Poshed up plonk

Lately I've been rubbish.  No, scratch that, I've always been rubbish, but lately I've been rubbisher.  I keep forgetting birthdays.  I have a birthday book with birthdays in it, but I seem to be incapable of consulting it.  Even when I KNOW a birthday is coming up, I seem to register it but do nothing about getting a present and card together.  Case in point.  A friend turned 50 last week.  We didn't go to his party as it was in a club and really not our scene, which he was fine about.  So we arranged to meet him and his husband on a different day.  3 days after making this arrangement I suddenly realised a present would be needed!  Cue frantic sewing.

Men are notoriously difficult to sew for, but I had a plan.  He loves red wine, so a nice bottle of plonk with a wine cosy like this one I made for my brother at Christmas.  Mr CA was dispatched to buy a bottle of nice wine and came home with a bottle of VERY nice (read - expensive) wine.  A wine cosy was duly whipped up using the Moda Bakeshop tutorial.  I even made a little bow tie to complete the look.  Sorted.

Or not.  The wine you see in this cosy is a £5 bottle of red.  The fancy-pants wine was in a different size bottle to the normal and didn't fit.  When we first tried it and I discovered this, I could have cried.  You see, I'd decided to improve on the Bakeshop pattern, I didn't like the way the raw edges of the base piece were on show, so I sewed and turned.  The circle was too small.  I sewed and turned again.  It was still too small!  One more try and it worked.

The decision was taken (by me) to buy another bottle of wine and present him with both!  I used all black for the outside and a burgundy for the inside to give it a tuxedo-look.  And look what I discovered!  You can sew buttons on with a sewing machine!  Yes, I know, you all knew this already!  Hand sewing in the middle of a machine sewing project annoys the hell out of me.  If I'm machining, I'm machining, I'm not stopping to thread a needle and sit down and hand sew so I avoid it where-ever possible.

I whipped up the bow tie without plan or pattern.  I'd run out of the black elastic used for the button fasteners (I think it came off a clothing tag or something as I only had a small loop of it) so I added some cord to tie the bowtie at the back.  I think it looks rather smart.

I think that when I next make one of these, and I will as it's such a good gift for a bloke, I'll whip up a few to keep in reserve.   Ooh look, you can see me in my pjs, greasy hair scrapped back in the reflection!  Great photo Wendy.

I found the photo of the Zakka Style pencil case with the crochet hooks in it.

See?  Much better than the pencils!

This weekend has lots of treats in store for me, birthday meals (not mine) and a lovely trip to the vets for Colin and Ellis to have their jabs.  Oh the joy.


  

Wash bags

I'm back again with more pressies to show you!  I whipped these up at the weekend, literally.  They are so quick and easy to make.  I used the tutorial by Patchy Apple but I can't link to it for some reason.  If you do a search "Patchyapple boxy bag tutorial" it will come up. 

I made these for my dad and FIL after I realised I didn't have much for them for Christmas.  I used some lovely homespun that I had, I think it's masculine enough?

The green one is for my dad.  My mum mentioned he needed a new one so that means FIL gets one too!

It's lined with this lovely stripy fabric I found in my stash - no idea where it came from!

The only criticism I have of the pattern is that the raw edges are seen inside.  The pattern says to finish them with a serger, which I don't have, or a zig zag stitch, but it's still a little messy for my liking.  I might try to make a version without raw seams after Christmas.

This one is lined with dots from Breakfast At Tiffany's.  The pattern said to line them with canvas, which I didn't have, but I'd have liked to have lined them with a waterproof material.  Unfortunately I don't have any and I'm not doing any more supplies shopping!

The world's second worst ever binding

Well have I got a treat for you today ladies!  Today you get to see the terrible job I made of two birthday presents, and you get to see the world's second worst ever binding.  Lucky ladies!

Men are notoriously difficult to make for, so when I saw this tutorial I decided to make one for my dad's birthday later this month, and my father-in-law's birthday early next month.  I spotted this tutorial ages and ages ago and got it into my head that I needed clear vinyl for the job.  After whinging about the lack of sewable vinyl in England, the lovely Sandra got in touch and offered me some of her friend Nancy's vinyl.  With Nancy's blessing of course!  I sent some Tilda charms in return and it led to a wonderful friendship with these too fantastic ladies, so I'm ever grateful to clear vinyl for that.  I'm not grateful to clear vinyl for anything else.

I started following the tutorial, but soon left it to one side and struck out on my own.  Why??  I have no idea.  If I'd followed the tutorial I might not have made such a hash off it.

I used some newspaper print linen and a dark green print for the lining.  I thought I'd have to fold the vinyl a little to make room in the pockets as it has no stretch. 

Oh dear.  That was a mistake.  The clear vinyl did not play nicely.  I used a leather needle, but I might have benefitted from putting on my non-slip foot before the last few stitches!  Sometimes I am just so dim.

Then came the binding.  Not fun.   Not neat.  Not well sewn at all.  A complete and utter bodge job.  Though not the worst binding ever, only the second worst binding ever.

See?

See?

Yuck.  I filled them up anyway, after wrestling with those damn poppers for half an hour.  I hate bloody poppers.  I put in some bits and bobs like ice scrappers, a torch, some mints, a demister... stuff you sometimes need in a car.

They'll have to do.  I doubt the dad's will even notice.

So why isn't this the worst binding ever, as clearly it's bloody rubbish?  Because I did some even worse binding after that!!  Stay tuned for that reveal.