A clothkit!

A few weeks ago a parcel arrived in the mail from Lark containing a very nifty package!

Inside was a clothkit, which includes everything you need to make a particularly cute pinafore.

It includes the fabric, some lovely lining fabric, buttons, cotton, instructions, and even some tags.

The best bit is that the pattern is printed directly onto the fabric, which will hopefully eliminate some of the cutting 'challenges' I seem to have ;-)

I still probably need to find some decent scissors though. Any suggestions for what I should be looking for?

P.S. The bag is still going: straps were attached today (the right way now, after putting one on wrongly at first - need to pay closer attention to the instructions...), and the flap is nearly ready to be attached to the body. Yay for (slow) progress!

Here goes nothing...

Cutting has been done! I followed the instructions and used LOTS of pins. This is the complete opposite to my normal strategy but I figured Nicole knows a lot more about cutting than me :-)

Sadly, I have discovered that I own the crappiest sewing scissors in the universe - both pairs. Yes, I own two pairs, the crappiest and the second crappiest. I also discovered that I still can't cut in a straight line, even when I do use lots of pins. Or maybe it's the scissors? Surely I can blame my tools this time ;-)

Oh well, continuing on. All the interfacing has been stuck on, and I've sewed the velcro bit to the bag front. The velcro is another one of my modifications, so if my brain explodes it's because I'm trying to work out where to sew the other bit on the lining of the flap. Complicated!

This afternoon I attached the bag base, so now it's time for the straps. Again, this may involve an exploding brain...

cut-o-phobia

One of the things on my list of things to do this week is 'start the bag'. Of course, there are a few things that need to happen before the bag can be started.

So, I've washed the fabric. This is a good thing, because the brown drill I'm using for the outside of the bag ran everywhere when I washed it, so hopefully now when the bag gets wet it wont make quite such a big mess of the lovely lining! I still need to iron the fabric, but that will be good for some mindless meditation sometime soon :-)

The next pre-start job is to extend and trace the pattern. I worked out that if I make a 4cm fold in my greaseproof paper and keep the fold at right angles to the pattern when I trace it, it will give me an extra 8cm in width. My brain must have some functionality, because I've actually tried this bit and it worked!

Finally, before I can really start the bag, I need to cut out the pattern. And here lies the problem. The number of deep breaths required to cut out the PATTERN does not bode well for cutting the FABRIC!! Avoidance of cutting fabric is one of the reasons I rarely get anything done - the idea is there but cutting fabric is generally required to put the idea into practice. Arrrggghh!!

Right then. If exposure is an effective treatment for phobias, by the time i've finished this bag I should be cured! Take a deep breath. And another one....