Moody Blooms Part 1

I have (temporarily?) abandoned the black/red colour scheme for SWAP and gone for a new inspiration for summer - Moody Blooms.

The idea of this is florals with a dark background, in this case navy blue.

I bought the floral fabrics on holiday in Madeira in February (we luckily had a holiday pre lockdown).

Floral trousers using New Look 6216, my current TNT.

I cropped the length slightly on these as I'll be mostly wearing during some with sandals. I also never both with the front tie.

And a floral cardigan jacket (using the cardigan pattern from Wendy Ward's sewing with knits book)

Here's my inspiration, a floral suit!
(Though I will probably wear the pieces individually, with navy and colours picked out of the print)

There may yet be other pieces in the print.

Room Refresh during lockdown

There is a conservatory off the back of my house. It is made of glass windows and a plastic roof and is quite tired now.
At some point I hope to replace it with a proper extension useable all year, but during lockdown I decided to make it as nice as I could with what I had available.

The blue striped blinds (panels really as they don't roll up) were made from an old King Size duvet cover (same pattern on both sides), the small cushions on the storage box were made from the matching pillowcases and the large cushion at the back from the foot of the cover (reusing the popper closing).

The blinds give some privacy from and to my neighbours - their washing line is only a few feet away behind the blinds!

I already had the white storage units, which are from Ikea and house my various craft materials, one has leather scraps, another calligraphy, silk painting, candle making, general craft etc.

The blue box with white stars is intended for a kids room and I picked it up in the supermarket, this houses all of my beading and jewellery supplies. It fitted perfectly in the gap between the storage units. Although both of my storage units are Ikea Kallax, they were purchased many years apart and are not quite the same, so look odd directly next to each other, but OK with something in the middle.

On the other side of the conservatory I don't have any blinds as this looks out into my own patio/garden. I have an old sofa on this other wall and its great to sit and chill out (or warm up) in here.

I've definitely used this room a lot more since I did this, and the very fresh feeling from the blue and white feels a bit like the seaside even though I'm 90 miles from the coast.

What to sew?

The bunting was split between me and 2 neighbours and helped make our section of the street look a bit more celebratory for VE Day. I was glad to have the skills and materials to make the bunting as its was handy in the current climate as people were not able to just go out and buy decorations. People had used what they had kept from the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, sewed bunting like me, or printed out and/or coloured in designs found on the internet.

I wore my tee from Sewing Bee Round 1 back in January which got lots of positive comments.
I have various sewing plans in my head, contests I am part of and etc. But quite a lot of it feels rather irrelevant at the moment.

I am working full time from home which involves 8+ hours staring at several computer screens. I am grateful I am employed and healthy but it isn't a lot of fun sometimes.

Yesterday and today are nice warm weather, which highlighted the paucity of my hot weather wardrobe. But the forecast is for a cold front to descend from the north tonight, so hot weather clothing is not really an urgent issue.

I might do a small home dec project.

VE Day Bunting

I made some Bunting to remember 75 years since VE day, which is a holiday here on Friday.

Altogether I made 75 pennants. 25 each in red, white and blue and stitch them onto woven tape.

It seems a bit too much for the front of my narrow house, but maybe some of the neighbours will adopt a strand (its made as 3 x 25 pennant strands).

Style Arc Marni Jacket from Scraps

I made this jacket from the scraps left over from three other makes.

I used the Style Arc Marni Jacket

And these scraps

which were leftover from sewing these jackets/cardigans

Unfortunately the plain red drapes very differently and looks a little odd on the dummy. I try doing a shot of me wearing it at some point.