Operation Cloverfield

I’m writing this to you all today in my garden, which can only mean one thing! The sun is shining! Woo hoo! Do you know how difficult it is to see a laptop screen in full sunshine though? It’s nigh on impossible, let me tell you that! The sun is momentarily behind a big fluffy cloud so I can actually see what I’m writing *lol* I know I’m behind with my blog posts, but the weather’s been kinda nice and I’ve had things to do, marking and such and so I’ve been putting it off. I’ve spent the morning gardening and making falls for tomorrow’s Hafla and I’ve just got back from taking the Uberhound for a walk, so I thought I’d drag the laptop down to the garden and kill two birds with one stone; enjoy the sun in the garden and update my blog! So term is nearly, nearly finished, I have one group left who have their last day tomorrow and then I’m done. Well, done apart from Summer School. I think I have alot more timetabling for this years summer school, thank goodness, including Art and English (knew it was a good idea to do that course *lol*) and also some trips (hurray!) and I have a summer school application to put in for another school, so hopefully I’ll be able to scrape though the summer without incurring too much debt!

It’s been so lovely to have my free time back. With the end of my teaching term, and the passing of my course, I have so much free time now! Even with the invigilation that I’ve been doing for a couple of weeks, I’ve still managed to get some crafting time in.  But first, let me tell you all about the visit I had from the yarn fairy! I haven’t had a chance to thank her publically yet, but look!

 

The super sweet, totally generous Laural sent me such a box of goodies that I was beside myself with excitement! I had to wave at my other self from across the box as we reached inside to examine what she’d sent…

 

 

    

 

And ta da! There has been much petting of the Noro in the last week or so. I shall torment myself with possible projects worthy of it’s glorious rainbow-ness! Thank you so much Laural!!!

 

 

And so what else have I been up to? Well, there has been much crafting for my partner in the Hippy Swap that I’m organising over on Craftster. I’m not going to show you the actual projects at the moment just in case she’s checking in on my blog, but I can show you teaser shots can’t I?

 

 

This was a quick project which I made to take a break from the Big project, a project which has taken me twice as long as I’d planned, mainly because I had a brilliant idea to add something to it which doubled it’s size!

 

 

Of course this means that my garden blanket has progressed no further, which means that I’m still lolling on a wooden seated bench rather than a blanketed one! I haven’t done much more on my BPT hoodie either which I’m okay with because I probably won’t wear it till the weather turns anyway. I’ve done a little more on my funky hippy trousers…

There’s more little embroidered flowers and more sequins which you can’t see too well because the camera isn’t picking them up.

On Monday I started making my costume for this weeks Hafla. I’d been trying to find some nice sari fabric to make a glittery skirt or trousers with, but I couldn’t find any that I liked, then I found a batik sarong which I loved, so I had a little change in plan and decided to make a kind of beach inspired costume, sort of hippy tribal fusion if you like! I wanted to keep the fringing on because I love sarongs and I wanted to keep that feel about it, but I needed to be able to move about in it, so I cut it along the top to make it the right length for my short little legs, and sewed an elastic casing along the top. Then I held the two pieces of fringing together and sewed halfway down, so that the fringing would kind of cascade down the side, and there would be a split in the skirt, to allow for dancing! I wanted to keep the fullness of the fabric too.

Then I threaded elastic through and voila! A skirt! One that won’t flap open in the wind and cause you embarrassment. One that won’t bind your legs together and stop you from running for the bus!

And the bit that I cut off the top, I overlocked so that I could use it as a scarf because it still has a bit of fringing on. I’m going to wear it as a headscarf with my falls.

But something wasn’t right. I’m not a big fan of elasticised waists, with my slightly pear-shaped hips, I find them a little unflattering, but I couldn’t think of a better way to do it….or could I? My brain examined the problem all night and about four o’clock in the morning I had an epiphany! Yep, it was that big a deal! I remembered as a child having those summer dresses with smocking at the top…now that would pull the fabric in a bit snugger round my hips and look a lot more flattering…Hmmmm. But I don’t know how to do smocking…

So I got up bright and early and pulled out my collection of vintage sewing books and looked at the smocking section and figured out how to do it with my trusty lil’ Brother machine. Luckily I had some elastic in my sewing stash…

I threaded my bobbin by hand so that the elastic wasn’t pulled tight..

and had a little practice…

So you sew with regular thread through the front, and the elastic goes along the back, and you use regular tension and slightly longer stitches. I had my tiniest needle because I’m sewing through fine fabric. Then I tackled the real thing…

The stitch might be called smock stitch, but when you stitch lines of it together, it becomes shirring. It starts to gather itself.

And here’s the finished thing! I love it! This was my very first smocking project and it was so easy I had one of those duurrr moments where you think, why was I intimidated by this? Why have I never done this before? Well, it won’t be my last time! I’m going to be looking through my wardrobe now for all those skirts that I don’t wear too much because of the unflattering waistline! Woo hoo! Look again!

I love it and I’m going to be wearing this loads this summer I think!

And I’ve been making my falls for the show today as well…there’s some yarn falls, and some hand felted ones. The orange is from orange flavoured Kool-Aid sent by Kerstin (Dragonflyducky) last year!

And I’ve been walking the Uberhound…

Can you believe that’s the remains of an old wall under that tree?! How old must that be?

Hope your weeks been good?