Well, it's nearly finished.

Sorry about the skipped week; not sure how the last two weeks have got away from me (apart from the worky thing; always a pain!)

So, very little accomplished in the crafty domain, so decided to knuckle down and have a play!

Some weeks ago, I visited Reading and found Fabric Land. Naturally, I purchased a little (!) fabric, amongst which was some black 'coating' fabric. It has the feel of felt and behaves as felt does, not fraying when cut, and the label indicated some wool content.

Yesterday, my Aunt asked for a new bag. After her description, brain went into design mode and the following is the result. Now, Aunt, this is probably not what you had in mind, it's just what came into mine. This is not necessarily yours - unless you want it to be!

So, cut out two pieces like this, plus a bottom.

Flowers sewn on with freee motion machine stitch; pearly beads added to the centre

Pieces of fabric added to the triangular flaps (left one before embellisher, right one after)

And the almost complete bag

Almost completed because - and this will beggar belief for those who know me! - I don't have any black-based fabric for lining in my stash. None. Zip. Zilch.

Plan is that this will be a drawstring bag like DD made for her textiles exam, with the triangles gathering. Hmm, not sure how this will work in practice.

If Aunt doesn't want it, it will be in my shop as soon as it's done!

The start of February

Well hello! Another mad week at work; you do not know how much I'm looking forward to half term (even if I only have a couple of days off)!

Helped a friend with her GCSE textiles today. She'd done a bag - very nicely too - but it wasn't enough to satisfy the Geography teacher. Yes, that's right folks; her textile's teacher's main subject is Geography and this is a sideline. S she decided to create a flex frame purse

I'm sorely tempted at this point to have a little rant about teachers and their subjects. Hey, I teach ICT and could probably do a reasonable job teaching textiles, so I'm not suggesting people can't diversify. But having been through this with my daughter and now her friend (who's slightly younger), I get tad frustrated seeing young people having the stuffing and enthusiasm knocked out of them.

OK, rant over!

Said daughter came to me yesterday. 'Mum, I'd like a new bag. All the ones in the shops are a bit big; I'd like a saddle bag style, just big enough for my purse, phone and a bottle of water. Oh, and my passport, because I could use it when I go to Berlin. Oh, and a cover for my passport would be cool'.

Berlin is her History trip. She leaves Tuesday. Hmmm. So here is the Berlin bag:

There's a slip pocket at the front to put the passport. Sadly, said passport is currently naked, as my sewing machine thought it would be a good idea to stop working just before the bag was complete. I'm so lucky to have a reserve machine; when I bought my singing and dancing machine, I kept the old one for the daughter to use.

Phew!