My first bag!

Well, after my last post, instead of going away and working on perfecting my doll pattern as planned, instead I decided to make a bag. Yes, a bag. The pattern is from Lotta Jansdotter's fabulous book, Simple Sewing, and I have to say, I'm really proud of my achievment. It took me about 4 hours, start to finish (the fabric cutting out process takes me ages!), and was loads of fun! The photo doesn't really do it justice, so I will explain all the bits. The fabric I used for the outside is a medium weight 100% cotton, snapped up in the current Laura Ashley sale, and is a lovely faded blue colour. The fabric I used for the lining is a cute floral polycotton fabric in baby pink, which I spotted at a fabric stall in my local indoor market (it was a steal, too!!). I used a bit of pale rose coloured velvet ribbon that I found in Hobbycraft to line the edge of the pocket on the front, and all in all, I think it looks pretty good for my first bag!

It's funny, because I didn't really enjoy doing sewing at school. I was always afraid of the sewing machines (after my teacher gave us the ubiquitous girl in previous year didn't look what she was doing and got the needle through her finger speech), and so kept away from them as much as possible. But my little sister had her own sewing machine from a very young age, and could knock up pretty much anything if she put her mind to it. But then last October, she asked me what I would like for Christmas. I had been admiring several Cath Kidston-esque quilts from afar, and so mentioned those to her as an option. However, knowing how tight money is at the moment for everyone, I suggested that she could make me a quilt instead of buying one, as it might save her a bit of money (and we all love something handmade with love, don't we?). She agreed (the darling!), and proceeded to keep me updated with visits to fabric shops etc.

I started wondering what I was missing, and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I wanted to try this whole sewing malarky for myself. After all, I had managed to finally conquer knitting last summer (after a million and one failed attempts as a child - much to my mother's despair!!)so, maybe it was finally time for me to conquer my fear of getting a needle stuck through my finger (I actually haven't got rid of that fear, to be fair). I was already ok at hand sewing, but felt that the time was finally right to move on to bigger things. And by bigger things, I mean a sewing machine.

So when my mum asked me what I would like for Christmas, I knew immediately. Knowing nothing myself about the difference between a domestic machine and an overlocker, for example, I left the decision up to mum (she does indeed know best!), and so, on Christmas day, after an age of waiting, I was finally the proud owner of my very own shiny new scrummy yummy sewing machine!!



It is a Brother XL-5600, and I adore it!! It's a model that is now no longer made, but still fab, and I am enjoying getting to grips with it (especially figuring out what all the additional feet provided with it are for - only a couple of them are explained in the manual). Sorry there's no photo of my own machine, but my camera has gone AWOL, and Mr Deravelled's has just run out of battery (not that mysterious an occurence, seeing as the Moomin was playing with it last night!!).

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I did promise to post about my Christmas pressies ;). Mr Deravelled got me a tax disc for my car (it's what I asked for!!), and, just to prove that he is quite romantic (and to balance out the whole tax disc thing) he bought me some gorgeous underwear from Figleaves.com. AND he picked my favourite colours. AND he got the right size!! Clever Mr Deravelled!! :)