About this time last year I bought a very cute wallet in Toronto. It survived until Christmas before I’d used it to death. I tried to design my own wallet but it was a spectacular disaster (there was embroidery, I was not happy). So I started using a simple coin purse that N had bought in India for me. Last week I killed that. So I went hunting for a wallet tutorial online.

Happily I found Sew Christine’s tutorial and worked my way through it last night.

Her instructions are clear and the construction is simple and compact. There’s a zipped-up coin compartment, two slots for cards and a roomy pocket for notes and receipts. I added a magnetic snap (which I struggled with a wee bit because it had to be placed so close to the seam) instead of the velcro fasting. I used some blackcurrant fabric for the outside with the hope that the darker fabric will take longer to get grubby whilst I scrabble around the bottom of my bag. I’m pleased with how the wallet turned out; I really hope it survives a wee while and I that I don’t destroy it within a few months.

I’ve been going through one of my crazy-busy periods at work and so there has been very little time for crafting. However, because it never rains but pours at the moment, my busy period culminated in being dragged along to the Honourable Artillery Company summer ball. My sister helped me find a dress (a sort of 70s number, black with a big white swirly print and Katie said I looked a little “Margot Leadbetter”), a mad dash into town got me some shoes but I didn’t have a bag for all of mine (and Rory’s) bits and bobs (his uniform, whilst yummy to my eyes, is very impractical; there are no pockets worth using so I end up carrying most of his stuff). Well, ok, I probably could have bought a bag from somewhere but I’ve had a metal frame from u-handbag since last winter and I wanted to use it. Plus Katie has been on at me to get some of my embroidery up here.

I really didn’t think I would manage it but within a week I went from a white sheet and a metal frame to an evening bag. I spent one evening planning the embroidery design, an evening and a luxurious afternoon off work curled up on the sofa reminding myself how much I enjoy doing embroidery and then 3 episodes of 24 series 2 the night before the ball cutting fabric and putting the bag together. I used the u-handblog guide to metal frames to work out the pattern and construction but I inserted a small zip pocket to keep my cash and cards safe.

I do like this bag. Neither the construction of the bag nor the embroidery is as neat as I would have liked (but I was in a rush and I’d forgotten how much the stray threads on the wrong side of the embroidery can show through). The small zip pocket worked well but next time I’d position it an inch higher. I was a little worried about gluing the bag to the frame but I should have trusted Lisa Lam. The gluing was a wee bit messy but once I got over my fear it was fun and the bag has stayed together and survived ooodles of fun at the ball including bumper cars, a ferris wheel and a carousel.

The embroidery stitches I used were back stitch, satin stitch, cretan stitch (for the open leaves, double knot stitch, flat stitch (for the closed leaves), French knot, ribbed wheel filling or spider’s web stitch and stem stitch. Sorry that the pictures are not great.

I’ve been wanting to make a Montessori By Hand (now Sew Liberated) messenger bag for the last six months. I need to increase my bag making skills (after a couple of disastrous own designs) and figured this would be a good start, but finding the time was tricky. Last week’s rainy bank holiday weekend, where I was also on duty and therefore stuck in the flat, gave me enough guilt-free time to plod my way through the bag.

I love the robot canvas, bought from Kitty-Craft and the blue/white-spotty lining made by Clothworks (oddly called “Joined at the Hip). When I was starting to choose which fabrics to use I kicked myself for not buying the pink/white-spotty from the fabulous fabric shop in Derbyshire but I think the red cotton lining works and is probably better for being less fussy. Oh, and I think this will finally be the last project for the purple corduroy.

The bag is large, with big pockets front and back and the instructions are clear. I learnt how to put in zip pockets! I did make some additions: an internal key strap and clasp, a magnetic clasp instead of the ribbon and button and an open internal pocket for my laptop.

To add the magnetic clasp I had to lengthen the top flat but I couldn’t do that until the end of construction (when I knew how long it needed to be) and so the bottom of the flap isn’t as neat as I’d otherwise like. To make the internal laptop pocket I first made a mini practise pouch out of some scrap fabric so that I could work out how to make it. I think it works well, although my laptop fits snuggly so I won’t be able to upgrade to anything larger.

I only have two problems with the bag, which at some point I plan to go back and fix. Firstly, the interfacing I used isn’t really strong enough for the bag to keep its shape properly. And secondly, I want to sew the bottom of the front outside pocket so that things don’t get lost underneath the bottom of the bag.

A few weeks ago I was out celebrating my birthday with friends from work. Amusingly there are three of us with the same birthday (and until last year we all worked in the same lab). This works well for me because I don’t really like having birthdays (other peoples’ are great, mine not so much) and so they organise it and I go along for the fun.

Anyway, at about 1.30 am I was almost home when I realised that I’d left my keys on the living room coffee table. Oh, and R was away doing his TA thing. Luckily it had been my friend A who had been keeping me out so I was able to call her and crash on her sofa-bed. (Although when I arrived at her place she suggested we open some whisky. I suggested water).

To say thank you I wanted to make A a doorstop. Her room had been very hot and she’d propped the door open with some clothing, I think. I got the pattern from Softies by Therese Laskey.

Unfortunately the doorstop is not fit for purpose because it is too light to hold open the heavy firedoors we have. The heaviest thing I’d been able to find to fill it had been rice but it just wasn’t heavy enough. Ah well, I still think is looks cute, it was fun to make and I’m happy with how it turned out, especially the bird. I think I’ll try to get hold of some sand and try that as the filler.

Time has been in very short supply for me recently and yet I have been itching to sew, especially for other people and so I have been making very easy shopping bags as gifts.

It was my mum’s birthday last week and my sister was knitting her a beautiful stole. I thought I’d try to be helpful and so planned to make mum a bag she could use to keep the stole safe and clean. Erm, it all got a bit rushed and I didn’t plan it out very well, so the bag ended up being far too big. It works as a shopping bag though (although I realised later that I should have reversed the order of the fabric so that the bottom was the top and visa versa so that it looked cleaner for longer). Ah well.

The week before that I’d rushed out another shopping bag for my friend Claire, who’d had her birthday weeks ago but I’d not managed to finish anything for her. Claire was my PhD sibling; we worked in the same lab, we started on the same day, had our vivas on the same day (and finished within 5 minutes of each other) and submitted on the same day. So when we were finishing I had great plans for a leaving present for her. There was going to be abstract embroidery of the virus we’d both been working on and I was going to make that into a wallet. But, oh dear. The first bit of embroidery went fine but I failed in my attempt to turn it into a purse (I didn’t have a pattern and was trying to design it myself). I never finished the embroidery for the second attempt. So, instead, I rushed a bag together for her. Luckily she likes it and although I forgot to take pictures of it before I gave it to her, she brought it along to our graduation last week and so I was able to take pictures then. The bag even goes well with her graduation robes!

Oh and Brian May (from Queen) also graduated with a PhD in the same ceremony. And a proper one too (albeit 30 years after he’d started it), not an honorary one.

I’ve been a bit naughty this month and added quite a bit to my fabric stash.

Firstly I finally found some of the Robert Kaufman Apple corduroy from a UK shop, Fabulous Fabric, so I’ll be turning that into a winter skirt. Then I fell for some robot canvas from Kitty Craft that I’m going to use as part of a messenger bag. The order arrived with a small piece of panda fabric that oddly enough I’d been wondering about buying.

Last week was my Granny’s 90th birthday party, in a cottage in Derbyshire. Whilst waiting for K&W to be ready for the drive up North I pondered aloud that there are probably some good patchwork shops up in Derbyshire. Katie met the challenged and found a great little place called PatchworkDirect.

On the Saturday morning we sprung my mum, hunted out the shop and spent a little bit too long browsing. This place is currently my favourite fabric shop; it’s crammed with fabric, arranged by colour, perfect for patchwork quilting. There are pictures of the shop on the homepage of the website, and I recommend a visit if you are ever in the area.

I bought quite a bit and without specific projects in mind (very bad, no cookie).

The cherries will probably form one side of my next apron. I love the blackberries and the green pattern together. The blue with white spots will line my messenger bag (I think) and the fabric in the bottom right will get turned into another winter skirt. But the fabric I’m most looking forward to playing with is the Robert Kaufman Chinese cats. I think it will get turned into a summer skirt, with lots of room for swish.

I have a tiny Samsung laptop that carry with me almost everywhere.  It is essential for work (we only have 4 computers in the office for 12 people) and play (I live in a towerblock with no external tv aerial and the indoor aerial I have is very temperamental).  However, a few months after I bought my lovely laptop I dropped it onto the hard, concrete floor at work (it was late at night, I was spooked by something and rushing, trying to carry too many things).  Amazingly it was pretty much fine; there is a dent in one corner and the dvd drive cover falls off but otherwise it is fine.

I’d been planning to make a laptop bag but after dropping the laptop it’s bag was rushed to the top of my list.

The main fabric is from Heather Bailey’s Freshcut range, purchased at last year’s Festival of Quilts and  I used a medium sew-in interfacing to give the bag some strength.  The laptop fits inside snugly and I have no more excuses for dropping it ever again.

This was one of the first bags I made (sorry, the timeline for this blog will be very messed up until I catch up with myself) and I hadn’t yet learned how to sew strap into the top seam of the bag.

After about 2 months the button came off.  I’m not very good with buttons.

Every Christmas at work we have a Secret Santa and every year I decide to make mine (and almost always leave it to the last minute). This last year I pulled a fellow crafter’s name out of the hat and so made a cupcake pincushion, from Softies by Therese Laskey. It was fun and easy to make, yay.

My friend G has a mild obsession with zombies. It’s nothing serious, he says that when he moves into a new area/house/city he always works out his escape routes and locates potential weapon stores. We smile and nod. When I saw the “how to survive a zombie attack” t-shirt by Threadless I had to buy it for him. Unfortunately they didn’t have any left in his size. So I cut it up and used a blanket stitch to sew it, very rough and ready, onto a t-shirt that would fit him.

Technically it is very basic, but he likes it and that’s what matters. I went to visit him In Edinburgh at New Year and even though the weather was freezing he came to meet me at the train station in his zombie shirt.

Last summer I was sent to work in a lab in North Carolina for four weeks. Whilst I learnt ooodles, I was not the happiest bunny whilst I was there. It was during the Tour de France, which was starting in London and I’d been eagerly awaiting it for months, so I was rather homesick. In between watching the Tour footage and messaging friends and family, I made plans for sewing projects, bought books and hunted out fabric.

I made my first ebay fabric mistake. The fidelity of the colours in the photograph on the website was not great. I liked the fabric because it reminded me of lipid bilayers that make up cell membranes, and cell membranes are very close to my heart. Too geeky? I still like the fabric and I think it works in small quantities but it is more yellow than I thought and didn’t work for the intended project. I used part of it, teamed with some purple cord to make a shopping bag for a friend’s birthday.

I think the fabric I used to line the bag is probably too orange, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.