Bits, Bobs and Sods

The sewing mojo is returning. Last week I made a few things. And this week I started not one new quilt, but two quilts. A pair of quilts to be precise. Like animals into the Ark, quilts in our house often come in twos. I will tell you about them next week. This week is all about the bits and bobs.

Do you remember I made a gazillion 1hr baskets for the girls in my scrapbooking class? I made everyone a basket except one. My friend Mrs R was in the middle east visiting her son and family. I was basketed out and in any case had run out of wadding. I thought I would make hers on her return. Her return was to overlap with my holiday, but like the best laid plans it all went pear shaped. I had plenty of time with our aborted holiday but still no wadding. That was easily sorted with online shopping and still the fabric and wadding sat there. Last week I decided it might help the brain fuzz if I cleared up some outstanding stuff. It took me no time at all to make the 1hr basket. Actually a little over the one hour this time, due to the afore mentioned brain fuzz. Also, I was trying to ensure this one had no little, shall I call them quirks?

I used Essex linen plus some fabric I had in stash I knew my friend would like. I think this fabric came from Thimbleberries. I used it in a Coin quilt I made for my father a few years ago. Even at that stage it was fabric I had had for a while. I teamed it with some dark plummy red batik. I am not quite sure of its provenance, but think it was the remains of a fat quarter bought in a quilt show. The linen is Essex linen bought especially for the purpose of making bags and fabric baskets. I usually run a few lines of quilting along the outer fabric to attach the wadding, this time I did so on the lining.

I was unsure at first what thread to use for the over stitching. The first thought was to use a grey/silver aurifil thread. See, I am increasing my stock of aurifil threads, and no longer saving them up. It would have shown up though on the lining. I decided to actually go with black thread. There is a form of  English embroidery known as Blackwork. Wikipedia tells me it is Spanish in origin, but I always heard of it as English, so English it is. I asked my husband if it looks ok. He can be brutally honest or my best critic, depending on my outlook. He knows nothing about blackwork, but if he thought it was ok, then that was ok for me. He looked, he pondered and the man from Delmonte, he say yes. It looked good. Good enough for me then, no need for the seam ripper.

I had stitched the wadding to the lining, because I wanted to keep the outer linen plain and simple. Clean as we would say. Thinking of the Quakers and the Shakers and William Morris. Nothing in your house which is neither beautiful or useful. I am not saying this is beautiful, but I wanted it to follow the simple lines. I carefully stitched down the opening in the lining, so my friend can have it which way out depending on her preference. She is talking about taking a crochet class when life returns to some sort of normal, nor new normal. This wee basket will maybe of help.

That in itself started me thinking. I imagine  going to a crochet class, I can't crochet but assume it  will involve a crochet hook (see I am smart), stitch holders, some money for extra yarn and cups of tea and somewhere to stash your car keys. A pouch I thought. I love zippered pouches. I must admit I am not great at making them. They are ok, ok for friends and loved ones, but not perfect and certainly not with a professional finish. There's always a bit of roughness around the zipper finish. Draw string bags I have perfected, but not zippered.

Cue my friend Judith. Judith, justjudedesigns  runs some very successful patchwork and quilting classes in an old mill in Belfast. I have never actually got to any, working, scrapbooking class, retirement, scrapbooking class etc. Never enough hours in the day. I will go though, it has always been my intention. Anyhow, with the lockdown and all social activities coming to an end, Judith has put some tutorials online. One of these is a scrappy pouch. Judith explains it so well, any mistakes are my own. Even though I firstly put the lining in the wrong place, the fault is my own. I ended up with the neatest pouch I have ever made. And I am going to give it away. That's fine, the pleasure is in the giving, as my father always said. Now I know how to do it, I will knocking be these out of the park.

Judith's scrappy pouches are totally mismatched scrappy, but I knew my friend would like her scrappy pouch to be a matching scrappy pouch. I made the back a simple stripe. The size was of course totally dictated by the supply of zips I had.

 Again, I love mismatched zips, but I figured my friend would like a matching zipper. I only had one dark red one, so the pouch was made to match the zip, It has ended up about 5" x 8 1/2" and has a plain cream lining, the linen would have been too stiff.

Next up was my "friend around the corner". Her birthday is in May and we always exchange birthday gifts. We are both keen gardeners, so it is often a selection of seeds or some gardening accoutrement, or a novel. This year, due to the lack of shopping, a 1hr basket is perfect for her. She can wander around her garden in flowing dress, dreamily dropping cottage garden flowers into her basket. No she will not, but she may keep her seed packets, her socks or even her toilet paper. I had used some of this blue and orange check in the Scrapbooking Challenge Marathon, but there was enough left for another basket. I am not sure quite how, but seams attaching the wadding (again I attached it to the lining) didn't quite line up. I know how that happened. I trimmed off one of the sides, and then my muddled pandemic brain forgot to line up the stitching again. I am sure she will be kind.

None of these can of course be delivered, we are still in lockdown. All these new words in my vocabulary. That's what I love, covid, coronavirus, lockdown, R rate. All new terms now in everyday usage. Heaven knows when they will get them, there is a little pile of undelivered gifts in my spare room.

Of course, there is no show without punch. I was one of the original members of the Scrapbooking class, I need a basket as well. I made mine in Essex linen too, with a light Liberty pink toned floral fabric. The fabric is much lighter weight than quilting cotton. This time I did the over stitching with the silver/grey aurifil. The blackwork stitching would be much too  heavy for this. My basket is a little smaller, dictated to by the size of floral fabric I had. The little bits I have left, the cut out corners, I have kept. I keep all the tiny offcuts of my Liberty fabrics. It would be against the law of Liberty to throw them out. No scrap goes to waste, or as I say to my husband these troubled times, we are not at home to Mr Waste.

You know what, this blogpost is long enough and I have told you about the bits, the bobs but not the  sods and the other bit. It took me two weeks to write this, hopefully the second part will be quicker.
Whatever the advice is your chosen country to live in, Stay Safe and try to Stay Home.
Helen x