Granny Square Book Cover & Pencil Scribblings

I am just coming to the end of the notebook I carry around with my crochet and sewing projects and will shortly need to start a new one. This notebook has become disproportionately valuable to me and I would hate to lose it - it contains all my pencilled notes on the things I've made over the last few years - variations on patterns I've followed, but have adapted or tweaked (because I seem to be incapable of just following a pattern, exactly as it is given); lists of fabrics, yarn names and colours; scribbled references to blogs or books; hook sizes used to make particular things - almost the most useful info in the entire book, especially if I've put a project aside for a while and then returned to it and cannot remember what on earth size hook I originally used; templates and pattern pieces, cut from newspaper or the backs of Earl Grey tea packets, drift occasionally to the floor from its pages, as well as oddments of yarn, receipts and snippets of fabric; there are written notes, and little drawings, sketches and diagrams that all chart my hooky and sewing progress and the book's cover is now endearingly dog-eared. It's become a kind of friend who marks my creative life alongside me. Looking back through it, I can instantly recapture the mood associated with particular projects and times, even though it is by no means a diary and it only charts one very particular aspect of my life. I shall be sad to come to the final page but hopefully, in time, Volume 2 will be as precious to me as Volume 1.

I say "pencilled notes" because I only write, or draw, in pencil, in this book. Pencil feels creatively provisional to me - it is reassuringly easy to erase and rewrite - but in a way it's strange to have information that I really want to preserve, mapped in such an ephemeral medium. When I was at university, my tutor was very sniffy about writing in pencil and claimed it reflected a "lack of willingness to commit to a given thesis and a lack of confidence in what one was expressing". I didn't agree then (and I don't agree now) that that is always a bad thing.

There's a softness about pencil notes that makes the transition from thought in the mind, to arrival on paper, easy and because writing in ink always feels more definite, it can restrict experimental expression, whether written or drawn. Pencil invites the experimental -  it says, "Don't be afraid to try something, even if you decide it doesn't work and want to redo it or rework it." It says, "Why not push the limits, because you can always change your mind?" Ink is more demanding and less open to possibility and playing with options. It says, "Are you sure about this? Because if not, think again!" It says, "Stick to what is tried and tested rather than potentially make the mistake of playing around with what you don't know will work." Perhaps my tutor was right to be pejorative about a pencilled essay discussing Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" but for notes exploring creative options and marking creative progress, the open possibilities of graphite, I find much more congenial and comfortable than the unequivocal definition of ink.

Anyway I digress. Notebook Volume 2 is waiting in the wings and actually has quite a pretty pink cover of its own already, but I'd seen Sue Pinner's pattern for a notebook cover in "Granny Squares" and it seemed like a nice small-scale project that would have the benefit of making the notebook distinctively difficult to lose or, (God forbid!), leave behind somewhere, and the nature of its construction would supply the book with two convenient pockets for all the things that currently have a tendency to drop out of the old one.

So here it is. Complete with the first pickings from my slightly-dilatory-but-getting-there, sweet peas whose colours happen to harmonise rather nicely with the granny square centres.

I experimented with the colours of the tiny grannies a bit and wondered about making them all different but in the end I restricted the number of centre colours to six and made all the outer rounds in this chartreuse green. The squares are worked on a 3.75mm hook and I've used Cascade Ultra Pima cotton yarn from my stash. I usually use a 4mm hook with the Cascade Ultra Pima but this time I went down a size to make sure the squares came out nice and dense.

I know it's bright, but I love the way this kind of lime green acts unexpectedly, almost as a neutral colour, setting off all the others, while still blowing its own bright trumpet. I used the same green to crochet all the squares together once I had them arranged as I wanted them. I just can't get on with joining-as-you-go, somehow - quite apart from getting the components lined up as I want them, which I can't always decide on happily in advance, my joining-as-you-go efforts always look lumpy rather than smooth and even. I know many of you hooky people swear by it as a method and it saves a lot of time, so I wonder if I am simply doing it wrong. Perhaps I must try again.

The button is a printed wooden one

- couldn't resist them when I saw them here.

The cover is held in place by two panels of straightforward (but deliciously stripy!) single crochet, crocheted onto the border of the outer cover, to make two "sleeves" at either end. Perfect for holding templates, small pattern pieces, yarn labels or other vital scraps as well as their primary function of holding the cover on the book.

And the loop for the button neatly holds a nice fat twiggy pencil in place, ready for use. I like these pencils. They are made from Indian Neem twigs. Not very practical to sharpen as they are too fat to fit any normal pencil-sharpener and when blunt, require the judicious application of a very sharp craft knife, but they remain useable for a surprisingly long time and their quirky, slightly irregular shape, sits in harmony with the invitation to irregular possibility, that writing or drawing in pencil offers.

In his rather grim poem, "Dolor", Theodore Roethke writes "I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils, neat in their boxes" and you may agree with Roethke, but I can't see it that way. As a school-girl of around eight or nine, one of my favourite rainy break-time activities was to wend my way along the long corridor that led to "Stationery" and visit dear, kind Mrs Pepper in her treasure-store. The little room was piled high with new exercise books, pink blotting paper, pairs of compasses (with inch-long stiletto points, that would now be deemed far too dangerous to allow in the classroom, but which we blithely wielded without the slightest anxiety, or indeed, injury) and boxes of beautiful, shiny new pencils, each tipped with a soft, new rubber, on one end. On production of a completed exercise book, or a note initialled by the teacher, you could collect new supplies, gratis, but you could also purchase items for yourself, for next to nothing.

"Stationery" smelt of paper and wood-shavings, coffee and filing boxes. It was a little hidden world in which no mistakes ever marred the white, squared pages of the red mathematics books (unlike mine, back in my desk, which was a sorry mess of painfully reworked sums, rubbings out and red ink crosses); creamy sheets of graph-paper waited expectantly for the perfect points of new "H" or even "2H" pencils to draw flamboyant, rainbow arcs against their checkered skies; ordinary "HB" pencils "neat in their boxes", held, not "inexorable sadness", but the promise of stories and poems waiting to be written and drawings that, you never knew, might give Picasso a run for his money; all was possible somehow and when the bell rudely ended my exploration of Mrs Pepper's wares, I never failed to return to the afternoon's lessons that awaited, without feeling re-energised and somehow encouraged to renew my efforts at intractable maths problems or whatever was on the timetable. I still love stationery shops and can happily wile away the odd half hour in them although they don't have the same evocative smell as the secret, paper-and-pencil-filled nooks of Mrs Pepper's hideaway, all those years ago.

Happy Hooking and Scribbling!

E x

Apron Love and Hooky Tulips

I don't know whether anyone else has been captivated by the front cover of June's "Country Living" but I am afraid I took one look and fell in love with the idea of sitting in a flowery, sunny garden in one of those lovely red aprons. I don't buy magazines very much any more but this issue was a must-have.

There's something about seeing images of aprons being modelled that I find both beguiling and soothing. I think it's because the subliminal message I absorb is that:
a) these are not cat-walk numbers but real garments that actually have an everyday place in my own lifestyle (I am usually to be found in an apron). Dwelling on the possibility of acquiring a new one is not therefore simply feeding impossible or ridiculous sartorial dreams but sensibly practical;
b) modelled in a bower of flowers, with the only mess around being artistic and somehow therefore desirable, I feel my own, considerably less artistic, mess is soothed away or at least put into soft focus by extension;
c) although my mantra of "a girl can never have too many bags or too many shoes" is always ready to be rolled out, occasional guilt creeps in at the idea of spending significant money on same, whereas an apron by definition can't be expensive and one does indeed need plenty in the drawer, if doing a lot of cooking, gardening, cleaning and other hands-on stuff, which I do.

I say, "an apron by definition can't be expensive", but this illusion was rudely shattered by discovering that the said red apron on the front cover of Country Living costs the princely sum of £48; (from Selfridges, if you're interested and have had a windfall recently). How disappointing. The article, in which the red apron also figures, inside the magazine,

featured, to be fair, a number of other, less expensive, aprons including some denim ones from Muji and John Lewis.

A denim apron... hmm... now there's a thought. Denim being robust and considerably improved by regular washing, I could see might have mileage as an apron. But dark blue denim on its own, while possessed of a certain minimalist chic, (especially paired with those spotty cotton kerchiefs, floaty voile scarves and vintage buckets of flowers in the photographs), still wasn't quite cutting it, as set against the sheer ebullience of that bright and soul-lifting, red linen number, I wanted so badly. I could forgo the pristine Hunter wellingtons (I don't think mine were ever that clean, even when they were brand new) and the enchanting, wide-brimmed sunhat and the model's beautiful, long, straight hair and the vintage gardening books; I could accept that the oases in my days are not always like the sunny idyll of the magazine photo-shoot, depicted among baskets of freshly cut flowers; but a bit like King John ("who was not a good man"), longing for a "big, red india-rubber ball" in A A Milne's poem, "King John's Christmas", I, (not a good man either, clearly!), did long for a bright, red linen-fabric apron!

But there was nothing doing. I simply could not bring myself to spend nearly £50 on an apron. It hovered however, tantalisingly in my head and peeped round the corners of my mind when it thought I wasn't looking. And in the way that sometimes happens, necessity generated happy invention. Delving into my fabric boxes there was (of course) no suitable red linen to run one up myself, but there were the off-cuts from making my denim skirts last year. "You really ought to throw these out!" I told myself, "you can't use denim off-cuts for much. Or could I? Yes, indeedy!" The red apron peeped one last time at me and gave way to a denim one, pieced together from nothing. But not just a plain denim apron, a denim apron blooming with hooky tulips, from a pattern I'd discovered here on Etsy by Greta Tulner of AterG Crochet. It's not free but the download only cost £2.41 so it was hardly bank-breaking and for such a gorgeous and versatile pattern, I thought, well worth it.

I've recently come really to love projects that combine fabric and crochet. Initially I thought the two media might not work terribly well together, but every time I've experimented, it's worked absolutely dreamily. And I am on the look-out now for more of such. (I've found a couple too, of which more in due course!)

Anyway back to my tulips and their background. The denim off-cuts were pretty motley in shape and size and so the apron really did have to be pieced together; "hodged" as my mother would say, meaning "made to work when really there isn't enough of whatever it is to make it work"! Because so many seams were needed to make up the apron shape, I was a bit concerned about them fraying badly in the wash, so I sewed the pieces together with French seams, with all the raw edges tucked away and my little old sewing machine, which I've been thinking about needing to replace, coped manfully with all the layers of thick fabric she had to sew through. She's earned herself a reprieve, I think, after that!

The crochet tulips are a joy to make - lots of happy colour changes and once I'd got the hang of the pattern, nice and easy to hook up in quantity.

I found I couldn't get on with making them, as per the pattern instructions, on a 2.5 mm hook and with a correspondingly fine yarn - just too fiddly for impatient Mrs T to manage. But having switched to a DK weight cotton yarn and a 4mm hook, we were away! The bigger size actually suited my apron-embellishment purpose better, too. I simplified the pattern a little and omitted the surface crochet details as I felt that the bright, beautifully gaudy blooms were just right as they were, without further additions but the pattern adds some extra outlining here and there.

To apply them to the apron, I pinned them in place and then tacked each one down, sewing by hand just slightly inside where they were going to be sewn properly, before using the sewing machine and a longer stitch than usual, to sew around the perimeter of each flower. It's worked perfectly, far better than I'd hoped or expected and the flowers look as though they've just grown out of the denim.

The patchworky construction seams are largely disguised and I have an apron that can give the beautiful red one, that I originally longed for, a run for its money any day, without spending a single penny. Actually that's not quite true, I did have to buy one or two additional colours of thread to match the perimeters of the flowers for sewing them in place so that the stitches would be invisible. Making do with an almost-but-not-quite-matching thread would have spoiled the ship for a ha'pp'orth of tar. Even the ribbon to make the neck loop and ties was in my sewing box, purchased ages ago for something and never in the end used.

Thrifty makes like this are just so satisfying. Something pleasing and useful for next to nothing and the huge delight in making it, to boot. Anyone feeling down at the moment? I detect quite a number of us are feeling a bit low here in the UK - I suspect the brief appearance of the sun quickly replaced by grey, cold and damp days that would fit better in early Spring than midsummer may have something to do with it. "Country Living" may have a headline saying "Here Comes Summer!" but that would appear to be a triumph of hope over experience at the moment. Anyway, if you feel you could do with a lift, I recommend a project like this for an instant feel-good and soul-lifting boost! Much more effective than retail therapy, I find!

If you want to give it a go, it's easy-peasy. Draw and cut out a simple apron shape using an existing one as a template. Don't forget to add on a bit extra all round when you draw it, to allow for the extra fabric you'll need for turning under the raw edges. Draw and cut out an additional rectangle or a square for a pocket or two, if you fancy. Omit, if you don't.

Raid your fabric stash or that bag of clothes you are sending to the charity shop and see what you can cannibalise. The overall shape can be pieced from few or many bits. Cut up old jeans or a denim skirt for a denim apron like mine; take your scissors to mens' shirts where the collars and cuffs have gone - these are a good starting point for lighter weight, fairly plain fabric; outgrown children's clothes may also provide enough fabric when deconstructed and pieced together.; look speculatively and creatively at any plainish off-cuts from a previous sewing project - cotton curtain fabric and curtain-lining fabric are particularly good for aprons. Just remember that each piece needs a seam allowance built in where it joins another piece and don't work with funny shapes - stick to linear ones, even if it means you need to use more pieces or you'll get in a muddle assembling it all.

And if your cupboards yield no treasures to cut up, and you have to buy something, a plain piece of calico, or similar plain cotton fabric, from which to cut the basic apron shape, will cost you almost nothing, certainly no more than a fraction of that eye-watering £48, although you won't have the peculiar pleasure, that is all its own, of making something out of nothing.

Sew the bits together so that you have a single apron-shaped piece of fabric. You can use ordinary seams or French ones. (Google for instructions on sewing French seams if, like me, you're not sure of how to do them) Press all the seams nice and flat. Turn under the raw edges all the way round and sew in place by machine (or by hand if you prefer).

If you are adding a pocket, turn under the raw edge of the top and stitch down. Turn under and pin the sides and bottom of the pocket piece but don't sew the pocket on to the apron yet until you've added your flowers. You may find it useful, however, to mark where the pocket will go on the apron, with pins, or tailors' tacks, so that you can see how the overall design will work when positioning your flowers.

Hook up a bed of flowers - tulips, roses, forget-me-nots or any other bloom that takes your fancy in a washable yarn, from whatever pattern and colours you like. I used Cascade Ultra Pima Cotton for my AterG tulips because that's what I had. I love that yarn so much - it's a dream to work with and the colours are just gorgeous.

Pin your flowers onto the apron and tack securely in place by hand, using running stitches.

Machine sew around the perimeter of each flower with a long machine stitch or, if you like hand-sewing, you could stitch them by hand, using small, neat oversewing stitches. Make sure your thread matches the yarn, whichever method you choose.

Now that all the flowers are sewn on, you can stitch your pocket(s) in place, machine sewing close to the turned-under edges of the sides and bottom.

Neaten off any loose threads by pulling them through and knotting at the back of the apron.

Sew on tape or ribbon to make the ties and the neck loop and go and sit in the garden with a cup of tea and a muffin.

Tea and muffin (or equivalent) essential! Hunter wellies, hat and long hair optional! Baskets and vintage gardening books, if you have some, desirable!

Of course, in such an apron, any mess will no longer really be mess, or not mess with a capital M; it will be artistic and intentional laissez faire "styling"! Must say that to myself every time I go into the living room and discover H has taken it over again with computer parts, school text books, DVD boxes separated from their discs, chocolate wrappers and sundry other nameless detritus. This has been trying my patience somewhat over recent weeks and I am not sure that calling it "laissez faire styling" instead of "this disgusting mess" will prevent Krakatoa blowing, when I next enter the room but we'll see!

As he so kindly took the photos of the apron on me, however, I shall turn a blind eye, for now!

Thank you, H, you are, despite any "laissez faire styling"in the living room, an angel!

Gipsy Skirt

My Gipsy Skirt, which has been in various stages of production over the last month or so, has reached completion and she's a joy! She took a lot of sewing and quite a lot of fabric but she's worth every single stitch!

She began to take shape when a friend sent me some gorgeous fabric from across the Atlantic - a most beautiful purple and turquoise-blue paisley print and another small-patterned purple print, (the one in the bottom right hand corner of the pic).

I suspect the fabric designer may have intended them as quilting fabrics but for me they were just too beautiful not to make something to wear. But what? A shirt? A short summer dress may be? Or perhaps a skirt?

I wanted to use every scrap of the fabric I could and waste as little as possible in the cutting so the idea germinated of a version of the Gipsy Skirt, you know, one of those tiered, flounced skirts that we all wore in the late seventies / early eighties. Well, you might not have done, as you may be too young, but I did!

Had I (or my mother) retained a pattern for such a skirt ? Sadly not. But a bit of googling around on the old Internet and a consultation of "Sew What Skirts!" threw up some instructions and it became clear that the construction of a Gipsy Skirt was a relatively simple matter. You decide on the length of skirt you want and the number of tiers. You divide the length by that number and that gives you the finished depth you need for each tier. Add on seam allowances to that figure and an allowance for folding over the top of the first tier to make a casing for some elastic and another allowance for a hem at the bottom and bingo, a pattern is beginning to form and you haven't even drawn anything out yet nor have you expended any money on a commercial pattern. It is however helpful to make notes of the Precise Measurements You Need for Each Tier and Which Fabric Will Go Where, otherwise it's easy to lose track.

Each tier is a simple, shallow strip of fabric and each one is wider than the previous one, as you go down the skirt. It's simplest to work in numbers of widths of the fabric so the first tier I made was one width across, the second was two widths, the third was three widths, the fourth was four-and-a-half widths and the fifth I made six widths. The finished depth of the tiers in my skirt is 7.5" and the finished length of the skirt is therefore 37.5" long, which suits me, but you can obviously adjust to make the skirt as long or short as you like.

There wasn't quite enough of the American fabric to make the entire skirt but I managed to find a couple of prints that I thought worked well with the originals and we were in business.

Armed with my rotary cutter (of which I always feel slightly nervous - I swear you've only got to look at those things to cut yourself), a large cutting mat and a ruler, and measuring turned to cutting. A lot of cutting, even for a Happy Snipper like me! But because the shapes you need are so simple and linear, it's quite straightforward so long as you Keep a Check on the Measurements! (Measure thrice, Mrs T, cut once!)

Not much left over at the end of the cutting process is there?
Just enough for a lavender bag or two, perhaps.

You then sew your strips together at the short ends to make the shallow loops of fabric that make up each tier in the increasing widths and begin assembly.

This again is pretty straightforward but there is a lot of sewing so you need plenty of thread and several bobbins lined up, full and ready to go. You make gathering stitches along the top of each tier (apart from the first) with a long machine stitch. I found this easiest to do in sections especially with the lower tiers where the loops of fabric were so big.

Pin each gathered section on to the bottom un-gathered edge of the previous tier, right sides facing, and stitch in place. Simple! Make a casing for some wide elastic at the top and turn up a hem at the bottom (which you can whizz along with your sewing machine in a jiffy) and you're there, bar the shouting, by which I mean you're there, bar the top-stitching just above the seam of each tier. Because there is so much fabric in the skirt, the top-stitching is not purely decorative - it adds necessary strength to the construction so although I was tempted to skip this step, (I felt that I and my sewing machine had sewed a marathon and could do with a break), I made myself keep at it!

It is beautiful to wear in a non-visual sense, if you know what I mean. Despite the amount of fabric it contains, it doesn't feel heavy at all but is gloriously light, swishy and easy. If I were ever to lose my sight, I'd want to wear skirts like this always - it just feels so lovely that it almost doesn't matter what fabric it's in. Almost, but not quite, because I think this fabric is just so beautiful that looking at it gives me a huge burst of joy and I'm so glad I have managed to incorporate so much of it in one place!

Special thanks again to V for your wonderful gift that made this dreamy garment possible

and to S for being so patient in taking some swirly photos of the skirt in wear - just not possible to take of oneself and without them you can't see quite how deliciously swishy the finished skirt is.

The good news is that this is a pattern that you can adapt to suit yourself in every way - make the number of tiers fewer or more numerous; make the tiers wider or less wide; make a waistband, if you don't like the idea of the elastic waist; make it in matching or contrasting cotton prints or in lightweight needlecord; make it plain or multicoloured; make it for yourself, your daughter, your niece or your granddaughter; just adapt to suit the amount of fabric you have and the look you want. Wear it on its own or with a retro, lace-edged petticoat, peeping out from underneath; wear it with bare legs and bare feet, gipsy-style, in summer; or with boots and thick tights in winter.

I am wearing mine gipsy-summer-style as the sun has got his hat on and come out to play this week. All I need now is a tambourine and a sense of rhythm for a little gipsy dance. I have a tambourine somewhere, but sadly, no sense of rhythm, so must content myself with a little private twirl in a corner of the kitchen, when no one is looking!

Tempted to have a go at one yourself? Go for it! You don't really need to be able to do anything other than cut and sew in straight lines!

PS Note to anyone, like me, with secret Fabric-Junkie tendencies: "This may be the project that fabric stash of yours, bursting from its cupboard or drawer and attracting unwelcome comments from less-discerning members of the household, has been waiting for! Tee hee! Enjoy!"

E x

Mme de Pompadour aka My New Dressmaking Friend

One of my favourite paintings of all time is the portrait painted by François Boucher of Mme de Pompadour in 1759. Do you know it? It hangs in The Wallace Collection in London and I've loved it ever since I first saw it as a small child.

It's painted in that slightly over-the-top Rococo style that Boucher does so well and art critics of the day, such as Diderot, were a bit scathing about it. I don't care if the critics say it is not great art; to me it epitomises a world of elegance and culture, beauty and intelligence, grace and aesthetic finesse. It is also a clever portrait (which Mme de Pompadour may well have commissioned herself) as a subtle, if extravagant, way of communicating with her royal lover. The statue of Cupid being gently but firmly pushed to one side by a Muse in the background, reflects a shift in the relationship between the Marquise and the King but indicates that change does not have to mean the end of their friendship. The iconography suggests that while the flames of passion might have subsided, since their first heady days in 1745, the King's mistress is still a charming friend and an entertaining and cultured companion worth retaining, who can occupy more than one role alongside him. The faithful little dog similarly denotes her willingness to wait on Louis. Much more subtle and dignified than sending pleading or importunate letters not to be forgotten or passed over, although I guess Boucher's fee cost Mme la Marquise a pretty penny! It was clearly worth it though because Mme brought off the tricky transition from passionate mistress to platonic friend and retained her official position at court until her death in 1764.

For us in the 21st C, what Boucher paints is, of course, is a fairy-tale world populated by roses and ruffles, foamy lace and unlimited acres of silk satin, beribboned sleeves and dainty shoes with "Louis heels", painted and gilded fans, handwritten letters and ormolu clocks that chime musically on marble-topped tables with all the harsh realities of life safely out of view. In this world classical statuary, (probably genuine Roman art, plundered by collectors, as so much was in the 18th C from classical sites in Italy), adorns gardens complete with grottoes and fountains and small, very well-behaved dogs wait patiently, at a prudent distance from the hems of those exquisite skirts. Volumes of poetry or philosophy are evident, tossed temporarily on one side by the sitter but waiting to improve an idle hour when the mood takes.

If I had to pick a heroine, Mme de Pompadour would be it, although Anne Boleyn, for whom I also cherish a soft spot, would be a close second. Beautiful, graceful and cultured, but also a shrewd realist, Mme de Pompadour (or Jeanne Antoniette Poisson as she started out in life), somehow combines the best of femininity and intelligence. Boucher painted a number of portraits of la belle Marquise, all of them while she was Louis XV's official mistress and while Boucher was court painter at the French court, during the late 18th C. There is another very large and very spectacular Boucher portrait of her in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. I love the way she's painted in this portrait, sitting with her back against a mirror so that you can see the back of her elegant hair-do and the frothy bow at the back of her neck. And if I could walk safely in heels, I'd do anything for a pair of those pink satin beribboned mules she's wearing! Would that my own feet were that dainty!

Prints of both the Wallace Collection painting and the Alte Pinakothek one hang on my study wall and I love them. I was looking at them the other day after my new dressmaking friend arrived in a welter of cardboard and polystyrene packaging and was lying prone and rather undignified in several pieces on the study floor. Helped to a more dignified standing position and with her single leg bolted securely in place, my new dressmaking friend waited patiently in a corner while I considered where to place her and whether or not she might benefit from a smidgeon of cosmetic surgery!

As she waited beside the prints on the wall behind her, I was struck by the stillness that emanated from her and which seemed akin to the stillness emanating from the paintings. My new friend has no head and was "made in China" but her fabric "skin" is a French print and she has a certain French elegance about her so I thought perhaps she ought to be given a French name but nothing quite seemed to fit her. Anyway the longer she stayed near the portraits of Mme de Pompadour the more she seemed connected to them so in the end I gave in and a new Mme de Pompadour she has become. I am not sure that the original Mme de P would be flattered to have a dressmakers' dummy named after her but I hope she doesn't mind - it's intended as a compliment.

I've wanted a dressmaking dummy for a long time but the ones I had seen have been rather expensive and I just didn't quite feel I could justify the cost. And then there was the question of where it would live and whether it would get in the way of stuff. I'd kept the longing at bay until Judy posted about the arrival of Flora here. Flora's flowery fabric was what did it, added to Judy's comments about the difficulty of pinning hems and seeing how a garment is going to look on you when you're making it yourself which resonated all too clearly with my own experience. So of course when Judy kindly emailed me the website from which she had ordered Flora I had just to have a look. And I was pleasantly surprised by the range of possible dummy options and the range of prices. Of course if you don't do dressmaking yourself, any such dummy will be a waste of money, but if you do, especially for yourself, then it's worth considering.

My Mme de Pomapdour, despite her grand name, is not as sophisticated as Flora! You can't adjust her vital statistics and she doesn't come with an automatic hem measurer down by her feet but actually, for my purposes, she's great. I don't make a lot of tailored, closely fitted items so I don't need her to replicate my measurements and just being able to hang a garment on a three dimensional body rather than a hanger is a huge help. I've found anyway.

Mme's French "skin" is also beautifully neutral for setting off the colours and prints which are what I tend to work in but I did feel she was just a shade too muted. I toyed with the idea of swapping her existing print with a flowery one but the logistics of fitting this and the benefits of her being neutral stayed my hand. Back to the paintings for inspiration, now that affinity had been established! And of course! What she needed was just a little 18th C romantic ornamentation so I've strung a string of pearl beads around her neck and added a crocheted choker with a crochet rose inspired straight from Boucher's brush and voilà, je vous présente, Mme, la Marquise de Pompadour, in all her glory!

She has now migrated upstairs close to my sewing machine and in a tranquil and elegant way is working hard for her living!

The rose is a "Ribbon Rose" from Suzann Thompson's "Crochet Bouquet" and the choker is just five, very simple, rows of single crochet with a crocheted loop and a pretty button to fasten. All made in Cascade Ultra Pima cotton on a 4mm hook.

I am intending to borrow the choker with the rose from her to wear myself occasionally and the pearl beads too, but for now they are happily hers!

Bienvenue à la maison, Mme!

Et bon weekend à vous toutes!

E x

"Easy Summer Living" Bags

I have been having a bit of a clear out of my fabric stash - basically because the lids on my boxes wouldn't close and in fact are beginning, literally, to crack up under the strain! I am a bit of a hoarder of printed fabric and tend to buy bits of this or that, when I can afford it, just because, well, you never know, and if I don't buy them when I spot them and go back subsequently, having decided I must acquire whatever print it is that has caught my eye, nine times out of ten, it's gone with the wind and any inquiry about it, is a cue for hearing those depressing words, "No, we won't be getting any more in.".

The good news about this hoarding habit is that there is usually something to draw on for a particular project (so long as not too much of any one fabric is needed); the bad news is that there's quite a lot of fabric that sits around not being used because its destiny hasn't (yet) come up! So I have been thinning it out a bit, with some happy results, I have to say.

My first foray into "thinning out", married some fabric from my stash with some fabulous prints which a dear friend in Tennessee sent me. The result of this is, although I say it myself, a rather gorgeous gipsy skirt, which is nearly, but not quite, finished. I'll show you when it is - clearly 2013 is the year when my hippy tendencies are emerging Big Time because my gipsy skirt has a beautifully vintage 1970s vibe about it, to join my other recent makes of my All The Time In The World Blouse and my Jeans For The Golden Road To Samarkand.

My second "thinning out" has resulted in some straightforward, but nonetheless pleasing, bags using some leftover Japanese Kokka Echino print fabric for the outsides and assorted flowery prints for the linings - mostly some Tanya Whelan Sugar Hill "Scattered Roses" in pale lemon, pink and green with a touch of light blue and some John Louden "English Florals" in mixed reds, pinks, greens and oranges.

Bags like these are very easy to make and I find them very useful. The Japanese Kokka Echino print fabric is perfect for bag-making because it's a lovely linen / cotton mix which is a bit heavier than plain cotton and so is nice and robust, while still pretty. I love the colours - those bright greens, violets, pinks and oranges mixed with slightly milky turquoise against the natural linen-coloured background are very summery and the woodcut-effect birds and flowers have a lightness and energy to them that is very appealing.

My design is for a biggish bag, but not too big, the finished measurements are about 17" by 16" / 45cm by 40cm, so almost, but not quite, square, with a nice boxy bottom and a useful inside pocket with compartments for the essentials of life - crochet hooks, tea bags, scissors, 'phone, car keys etc.

I find this sort of size of bag particularly useful in the unpredictable and flighty English summer. Big enough to carry a spare cardigan for when that blissfully clear, summer day suddenly turns cloudy and a sharp little breeze takes the edge off sitting dreamily outside in the sun; accommodating enough to store the same cardigan when another grey, rather damp day suddenly lifts, the sun springs out and a layer or two needs to be shed with immediate effect; robust enough to house an impromptu picnic, a portable hooky project, a bundle of work papers and several heavy bunches of large keys; light enough not to be cumbersome when I'm walking cross-country; capacious enough to take a spare pair of flip-flops for when I'm not walking cross-country; flexible enough to shove under a chair, in the boot of my car, on the kitchen work-surface; and as well as all the above, user-friendly enough to go happily in and out of the washing machine when my bar of chocolate melts at the bottom of it, my flask of tea spills in it or my fountain pen leaks on it.

This is a bag for easy summer living and I've made five in total.

One is a present for a friend, one I am already using, (hot off the sewing machine!), and three are looking for happy homes. Anyone interested? If you are, leave me a comment and, (if there are more than three of you), I'll draw names out of a hat at the end of the week.

I'll send anywhere in the world so long as you are happy to email me your postal address and can give a bag a happy home, even if you live somewhere where the summer is less fickle than here in the UK! These are not factory-perfect bags - they have the odd little quirkiness that goes with "handmade, homemade" but I hope some of you might enjoy using them. See what you think from the pics.

Or of course you might prefer to make your own version with your own choice of fabrics rather than mine. If so, here's my design and a few instructions to help you along the way should you need it. You need about a yard / a metre of fabric for the outside and the same again for the lining but don't forget you can always piece smaller bits together to make a lining, if you have some small left-overs from another sewing project. No one will see on the inside. The same thing applies to the straps if you are short of fabric.

The bag itself is a doddle to sew but it's worth taking time over drawing out the pattern to get a good finish. The pattern I drew up is this one below and it includes standard 5/8" / 1.5cm seam allowances so you don't need to worry about adding these on to the measurements I've given here. I tend to work in inches when sewing, I am afraid, but I've given the metric equivalents for those of you who prefer that.

I originally wanted to scan the pattern I drew out by hand, but my printer decided it wouldn't cooperate so I've had to draw this out on the computer which was trickier than I thought, not least the insertion into the blog post via a screen shot which was the only way I could make it stay where it was put! It's not to scale as you can see, but it does make clear what you need, I hope!

The square cut-outs in the corners aren't essential but take the guesswork out of achieving a nice neat boxy bottom for your bag so I think it's worth drawing them and cutting them like this.

It doesn't matter where you place the notches on the bag sides but the notches on the boxy cut-outs in the corners should be placed exactly half-way along each indentation, as shown, to work properly.

Once you've drawn out your pattern pieces on some scrap paper - a bright felt pen and some newspaper do nicely - let's get cutting! (Happy Snippers Of The World Unite! Tee hee!)

You need to cut four pieces of the main bag pattern piece, two in your outer fabric and two in your lining fabric. In addition, cut two pieces of the pocket pattern piece, one in your outer fabric and one in your lining fabric. You also need to cut two straps, one for each bag side. Mine started off as two strips of fabric 28" / 71cm long by about 4.5" / 12cm wide but you can make them shorter and a bit narrower if you want. Don't make them too narrow or they will drive you mad when you come to turn them out!

OK? Now you're ready to sew, so crank up your sewing machine with some thread to match or tone with your fabrics and, while you are at it, switch the iron on, so that it will be good and hot, when you come to press the seams you're about to sew.

Take your two pocket pieces and pin them together, matching the edges and with right sides facing. Stitch along each of the four sides leaving a gap for turning in the bottom long edge. Clip off the corners of the seam allowances and turn the right way out using a wooden knitting needle or similar gently to poke out the corners. Press.

Now line the pocket piece up on the right side of one of your lining pieces it should sit about 4.5" / 10cm below the top edge and central between the two side edges. Pin in place and then top stitch along the sides and bottom edge, (not along the top obviously, or it will be a patch not a pocket!) You can now make little compartments in your pockets if you want to - I made some for crochet hooks on-the-go and a couple of slightly larger ones for other stuff. Just draw the lines where you want the divisions to come on the pocket, with tailor's chalk and a ruler, or mark with pins, then topstitch through the pocket and lining fabric, to make compartments to suit your particular needs. Pull through any threads to the wrong side of the lining piece and knot neatly to secure.

Place the outer fabric pieces of the bag together, right sides together, matching edges and side notches. Don't worry about the corners at this stage. Pin along the sides and the bottom edge, leaving the corners flapping gappily! Stitch. Do exactly the same with the lining pieces.

Press each of the sewn seams flat and open.

Fold the right side of the fabric towards the wrong side in a 5/8"/1.5 cm seam allowance along the top edge of the lining and the outer bag. Press.

Now for those boxy corners. What you want to do is to match up the notches in a neat line across the bottom of the bag / lining, aligning the opened out and pressed ends of the side seams with those of the bottom seam. This is much easier to demonstrate than to write instructions for! Your little notches should match in pairs as in my pic. Pin and then stitch across.

See?! You've now got a lovely squared-off boxy bottom!

Nearly there now! Insert the lining into the outer bag with the wrong sides of the fabric facing one another. Pin the top edge of the lining and the bag together but don't sew yet because we're going to sandwich the strap ends between the layers.

OK, time for the straps. Take your strips of fabric and and fold each one lengthways, right sides together and stitch with a 1/4" / 0.5cm seam allowance. Press the seam flat with the wrong side of the fabric still facing outwards as in the pic below. (Pressing them first, the wrong way out, makes it easier to get a neat finish in the turned out straps.)

Now for the tricky task of turning the straps the right way out. Be patient with this - they will come out but it's fiddly and takes a little time. A wooden knitting needle, judiciously applied can help but go gently, you don't want to pierce the fabric (or jam it into an impenetrable knot, as Mrs T tends to, when she gets  impatient!) Gentle and patient teasing out is the answer. Once you've got the straps turned out, press them again and insert the ends between the lining and the outer fabric of the bag about 4.5" / 12cm from each side seam and with about 5-6" / 13-15cm between each pair of handles. Each end should be inserted about 1.5" / 4cm below the top edge. Pin securely.

Now for the final stretch! Topstitch all the way round the top edge of the bag, nice and close to the edge. Finally stitch a criss-crossed box shape over each strap end that is sandwiched, neatly hidden between the layers of fabric, as I've done in the pic. This makes a good secure bond between the handles and the rest of the bag.

You have to feel where the ends of the straps are through the fabric but it's not difficult - mark the limit of the strap end with a pin if that helps. This method makes a nice neat finish on the inside with no raw edges of the straps showing, which I rather like.

Your bag is finished! Pull through and knot the loose threads neatly, snipping off the ends to tidy up; fill your bag and head out for whatever your summer day holds.

Going to be a scorcher? Add a bottle of water, a sunhat and a change of shoes for cool feet when your morning shoes become unbearably hot.

Threatens to rain? Pop in an umbrella or a cagoule.

Work beckons? Pile in your papers, a diary and a clutch of pens along with a pick-up-put-down little hooky project for those few, spare minutes between meetings.

A day free to go exploring or shopping? Stash away a quick picnic, a flask of tea and a book and leave plenty of room for loot!

And if you're like me and prone to feel chilly, don't forget, always to carry, that very English garment, a cardigan, without which Mrs T rarely ventures forth, although, hopefully, does not always have to wear!

Don't forget to leave me a comment if you'd like one of my Kokka Echino print bags - and let me know which you'd like best,

Kokka Echino "Flap Border Green"?

Kokka Echino "Perch Stripe Pink"?

or Kokka Echino "Perch Stripe Green"?

They're offered by way of a little thank you to all of you who read here. I appreciate your visits so very much and whether or not you'd like a bag, I send you a huge thank you for visiting, reading, following and taking the time to comment.

with love 

from Mrs T

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Jeans For The Golden Road To Samarkand

Do you know that poem by James Elroy Flecker called "The Golden Road to Samarkand"? Actually Flecker wrote two similar poems. One is called "The Golden Journey To Samarkand" and is a reflection on the equalisation of achievements that the passing of time imparts - a theme rather akin to Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias"-, the other is a set of dramatised verses, called (confusingly similarly), "The Golden Road to Samarkand". The quotations from Flecker's poems that I've used here are all from "The Golden Road to Samarkand" except where otherwise indicated.

The verses in the second poem are intended to be spoken by different voices, as it were from a caravan, about to set out from Baghdad (I think), along the historic Silk Route, to the ancient city of Samarkand, situated in what is now Uzbekhistan. It is a beautifully evocative piece of writing that conjures up all the exotic, mysteriousness of the East and the draw that it has exerted on travellers from further west, from time immemorial. Its also echoes ancient human restlessness and the primeval desire to travel beyond the familiar and known.

Each group of merchants has a verse that describes what they have stowed away on the camels who "sniff the evening and are glad" as they wait to "leave ... the dim-moon city of delight"

(The Chief Draper)
"Have me not Indian carpets dark as wine,
turbans and sashes, gowns and bows and veils,
and broideries of intricate design?
And printed hangings in enormous bales?

(The Chief Grocer)
We have rose-candy, we have spikenard,
mastic, and terebinth and oil and spice,
and such sweet jams meticulously jarred
as God's own Prophet eats in Paradise.

(The Principal Jews)
And we have manuscripts in peacock styles
by Ali of Damascus; we have swords
engraved with storks and apes and crocodiles,
and heavy beaten necklaces for lords."

I love writing like this that conjures up vivid pictures, colours and scents with every tactile word. I know you can't normally call words "tactile" but I think some are. Something more than onomatopoeic. When I read those verses, I can feel the powdery sugar, drifting lightly from the "rose-candy"; I can smell the strong, poignant perfume of the "spikenard" and the resiny, aromatic scent of the "terebinth"; I can see the colours of the "meticulously jarred" exotic preserves, glowing through glass like coloured jewels; I can feel the deep velvet pile of the Indian carpets; the thickly decorated "broideries" are real to my imagination; the contours of the different stitches, the smoothness of the silk on which they play, are as vivid to me as my own more mundane clothing; the exquisite, illuminated manuscripts of eastern stories and Arabic science dance before my eyes and the cool, chased metals with their "storks and apes and crocodiles" intrigue my fingers as well as my mind somehow. Fanciful? Possibly! Wonderful? Definitely!

And as well as the merchants who make up the bulk of the caravan with their exotic wares, are pilgrims whose motive is not commerce but the wanderlust of the soul.

(Pilgrims)
"We are the pilgrims, master; we shall go
always a little further; it may be
beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow
across that angry or that glimmering sea,

white on a throne or guarded in a cave
there lies a prophet who can understand
why men were born; but surely we are brave,
who take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
...
Sweet to ride forth at evening from the wells
when shadows pass gigantic on the sand,
and softly through the silence beat the bells
along the Golden Road to Samarkand.

We travel not for trafficking alone;
by hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
for lust of knowing what should not be known,
we take the Golden Road to Samarkand."

OK, you may be thinking, but what has this got to do with a pair of jeans? It started with a book. Not a poetry book, but a hooky book - "Crochet Garden" by Suzann Thompson. If you like crocheting flowers, this book and its companion volume, "Crochet Bouquet", are joyful and worthwhile additions to your hooky bookshelf.

Browsing through "Crochet Garden" I came upon a pattern for a "Samarkand Sunflower", inspired by textiles and pottery produced in ancient Samarkand. The name reminded me of the poem and suddenly a little hooky project was born.

One of those projects that just happen sometimes when a handful of ideas coalesce and just have to be realised without delay.

One of the project suggestions in "Crochet Bouquet", is to add some crochet "Crazy Eight" flowers to a pair of jeans.

Change up the "Crazy Eight" flowers to "Samarkand Sunflowers", add a handful or two of silver bells and you have a pair of jeans in which to join a camel-drawn caravan in "marvellous tales of ships and stars and isles where good men rest, where nevermore the rose of sunset pales, and winds and shadows fall towards the West" (from "The Golden Journey to Samarkand")

And that is exactly what I did. I began by creating large Samarkand Sunflowers in gorgeous vivid shades of pink, gold, jade and turquoise.

But when I pinned them onto the pair of jeans I had lined up for this project, the effect was, shall we say, rather startling and, I felt, wisdom regretfully suggested toning down my palette for the flowers a bit. If I were twenty years younger the bright colours would have won through... "Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, labuntur anni..." Anyway, never mind the slipping years, Postumus; in a more subdued palette of pale blues, lavender, taupe and muted violet the effect is absolutely wearable. I feel, anyway!

See what you think!

I added a tiny silver bell to the centre of each flower

And then, (because less is not always more!), I added a handful of extra bells to the top of each pocket edge in the front.

All that remains to accompany wearing the result, is to make some mint tea from my newly-burgeoning Moroccan mint, to be sipped from glasses, resting on the discarded original flowers that have now become Samarkand Sunflower coasters, and rustle up some rose-scented Turkish Delight.

I don't normally like Turkish Delight much, I have to say, but I am so caught up in my imagination with the "rose-candy" of the poem that I've made some*, and am eating it and dreaming of imagined exploration and adventures not yet known.

"Open the gate, O watchman of the night!

...

We take the Golden Road to Samarkand!"

If you fancy giving this idea a go yourself, it's quick, cheap and very easy. A good Bank Holiday Weekend project perhaps! All you need is:

- a pair of old, comfortable jeans, all the better if softened through much washing and a bit faded and frayed at the edges, or with a trendy rip or two - matters not - these are jeans for wearing and living and travelling in not for hanging up pristine in a corner somewhere.
- some washable yarn in assorted colours to suit your fancy - I used Cascade Ultra Pima cotton from my stash but anything that won't shrink when you wash the jeans will be fine.
- a hook to match the weight of the yarn - I used a 4mm one with the Cascade Ultra Pima
- a pattern for a hooky flower, preferably one that lies flat and you can make up in a couple of sizes for variety's sake. Doesn't matter if you haven't got a book of hooky flower patterns - there are lots of suitable flower patterns on the Internet. Have a trawl and pick one you like and which will suit your skills.
- tiny sew-on bells - I got my silver ones from here (£1.20 for 25 bells and very quick delivery, in case you are interested)
- a needle and sewing thread in colours to match the outer edges of your flowers

What you do:
- hook up a number of flowers - as many or as few as you like.
- pin them onto the jeans wherever you feel they would work best. Try the jeans on to check the effect.
- stitch the flowers securely in place by hand all round the outer edge of each one with the sewing thread, using small stitches and keeping the thread as invisible as possible - the crochet is very forgiving and hides the stitches well but you want to try and avoid "cats' teeth" stitches showing on the denim. If you are attaching flowers to the pockets, be careful not to stitch through all the layers of fabric or you will no longer be able to use the pockets! Guess who found that out the hard way?!

- stitch little bells in the centre of the flowers and / or wherever you like. Not on the back pockets though or "The Princess And The Pea" will have nothing on you!

- put your jeans on, "leave you the dim-moon city" and "take the Golden Road to Samarkand"! Even if in reality, the road you take is less exotic than the caravan's and more prosaic, like mine: the school run, piling through a mound of paper-work, or getting the laundry out!

*My "rose-candy" is delicious but was quite a fiddle to make (and the less said about the state of the kitchen and my saucepan afterwards, the better!) I used a Good Housekeeping recipe without gelatine, as apparently authentic Turkish Delight should not contain gelatine - I think it's properly made with mastic (as itemised in the poem) which is a kind of eastern gum. You can buy it in Greece but I've never tried a recipe with it and you can't get it easily in the UK.

The Good Housekeeping alternative used cornflour and tartaric acid (I used cream of tartar, which is not quite the same but is a derivative compound of tartaric acid - use double the quantity of cream of tartar, if substituting, for that given for tartaric acid). You boil this little lot up at length in a sugar syrup, until the starch molecules change their nature to make a wonderful, translucent jelly, and then add a spoonful of honey, some rosewater and a drop of orange oil. It tastes, as I say, very good, surprisingly good actually, and has gone down an unexpected storm with the rest of the household, but the clearing up afterwards was something else! So if you fancy a mouthful of "rose-candy" to accompany your Samarkand jeans, you might prefer to buy some rather than make it!

The peppermint tea, by contrast, is as simple as stuffing a handful of fresh Moroccan mint leaves in a tea pot, adding boiling water, leaving it for five minutes to brew and pouring into an eastern tea glass. I like it unsweetened but more authentically, I think you should add sugar. Beats any commercial peppermint tea, hands down!

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