getting organised

You’ve got less than a month to go, they say, better get your hospital bag organised, I’m told. Somehow, I don’t think “get your hospital bag organised” was code for “dig out that pattern and start cutting”, but what’s a crafter to do?

I pulled out the Melly & Me Sleepover pattern that I bought a while back, and while surfing around looking for fabrics, I had one my (admittedly rare) flashes of brilliance, and recalled a big stack of cord hiding in the stash. I pulled it out, and a cute grey linen for the contrast panels. As it turns out, I had more than enough to get what I needed. Then, thought I, I’ll just need to buy the lining, and the other extras. A mental catalogue of my “basics” drawer suggested that possibly I might have some homespun that would work. What I found instead is that white you see on the bottom right. I bought 2 yards of the stuff, not realising how HUGE the tone on tone pattern is, and, to be quite honest, I hate the stuff. But for a lining? PERFECT. Especially since it would never be used otherwise. Score. So I cut the lining as well, and started ticking down the list for the notions I needed to buy. Interfacing? Yeah, I have some of that somewhere… batting. Hmm… into the batting box, and I found one large and a couple of small pieces of bamboo batting – a quick measure and some creative cutting, and there’s all my bag batting.

So in the end, all I had to buy was that neat little pile encased by the zip. A grand total of $30.65. Not bad for a whole overnight bag, don’t you think? Oh, and those couple of scraps in the top right? I’m auditioning binding for the pocket flaps. One of the teeny tiny alterations I’m making to the pattern is ditching the pocket flap template and going with a squared off flap – because I can cut square flaps from my cord offcuts. The other change is I think the directionality of the fabric means I’ve cut the pockets the wrong way, so I’ll have to mount them the other way to the pattern, but that’s minor. I can’t wait to see this bag come together.

Today has been a normal old Tuesday – errands, Bible Study, and now some down time to sew for a bit before school pickup and a friend comes round for afternoon tea. I also managed to sneak in a trip to the video store for a little challenge I’ll be blogging in the next day or two. If you follow me on Tumblr, you’ll have a fair idea what movies I was after (and seriously, how good is Tightwad Tuesday?). The girl sleeps, the baby has stopped booting the daylights out of the area that used to be my waist, some of my fave tunes are queued up on YouTube, and the sun is streaming into the studio. Sewing time.