A Day Out

We have had a bit of a change today and went out for the afternoon, my husband had booked a day off so we thought we would make the most of it.  We went  to Cleethorpes, we haven't been there for years and it is only an hour away. As it is a Friday we thought it wouldn't be too busy as most people go for the weekend and don't set off until Friday teatime.  It was still quite busy as lots of people were there with young children, there were also a couple of school trips on the beach.  Unfortunately we couldn't take the dogs down onto the sand but walked along the front instead.

 It has been a good day for the weather, the sun did keep disappearing behind a cloud and it was very breezy but I have to say that is better for the dogs.  If it had been blazing sunshine we would have had to get them out of the heat after a short walk, but with the wind and the cloud we managed a good walk.

There was also a lovely boating pond (no boats on it!) full of ducks that we walked around and had our picnic there. We were very prepared today, icepacks in the rucksack, sandwiches, tomatoes, crisps and drinks.  We also managed to park around the corner from one of the main car parks for free, very frugal!

This one clearly is clearly after some food, we didn't feed it as we didn't have  appropriate food.

 This area was beautiful and very well kept.

There was a path leading to a nature reserve, we didn't take that as it involved walking through long grass and two of us had bare legs, I am a bit cautious of getting a tick from long grass having seen one they are hideous things!

We didn't choose to walk around the town after but headed home before the work traffic started to build up, we always try and plan any outing around the least possible traffic.

When I got home I managed to get a load of weeding done and re-pot one of my planters with some of my seedlings from the greenhouse.  I have quite a lot of black flies/aphids on some of my plants I am finding the only solution where there are so many is to remove the affected plants.  It is not too bad as I have spent very little and the garden is full of colour at the moment, all the seed planting paid off. 

Sewing Blue

I think I need to shake things up a bit when choosing my fabric, I have just set out the fabric for my latest make and once again it is blue.  When I am choosing it I must just go into default mode as it is only when it arrives that I realise I have once again chosen the blue option. A couple of my makes were featured on the Minerva Crafts Blog on Sunday 7th (I've had to amend this as I was given a different date!) so if you would like a look go have a look on the blog, you'll have to go back a bit,   but they are of course blue.  Some of you have seen a peek of these before...

This top.

This dress also.

I have to say they have had a bit of wear already, the dress is comfy and the top goes well with jeans, if you want the full details just follow the link above to Minerva. So as I said this came to mind as I was planning my current make, this fabric...

Maybe I can let myself off the hook a little as I did make the green and grey cami on Friday but that was more of a using up small pieces project.   I wonder if any of you find yourselves going into auto pilot and making the same sorts of choices with fabric or wool. It does make sense to shop what you will wear of course but do we sometimes get stuck in a colour rut without realising it?

Here is a little compilation of some of the other blue makes, not including the one above, so as you can see a bit of a theme.  It also seems to have been the last year or so. Note to self to be more adventurous with the fabric choices.

I have just read 'Grit: Why Passion and Resilience are the Keys to Success ' by Angela Duckworth this past week.  It was an interesting read and makes a lot of sense when you consider some of the people who go on to do great things, they are not always the people who were outstanding students or particularly gifted.

 Following on from that one I read 'So Good They Can't Ignore You' by Cal Newport, this was also enjoyable but not always realistic.  A lot of the career stories mentioned  were of people in fields where there is a lot of room for growth and promotion.  While it is always preferable to be doing your best in anything you do, late hours, working and taking no holidays as a life is dedicated to a certain job has seen some people cast aside redundant after many years of service.  Some are simply overlooked no matter what while others may progress  by doing very little, but have the connections, say the right things and so on.  I think in some cases circumstances just fall right for some and other times life just doesn't go that way.   This particular author is very interesting and has achieved a lot, I have another book of his on my to read list and I find his ideas fascinating.  I just think we have to be prepared for the fact that unfortunately good work does sometimes go unnoticed and that is just the way it is, but to not let it ruin the next venture because there will always be something else.  This reminds me of what I mentioned a couple of weeks ago regarding exam results.  Young people need to be aware that there are many paths, some careers may not work out and some will, plus our plans can and will change.  To be believe in a sole dedication to one thing or else is quite dangerous. What do you think? 

Long Quarter Cami

This past couple of days this make has gone through a few changes.  I decided to use the white cotton with my bird print to make my cami top and then I played around with various effects to make the frill look like it had a bit of movement even though the fabric didn't.  At first I tried cutting a wavy effect at the bottom of the fabric and then edging it really close to produce a wave.  I forget to photograph this!  I tried it on the top but I felt the effect just looked badly made so I trimmed it straight.  After that I tried on the top with the white fabric, again I was not happy as the white fabric looked just like a sheet but then that is after all what it is ;) so off with that.  Finally I cut out the green scrap of fabric (cotton challis)  much better!  I instantly felt this was the right choice so went ahead with finishing up.  After deciding the frill was not an option I left the bird fabric as a loose panel back and front over the green.

I have used the fabric so sparing so I even have some left, I cut small pieces going in the correct direction for the straps then stitched them together to make a long length matching the birds as I went.  So this has left me with a big enough piece to go into a bag. 

Another detail that I added was to put a few gather stitches at the front, just enough to pull the front down a little.  When I tried it on I felt it needed a bit more shape so this was the solution.  Had this been a plain top I may have added a few buttons or a bow there too but as it is patterned it doesn't need it.

On the inside I used homemade bias binding again, this time it was  made a while ago from one of my husbands old shirts.  The colours just happened to be spot on.

As you can see here it goes straight across at the back, I left the top panel hanging away from the green fabric and handstitched a hem on it.    It does look like what I had in my head apart from the  bottom of the print being straight and not frilly, that may not be a bad thing as my husband never seems to like things that are too frilly anyway so this is more likely to get his approval.  

In all I am very pleased with this make, the only new item was the long quarter at £2.50, the green was leftover fabric, bias binding I had already made and the cotton was one I already owned.  Even though it went through a few transitions I enjoyed the process, it is good to try different things to see what works because without that I wouldn't have ended up with this. 

If anyone else decides to give this a go pleased link back to me and leave me a comment, I would love to see other people trying this out with all the lovely craft cottons out there.