I am pleased to report …

a more successful bag making experience using the tutorial here. Very different to the magazine pattern – this one is  clear and accurate and goes together quickly and easily – I made both of these this afternoon.

Why fraternal twins? Because I wanted two bags to tidy up my workroom shelves – which they do, very nicely, being a perfect fit on the 30cm shelves. [The thing next to them is an old sweet jar full of manipulated fabric samples from C&G.]

The blue fabric I used is very thick, which is why I made the straps and base from a different fabric – and as this is stash reduction year – again – I used some ‘end of dyeing day fabric’ – when I put the cloth I've been using to mop up drops and slops into a bucket with a gobbet of soda solution and all the left over dyes. The results can be – er – interesting – and surprisingly often, orange [yuk] - and it is sometimes hard to know what to do with the cloth – but it brightened up this boring dark blue quite nicely.

Wensleydale has come up with an idea for the sow's ear bag – it was gently suggested to me at college that instead of folding the 2D piece I roll it round a cardboard tube. W. realised that the tube was  about the same length as the odd shaped sow’s ear – so it has become the 2D carrying bag. I still don’t like it though!

I mentioned that we were going out last night – which proved to be cold but snow free. We went to the Watermill Theatre – remarkably, without Mr and Mrs Cheddar for once – to see ‘Bronte’. It was thought provoking and moving, although I suspect that if you knew nothing about the Brontes it might have been a tad confusing as well. W and I are off to Yorkshire again this month, and another visit to Haworth is on our itinerary, so it was a good time to see this play.

And finally  - another of Quality Control’s sleeping places, also now removed following the completion of the redecoration.

‘Cardboard box[es]? Luxury!’