan would have gone in the rags bag years ago and I would have gone out and bought a bag. Besides, the creative process is as much in the mind as it is in the execution. I'll let you know how I get on.

Laundry accidents and electronic gadgets

I seem quite good at accidentally bundling woollen garments up with the ordinary laundry, putting them through a far-too-hot spin cycle and pulling them out as shrunken bits of felt. I then feel too guilty to throw them away and so they sit in a box in the craft room waiting for me to find the time and the inspiration to turn them into something.

Yesterday, I finally had some time on my hands, thanks to this month's Craft Club, and so I dipped my hands into the pools of inspiration.

An old wool walking sock seemed to lend itself to a pouch of some description and, since I am sick of rooting through the desk draw trying to match the cable to my laptop's external hard drive, I decided the match up the two (putting an all new meaning to pairing socks?)

I chopped off the foot, sewed up the newly cut seam, sewed a loop from scrap of ribbon to the top opening and added a button from the button tin.

One computer hard drive and cable safely stored.

Next, I turned my attention to the Sat Nav - also something that needs a protective case for when it gets shoved in my handbag or rucksack when out and about. For this I selected an old beanie hat.

I cut up the side seam and removed the oval shape that made up the top of the hat.  This gave me a rectangle of flat fabric. To protect the short edges, which would take a bit of a battering each time the Sat Nav was pulled in and out of the pouch, I bound them with some bias binding that I had left over from a previous project.

This done, I folded one end up to form a pouch large enough to fit the Sat Nav and the other end was folded down and inside the pouch to form a short closure flap, about half the height of the pouch. After sewing the two side seams, I inverted the pouch so that the seams were on the inside, and the folded the closure flap securely over the opening.

The finished pouch

Sat Nav safely stowed...

...and closed

It was all so simple that I'm feeling inspired to do something with the remaining pile of jumpers. Although, that may just have to wait for another weekend. For now, the sun is out and the front garden needs weeding!

Jewellery Pouches

At Christmas I discovered that my Mum keeps her jewellery in a re-purposed ice-cream tub where it all gets tangled up. I was therefore on a mission to make her something more suitable as a Mother's Day gift. March craft club gave me the perfect opportunity as she was out of the country and so I could finally make something without her knowledge.

Inspired by a small felt pouch I keep two special necklaces in, I dug out my felt supplies and the button box and started playing around with colour combinations. In the end I settled for some large wooden buttons printed with blue flowers, some navy blue and sky blue felt, and some petrol blue embroidery thread.

I took a square of the sky blue felt and folded it in half. I then used this to cut some navy felt the same width but slightly longer so that the finished pouch could be closed with a flap and secured with one of the buttons. Lining up the two folded bits of felt I then sewed around the edges. All that was left to do was to decide on the position of the button, sew it on and cut a button hole.

This arrangement of folded felt gave the finished case three separate pouches - between the fold of the sky blue felt, between the fold of the navy blue felt, and also in the middle between the navy and sky blue felt. Hopefully, this will help separate items and prevent tangling. I then repeated the process in miniature to make a matching pouch for earrings and rings.

I'm pleased to say that my Mum is now back in the country and was delighted to receive the jewellery pouches as a belated Mother's Day gift. Not only will it be a vast improvement on the ice-cream tub but will hopefully also allow her to travel with a selection of necklaces and earrings.

Come to think of it, perhaps I should make myself a set too!

Race to the finish

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been working on two new appliqué blankets. These are for my goddaughter and her twin sister, who both happen to be Sea Scouts. I was therefore inspired to try a new maritime design.

Sailing is hardly an alien concept to me, having spent most weekends from the age of zero to about when I began senior school either watching my Dad race a sailing dingy or messing around on small sailing vessels myself. My new design attempts to be fairly realistic in capturing the essence of a yacht race, but without getting too technical. Well, there is a limit to what you can achieve with shapes of fabric and a zigzag stitch on a sewing machine!

Anyway, I hope you like the finished results. I had a text to say that the recipients certainly do, which is always great to hear.

I enjoyed making them so much I feel somewhat bereft this weekend now that they are complete. I'm going to have to come up with an excuse to make another very soon. Perhaps the guest bedroom needs a make-over?

Door stops

Last autumn I gave the bathroom an overhaul (new bath panel, new floor, a lick of paint, new towels and bath mat, and a new shower curtain). With a slightly different colour scheme, a new door stop was needed. The one from the study was a perfect match and so got moved to the bathroom, which worked perfectly well for the first six months since the study door tends to be kept closed when I have the central heating on.

However, the advent of summer had the study door being propped open with nothing too attractive and a mini flood in the bathroom last month somewhat ruined the door stop there - I can't remember what I had stuffed it with but, oh my goodness, did it smell when it got wet!

Fortunately, a rifle through the materials box unearthed some more of the same fabric - off-cuts from making the Roman blind for the study - so I was in business for an afternoon of crafty activity with the monthly craft club gang.

Each door stop used a piece of fabric just smaller than a sheet of A3 paper, which was folded in half and sewn across one of the short sides and the long side to make a pouch.  I then sewed diagonally across each corner to make a sort of gusset to give the pouch a decent sized base. Into the pouch I poured 1.5kg of cheap rice before turning in a generous top hem, popping in a fabric handle, and sewing across the top.

The rice filled the pouch about two-thirds full so the remaining fabric and handle just folded over. The idea is that you can grab the handle to lift up the door stop to put it in place and the simple sewn seam at the top will be easy to unpick should the rice need topping up, or even emptying entirely for the fabric to be washed. Well, I guess there could well be another bathroom flood to contend with.

I repeated the process with a second piece of fabric to make another door stop for the study.

This was all done in a few hours, which left me with some time to kill at craft club. Although both door stops were nice they did feel a bit plain. I had been considering some sort of adornments but couldn't make up my mind before leaving for craft club so had brought nothing suitable with me. My friend very kindly came to my rescue, putting the button tin that she inherited from her Mother at my disposal. It was a treasure trove of buttons and fixings from the 1940s to about the 1970s. In the end I chose a set of ten coat buttons for the study door stop. They add a bit of weight to the top, enabling it top to flop over beautifully. They also hide a less than straight line of top stitching!

As for the bathroom door stop, the walls of the bathroom are painted white with bits of silver glitter embedded in the paint, so I couldn't resist a bit of 'bling'. I chose a sparkly buckle which I just slipped over the fabric handle.

All in all, a very successful afternoon's work!

Doing nothing - well, almost nothing

I've been learning to do nothing. It's really good for you - I read so in the paper. Although apparently, unless you are dead, you are always doing something. However, doing nothing is supposed to help boost your creativity; your brain needs the 'downtime'; you're more likely to be able to regain your own attention (whatever that means); and being busy isn't always about doing the important things in life. At least I can agree with that final point.

Mind you, I'm still none the wiser as to what 'doing nothing' really entails. For example, does lying in a hammock and reading a book count as doing nothing or do I technically have to put the book down and contemplate the sky? And what about swimming? I mean, apart from keeping count of how many lengths I've done, surely that's downtime for my brain? Or perhaps not? Or perhaps I should just not count the lengths?

Oh let's face it, doing nothing really doesn't come naturally to me. Not if I have to ask so many questions about how to do it!

So, apart from 'indulging' in lots of un-busy swimming and reading, I've also turned my attention to making some presents. Of course, the alternative to making presents is buying them but even I know that shopping cannot possibly be counted as doing nothing, so I'm just hoping that blanket stitching whilst listening to a radio drama is.

Anyway, as a result of my doing nothing, or at least as close to doing nothing as I have so far managed, I have made another of my appliquéd blankets. I'd bought the fabric about six months ago but with a birthday rapidly approaching, it finally made it to the top of the list of projects.

Having not made a blanket for ages I'd forgotten how satisfying and relaxing I find the whole process. And perhaps it's as close as I'll get to doing nothing - after reading and swimming of course!

Are You Thready?

I spent yesterday mocking up a sofa frame from bits of MDF and garden canes in an effort to find out if a replacement sofa I had taken a fancy to would fit through the front door, up the stairs and around a rather awkward angle into the lounge.

It didn't!

So, to stop myself obsessing over possible sofa alternatives and staring out at the continuing wind and rain, I decided to turn my mind to the more frivolous task of decorating fabric patches.

This is a project that a fellow crafter had alerted me to. It's a competition being run by White Stuff called Are You Thready? It simply asks you to decorate an A5 sized fabric patch in any way you wish. You can either pick up a fabric patch from your local White Stuff store or just measure out your own piece of fabric (14.8cm wide by 21cm high).

For every patch you hand in to your local store or post to head office before 10 March, they will donate £5 to your store's local charity. Each patch is then incorporated into a cushion cover or quilt which is also sent to the local charity. If that isn't incentive enough, each store picks a winning patch, the winner receiving a £50 White Stuff voucher; and each of these patches gets sent to head office for an overall winner to be chosen and that person wins a craft holiday to Italy.

Now, I don't remotely expect to win any of the above but if an afternoon of playing around with fabric can turn into a charitable donation, I'd say everyone is a winner.

I popped down to my local White Stuff store in the hope of picking up a fabric patch but they were completely out. Apparently they had gone in just three days of the competition being launched. Instead I was given a template, but after travelling home amongst my shopping and it then being attacked by the cat, it was looking a little worse for wear by the time I was ready to begin!

Undeterred, the first challenge was to find some fabric to decorate. Not that there is any challenge in finding bits of fabric in this house. No, the challenge was choosing which one (or ones) to use. In the end I pulled out a selection and began playing around with felt, ribbon, buttons and beads.

Again the cat helped out, sending my carefully selected and arranged button embellishments to the four corners of the room, skittering under drawers and book shelves, never to be seen again (or at least not without a lot more furniture moving than I was prepared to undertake).

A thoroughly enjoyable few hours ensued and here are the before and after results.

Now it's just left for me to label them up and drop them down to the shop. In the very least, it will result in an additional £15 being donated to the Cots for Tots Appeal. Not a bad outcome for an enjoyable few hours of sewing and far better than trawling furniture websites for sofas!

Love the Planet

Last week I came across a campaign by the Climate Coalition which is, along with Stop Climate Chaos Cymru and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, the UK's largest group of people dedicated to action on climate change. The bottom line is they want 100% clean energy within a generation.

To show support for this campaign they are asking people to turn their hearts green this Valentine's Day. You can do this in all sorts of ways but one is to make a green heart. So, that's just what I did at yesterday's craft club gathering.

It took me all week to decide what I wanted to save most and stick on the banner across my heart. In the end I came up with 'for the love of trees'. They are such miracle workers in terms of absorbing carbon, absorbing water to help prevent flooding, anchoring soil to prevent it being washed away in the rain (leaving behind a barren desert), providing habitat for about 50% of the planet's species... to name but a few.

Anyway, here's my heart.

Find out more here and have a very happy Valentine's Day!

New Year, New Baby, New Blanket

I'm delighted that the first blog post of 2016 is all about new beginnings. Huge congratulations go to Becksini on the birth of her daughter, Rose. OK, so baby Rose did actually arrive in 2015 but she got to go home and meet her big brother on New Year's Eve. I'd like to think that meant celebrations all round but I rather imagine it meant no sleep for anyone, and not for partying reasons.

Anyway, the happy news was all the cue I needed to get out the fabric box and sewing machine to conjure up a blanket. I also worked on a new design, one inspired by the fact that I spent a whole day in October trying to crochet an elephant from Edward's Menagerie. I clearly need to go on a crochet refresher course or just learn to relax more since my tension was hopelessly tight and the body of the elephant, even at the 5th attempt, looked more mouse-sized than elephantine. I very reluctantly abandoned the project but clearly still had elephants on the brain.

Knowing the new nursery is painted in multi-coloured stripes, I felt that a rainbow of elephants may be appropriate so had fun lining all my fabrics up in shade order. I say fun because, yes, I'm also the sort of person who has their music and book collections in alphabetical order too. So, with fabrics chosen and a new elephant template drawn, the blanket quickly came together.

I used a striped grey thread for the appliqué which, I think, gives it a bit of an illuminated quality. Or perhaps the illusion that the elephants are squirting water at each other?

Naturally, the blanket stitches had to be done in a shade of 'rose' - in this case quite a deep pink. Let's just hope Mum and baby like it - oh, and are far too busy to be reading this blog between me hitting 'publish' and being able to deliver the blanket!

Name Bunting

The autumn is always busy at ElleAyJay Towers, not least because I suddenly realise how many birthday and Christmas presents there are to make and how little time I have. This year is no exception, not helped by also trying to give the bathroom a revamp.

My very good friend has two little boys and, as each arrived, I made them bunting that spelled out their name. In each case, the end product was very well received and so I decided that 'Mum' should get to have her name in bunting too. So, with her birthday rapidly approaching I finally sat down to the project, managing to sew each letter between spraying coats of paint on the bathroom towel rail.

I have no idea what the individual elements on a string of bunting are officially called but here I'm going to call them 'flags'. In this version, each flag is made from two pieces of fabric, each measuring 12cm by 9cm. You will need a pair of fabric rectangles for each letter, preferably a plain fabric; and a pair for each end, preferably a patterned fabric.

For the letters I used the computer, dividing an A4 sheet into quarters and typed out my friend's name with one letter in each quarter of the page, adjusting the size of the letters until it looked about right. Once printed out I traced the letters back-to-front onto some bondaweb and then cut each letter out roughly.

These were then ironed onto felt before being cut out following the traced lines of each letter.

I carefully peeled the paper backing from each bondawebed letter and lined each letter onto a piece of the cut plain fabric flags.  Each letter was set slightly lower than centre since I knew I was going to lose a bit of the top when I sewed it onto the ribbon.

The next bit is rather a of a labour of love and what occupied me between coats of radiator paint. If you've seen a previous post featuring an appliquéd blanket, you may know I have a bit of a soft spot for blanket stitch. Bondaweb is a great invention but the heat-activated glue can fail over time so adding something more permanent is always recommended. In this case I chose to use tiny blanket stitches using embroidery thread. Well, if I'm honest, I did this for my friend's first son and felt I had to continue the theme for fear of causing sibling rivalry! Anyway, depending on the complexity of the letter this took me between 30 and 45 minutes per letter. However, since this blog is all about the hand made as opposed to the mass-produced, as well as the joy of creating something by hand, it's all part of the process and it was really rather relaxing (not to mention better than watching radiator paint dry!).

Once all the letters were stitched securely in place, I turned my attention to making each flag by placing each piece of fabric with a letter on it, face to face with a correspondingly coloured but unadorned piece of fabric. I did the same with each pair of pattered pieces of fabric. Using the sewing machine I then sewed around the sides and bottom of each flag leaving as small a seam as I could - about 0.5cm.

I clipped the bottom corners and then turned each flag the right way out, ensuring the corners were as sharp as possible, before pressing flat.

The final step was to sew the flags (in the right order!) onto some bias binding. I first pressed the bias binding in half lengthways and then spaced the flags out before pinning them in place.

A line of stitching the full length of the bias binding was all that was left to do before I could admire my day's work.

Now all I have to do is apply the final coat of paint to the radiator!