I made a thing

 This week I made a thing!  I'm not sure what to call it:  a sewing tray? an applique organiser? a tool tray?  It started with Facebook showing me a live video stream by Annie Unrein of ByAnnie.com bag patterns fame.  She was doing a trunk show of several of their patterns which was interesting and reminded me of when I hacked her pattern 'A Place for Everything' a few years ago to make a bobbin storage bag. Her trademark is to enclose the raw edges in binding which both finishes them and adds stability.  Watching the video made me want to try something else in that style.  I've been wishing for a few years that I had something to transport short-term handsewing projects around the house, like when I throw together some tools and fabric for an applique project.  I've been using makeshift solutions such as cardboard boxes and plastic trays.

So I sat down and doodled out the kind of thing I wanted, and then sort of made it up as I went along.  I quilted the flower fabric I bought last weekend onto some Bosal foam stabiliser, backing it with some chambray that used to be one of DH's shirts.  I purposely chose the chambray because it will be a neutral background against which my applique pieces and templates and so forth will be clearly visible.  I wanted a low tray that I could easily reach into, but at the same time I wanted lots of pockets to hold tools, rulers, packets and so forth.  I liked the storage offered by the ByAnnie pattern 'In Control' which she showed in her video, so modelled my pockets after that to a certain extent.    There is a small vinyl zip pocket on one end, then  fabric slip pockets on the other three sides.

When I thought about what else I might want in a sewing tray, I added to my design  a pincushion, a needle-holder, a vinyl thimble pocket, elastic to hold varying sizes of thread spools, and a trash pocket for containing trimmed off fabric and thread ends.  The pincushion, needle-holder and trash pocket are attached with velcro so they are removable for use outside the tray (or emptying the rubbish out). The trash pocket is stiffened with Decovil.

The final touches were to add webbing handles, which flop out of the way when the tray is set down, and a slip pocket underneath (secured with a snap) which holds a firm base of heavy card to give the tray stability.  The reason I didn't make a drop-in base like Annie favours is that I've experienced before the annoyance of small items like needles and needlethreaders disappearing  underneath a loose base, so I wanted a clean tray with no such crannies.

I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out and I think it is going to be really useful for future handsewing projects. I even wondered briefly about submitting it to a magazine, but then I would have to make another (better) one and photograph all the steps and work out proper instructions, and I don't really want to make another one right now. It's been very satisfying to work out how to make this one, it's not perfect but then it doesn't need to be perfect, only useful and nice to look at.

Before I started designing the tray, I finished off another cotton blouse.  I went full Laura Ashley on this one. It's quite fun taking my basic self-drafted pattern and just riffing on it to add details.

And look what turned up in the post....could it be another Chinese dollhouse kit?  Yes it could be.  This one is to make a surprisingly small model in a Japanese style which they are calling the Kyoto Onsen.  Aspects of it are a bit crude, but overall it is quite cute and only 12 inches high.  Facebook tempted me with it (curse you Facebook) and I decided to give myself a lockdown splurge. Hopefully I'll have better luck with the lighting on this one. And no, I haven't yet accessorised the interior of my own Japanese dollshouse, so feel free to report me to the dollshouse police.

I'm getting on well with the pleasantly mindless knitting of the Drops sock yarn shawl, enjoying the random pattern created by knitting with two different colourways in alternate rows.

The long dry spell continues so I've had to start watering the garden this week.  It was almost too late for one of my bonsai trees, which in the space of a few weeks had completely frizzled up since the last time I had looked at it.  There are still a couple of green leaf clusters so I'm hoping it's not dead.

I'm sad to report that our baby bird family is no more.  DH found the mother dead on the lawn one morning (it wasn't our cat because she was shut inside) and when I went to check the babies, they were dead in the nest.  It's very sad. We had marvelled a bit at how much time the mother spent on the ground hunting food and had been keeping an eye on our own cat at times.  Perhaps the mother got a bit over confident, or overly hungry?  I don't know. But now I have to look out the kitchen window every morning at a dead nest which is depressing.

But if  I look the other way, I can enjoy our little cherry tree which is now in full bloom, and very pretty.  We've sat out with a few cups of tea out near it, just enjoying looking at it and being out in the sunshine.