Neep!

This week has been a bit busier in my Etsy shop, so no progress on any side projects like my Liberty quilt, or a mini quilt that I have planned for an RSPB quilt challenge – hopefully more on that next week.

A range of pieces made over the last few weeks have shown up again this week, although there's been a spin on a few of them, plus a few pieces that I haven't made in a while – a perfect mix!  The first spin make (pun intended!) was on my new swift storage bag, made to fit a Sunflower Swift, which has very different dimensions to a standard umbrella swift, and extra pegs that needed their own internal storage pockets:

This was my very first round bottom bag, which necessitated revisiting my maths education and a reintroduction to Pi.  I really wasn't great at maths, but I found some excellent resources on YouTube and soon got my head around the drafting of a pattern and the construction process.  I have to say that I probably won't be rushing back to repeat the experience as sewing the bottom to the main body is super fiddly on a sewing machine.  It would actually have been much easier to have sewn it by hand, but I didn't know that until I'd already done it by machine…

My next spin was a custom mini pouch for a regular customer who loves a grey background fabric and asked for my new little pouch made with the same fabrics as my new Bari J sewing case that I shared last week:

So cute and a great way to use the small amount of this fabric that I have left.  I currently have a pile of Essex Linens and Liberty Lawns from my "I don't have much of this" collection on my work desk that I'm going to make some pouches with.  I really enjoy making these little pouches, although they are pretty time consuming as they need quite a lot of hand sewing.

The most popular coin purses in the shop this week were this new bunny one:

My all time favourite Fox Nap purse:

And this Liberty June's Meadow one:

I made quite a few Liberty dpn cosies too:

And on the "haven't made this in a while" list were this fun Boston Terrier interchangeable tips bag:

And several crochet cotton wash cloths:

This was a timely order as I've been thinking a lot about the whole plastics debate recently and actively looking for ways to reduce our footprint with the things we use and buy.  Things like wash cloths are such an easy swap for the more convenient but plastic laden throwaway wipes, although I've personally always preferred washing my face (or at least rinsing it) with water.  The cottons I use for these are such lovely quality too – very soft on your face and last for ages – my current one has been washed many, many times and I think is into its 3rd year of service!

I also had an order for a sewing case this week in the ever popular Liberty 'Hesketh' print, so took the opportunity to make a new version of it, incorporating some of the new design ideas I've had.  It looks very much like its usual self on the outside:

The inside is pretty much the same at the front, but at the back, I've got rid of the scissor shaped pocket and added a large slip pocket to hold the scissors, which now also have a proper scissor keeper / fob, attached via a ribbon.  The scissors are kept in place both via their position in the case and by anchoring the ribbon on a super pretty oak leaf shank button from Textile Garden:

One of the things I knew I would miss from my original design was the button closure, so using a button inside in a different way was a great way to keep the beloved button involved!  The 'fob' is actually a mini matching pin cushion, which slips snuggly into the other section of the pocket beside the scissors.  I couldn't resist also adding a little silver scissor charm to this, which is a bit of an uncharacteristic fussy touch for me, but I think I like it:

Finally, the last make to be packaged up this week is something I've been working on for a while and is a gift for a friend's little boy.  I wish I could say that I enjoyed making this character, but I really didn't!  This was my very first Amigurumi make and I learned a lot in the course of making him – the main thing being never to use Stylecraft's Special DK yarn again!  The yarn is very soft and very cheap, but I found it very splitty and very hard to see when working it with a 2mm crochet hook to create the kind of small tight shapes that this pattern called for.  On the plus side, I'm quite pleased with how he eventually turned out (several parts were re-made, attached, removed and reattached several times!) .  He does at least look like the character he's supposed to be, although you probably won't recognise him unless you have young children in your life as he's from a very charming CBeebies programme called 'Abney and Teal' and his name is 'Neep':

The pattern is available on Ravelry and gives you directions to make all the various Neep shaped characters.  Hopefully, Oliver will like him and will be running around with him shouting: "Neep! Neep! Neep!" all day on his birthday on Monday! 😀