Keeping my nose clean*

On long, quiet evenings when the Husband is on night shift, I often cast around for something to do, mostly to keep myself out of the biscuit tin (cookie jar).

In this situation, there’s a strong tendency on my part to get into mischief (snacking, rearranging furniture, ‘tidying’ things that I should have left well alone…) unless I keep busy with legitimate projects. So I’ve made myself some handkerchiefs. I showed you the fabrics a while ago, and expressed the intention of doing so, but like so many things, it fell by the wayside of more interesting or urgent projects. Last night, lacking the Husband’s company and any other undemanding sewing project, I got out the lawn fat quarters I’d acquired, cut 12 inch squares, and got cracking.

I do like a narrow hem and mitred corner on a hankie, and these lovelies have them, thanks to careful scoring/creasing and corner trimming. The creasing of the fold lines really is key to producing a nice tidy mitre. I’ve also found managing the narrow (¼ inch) hem and sewing line 1/16 of an inch from the fold is considerably easier if you use a walking foot. I could probably have bought hankies for a fraction of what I paid for the fabric, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun, and I wouldn’t have ended up with the lovely scraps.

Now all I have to do is wait for an opportunity to give them a test drive. Shame nose-blowing season is over in the Southern Hemisphere… gloat, gloat 😉

*Slang for staying out of trouble, in case English isn’t your first language!

Sunday Stash

I don’t do these very often, since I try not to buy stash items every week.

Mostly I succeed. But there was a sale on at Spotlight yesterday, with 40% off all yarn and lots off a wide variety of fabrics.  So, yes, I succumbed. Not a huge surprise.

This is my yarn haul. Since I have no idea what I want to make, just that I liked the feel and the colour, I didn’t buy much. The big balls are 100% pure wool 8 ply, 100g each. The bluey/greeny/purply ones are a colour called Ocean, and the brown/purple/ orange/charcoal ones are Volcano. I’m interest to see what happens when they meet in one place!

The small balls are an acrylic/mohair/wool mix, in 50g balls. No colour name, just a number. But I couldn’t resist the sweet spring colours. You’d think the climate here would put me off yarn. Nope…

This is 90cm of pink and white patterned lawn, reduced from $15 a metre down to $4.50 a metre.  I could not resist. I’m thinking more hankies. There was a gorgeous black and white print, but still at the full price of $18 a metre. I didn’t buy any, but now I’m hankering for it.  It was a mid size print of ginkgo leaves in black and grey on a white background. Lovely!

These are fat quarters for an as-yet undecided project. You could get 5 FQs for $10, another bargain. I love these colours together; I think it’s going to be a couple of cushion covers or a table cloth. It’s not enough to make anything larger unless I start adding different colours which I don’t really want to do. That acid green is just brilliant – I can almost taste lemon drops!

And finally, the white cambric broderie anglaise trim I’ll be using for my posh white nightie. I looked at lace and didn’t like any of it much – there was too much nylon and not enough cotton for my liking. This will be softer and less scratchy but will add a bit of girly detailing.  I’m going to make the shoulder straps and neck finish of white 1″ bias binding, and this will sit along the binding.