Hello dear reader, hope you are having fun and starting to get excited about spring?

In all the excitement of finishing my 1960s coat, I’m only just getting round to blogging about my other recent activities. I had a great half term which left me feeling relaxed and ready for the next surge. I had a bit of a supper party one night for some friends/neighbours and one of them actually asked me what exactly it is I am doing when I prance about on the riverbank in season inappropriate clothing!

I don’t have a posh camera (or a tripod, remote control etc.) so I have to take photos outside to get the best light and I only use my mini IPAD anyway.  I might need to re-think this strategy as sewing/blogging is becoming a bigger part of my life (it’s not so big for others who I have to cajole into taking pictures for me). However, for the time being I will continue to prance around at the end of my garden.

This is my second Sewaholic Belcarra blouse – it is such a lovely top – I made it up in Liberty Lawn Queue for the Zoo which I bought last year.  Similar to my first Belcarra (see here) – I think this has the potential to be worn to work with more formal attire as well as with denim as seen here.

This is a better view of the fabric (and my goose bumps) but I also wanted to show you the little button detail I added.  This is another one from my mum’s 1950s button box and I love it that I am now able to put to use some of the buttons that I have sorted through periodically for decades.

It is a wonder I managed to squeeze this top in at all as the little people were around with it being half term.  They are so inquisitive about sewing but to date we have only made a tote bag together.  The majority of the time in which I could sew was spent on finishing my coat (see here)  but now that is done I can move onto another couple of projects which I have lined up.

The first is a Kim dress – which I am doing as part of the sewalong.  I am doing a direct copycat of Dolly Clackett’s dress which used a fabric called Flamingo Border.  Unfortuantely I made a huge boo boo.  I have noticed that frequently when I buy the amount of fabric stated on the pattern I end up with so much left over  – I have squeezed a number of Sorbettos out of such generosity. So, on this occasion, I only bought two metres – doh. The skirt is made from a rectangle of the full three metres and consequently not only will my full skirt not be nearly so full but I didn’t have enough for the lining of the bodice. I was already entrenched in my cutting out so  – what to do?  Well, I did something rather extravagant.  A couple of weeks ago I bought some lovely broderie anglaise from Sew Over it (with no particular project in mind) and I used a little bit of that for my bodice lining.

It will be my first project which looks lovely from the inside!  I also ran up a couple of pairs of Trixie Lixie knickers with my leftover Liberty lawn (what a wonderful way to use up leftovers!).

My other half term achievement was to set up a Twitter account linked to my sewing activities.  I have two followers so that is exciting!  I am struggling to de-couple an existing twitter account which I used when I walked the Camino de Santiago six years ago (pre hashtag days) so I can’t add a button yet to the blog but if you are interested it’s ClarindaKaleidoscope @Clarinda_K  I only really decided to set one up so that I could follow along with all of the tweeting which  accompanies #GBSB which I am enjoying hugely.

Hope the week is going well – Good Luck to Amanda and Deborah tonight!

Toodle pip,

Clarinda x