Hunk-free zone

After yesterday's fiasco (the case of the disappearing post) I am going to stay safe today and risk disappointing you by steering away from posting pictures of hunky Italians. (Special apologies to Joanna, who I know will be most disappointed of all!)

Anyway, all that tearing out and filing of projects got me inspired, and so today I am going to share with you what I managed to finish today.  It came from the 'Nautical' section of my folder and was pulled only recently from a copy of 'Country Living'.  Here it is...

I have a little boat in the downstairs bathroom that I bought a good number of years ago at Kempton Park Antiques Market.

It had a rather shabby and stained sail, and lots of its rigging was broken, but I liked it all the same.

I don't think it has any real age to it, its name 'Lloret de Mar' hinting perhaps at it having arrived from the Costa Brava in the era of package holidays!  

I rifled through my fabrics and selected these two.  The one on the left (appropriately a piece of voile) came from Rag Rescue  and the one on the right from Sal's Snippets.  They are both so pretty that I couldn't chose between them, but as I needed two sail shapes I didn't chose - my boat could have both.

I pinned my sail onto a right-sides-together sandwich of the two fabrics and stitched round with it in situ (leaving a turning gap), then trimmed and turned it.

 Having learnt about using the twin needle on any machine, I decided to top-stitch my sail in two different shades - white and pale blue. 

I took a raggedy scrap of the voile that otherwise would have ended up in the bin and painted it with PVA to make it possible to cut up really small.   You'll never guess what this will be...

I twisted some old darning thread into thicker lengths to created my rigging (it would have been good to have some thin twine for this, but I was unable to get out to the shops as I was Sophia sitting...

Here she is, clutching a worrying DVD - 'Wild Child'!
She wasn't watching it, just gnawing on the box!

...and I was impatient to finish.

And once our little sweetie had nodded off for a nap, finish it I did...

My boat is off for a regatta - hence the addition of bunting.

I re-named my boat to remind me of a favourite song.  Can you see it?