tie | clarinda kaleidoscope

Hello all. hope you are having a FAB weekend!

I want to share my second Kim with you – these photos were taken at the beach last weekend which is probably why I am sat here now with a cold. It was such a gloriously sunny day albeit windy and I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to take photos of my nautical Kim in an appropriate setting.

We had so much fun taking the photos but I have to tell you – this dress did not make me smile the first time I put it on. I bought the fabric at Fabric Land in Worthing over the Easter holidays, originally for a Sureau but decided to go with a Kim because the fabric was so summery.

Although I had bought lining fabric I managed to eek the dress out of two metres. It did necessitate a lot of twiddling around and I had to cut right up to the selvedge which fortunately was patterned rather than being a white strip. Anyway, I thought I had marked each piece so that the selvedge pieces were on the inside of the bodice but I was sewing whilst watching, I think it was, Morse. There are so many adverts in these two hour programmes that in order to alleviate the guilt from lazing on the sofa – I hop up every time the ads are on and do a bit of sewing which proabably accounts for why this happened (and I did not notice until I tried the finished garment on)!

Normally I become despairing when things go wrong but this just made me laugh and laugh. I could not believe that I hadn’t noticed this: I will certainly be more attentive when I am lining in the same fabric in the future. I have not been put off though – I have already bought some Liberty with all of the Alice in Wonderland characters on and am going to make another one. You will see that I did correct it. I had to unpick the shoulder, twist the pieces round the right way and then I simply butt the two shoulder pieces together and handstitched with really tiny stitches. Obviously I can notice it but as my hair is shoulder length, I don’t think anyone else will – unless of course I meet you on a beach somewhere and you want a quick peek to see how neatly I did it!

Here are a couple more pics – just because it was such a lovely day.

In other sewing news I have finished the two ties I was sewing in the Liberty Lawn with daisies – I did the hand sewing on the train which seemed to intrigue people. I gave one to a friend last night at his leaving do and the other has been hidden away for Mr CK’s birthday next month. I really do enjoy making ties.

This weekend I am hoping to cut out my Gabriola (need to trace the pattern first) and I am currently making my tennis themed Sorbetto in preparation for the half term tennis camp.

Hope you have a lovely weekend and especially good luck to you if you are running a marathon!

Toodle pip,

Clarinda x

Oh I do love a workshop – I love having an expert on hand to help and give guidance; I love the seemingly endless supply of drink, cake/biscuits and I love meeting other people who sew. Rather last minute I decided to book myself onto Saturday morning’s workshop at Clothkits, Chichester to make a tie.

There were four others on the course. The first task was to choose the Liberty Lawn fabric which we were to use. I had already brought my fabric with me; a gorgeous wool mix I brought from Ghani and Guthrie and for the lining I wanted to use some Liberty Tana Lawn, Queue for the Zoo , which I had bought ages ago to make a blouse and remains untouched. The tutor, Maria Pulley thought that my fabric may be a little too thick but I had my recipient in mind and knew that the grey/blue floral combo was perfect and was not to be swayed!

A tie has lots of funny little fiddly bits associated with attaching the lining and getting a good point. I was really pleased to have someone there to show me precisely how to do it but apart from that, I found it relatively straight forward. The most interesting thing for me was the ….silence! Once you have the fiddly bits out of the way, the tie has to be hand sewn. There was a period of about forty five minutes where you literally could hear a pin drop, no-one said a single word whilst we concentrated intently on trying to sew invisible stitches. So, not quite as social as other classes.

Here is my sewing concentration face.

Here are the finished ties – quite impressive for a morning don’t you think. I do love the Liberty prints so will be making more I am sure.

In the afternoon I cut out my fabric for Tilly and the Buttons Francoise – there is a contest and photos have to be uploaded by midnight tonight. I don’t think I’ll manage that as today is ear-marked as Christmas card writing day etc but I will give it a go.

Toodle pip,

Clarinda x