A Bluestocking Knits

Sewing Days

Now that Laura's quilt is finished, I've picked up the one that was for me, a simple half-square triangles in a selection of rather soft colors, not quite Georgian but nearly.  I have been taken for some years with the quilt in a scene from one of my favorite Jane Austen movies, the 1995 "Persuasion," that little scene where Anne, having just met Captain Wentworth again seven years after she turned him down, is sitting on her bed cut to the quick after hearing that he had said she was so altered he would hardly have known her.  The scene is almost heart-breaking, with Amanda Root's little gesture of touching her face, seven years older, tired and worn-out by her heartless family -- but indeed, I have also noticed the quilt on the bed, a simple thing of patterned triangles alternating with cream ones.  Mine now is even simpler, with its half-square triangles -- and one in Anne's day would no doubt have been paper-pieced instead -- but I shall call this "Persuasion I" nevertheless.  I've got most of the rows sewn, and some of the rows sewn in pairs -- a fairly simple matter, so pleasantly day-dreamy.

David has become very intrigued by hemp fabric, its ecological soundness, and so we bought some pieces and samples from Hemp Traders in Los Angeles -- this is their H-P4 hemp linen (4.6 oz.).  I was thinking that I'd make a shirt for him, though when the fabric arrived I remembered why I dread sewing with linen fabric -- I love the feel and look of good linen, but it's so slippery and wiggly that I feel hopeless at even cutting it, let alone sewing it -- so I made a pillowcase.  I made up for my cowardice by sewing the hem with the newly-discovered triple zig-zag stitch on my 1980s machine.  On the bright side, the pillowcase is very nice, and already softening up with laundering.  I think I will get some linen/cotton blend for that shirt ...

For a long time, I've kept my sewing threads in one of those plastic spindle boxes, which has vexed me the whole time for not being able to accommodate different sizes of spools.  The photo on the box looks so organized with all of those slim Gütermann spools, but I have the fatter Gütermanns too, not to mention the Coats ones and assorted oddities.  If I put one of the larger spools on a spindle, then at least four of the spindles next to it can't be used, which is remarkably inefficient for a thread storage box.  One day last summer, as I shifted things around yet again to accommodate a new spool, a thought slowly dawned on me that a storage rack like a kitchen spice drawer insert would be just the thing -- it could accommodate different sizes of spools, which if you got a new spool would simply slide over to make room for the new one.

He fiddled around in the garage for a while and came up with a prototype, fiddled some more after consultations, then came up with this, which fits in one of the drawers in our tall Chinese chest-of-drawers, home of my yarn stash.  There is a little lip at the front of each tier to keep the spools in place, and the tiers are tilted at just the angle to get both maximum visibility and maximum capacity.

It gives me a very librarian-ish pleasure, I must say, to open the drawer and see the neat rows!

Unwrapped

Some of these have been finished for a few months, but I didn't want to show them here just in case, as they were Christmas gifts.  Two samplers for our mothers, both stitched to free charts and entirely from what I had on hand this more-budget-conscious summer -- the one above is the "Skinny Mini" from Samplers and Santas for David's mom, who likes warm tones.  I "faded" some of the colors a bit and re-centered a couple of the sections, but otherwise did little to it for a pleasing and appealingly naive piece.  The one below is for my mom, who likes cooler tones and blues, the "Hold Fast That Which is Good" by Julie of Sum of Their Stories.  It doesn't come with floss colors noted, but I got pretty close to the original, I think (except that I changed the yellow running-stitch border to blue!), which appealed to me for its steadfast simplicity.  I made the frames myself -- that is, I glued up the poplar molding lengths that had been beautifully-cut and perfectly-chopped to request by Xylo Art Framing, and I stained and finished them -- the rabbets aren't quite deep enough for mounted needlework and glass together, but with David's help I managed to cobble together a solution with some extra pieces of mat board.

A pincushion for Julia, who has already advanced to some very pin-hungry bobbin laces -- this is based on the Hexagon pincushion here, with the obvious modification of giving it straight sides, since I wanted it to have as much surface area as possible.  Some time ago I bought a packet of Liberty scraps from someone on Etsy to use for miniature quilts, but this seemed equally worthwhile, and also fulfilled the "budget-conscious" criteria since the Kona backing is from the remnants I've slowly been acquiring and the stuffing is wool that Julia sheared from her project lamb last year.  There is a matching tab on the opposite side, so that it can be secured to a lace pillow for ready access.  The pins look small because the pincushion in fact turned out to be quite large indeed, barely fitting in my hand!

This was for nothing, really, though I might convert it into a gift some time if I find a suitable occasion and/or recipient -- the chart is another free one, from Beth Twist of My Heartstring, an enjoyable and pleasantly-quick project. I faded all of the colors, and used some 22-count Hardanger fabric that I've had sitting around for ages since graduating to smaller counts for miniature carpets.  Laura is now working as a local store's picture-framer, and she did this for me -- I thought it turned out quite well.

"But in the Leape You Must Add One"

I get the chance to post on February 29 only once every four years, so why not take advantage of it this year?!

"There is always in February some one day, at least, when one smells the yet distant, but surely coming, summer" -- Gertrude Jekyll

The tidy-tips (Layia platyglossa) have now made their appearance in our wildflower garden, mostly clustered with the arroyo lupines and California poppies that have already made an appearance in the northwest corner, and the first happy blooms from an autumn sage (Salvia greggii) which was part of a bribe from that same local wildflower enthusiast I gave the arroyo lupine seeds to last summer, who was eager one afternoon to see our gigantic backyard pine tree up close (he told me that it is in fact a Mondell pine, which is good to know as I was never quite convinced by our first arborist's guess that it is "either a stone pine or Aleppo").  I didn't quite know what to do with the two five-gallon salvias the Y.W.E. offered me -- one a Salvia leucantha like the one I've already got which is drought-tolerant and handsome but isn't really a California native, the other a Salvia greggii still with rather fetching red blooms on it, so they sat on the back deck for a few months until I decided that while the red one is not a California native either, it is appealing enough not to let go to waste, and so I planted it in an anchor spot at the northeast corner of the front yard, where it will get pretty much all of the available sun there is, and I hope add a pleasing note of red to the wildflowers' blues and pinks and oranges.  I'm afraid that it got a bit decrepit while it sat forlornly on the deck, but only a week or so after planting, it began to show new leaves of a shiny reddish-green, and last week the first flowers opened.

I went to the California-natives plant sale at the local arboretum in December, and came home with a select group of sages and penstemons and a California wild rose as the first of what I hope will be in a few years a garden of shrubs and perennials interspersed with annuals.  At the moment, most of them are just sort of "chillin'," as Julia would say, and so I will introduce them here later when they do something interesting.  Otherwise most of the yard is still a field of lacy green wildflower promise --

I put some more things in my two new front-yard kitchen garden beds -- seeds for two different kinds of chives (pink-flowered and white-flowered), one towards the front of each bed, Italian basil, tarragon, and French green beans (the long, thin kind) in a row at the back, joining the savoury, oregano, sage, and flat-leafed parsley striplings planted a few weeks ago.  It all looks rather dreary at the moment, since I mulched it with the last of the leaves I swept up from under the mulberry tree, which hadn't relinquished them until after New Year's (!).  I started some heritage dwarf cherry tomatoes in seed pots indoors, so will plant two -- possibly three, let's see how fearless I am when the time comes, for the beds are only 4' x 4' and I still want to put in lots of cilantro.

Well, I seem to have been crocheting a little too much lately, as I've developed a rather alarming ache along the outside of my left forearm.  David practically shrieked, "Stop crocheting now or it will swell up and you'll be in pain forever!"  I've knitted for most of my life and never had a problem, but clearly there is something different about crochet, either the specific muscles used or where I'm holding the work in relation to my near-sighted eyes.  So, alas, I've rolled up the old sheet with my granny squares pinned to it, to keep it out of temptation's reach for a week or two.  It is just over halfway-assembled, so that the siren call is fierce indeed.  But the New Boro quilt is still wedged into my sewing machine with about half of the first pass of quilting done -- huzzah! -- so I could work on that instead, and Julia has requested a custom-made skirt and top for her birthday in April, which must get started soon.  I decided that I will add to this ensemble a new purse, as the one I made for her three years ago is far too small even for Julia's minimal needs, and she agreed that the Squiffy Sling Bag (sic!) by Mrs. H will fit the bill nicely.  And I want to retrieve my 1:12 shops from the garage, where they were stored when we had the family Thanksgiving here and have not been touched since!

I've also started another sampler, which jumped the queue a bit in order to be a gift for an old and very dear friend who is going through some difficult times -- this is the "Peace to My Friend" Quaker-style sampler by Jacob de Graaf of Modern Folk Embroidery.  It is more than a little curious, seeing the photos on that blog post, as I am more used to seeing the white-on-grey image from MFE's online shop than the periwinkle-on-natural! which is as it happens more like what I have used, some "natural" linen with a slightly-tealy blue floss.  It is wrinkly in the photo because I started it using a hoop, but realized that it's a little too big for that, and moved it to my table frame.  After the riotous colors of the "Froth and Bubble" sampler, this is very quiet and contemplative --

Fat Quarter Burp Cloths

I've been doing a lot of re-organizing lately, and during one of my KonMari sessions found these in the dresser where I keep a large portion of my knitting stash -- I sewed the first two literally years ago, at least ten and maybe even fifteen, from a free pattern handed out at a long-gone and much-lamented independent crafts store not far away.  While my girls were even then too old for burp cloths, it was a clever idea and the store had so many delightful fat quarters that I bought these just to celebrate the fact that I was making things again, and to have on hand as potential gifts for new parents.  As it happened, every time we needed a gift, sometimes we bought a different one, sometimes the cloths seemed a little too quirky for the particular new parents, and sometimes to be honest I just forgot that they were there.  But I pulled these out the other day and realized that I hadn't actually sewn up the last one (!), and after I did so and laid it out freshly pressed, David asked me about them, and said, "Hey, can I give them to C?" a friend he went skiing with a number of times last winter.  "Absolutely!" I said, delighted that they would finally be used!

(So far, I've only used Marie Kondo's methods for folding clothes, but I'm really impressed with them!  I can find things much easier in the drawers I've done over!)

This kind of burp cloth can probably be found in any number of tutorials on the internet as it is so simple and so effective at the same time, but here it is again:  Use a pair of fat quarters, one flannel and one cotton.  Pre-shrink them thoroughly.  Pin them with right sides together, then stitch around the edge, using 1/2 to 5/8" seam allowance, and leaving a small gap for turning.  You can grade or pink the allowances if your flannel is thick.  Clip the corners and turn right-side out, and press.  Top-stitch with a decorative stitch about 1/2" from the edge, and press again to set the stitches.  That's it!

Baby Steps in Boro

Being a novice quilter, and being me in researching options and methods etc. etc. etc. sometimes quite a lot before actually starting a project, I've been looking around the internet (as one does) and have come across any number of Chinese Coins/Stacked Coins quilts, lighting fairly early in my explorations on Ann's blog at Fret Not Yourself, which I like very much, not least because she's going through a bit of a phase with Chinese Coins lately (she started numbering them, I think she's up to fourteen! -- not in a row, mind).  Of course, there are any number of charming quilt patterns -- I must make this large-scale Ohio Star pattern! -- but somehow my Japanese fabrics seem to me to want the neatness and order of straight lines, and the Chinese Coins pattern gives that sense of simplicity and busy-ness at the same time that both fits the fabrics and speaks to me.  I did manage to find my original inspiration quilt, which had been pinned and re-pinned on Pinterest so many times that I thought the source would be lost to me forever, but then there it was at A Quilter's Table, the third one in the post.  I really like the gentle colors, gentle but far from dull, and the sort of regular irregularity of the stacks, chaos and order together if you will.  I am also really taken with this one, Ann's Chinese Coins V, which is more improvised than usual even for her, and I love the effect.

These led me eventually to a post at Rossie Crafts, a bit of a digression from my own planning, but an interesting one, talking about not so much the finished product -- in this case, quilts -- but how the maker gets there, which of course is the part that as a novice I am least certain about.  Something one of the commenters said struck a chord of recognition in me, that "one of the most debilitating fears I had to overcome in my students was the ideas that they are not good enough and that they are not allowed to make mistakes." It's wonderful to look at a website or blog full of finished pieces -- Hopewell, say -- but for a novice like me, faced with a stack of fabrics and a lot of decisions, and then in the making itself any number of mistakes or uncertainties, it can be not a little daunting.  Simplicity is not always easy, ironically!

This is not new to me, mind you.  I have a tendency to want things that I make to be tidy, to not look "homemade" in that derogatory sense we all know, ill-fitting, with crooked hems and wonky buttonholes -- and so I rarely show the stages of a project, be it knitting or sewing, or the failures (and we all have those, to be sure).  Certainly for those new to a craft, knowing more about the process from start to finish, from an expert or even that of someone with a similar level of experience, can give the confidence that leads to a willingness to experiment, or even just to feel more positive about the process as well as the result.

Perhaps there is a risk of being excessively meticulous about the process of making -- even if not on the level of "I cast on 114 sts, using the long-tailed method. I worked Row 1. I worked Row 2," ad infinitum -- but the very practical prompts that Rossie gives at the end of her post are often the kind of things I find myself thinking about in the planning stages of a project, and sometimes the kind of things I worry about ("What are you hating about this quilt at this stage? What do you love?"), but that I don't always talk about here.  And, you know, it can only help oneself, as well as the result itself, to be more meditative, more thoughtful as it were, throughout the various stages of a project. 

And so, with no further ado --

Not long after the previous post, I cut my fabrics, slashing each fat quarter in half up the middle, then each half into faux-random widths.  I say "faux" because I was using my relatively-new rotary cutter and quilting ruler, and so in order to have strips of even widths I did have to line up the ruler first -- and so the strips are wider or narrower mostly in 1/4" increments (!). 

I then tossed all of the strips into the air (yes, literally) to mix them up, spread out a white sheet on the living room floor, and began laying out the strips as they came to my hands, only moving them when there were two of the same fabric next to each other, and in a mild attempt at not having two horizontal joins side-by-side.  My first pass at cutting strips went through maybe two-thirds of the fat quarters, but at one point I decided that there wasn't enough of the browns and tans, and so I just blithely cut all thirty of them -- this might have been somewhat foolish, but there it is, and I realized when I had finished laying out enough of these to make a good-sized baby/toddler quilt, that I had used only just a little over half of the fabrics, so there is enough for a second, maybe larger, quilt if I add some sashing.  (This is not a bad thing at all, as I was just thinking that these fabrics would also make a very good picnic/camp quilt, with their dark but far-from-somber colors.)

I didn't actually do that much "tweaking" with this first layout -- just enough to spread the browns and tans fairly evenly around among the blues, and squinting at it now and then to make sure that it wasn't too visually heavy with a lot of dark or light strips in one spot.  I'm fairly pleased with the result, and at this rate it will turn out much bigger than I had originally planned.  I've since stacked up each column in order, with pins in the top of each stack so that I know where it goes in the sequence.  And now, the sewing!

Strike Up the Band!

I've been spending rather a lot of time the past few weeks in helping assign and fit uniforms for Julia's marching band at high school.  There is surprisingly little about mending band uniforms on the internet -- I suppose that means that either the people who do mend uniforms aren't hanging around on the internet much, or that, which I fear might be the case, people don't bother to mend uniforms any more, either because they can't or because it isn't worth their time to do so.

But I will happily say that our school's uniforms, while older than most of our students, are still going strong in their 100%-nylon near-indestructibility! -- aside from a few hiccups, that is. And so for those who Google "mend band uniforms" or "alter band uniforms" and come up empty, here are two of our solutions.

This particular jacket had a dark grey spot on the outside of a sleeve, which has resulted in it being passed over for a number of years, even though it would otherwise have been a perfect fit for someone.  I had thought I would just sew a patch over the spot, but this ended up being too thick, and therefore quite obvious.  (Yes, an iron-on patch would have been a simple matter, but in my experience iron-on patches come off, leaving a bigger mess than they were originally hiding.)  An old-fashioned darn might have worked, but while I understand the principle behind darns, mine don't even come close to looking neat.  I decided then to simply cover the spot with satin stitch, using the method called encroaching satin stitch or long-and-short satin stitch.  I'm not much of an embroiderer, and so I found the tutorials here and here to be helpful -- essentially, working the padding as here without that one's finishing layer.  I used plain white embroidery floss, partly because the color was a better match than white sewing thread, and partly because I had the feeling -- which proved to be the case -- that floss would lie flatter in the end, and look smoother.  The spot is still obviously mended, but is much less visible from even a short distance, let alone from the 50-yard line, than it was!

Many newer band uniforms have a snap system for altering the length of legs and sleeves, but ours don't, and so we have to do this by hand, in order to have the alterations as invisible as possible on the legs, and for the jackets because there really is no other way, since they have angled trim -- in two colors and gold braid! -- which means that you can only turn up the hem until you come to the braid, and no further.  We discovered this enormously helpful video a few years ago --

I have found since then that you can actually do the hem in one go, instead of stopping at the creases as the lady in the video does, if you begin at one of the seams, stop hemming an inch or so before the crease and simply run the thread through the folded hem (inside the trouser leg!) to about an inch after the crease, then hem around, again skipping a short section at the other crease, back around to where you started. This method also seems to suit us well for hemming jacket sleeves too, just being careful that the stitches don't show -- which usually means tacking the hem onto the lining in places, if the hem is really deep.

You have to do this, i.e. not attach the turned-up hem the entire circumference of the leg, because the leg is not a perfectly straight tube; since it narrows as it goes downward, the circumference at the very bottom is smaller than the circumference even an inch or so higher, and the ratio only increases the more you have to shorten the leg.  If you stitch it down all of the way around, you will end up with ugly puckers in the fabric.  Leaving an unsewn "gap" lets the turned-up hem "float" on the inside of the pants leg, and the best place to leave it is at the two creases, so that they stay nice and sharp.  You just can't leave too big of a gap or the wearer will catch his or her toe on it when dressing!

There is a good introduction on the Colette blog here about different methods of hand-hemming.  I usually use a variation of the blind hem, instead of the herringbone-like catch stitch in the video -- I don't think it matters, whatever is easiest for the sewer and shows the least from the right side!

Knitting Project Bag

Here is the first of my Make Nine projects done!  This is Very Shannon's Reversible Sock Knitting Project Bag, which sews up very quickly and makes quite a nice little bag!

When I make this again -- not "if", mind! -- I will shorten the interfacing by about an inch or so from the top, as it makes the gathering a bit stiff, but other than that, the pattern is pretty much ideal.  I must point out that I interpreted, "Mark 1" down from the top edge of your bag. Sew a line 1" down from this edge" as that the sewing line is two inches from the top edge, but this is not the case.  I suppose that the instructions for 2" down would have been "Sew a line 1" down from this line" -- but be that as it may, you definitely want to sew the cord channel 1" from the top edge.

The bag is actually a little bigger than I'd pictured in my head from the original photos, so that's great!  It's definitely small enough to be portable, but big enough for a sock project plus glasses, ruler, pattern (folded), etc.  It would also make a great reusable gift bag.

I found this fabric in a drawer recently -- I bought it to make Laura some rompers, so that says how long it's been in the drawer, since she hasn't wanted rompers for sixteen or seventeen years.  It is still extraordinarily pretty and cheerful, though!  It looked really good with the yard of denim that I'd bought at the same time (sigh ...), but I thought now that denim would be a little too heavy for this bag, and got a short length of blue Kona Cotton instead.  I'm afraid I was very unimaginative and just flipped the two fabrics for the other side, but the yellow pleases me so much that I don't mind at all.

And what is the project?  The beginning of Henslowe, in Seven Sisters Arts Meridian fingering-weight in "Havran" --

"Make Nine," and J-N

I'm kind of torn about internet challenges, which for me are a lot like New Year's resolutions -- wonderful and admirable in theory, but often simply just more than one can manage in the allotted time.  Possibly I am either too ambitious, or too easily distracted (ooh, a new "44 Scotland Street" novel ...), and frankly, I suspect the latter. Be that as it may, I do have a list of things I want to sew this year, and when I came across the 2018 Make Nine project the other day -- I shan't call it a challenge, then -- I thought, "well, I like the 'gentle' part!" and so I hope that seeing my to-do list in this rather fetching nine-patch will keep me focused.

At the top, from left, is Purl Soho's Quilted Vest, because I'm finding those really comfortable in our not-quite-winter, since they are warm but not a coat, and this particular one because I love that collar!; the Circle Tech Pouch, a free pattern from Coats, which will be stocking-stuffers come Christmas; and the Hawthorn dress from Colette, because I've been wanting a really good shirt-dress pattern and hope this is it!

In the middle, Very Shannon's Reversible Sock Knitting Bag, because we all need a pretty bag to carry our current sock knitting in, right?!; and Simplicity 8050, a retro reprint from a year or so ago, because the 1940s patterns seem to suit my figure pretty well (I can't decide which I like better, though, Miss Bias Tape, though probably in a less air-raid-siren color than that, or Miss Many Buttons); and a jewel-box quilt in 1:12 scale.  This particular one is from someone on the Petitpointers list, whose pictures are also on Flickr -- I really like the jewel tones against the white -- though I might practice on something a little simpler.

And at bottom, the Ladies' Edwardian Apron from Sense & Sensibility, because I've had a hankering for this pattern for quite a long time, and other things keep jumping the queue; a new pair of Walking Shorts from So Sew Easy, because my favorite pair has now been mended with a darned hole where I must have splashed some bleach on it at some point in the distant past, and narrow bias tape around the fraying hems, and my other pair, despite being marked as my size is at least four inches too big around the waist, which impresses people who notice it into thinking that I've lost a lot of weight, but really is only annoying because I keep having to hike them up, and the pockets are far too small.  Now that I walk pretty much every weekday, having more than one pair of shorts is pretty important.  I found this free pattern online, and think it will suit my needs -- i.e., comfort and pockets. And lastly, another Very Shannon freebie, the Reversible Box Tote -- because we all need more project bags, right?!

I think it goes without saying that there will be knitting chez Bluestocking this year -- I just don't have any firm plans yet!

I've had a number of ideas for the ABChallenge, and even some photos, but (ironically) was stuck on J.  Then we went to some friends' house for a "soup exchange" and game night, which was a lot of fun.  We brought Bowl of the Wife of Kit Carson for the soup, and for the game a 1970s-era Mille Bornes.  Both are excellent in their respective ways, and it was a cold, rather damp evening, also eminently suitable for both soup and board games, as well as good company.  I had never heard of this game until we played it one night at David's parents' house some years ago, and found that not only is it an amusing family game but it has these wonderful 1950s graphics, very chic, so we have glommed on to the game and played it a number of times since, and David chose it to take with us this time.  When I remembered that the French for "board game" is jeu de société, the evening was complete!

An alligator lizard, very common here in Southern California.  This one was hiding near the garden hose, so I couldn't quite include its tail, which was easily twice again the length of its body!

An old and I'm afraid rather dusty brass engine of my dad's, the 0-4-0 "Mudhen" in HO scale from Ken Kidder.  These particular model engines are not very popular with train enthusiasts as they are rather plain and slow, but I have a great affection for this little Mudhen as when I inherited my dad's collection this was the only one of his dozen or so treasured brass engines that started right up -- after some thirty years! -- and chugged off down the track, merrily as could be asked for.

And a sunrise the other morning --

Sewing for Knitting

After yet another quarter-hour or so taken up with searching through my bin of knitting needles looking for a pair of US6s, I thought "Right -- needle rolls."  I have a little Martha Washington cabinet of my grandmother's, the kind with three drawers in the middle and two half-round bins at either side -- some years ago I went through all of the loose knitting needles and made cards for the loose ones, with holes and stepped folds and all, but while this was a step in the right direction, it was still a chore to have to pull out a pair grab-bag-like until I found the size I needed.  And so in a burst of organizing energy not coincidentally around New Year's, I sewed up a pair of large needle rolls, all out of fabric left over from other projects.

A needle roll isn't a terribly complicated thing, but neither did I feel inclined to reinvent the wheel, as the saying goes, so I spent some time poking around the internet, and then more time narrowing down the myriad of choices ...

The first roll is from a tutorial at Guthrie & Ghani, which with some fiddling makes slots with more depth than just laying two pieces of fabric atop each other and stitching a bunch of lines.  This is certainly a handy idea if you have a number of really large needles, but my stitching leaves a bit to be desired, as the slots are clearly of almost-random sizes and depths, and it is more difficult to ensure that the slots are the same depth at top and bottom as well.

I wasn't sure I really needed two pockets, but unlike the lovely needle rolls one sees on Flickr and Pinterest, I don't have a uniform set of needles but a hodgepodge acquired over many years, of surprisingly variable lengths and knob sizes, so as it turned out, two pockets are handy for the shorter pairs.

The second roll is therefore just the two pocket assemblies laid atop each other and stitched down.  Since it was clear, once I had laid out all of my needles in a row, that not only do I have a lot, but that I have a penchant for smaller needles (five pairs of nearly-identical 3.25mm!), I realized that having shaped slots in a roll for the finer end of the range would actually be a drawback, since snugger ones would be more secure.  QED!

(I vaguely remember that I used a tutorial for the dimensions of the second roll, but have no idea now which one ...)

I had to piece some of the pockets, but all of these seams were easily hidden.  I was delighted to be able to accommodate the lining fabric's decorative edge, too --

I still, I confess, need another roll for my dpns, and probably another for crochet hooks -- I have only about four of those, but it wouldn't hurt to have them all in one place, would it!  I am getting close to the end of the birds-and-flowers fabric, so we'll see.

The archivist in me was unable to throw away all of the original packaging, so I admit that I have kept some, partly for sentiment -- I'm sure I inherited that set of aluminum Boyes on the left, ca.1970s if not earlier, and the Peace pair (presumably in a project somewhere ...) were bought in Hong Kong -- partly because, well, librarian.  The Takumis don't come in that nearly-indestructible green sleeve anymore.

In my wanderings around the internet, I found quite a lot of other interesting projects, as one does, and so yesterday I made a pair of these, the "Brigitte Needles & Notions Zippered Pouch" from a tutorial at VeryShannon.  Although I did have some hiccups in the process, I nevertheless managed to make two of these in one day, which is certainly a compliment to the tutorial! 

These are fraternal twins, as it were, made from three coordinating fat quarters (anonymous, alas) -- I would certainly have been able to make at least one more pouch, probably two, but I had only two zippers.

I had a bit of trouble with the zipper installation here, which has you stitch around the lining and then around the outer pouch, in two steps -- I couldn't get things to either meet in the middle or line up neatly -- and so ended up going back to the one I used last summer, which has you stitch the two sides in one go, as well as a slightly simpler method of attaching the zipper to the lining. 

The next time I make some of these, I would also make the outer-pocket flap a bit longer, maybe just a scant quarter-inch, and also stitch the lining a bit short, as it tends to wrinkle a little inside (because both the outer and the inner are pretty much exactly the same size, and therefore one doesn't fit inside the other quite neatly).  These, however, are minor issues, and I'm pleased with the finished pouches!

Vacation Sewing

That is sewing for vacation, not while on -- I am not quite up to that level yet! 

I meant to have this post ready to go before we jetted off, but things got in the way, etc. etc. etc., and we have now just returned from three weeks in London and southern England, including a lovely stretch renting a narrowboat along the Stratford-upon-Avon canal. 

I wanted the girls and myself to have hands-free bags in which to carry wallets, cameras, tickets, maps, etc. -- all of the things one accumulates while traveling.  I also -- since we had also spent rather a lot on new clothes, tending for the most part to be the kind of family who wears things out, and thus not always having the right things for a vacation -- wanted to spend as little as possible on the bags, so I took a good deal of my preparation time scouring the internet for free patterns.  I managed to get everything out of fabric I had left over from other projects (thought I did have to piece a few things!), so for the most part the only things I had to buy were notions.

My first project was my own bag, and although the pattern was not free, it is extremely reasonable, and a very good bargain.  This is the Summit Pack from Cloudsplitter Designs.  I read a number of reviews that said it's a great pattern, complex but not difficult for sewers with average experience -- which I would say is about right although it would certainly help if you've made bags before, or have access to someone who has, as this was a completely new experience for me and I was a bit puzzled by a few things.  (Unfortunately, when I asked for help via the designer's website, I never did get a response, so I would recommend anyone else to try the direct e-mail address.  I had managed to come up with a solution on my own before resorting to that avenue.)  I did find this review by Rochelle of eSheep Designs extremely helpful, since not only does she recount her experience with making the bag, but she also included quite a lot more photos of her finished bag, so that I could tell what I was aiming at -- which isn't always apparent in something this complex!

I also took Rochelle's lead in adding a hanging loop at the top of the bag and a sunglasses loop, which I put just inside the big compartment.  If -- no, probably when, since I'm really delighted with it -- when I make another one, I might modify the card pocket, since I prefer a wallet for those, although I must say it was a real kick and confidence-builder to make this feature and have it turn out so well!

So you can see that while I am by no means expert at making bags, even a determined novice can bring this off well enough to impress family and friends!  ("You made that?!" in disbelief ...)  I would just recommend taking every step carefully, without rushing -- and do pick out anything that isn't quite good enough!  I re-did some of the topstitching three or four times, but it was worth the trouble, since it really does look much better on the finished bag.

Ready to go! --

The second one was not as much of a success, but this was my fault as I tried to adapt it a little more than the pattern could really handle.  It is the "J Bag" by Nerissa, available at Sew Mama Sew.

It didn't occur to me until far too late that adding inner pockets and fusible interfacing would make the inside of the already-small bag considerably smaller than the outside of the bag, which of course means that the lining doesn't lie flat inside, and that there is much less room inside.  I would certainly make this again, as it's a very cute bag, but I would either make it bigger to start with, or interface only some of the pieces, or make patch pockets that don't intrude on the side seams (which just added more bulk).

I ended up pulling it back apart and restitching the two sides of the lining, then trimming it, though I can't really tell if that helped much.

Julia, however, is quite satisfied with it, since she is not generally a purse-carrier anyway so has the bare minimum of requirements, and it certainly fills my two, which were having a cross-body strap and a zip closure.  She will also be able to slip a bottle of water into an outer pocket, or perhaps a guide-book, which I suspect will accommodate most of her needs!

I made her a tissue pack as well, this one from Two Brown Birds.  It's very easy, and clever with the lining wrapping round to make an edging, but I think I would rather the opening be more snug.  Perhaps this will be the case once some of the tissues are taken out ...

 For Laura, I managed to persuade her of this one's charms, "The Sling Bag" by Mrs. H.  She was not convinced by the slouchiness, as it happens, wh. I would suspect makes it easier to carry things of various sizes, since the foldover top will accommodate quite a lot of variety -- although I will admit that the three-ring binder she was recently carrying made the snap impossible to close, but that was its only drawback! and quite understandable in those conditions.

There are also some examples of pattern-testers' variations in Mrs. H's post here.

The inside has a zippered pocket on one side and a partial-width slip pocket on the other, which I divided as per the pattern into two (pen and phone, perhaps?) -- these fabrics are all various colors of Linen Look from Jo-Ann's, and I made the inner pocket with the natural cream color so that it would be a bit easier to see inside a rather dark interior.  (Sharp-eyed readers might remember these fabrics from our first set of Faire garb!)  The only change I might recommend in making this bag is to fold the strap tabs with the raw edges in the middle -- I mean just folding a narrower strip than in the pattern so that the raw edges meet in the middle, edge-stitching the long sides, then folding it in half into the rectangle ring and catching it down as in the instructions -- as the stack of four interfaced layers in the pattern's version was quite awkward to top-stitch cleanly.  The strap might not be quite long enough for cross-body wearing on taller people, so test it first.  Other than that, this pattern is simple, clear, and thorough, and the results are excellent, giving you a roomy, convenient bag in just a few hours!

I am not usually the kind of person to match my accessories, but it just seemed right this time -- and of course I had the fabric! -- so I made a zippered pouch and another tissue holder for myself, these to tutorials at Skip to My Lou, here and here respectively.  I didn't have to buy anything for these, as the pink zipper was an ancient one in my box.  I'm glad I was able to use the little border on the fabric, as I think it adds a certain panache!

Photos of the trip itself coming shortly! ...