A day of crafting

This weekend I went home to Gloucestershire to see my Mum and Stepdad. Mum had taken the Friday off work so we could spend the whole day crafting! I particularly wanted to try and master the zip, however we hunted high and low and Mum couldn't find her zipper foot (typical) so we just had to make do (I should add that as soon as I left she found it...).

It was very odd at first using someone elses machine, but fun all the same. Mum has still got her trusty Singer. She's had it over 30 years; it's older than me! I actually found it far less troublesome than mine too.

 

I had decided I wanted to make a few little purses, so had purchased some 7 inch zips from the excellent Brighton Sewing Centre. I'd found what seemed like a pretty simple pattern in quite a popular sewing book (that I won't name...) but when I got down to it, it was terrible! It made absolutely no sense, so I did what I always do in that situation, I used common sense. My Mum is a big advocate of just doing it your own way and seeing how it pans out. I might add that I am the complete opposite of this, I very much like things by the book, so I was out of my comfort zone. It was nice to know Mum was there if it all went pear shaped!

So we took a little while to figure out what we were doing, but once we had it was incredibly easy. 

 

My first attempt was pretty good! Although without a zipper foot, it wasn't all that easy to get it tidy on the inside.  I did a few small ones to start with:

 

A great tip from Mum was to zigzag over the stitch to reinforce it:

 

Next I decided to do a bigger one with the gorgeous teacup fabric I've been so desperate to use. However, as the fabric was so light it definitely needed lining. I chose a red zip to make it stand out a bit more. The end result with the lining made it feel much higher quality, however the zip I chose was a big chunky metal one, which proved very tricky without said zipper foot. This meant I had to end up keeping the end of the zip on the inside, which made it a bit wonky...but in the words of my Mum "It's supposed to look handmade!!" 

Finally I made one more with the Michael Miller teapot fabric I had left over from the memo board.

 

To finish off our crafty day, Mum wanted me to show her how to make the corsage I posted on here.We improvised a bit as I hadn't brought any proper backing pins, but hey...safety pins are just as good!

 

All in all, it really was such a fantastic way to spend the day. 

 

Crafty Provisions

• Some excellent music (we opted for a 60s compilation for extra singing)
• Copious amounts of tea
• Cake - our sweet treat of choice was the bakewell tart
• A Mum who is very excellent at preventing tantrums when zips don't do what you want them to and things don't look "absolutely perfect"