Do you remember my frustration at having a design idea in the early hours of the morning but not having time to bring it into reality? Well, I managed to carve out enough time to make up these before I left on holiday. Even if it meant not packing until a couple of hours before we left.What? Packing was less important...

If the scheduled posting is working properly then hopefully by now I will have delivered one of these to the birthday girl (as I write I am leaning towards giving her the blue one), and I will be making good use of the other one.

These are the prototypes of one design line for my shop, so shhhhh! They are constructed from sturdy white linen and individually embellished by me and my trusty little sewing machine. The interiors are 100% cotton with an elastic closure over a vintage button. The buttons are selected from a supplier in the Noordermarkt in Amsterdam.

I am besotted with them. They are absolutely my favourite way to dress up an outfit for the weekend. Spacious enough for the essentials (24cm across the bottom) and lovely to hold due to the compressed fleece between the exterior and interior fabrics.

Let me know what you think.

P.S. Apologies for the lighting in the photos. It was late and I have no time to edit before we leave.

I received Amy Karol's book Bend the Rules Sewing from Amazon last Thursday and was determined to make something out of it as soon as possible.

Look what accompanied me to the concert on Friday...

Adorable, no? It was just big enough to fit the essentials (purse, keys , lipgloss, phone) and tucked neatly under my arm for dancing. Perfect.

The creative streak continued over the weekend and I finally hit on a use for the meter and a half of white linen I snagged from the scrap bin in Ikea on my last visit for a whole 0.80 Euros. Following a tutorial linked in the Bend the Rules Sewing Flickr Group I managed to produce six lovely white linen napkins for less than a Euro - not bad going.

The bags and other items I make have been generating a lot of scraps and offcuts lately. I hate to throw things away so I keep anything that might be usable in a scrap box. I thought about using them for the coasters in the book but random surfing led me to this tutorial and I whipped up these coasters quick smart from my scrap box, with no hand sewing required. Incredibly easy and I love that they fit over the base of a wine glass so that wherever you put the glass down it has its own coaster.

I had been looking for the right bag project for this fat quarter of poppy fabric for a few weeks. I got my hands on some Loop Frame Purse Handles in the UK a week ago and thought it would be a great way to try out the U-Handblog tutorial.

Nestled In posted pictures of their new living room today and referenced Ink and Spindle as a fabric source.

Wow.

I had been looking for unique fabrics to turn into scatter cushions for the new sofa and these absolutely hit the mark. Limited edition, hand screen printed fabrics using environmentally friendly inks.

After much deliberation (and checking the import tax limits) I have chosen the following:

The exchange rate means that these fabrics are very affordable. I can't wait for them to arrive.

This was my weekend...

 

Clockwise from top right:

• A quote designed and framed for my desk, a further copy in a different colour sent in pdf to a friend in the US.
• My first ever attempt at pillows was a roaring success using this tutorial and these photos as inspiration.
• A small stack of tissue holders which I have been making to practice my sewing skills.
• My Friday flowers - white tulips and pink hyacinths to encourage spring to creep a little closer.

I also made puff pastry for the first time, completely by accident. If this recipe had mentioned that the pastry was puff I would never even have tried it (too fiddly, I can't make puff pastry, I'll just buy it or substitute short crust etc.) But I did it and it was glorious. As suggested I served it with mustard vinaigrette doused green veg, but tender stem broccoli instead of beans as that is what I had in the fridge.

 

It was a good cooking weekend. Sunday night also saw a storming pasta in a creamy sauce of homemade pesto with chargrilled asparagus and a caprese salad on the side.

Roll on next weekend...