Monday 5 September 2011

Make Do and Mend Monday

If you were with me last Monday, I thought I'd come up with my perfect method to make a knitting bag with some reclaimed handles my Mum gave me, and was about to embark on it.  I'd made two the previous week and found both methods fiddly.  In the end my 'perfect' method proved to be equally fiddly - in fact I'm beginning to think that my method one was the best, but now I can't remember how I did it...

Anyway, I did get the third bag done and it is a real 'make do and mend', with nothing purchased afresh to make it.

I chose a very small curtain for the lining, made many years ago from a too-small remnant for a cottage window (hence the pink stripe!)...


A very tatty and stained tray cloth was cut up for some of the patches...


 ...along with lots of other scraps from projects of the last two decades or more...

Less than perfect piecing, but it was for me so I was being impatient!

After the piecing, I did a bit of machine quilting...


...then sewed the bits together, using my still less than perfect method.

Ooh - tacking stitches!  That's not something you usually see in my sewing!

Fiddles and frustration over, I have now been able to replace the plastic carrier from the wool shop...


With something rather more attractive...




If you pop over to 'The Cranberry Chronicles' you can find out what other people have been up to, making do and mending.

The summer holidays are drawing to an end , with Miss U-t-B returning to start year 10 and her GCSE courses on Wednesday.  I'm ready to get back into more of a usual routine - it's all been going to pot recently!  I have a few interesting projects coming up - watch this space!  

And talking of 'watching' - a big welcome to new followers and commenters -it's lovely to have you on board, especially as it so often leads me to new and inspiring blogs to read myself!

6 comments:

  1. Fabulous! I hate when I do a project and can't remember how I did it, I tend to take pics as I go along now so that I remember, getting old you know ;o)

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  2. If only I had the patience ... it looks really pretty and such a good way of using up your remnants of fabric. M x

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  3. Very pretty bag you are clever.XX

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  4. What a lovely bag for your knitting! Very sweet.

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  5. Ooohhh...I love your patchwork bag Alix! Your method looks fine to me. I would have cried as I cut up that embroidered cloth but it does look super as patchwork squares! And how fun to use all things you had to make this beauty.

    One of the ladies in my group made a bag like this with round bamboo handles and I loved it to bits! Wish I had won it for the exchange but then I won a blank book with a patchwork cover that was absolutely beautiful too. :-)

    Hugs from Holland ~
    Heidi

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  6. Perfect bag for your knitting. Love how you mixed the old embroidery in the patchwork.
    Carol xx

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