Bits and Bobbins

Bits and Bobbins: First Week of April

Carkai bag at jujuvail.comThis week I was laid-up in bed for days with a nasty stomach flu and migraine. It’s torture to have fever dreams of sewing and not being able to act upon them.

  • I have just started to feel better, so there has been a little sewing, on the bags I have cut out. They came together quickly and easily. I was grateful for the motor of my new Juki sewing machine to get through all the layers. I have never used fusible foam before and I think it is quite the marvel. I want to test more varieties.
bag with fusible foam at jujuvail.com
Another bag with a layer of interfacing and a layer of fusible foam. I cut away the foam from the area that will have a dart.

 

  • Now I am waiting for leather for the fastener and handles for three bags. I’ve ordered them online but next time I want to go shopping for skins myself. I’d love to make a bag from a skin like this.

metallic pig skin

  • I listened to Adam Buxton’s Bowie Wallow podcasts. I love Adam Buxton and he hasn’t disappointed with these podcasts where he mourns the loss of Bowie and muses on the nature of aging, heroes and inspiration. I once spent an afternoon looking at paintings with Bowie. He was a unique, intelligent man and I can understand why he was so idolised.
  • final BowieThere’s lots of discussion and held breath, at my knit night, over season 2 of Outlander, which is coming to Amazon Prime this weekend. I should wax lyrical about the wonderful costumes. I mean just look at these glorious tartans

Outlander

and this knitted shawl.

outlander-episode-8

but there’s really only one thing that I am eagerly awaiting…Sam Heughan

  • I have been looking for a casual coat dress pattern inspired by this.

coat dress

I’ve looked through coats and dresses and haven’t found anything quite like it. I guess it’s a linen duster coat. Can anyone suggest a pattern? No Tina Given though. Her fit is crazy. I will make a pattern myself if no one can suggest one.

  • Kim won Fug Madness 2016 which seems about right.

8 thoughts on “Bits and Bobbins: First Week of April

    1. Folkwear is a good idea, I hadn’t thought of that. I remember they have a smock pattern that might work. I’ll have a look, thanks.

    2. On Bowie: I was looking at an exhibition of paintings, with a friend, at The Whitechapel, about 20 years ago. We were alone in the gallery. A handsome man came in to the gallery and I thought he looked a lot like Bowie but was too short to be Bowie. After a while he came over and looked at a painting with us and started to enthuse about the artist. Of course, as soon as I looked in his eyes I knew it was him. We spent the next 40 minutes going around the gallery and looking at the paintings together. He loved the painter (whose name I can’t remember but I remember the paintings) and was very intelligent and insightful in his comments. It was a pleasure to enjoy the exhibition with him, although I doubt I would have remembered the incident if it had been some unknown man. I do talk to strangers every where I go, but he initiated the conversation. I think he was so enthusiastic that he wanted to share it with someone else.

  1. Have you seen Linnet patterns from Japan? I have never ordered from them but love to look at their pattern range, which includes lots of smock style dresses, similar to your picture, a duster coat and bags too.

    1. Maggie, You’re a star. I hadn’t seen Linnet before. Of course their patterns are like a lot of the ones available in Japanese sewing books and magazines but I’m really interested. They seem to only do paper patterns though, no pdfs. I found the perfect coat pattern there. I will investigate further.
      Thanks so much.

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