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It promised to be fine. Then it rained.
Then they predicted a deluge and so far… Not a drop.
The result of the first was that the craft fair I’d signed up for got cancelled. The result of the second? Nothing so far. It’s not a disaster if there isn’t a deluge, right?
What happened is that I got a late, last-minute bug on and made some ‘stocking stuffers’ (for want of a better term. Bulk? Roughage? Space occupiers?). Including these super simple bookmarks (listed in my gallery, if you want some), and also, these.
A set of six
These are the Slimline Wallets (pattern by Carla Peicheff of Half Dozen Daily, the pattern itself can be found on Craftsy).
It was my first time sewing with cork. Not a problem at all, although actually the cork only came into play for the last bit.
Oh, and that logo on the wooden tag up there? It was designed for me by Neha at The Ugly Duckling. Isn’t it beautiful?
Cards, coins and currency notes
If there’s one thing I deal with on a mammoth scale, it’s words. So I’ve been tempted back to blogging.
Let’s see if I can keep this up and make better use of my words than I have before.
Aargh!!!!!!
I had a post more than half written and it vanished into thin air. How is that possible???
Anyway. I was talking about something that happens to me very frequently. Especially since I lack perseverance (despite my school’s motto, perseverentia omnia vincit). I start a project and get about halfway, then run into a problem or a hurdle. Then I find I don’t like what I’m doing, or what I need to do next. So screech. I stop. Half-made, half-baked, half-done. No more progress. Then the thing hangs over me like a gloomy portentous cloud that never rains but always threatens.
Currently I have a few dark clouds, and I’m showing you one today. A friend asked me to make a caddy to carry two 1-litre bottles of water for her husband (=dark, sober fabric). It sounds simple, and I went looking for a pattern. I decided on one with a double-ended zipper. I had to upsize it to fit my requirements, got my friend to approve the fabric, and ended up with this:
Looks OK, right? Only, when I ironed some of the pieces, I managed to transfer some gunk from my iron to the fabric, which unfortunately shows every blemish clearly. I tried everything I could to try and get it off, but couldn’t. Then I tried cutting different pieces and sewed them together, but I still didn’t like the result. Project = Fail.
So then I went looking for a different pattern, since I couldn’t face this one any more. I chose one that looked simpler (Bento Lunch Bag) and after a few hiccups (including having to use a close ended zipper rather than an open ended one) and made this:
That doesn’t look too bad, so I sent it off to my friend, by now long overdue. The clouds were already formed. Its a bit floppy (in more than one sense). 😦
Now I’m on the third iteration. Using denim this time, and my own concept. My friend wants a divider between the bottles, and plastic lining inside (as the second one had). This time I took very precise numbers so I don’t end up overestimating as I usually seem to do. I can show you this, not very clear result for the inner lining. That’s a Netflix series on “Deadly Women” (sic) in the background.
It involved sewing the centre divider by hand to the sides. I’m about halfway through finishing, but wasn’t liking the result, so I gave up last night and went to bed. I had an idea what I could do to improve things, so I might do that next.
The dark clouds aren’t dispersed yet.
I know I said I’d be a good blogger, but good intentions never got me anywhere.
I’m still in the sewing madly phase, especially since someone wanted a bus load of neck pillows. While the pillow itself is very quick to sew, I had to stop for my stock of fibrefill to be replenished. And I’m never convinced that the stuffing I did was done correctly or sufficiently. How much is too much? It doesn’t help that the original pattern talks in terms of weight of an entirely unknown (to me) brand and type of the filling. Which makes ordering reinforcements somewhat of a gamble. Will I have enough? Will I be smothered by a mountain of white fluff?
My friend is fond of the blues. And what you’re seeing is actually a sort of miracle, because I never thought I’d ever be able to bring myself to cut into the fabric I bought in March. (My precioussssss…) The yellow in the first picture was a fat quarter from The Square Inch, while the rest of the batiks were a thrilling find in Chennai’s Cotton Street in Egmore. “Give me one of each!”
Now that lot of fabric was from different sources. I rather like the checks myself. I feel the need to go forth and buy a metre in every colour. I’ve been surprising myself with how successfully I’ve combined colours and patterns. You’d think I had good taste and colour and design sense 😉
While the original pillow takes less than one bottle of the stuffing, my friend wanted modifications done, with a centre higher than the ends, and an overall increase in size. I’ve now consumed twice my body volume in fibrefill.
I thought about titling this post “Waxing and waning” to show the periodicity of my blogging, but then realised that would be misrepresentative. The moon finishes its cycles in a month, whereas WordPress tells me I haven’t blogged in well over a year. Hence the reference to another periodic celestial object.
My last post but one showed a knit lace project, but sadly I haven’t knit a stitch since then. Crochet has got a look in, thanks to the giant granny blanket (not a blanket meant for or composed of an oversized female ancestress, but one large blanket composed of many small granny squares).
I have developed a theory about the use of colour in projects. Throw in enough of different hues and the eye can no longer be bothered to look for harmony. Hence most of these will look good.
Although I acquired a couple more looms (a Japanese rigid heddle loom and an American computerised 24-shaft loom), the very steep learning curve on the latter has bought out my cowardly side and I have been paralysed into not weaving much.
I have been sewing a lot, though, which is the reason for my attempt to revive the blog, since there is no Ravelry for sewing where I can neatly enter all the details for future reference. I hope to use this blog for that purpose.
See you all soon!
The sewing machine and I aren’t really friends, although we are on speaking terms. I’m happy if I can sew a straight seam most of the time. But I do prefer machine sewing to a needle and thread any day.
I have sewn some things for my daughter, and a few cushion covers etc. but it was a huge leap from those to quilting. The occasion of a friend having twin daughters seemed a good time to start, especially when someone pointed me to a shop in Chennai that sold jelly rolls, which I’ve been drooling over for ages but found too expensive to buy from abroad… In fact, I was so impatient to begin that while waiting for my order to be delivered, I went ahead and chopped up and sewed some fabric I had on hand.
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