Bag for Bahrain

Next week my daughter-in-law and two grandchildren will fly back to Bahrain. I foresee some rather sad moments! However, I have enjoyed making a new bag for Sharon and she is thrilled with it. It is a Pleated Tote and she chose the fabric: it is curtaining fabric in sage green, pink and cream. It looks really good and I'm pleased with it.

Fortunately, I had some dark pink cotton fabric that suited the lining and the bag is interfaced with fusible fleece. There are two internal slip pockets and the top has a magnetic snap fastener.

 

Golfing partners

The houseful of visitors is dwindling in number. Our son flew back to Bahrain on Saturday. The whole family left before 06.00 for the London train from Hull so I didn't see them leave as I was at work. Driving home after 07.00 I felt a bit tearful at the thought that our son wouldn't be there and I don't know when we'll see him again. Our daughter-in-law and grandchildren have gone for a final visit to friends before flying home in about ten days' time.

One of the nice things about having our son here has been that he and his father, the Great Golfer, have played golf together several times. They have partnered each other before in a very different sporting activity. During 1999 they spent hours and hours training together for a gruelling ultra canoe marathon, called the Duzi Canoe Marathon. This takes place every year over three days in January between Pietermaritzburg and Durban on the Umsunduzi and Umgeni rivers in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Father and son decided to do it together in January 2000 to celebrate the new millennium and Father's 60th birthday. They survived the ordeal in extreme heat and difficult paddling conditions.

Now, in August 2013, they are older and wiser and stuck to dry ground (except for having to fish the occasional ball out of a water hazard!) and enjoyed playing golf together. Far more relaxing for the whole family!

The photographs speak for themselves!

Personally, I've found a bit of time to sew and have made three more charity tote bags for the sale table at my place of work and a set of coasters for a colleague's birthday present. These coasters are easy to make and are very popular with the recipients.

The person for whom I made these has ordered four sets as stocking fillers for Christmas!

Now I have a bag to make for my daughter-in-law before she returns to Bahrain...

Visitors

I guess summer time is when one either goes to visit people or you have visitors come to stay with you. This summer it is our turn to have visitors stay with us.

Our family from Bahrain has come to the UK to see us and various friends - and to get away from the 50C temperatures! Actually, we seem to be the base from which they are going out and about. At the moment, our daughter-in-law and grandchildren are visiting friends in Oxfordshire and our son is here with us. It is the first time he has stayed with us alone since he was 18 and he is now 41! At least I don't have to worry about him if he is out late, although he did get off the bus in the wrong village on Sunday night and ended up having an hour's walk to get home!

Our other visitors thus far have been our French friends who spent a few days with us last week. Our grandchildren were here at the same time and our granddaughter enjoyed practising her French. I must confess that I was rather exhausted by Friday last week, thinking of meals and trying to make sure the visitors were entertained and the grandchildren were behaving suitably. I don't think I am coping too well with teenagers; I find them rather stressful!

Before our French friends arrived, I did manage to make a set of South African-themed placemats as a gift for them. However, I forgot to take a photograph of the placemats. I have just finished another set for my daughter-in-law to take back to Bahrain; they are also South African-themed, this time with pictures relating to the San people, or Bushmen as they used to be called. This is what the mats look like:

I bought the fabric for both sets of placemats in South Africa. It comes in panels, printed with the placemats, so all you have to do is cut them out and stitch them.

Continuing on a South African theme, I have a South African friend currently staying in our village. She enjoys knitting so I made her one of these:

It is a zippered pouch with an eyelet in the front and keeps the ball of wool tidy while you are knitting. You put the ball of wool in the bag and thread the end through the eyelet and get on with  you knitting or crocheting. The ball of wool is kept clean, it doesn't bounce around the floor while you are working, and the cat can't get it! The bag in the photograph is one my friend ordered to take back to South Africa to give to a friend of hers who loves knitting.

I have also made my daughter-in-law and black and white wristlet to use when she goes out at night as she only brought a rather large bag with her. So I have done some sewing over the last couple of weeks; I just haven't had time to blog about it!

The children will come and go before they return to Bahrain in a few weeks' time. Then we will have a break till the next visitors come in September. Time to get on with some sewing!

The Garden Party that nearly didn't happen

Last Saturday was the date for the St Nicholas Church, Keyingham, Garden Party. Every year this event takes place in the Rectory garden in June. We arrived home from our holiday in South Africa and had to do some serious grass cutting and digging of weeds to get the garden reasonably tidy for the day. Unfortunately, the weather was very unpredictable and rain and strong winds were forecast for the day. At 07.30 in the morning the organising committee made the decision to hold the 'Garden Party' in the village hall. In some ways, it was more convenient but there wasn't the same atmosphere - and it didn't rain but the wind did blow. Oh well...

A lot of people came and things seemed to go quite well. I had made a number of very simple shopping bags for the craft table, mainly from fabric that had been given to me over some time. I took nine bags and seven were sold. One lady said the two she bought were going to Hong Kong! Now I'll have to get on and make some more for a sale due to take place at the care home where I work.

Here are the bags I took last Saturday:

 

My mug

Today I received a lovely mug from my partner in the recent mug swap, Sarah-Jane Goode. She lives in Portleven in Cornwall and the mug has a picture of a building in Portleven on it. I love the sea so the breaking wave will remind me of being on holiday!

With the mug came some very naughty fudge made with Cornish cream! Yummy! I will ration that out at one piece a day!

Thank you to Hannah/Cupcakemumma for organising the mug swap! Here is my first coffee in my new mug:

 

Holiday sewing

Three weeks without sewing? Not a chance! Thanks to my sister-in-law, Elaine, I enjoyed a unique sewing experience while on holiday in South Africa. Elaine attends bag-making workshops in her home town of Ballito and has made bags very different to the ones I make. She was determined to show me how to make a couple so arrived at our holiday cottage well prepared. She had done the prep on the bags: some of the cutting out, the quilting and the piping; all this to save time so that, basically, all I had to do, with her guidance, was to put the bags together. She even brought her small Bernina with her; just as well as it is far more up-to-date than the 40+ year old Bernina I use in Durban!

While our husbands went off to play the local golf courses, we set to work. Elaine is a good teacher and supervised while I did the work.

Some of the bag construction was quite tricky and I learned to insert an endless zipper with two sliders. The first bag we made was a plastic-lined toiletry bag and the second a matching overnight bag. Attaching the piping was a bit tricky but the most difficult part was attaching the gussets. We did the overnight bag on the second day but had spent part of the morning in the nearby village so I ended up working into the night. Eventually I was just so tired that Elaine came to my rescue and helped with the gusset. It was a comfort when she said that, when she made her first overnight bag, her teacher had come to her rescue as well. I didn't feel a complete failure!

Here we are with the completed bags:

This was a very interesting and enjoyable learning experience. However, I had another sewing experience that really warmed my heart!

We spent the last week of my holiday with our son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren in Durban. They had moved house a week before we went there and one day I was left with our grandchildren while the other adults were busy moving things from the old house. My daughter-in-law had said that the children could do with more drawstring toy bags so I found some fabric I had left there after another project and got out the trusty Bernina. Emily, my 7 year old granddaughter, was very interested and I involved her in measuring and cutting out a bag for her. She then sat on my knees at the machine and her foot just reached the peddle. With my hands guiding hers, she did nearly all the sewing on her bag. She kept saying how much fun it was to sew and how much she loves sewing. It made me so happy and I'd like to think that my Mother, her Great Grandmother, was watching us from heaven and enjoying the passing on of skills to another generation. Sadly, there was no-one around to take a photo of us but I think I'll remember the experience for the rest of my life!

5 year old Alexander was not to be outdone; he sat on my lap and, with my hands guiding his, zig-zagged the bias binding for the drawstrings on his bag. What fun!

Mug swap

I joined a Mug Swap organised by Hannah, of Cupcakemumma. As I was about to go to South Africa, I decided to buy my partner a mug there. That turned out to be a good idea as, when I communicated with her, she said she likes elephants, collects teapots and likes the colour purple.

I looked for a mug with an elephant on it but couldn't find one I liked. Then, in the last shop I went to, accompanied by my sister, (which was such a treat!) I found a mug I really liked but it had an African hut on it. Then I found a cute little matching teapot with an elephant on it and then my sister spotted a handpainted card with a purple elephant on it! Now, what could be more suitable!!?

Here they are: