Playtime.

Well, I've been having a great time this week. Its the Easter Holiday here.

On Tuesday, I ended up going to the seaside with my husband. A rather blustery day, but we went for a walk along the promenade. We took this photograph of the ferry, Riverdance which went aground some months ago just off Blackpool's north beach. The local paper also has this fascinating article on local shipwrecks on this stretch of water.







The knitting on Liz's Dickinson Sweater has kept on growing. I ended up ripping it back around four inches the day before yesterday, but have managed nearly to get back to where I had previously got to. Getting the cables round the wrong way! I did the same thing with the back too. So I've just got to the point on the front where I shall be starting to decrease for the armholes and also for the v-neck in another ten rows time.

I finished the red Japanese Folded Patchwork hanging too. It is now dangling from a red stick stuck into my notice board. The stick, with its ribbon, came from the same miniature rosebush my husband bought me for Valentines Day.







My poor sewing machine will have to go in for a service this next week since I just cannot get the stitch tensioning to work. I have been so careful to follow the manual, just in cse I have forgotten to do something. I just have this uncomfortable feeling that the stitch tension has got jammed somehow.

Well, the fact that my dear old friend is no longer working properly, has made me take out my Overlocker (Serger). I bought this three years ago. Although I have used it for three or four projects, I have never really felt completely confident using it. So now, I shall just have to get on with learning how to make things with it.

I have already started making a project bag. In one of my Serging technique books - yes, I did collect two once I bought the machine - I found a rather interesting idea. This was to make fabric using narrow strips of fabric with the cut edges bound by the Overlocker. In the book, it was supposed to be the pocket of a jacket. I thought the front and back panels of a bag would be of more use to me.

I had loads of fun cutting long strips of fabric from my stash.





The working title of this project is "Pyjama Bag". Simply because most of the fabric comes from a pair of pyjamas which used to belong to my husband until he wore out the jacket button band (for the third time - there just was no more fabric I could use to reinforce the damaged area).







I have an idea to quilt the sides to make them more sturdy, though this will be done by hand unless the repair to my sewing machine takes much less than the last time the repairers took it in hand. (They had it for three weeks!)







Here are the handles I plan to use. The plait is made from some more of the pyjama material. I shall need to make another plait. These, when cut, will act as the holders linking the handles to the main body of the bag.