Coated cotton tote bag

Back to bags! I've made myself a new swimming bag, with coated cotton (vinyl cotton) from John Lewis.  I got this fabric back in March, but kept putting off cutting it up in case the bag didn't turn out how I imagined it.



However, all is well and I'm really pleased with this bag!  Inside there is a zipped pocket - tricky to do in the vinyl, so I used strips of Bondaweb to hold the opening quite flat while I stitched in the zip.  You can see my zipped pocket tutorial here.



In the picture above you can also see there's a vinyl facing above the cotton lining.  I'm hoping that will stop the bag soaking up too much water when I grab it from the locker with wet hands!



Somehow the bag looks smaller in these pictures than in real life. There's plenty of room for a big towel and all the other bits you need when you go swimming, but the bag is not too enormous to carry over your shoulder.  I need to write up how I made this one (before I forgot) so I can whip up some Christmas presents!

Vicky x

Flower garden tea cosy

I made another tea-cosy, this one for a friend who's a gardener.  Most of these colours are Aran-weight left-overs, perfect for creating a colourful bunch of flowers.



Tea cosy body, flowers and leaves are from two of Loani Prior's fabulous books - How Tea Cosies Changed The World and Really Wild Tea Cosies.



Felt bobbles finish off the bottom edge nicely (I didn't make these though).



Flowers made from a mixture of Noro scraps and Aran wool from Commodum in Ireland.  Felt balls in the middle finish them off nicely!



This is the third of Loani Prior's teacosies I've knitted, but the first I've blogged.  The first was this mad creation, made with A LOT of Noro wool - I absolutely love this one and it's always a talking point when people pop in for a cuppa!



The second (also not blogged) was 'Devilish', which I made for a small white teapot.  So funny this one.



I've got another of Loani's teacosies lined up to knit for a Christmas present, which will be number four.  I'm off to make a cup of tea!
xx

Pumpkin madness

This one's random - here's a giant tissue-paper-and-sticks pumpkin I made for Halloween!

It fitted on top of our little boat, so it could spookily drift around the lake. Wooo-oooo!!

Second trail tote

Following my birdy trail tote, here's one with a leather flower - a commission in orange spotty linen.  The pattern is by Noodlehead (and it's free! here)



This one's the same size as my blue birdy one (that's medium, which isn't in the pattern).  It has grey piping, and a grey strap, and leather details - an applique flower and tabs for the magnetic snap.

Inside, the lining is an Ikea furnishing fabric.



As before I used the suede-y back of the leather for the flower.  I tried to machine stitch it on but got lots of skipped stitches, so went back to hand sewing - need to work on this as machine stitching would be so much quicker.

The recipient was very pleased with her bag, so a success all round.  I've made lots of things lately that haven't got blogged, so there will be more posts very soon!

Vicky xx