I meant to post something here last week, but by the time I got around to getting started it was too dark to take any photos.

Another mixed bag this week – odds and ends of things. Above is my current train tatting – still on the daisies, but this time pink. I just loaded up the shuttles with what looked like a sensible about of thread, and will carry on until it runs out. It’s lovely to tat like this – there’s a few onion rings in there as leaves (not shown above), and a few standard daisies as well. It’s just a bit of meandering about, no set pattern, which is quite nice for a change. I was thinking about getting some gauze, the kind people makes scarves from, and tatting an edging for it… I thought it could be a good ongoing project, perhaps?

In stark contrast, here’s a new drawstring bag I made! For christmas I received an extremely generous gift – a voucher for the Make Lounge. I spent a long time thinking about the type of class I’d like to take, and in the end, decided on screen printing. I wanted something that would be fun, but that I could possibly do at home. (I thought long and hard about sewing, but classes are all taught on an electric machine, and it felt weird being unfaithful to my Singer!) Then of course, I needed to think of something to print, so drew a monkey, and some elephants:

Now, the thing with this type of screen printing is that you have to cut it by hand — and we didn’t have time to do repeat patterns, and so I adapted the characters a little on the night. (I prefer the planned monkey, but went a bit nuts and cut it differently by accident!) 

Unlike everyone else, I took some calico with me, and screen printed a couple of extra prints. I wasn’t too sure – I’m still not too sure – what to do with them, but once you’ve got the screen working, seems a bit nuts not to make the most of it. I pre-washed the calico, and flippin’ eck, it’s not easy to iron, is it? Yes, I DID iron it while it was still damp, but to no avail. Amusingly, I saw that Patch had the same issues last week.

They gave as a little bag to screenprint, which you can see on the left. It’s really cute – child sized. I also have a tea towel with a monkey on each end.

It was a great evening – amazing how fast you can relax and forget about work and all your troubles when you have something fun to do! I’m not sure if I will screen print at home – does require space, and creates a lot of mess, but it did get me thinking about lino printing, which I’ve not done since college, and used to love. I know you can do that with a roller for the ink and the back of a spoon for a press, so we shall see…

 

And finally, I thought I’d use up a few scraps, and try a log cabin lavender bag. As you can see, this ended up rectangular rather than square as I decided it was getting too big. The patch with the ‘7685’ on it is the selvedge of the dotted fabric, which I quite like. It’s an odd little thing, but quite cute in real life. Now it lives in the monkey bag with the other scraps and makes them smell nice.

Hope you’re all having good weekends!