The lovely weather is continuing - not - lovely for ducks perhaps. With the grey skies looming overhead with the threat of yet more heavy rain I decided to shut myself away with my stereo and my sewing machine in my studio.
I designed another easy bag on my very useful plastic coated publicity material, lit the fire and started cutting away.
I finished sewing up the bag I started the other day, finished it with some wooden beads,
then used the same vintage 70s cotton to make up another bag in my new design with some hand crocheted flowers to add a bit of detailing, then had a go at another nautical themed bag in the same design.
Very pleased with the way these have turned out, and also how my new design works, only two pieces, a round bottom, then a single cut of material to form the tube body of the bag, then this pattern piece is folded in half and creates the template for the handle.
With April finishing on a very wet note, all things green and planty are shooting up in the garden and I just know that very shortly I will be attached to my hoe and wading up and down the lines of seeds trying valiantly to do battle with the weeds.
Until then I am welded to my office chair and finally getting around to re-opening my etsy shop and doing a bit of updating and tidying up of my listings.
I have realised that I need a model to get the latest refashions and bags photographed and for that will have to wait until my daughter is free and not buried under a mound of homework.
In the meantime along with uploading photos and editing descriptions etc etc, I have been messing about with a ball of cotton and a crochet hook.
I love to crochet and learnt as a child, but in the intervening adult years I found various other pursuits more to my taste, namely bikes, cars and boys - but this is not a story of my misspent youth - in recent times I have picked up my crochet hook more and more frequently, and whilst my amibitions are still very modest I have found that I don't need to go back right to the beginning and relearn single and double stitches every time I want to make something.
Over the last 24 hours I have crocheted a veritable garden of flowers ready to be sewn to an upcycled garment or to be part of another bag design - only problem is now that I have started I can't seem to stop.........
I am starting the flowers with a chain (ch) of 4 then joining together with a slipped stitch (slst).
Into the loop double chain (dc) 20 times, then single chain (sc) into every stitch.
From there it all goes a bit mad and a bit random, some flowers I have continued as follows:
Round 3 - ch 1, sc into next stitch, ch1, sc, contune all the way around
Round 4 - ch3, sc into next stitch, ch 3, sc, continue all the way around
Round 5 - chain 3, dc 3 times into the chained loop of the previous round, sc, ch3, 3dc into loop, sc, and continue into every loop all the way around to create a ruffled flower.
Another varaion:
Round 1 - chain 4, join together, crochet 20 dc into the loop
Round 2 - chain 1, sc around, join to first sc
Round 3 - chain 1, sc in same stitch, *skip 1 stitch, 7 dc in the next stitch, skip 1 stitch, sc in next stitch* repeat 4 more times to create five petals
Yet another variation: Round 1 - ch 3 ( counts as 1 dc), work into the ring 1 dc, *6 ch, 3 dc*, repeat from * to * 5 times, 6 ch, 1 dc, join with a slip stitch in the 3 rd ch of the ch-3 worked in the beginning of the round
Round 2: * chain 1, work (1 sc, 7 dc, 1 sc ) all into the chain arch, chain 1, skip 1 dc, slip stitch in next dc*, repeat from * to * throughout the round
I am using the same 50g ball of 100% pure cotton in a variagated dye so the flowers change colour by themselves as you go along.
