Hi all

I’m overdue for my April roundup, aren’t I! It was a making, vlogging, walking sort of month. Mr Stitches and I have been getting between 5000 and 10000 steps in every day, and I have also been supplementing with a few home workouts. Trying to get fitter again. 

Ali of Little Drops of Wonderful has had her Dodgy Bag Makealong in progress, and there’s an active thread in her Ravelry group. I’ve posted quite a few photos in there of bags I’ve made, including the one for my swap partner in Alberta. 

She sent me a lovely package of goodies in return. A bag that she made, some ceramic buttons, stickers and a cute toadstool charm. 

I’ll pop a few photos of the things I’ve sewn below.

Caroline bags (photo tutorial on this blog) including some smaller ones just for fun

Bum Bag – this was a pain as there was binding on the inside and I do not like binding!

Laptop bag – my own invention

Tote from upcycled denim

Forage bag – a Noodlehead pattern

Scrappy continuous zipper bags

Arm band for phone – another invention of mine so I can log steps when  working out at home

Scissor keepers – a SewingTimes tutorial

Tiny zip pouches – I made a YouTube tutorial for these

Turtle mop – an idea I saw on Facebook

Coral denim bag – another YT tutorial,  this time from Mama Project. Struggled with this one. Not good enough to sell but I used it today and I love it so I’m keeping it. I dyed the jeans with Rit.

There’s been quite a lot of crochet too. 

Turtle

Crochet pussy hats – I’m on the third one so far this week. Yarn is Ice Yarns Picasso.

I had another fun outing with friends one weekend. We drove a little way south and had a lovely time in a small town with a yarn store (that was really busy as they were having a special event with wine and cupcakes and everything) and a quilt store. So we spent lots of time browsing and inhaling yarn and fabric fumes and then went and had a coffee and a snack. 

I’m writing this on May 5th, and today was my first market, selling my bags. I did sell a few, and made a reasonable amount of money, but a lot of that was thanks to my friends who came to say Hi. I certainly didn’t expect them to spend any money but they did and I’m grateful for that. 

It was a tiring day of getting up at 6am (because I woke up before my alarm and thought I may as well get up) and driving to the venue and spending 5 hours “peopling” (I’m out of practice at that). Packing up didn’t take long, but I got home desperate for food and tea! And then Mr Stitches and I went out for a 7pm show of Taiko drumming which was absolutely awesome and made me forget my tiredness. 

Mr Stitches’ recovery from cancer is going quite well, though the after-effects of the radiation come and go. He will be going back to work next week, but only 4 hours, 3 days the first week. And then gradually working his way back to full time. I have also started looking around to see what part-time jobs there are in the vicinity but I haven’t gone as far as updating my resumé.

If you haven’t yet gone and checked out my YouTube channel, Stitches and Slapdashery, please do go and visit.

Thanks for reading.