Giveaway winner and a new top!

I asked the Random Generator to pick a winner of a notebook cover and… you are going to have to wait, I decided that I will make the cover and once it is done I will post a photo and identify the winner!  Oh the suspense!  So it could be you…

We have ‘enjoyed’ a hot weekend here, it’s great to see the sun but too much of it makes for grumpy children.  Saturday was spend out and about, we went to the Craft Fair on the Cathedral Green in Exeter, the girls enjoyed Punch and Judy and made ‘stained glass windows’ at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) stand.  I had a mooch around the stalls.  We also popped down to the Quay to check out Ruby Slipper’s Retro Romp (a vintage fair) mainly because someone I’ve ‘met’ through my blog was having a stall and I thought it would be good to meet for real!  Oh and we also found time for ice-cream, Beaulieu Blackberry is a firm favourite in this house!

Yesterday we spent the day at home, enjoying the sun but with plenty of shade and water.  I’m not keen on sitting out in the sun for long so thought I would work on a little project.  You may remember that I signed up to the Summer Sewing plans over at Fairy Face Designs, well, Sarah mentioned recently that it was nearly time for a mid-term review so I thought I ought to crack on.  A week or so ago I came across a free pattern for a top, it’s the Sorbetto by Colette Patterns and while I’ve not used any of their patterns before I have read lots of positive things about them.  So I printed it off and spent Friday evening cutting the pieces out and then some time on Sunday sticking them together (if you know anything about pdf/downloadable patterns you will understand what I mean!).  I had a large piece of fabric passed on to me that I’ve kept, thinking ‘I’ve no idea what I might use this for’ well this seemed like the ideal project for it.

I cut out the pieces (only 2) followed the instructions then took a break for lunch.  We had some friends round at 3pm for a couple of hours, one of them is a teacher and is organising craft activities for ‘Enrichment week’ (I think also known as ‘last week of term lets do something nice and easy’!)  so I gave a quick tutorial on making yo-yo’s/Suffolk Puffs and showed how to make melted flowers, and also off loaded donated a bag of tile pieces that I’ve kept because they might come in handy!  Evening came, children in bed and asleep I had a couple of hours to sew and I made my bias binding for the neck and armholes and there you have it one finished top!  How amazing, it was probably the project on the list that I was thinking was least likely to get done!

This is how excited I am about it that I got Tobi to take a photo of me in it when he got in from work this evening and I’ve not even pressed it yet!

You can probably see the lack of pressing on the back here – but I don’t care, I’m just delighted that:

a) I made myself a top

b) it fits

c) it only took a few hours

d) I have other fabrics that I can use to make more!

If you go over to the Colette Patterns group on Flickr you can view other tops made using this patterns, there are clever folks who have adapted it and changed the front, inverted the pleat and added sleeves!  Go and be inspired.

Right I’m off to go and make a notebook slip cover for ….