Such a busy week, with 5 hours of Scottish dancing on the Wednesday and extra work on Thursday due to the dancing on Wednesday and then more dancing Thursday and Friday I finally started the fur coat ''proper'' by cutting the fur fabric at last! I had been procrastinating, although I had made a ''toile''in some lining fabric before Christmas to test out the pattern, fit and size etc. It's VOGUE 7901 an old pattern from my stash.
The cutting was the worst: fibres and fur flew everywhere and I had to hoover all the time and scrub the fur fibres off the kitchen table. Hope I didn't breathe too many in and have had an old metallic taste in the mouth every since but I digress, on the whole it was BLISS. Friday I also took girls to school and collected shopping orders and was oh so HAPPY to collect my angora wool package from the post office! Photo to follow, it will be my next project.
On Friday I also finished JJ's jumper in terms of ribbing and sewed most of the ends in, doing the remainder on Saturday. Photos follow shortly I hope, when he will model it for me at last....
The daffs came to full bloom see? AND I treated us to a basket of hyacinths too : blue ones! Oh happy days, I love the Spring.
Saturday was a whirl of sewing and crochet and by late afternoon I had THE MOST BLISSFUL bath: all candlelight, soft classical music, delicious essential oils and jacuzzi bubbles. And a great book! '' Stately Homes by Katie Fforde: chick lit of the highest order, totally relaxing romanticism and a bit of humour thrown in. Utter blissful escapism. Followed by a fun barn dance party for which I made a huge trifle: soaked in Jamaican rum.
We had to leave early alas because JJ was feeling ill but that early night was blissful too and I must have gotten 8 to 9 hours before Miss Y came to wake me up. A sunny morning beckoned but as JJ had promised to take the girls shopping I huddled under blankets on the sofa with the dogs- whom I had fed earlier- and with my back in the sun continued my escapist reading. When the sun left the sofa I returned - whickedly!- to bed and sat in my throne of 4 pillows and 2 duvets huddled cosily against the cold and read and read and read.SO HAPPY.
Finally I had something to eat and got stuck in with more fur- coat sewing. Shoulder seams, setting in sleeves, side seams etc.
Then also came the lining cutting, marking and sewing: lovely cafe au lait satin from Berwick St.
Lovely long pins were free from a Knitting magazine years ago but jolly useful now.
I was encouraged by a video on YOU-tube that I found when googling sewing with faux fur , what wonderful resources we have these days, I am ever grateful for all of this.
Then when the girls came home I made a lovely steak dinner and crocheted this little pouch for those monthly thingummies that a teenager may need unexpectedly... Oh I forgot to say!!!
We're having a really UNUSUAL week next week with NO SCHOOL.
Miss E is on work experience with Critical Power Supplies and Miss Y is on a week outward bound with school in Wales. AND JJ - this is not so much fun- is going to Malaysia for 4 days. So it'll be just little me, the dogs and a little bit of Miss E .
Back to the pouch: I got the idea from ATTIC 24: www.attic24@typepad.com who in her post on heart sachets directed me to BEAG's Flickr page: she's a DUTCH crochet and craft artist: and her work is FABULOUS! Very practical- a girl after my own heart- and colourful and fun. See it here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/made_by_beag/
She does the most amazing crochet cosies : lip balm sticks or vaseline pots,also for asthma inhalers or coins with a keyring for parking money and these monthlies... So this was my version of the same idea, excuse the button I had no time to search out a better one from my button box and Miss Y was nervously packing for her big independence trip. I'm not even allowed to check her packing....in case anything vital is forgotten?
Mine was made with a 4.5 mm hook and I did many rows of 13 dc ( USA sc) as a rectangle and then crocheted up both sides, made a loop in the centre by chaining 12 and then covered the chains with DC s.
Next time I'll use more stitches, use a smaller hook: 3.5 mm probably and work it as a tube in the round.
The yarn is Anchor magicline in ''style'' which gives a striped effect.
And more HAPPINESS in a
new CROCHET magazine for UK!!!! Have you seen this yet?
It's very good- well I think so- even though I don;t like plastic hooks which came free with it, the patterns and articles are fine. I wanted to try these hearts , see?
So here are mine: crocheted by the fire with hubbie and dog on sofa and all watching ''Ripper St''...
The orange one was first: DK wool and 4mm hook, the yellow has added rows that I improvised after row 5 and the blue one is 4ply cotton with a 3mm hook. the blue and yellow ones - when finishes and sewn up together will be a kitchen window decoration as I miss those little houses so!
