chenille | NICOLA KNITS

The bird bag I showed you last time was very gratefully received by my coworker. And the buffalo plaid hoodie is comfortable and cosy and I was wearing it constantly the last couple of days.

I have now added another garment to my wardrobe….

This is a mashup of a sleeveless summer top that I invented a couple of years ago and the dolman sleeved top with the ruching from last year. I literally taped the two homemade pattern pieces together and ran this up.

The flared hem drapes nicely at the sides. I narrowed the waist area slightly and made the sleeves three-quarter length.

I accidentally started cutting the front neck without a seam allowance so the neckline is a bit deeper too.

Note the new haircut – shortest sides ever – a proper undercut! And professional colour!

My other finish was a backpack made from fluffy pink chenille. Not your average bag! I had a remnant of it, and paired it with a fleece remnant for the lining. Pulled a couple of coordinating zippers out of the stash, and some curtain grommets. The only thing I needed to buy was a couple of large silver D rings.

It took me a while to figure out the best number of grommets and I was concerned that the two thick layers might be a problem, but it all came together well. There are two very large inside pockets so that everything doesn’t just get mixed up in there.

My last conundrum was a strap and in the end I decided to use some acrylic DK yarn, made into icord with my little machine, and crocheted into a chain with my biggest hook.

Ta dah!

It’s been an enjoyable weekend. Last night we went to our first hockey game in years and had a good time. Unfortunately our local team didn’t win but the visiting team did deserve their victory, in our opinion.

Today, friends came over for a potluck lunch. The theme was Asian, because it’s Chinese New Year so I thought that was appropriate.

I made General Tso’s tofu, rice and stir-fried vegetables, our friends brought potstickers and soup with noodles, and we had two desserts as well. Our monthly potlucks always leave us stuffed to the point that we often don’t eat dinner!

I used the recipe from Nora Cooks for the tofu and it worked out well.

This evening I spent a couple of hours in my sewing room. I pulled all the fleece/chenille/jersey knits out of the cubbies and sorted them all.

The photo above shows it all dumped on the floor!

That massive pile is made up of (a) remnants that I brought home from work (when we get to the end of a bolt and there’s less than a metre left, we roll them and discount them by 75%), and (b) remnants from projects that I’ve made, which means that those pieces are odd shapes and sizes.

Once I had sorted them, the chenilles and knits went back into their cubes and the fleece was heaped on my cutting table. I then took a look through my sewing patterns to see whether I could Frankenstein an actual garment from it all.

I reckon this might work:

View C with the short shaped hem, pocket and hood instead of collar. I’ve made this pattern more than once now so I’m familiar with it. Can you see the back and front in the large check with the sleeves in the smaller black and white and the hood and pocket in red? Wacky maybe.

I’ve also grouped some pinks together, and some red/black/white, and the peace sign print with two solids, with a view to making something usable. I think the pinks would make good PJ pants.