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Today has been the most glorious of days – warm and sunny, with a gentle breeze to dry the not one, not two but three loads of washing I have drying on the line after the recent succession of rainy days. But then spring is often like this here in England – two days forward and then a step back again – tomorrow we are promised several degrees cooler and rain too.
These alternating days of rain and sunshine are great for the garden though, and it seems that almost every vase I own is stuffed full of flowers (that’s just two of them above) from my patch whilst the Engineer has successfully raised more geraniums than he can count!
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And while the Engineer has been thriftily raising geraniums from cuttings, I have been recycling one of my favourite fabrics yet again, a lovely pink check fabric from Susie Watson which I thought was very expensive around 10 years ago at what now seems to be a very reasonable £25 per metre!
One of the things I love about fabric is that you can reuse it almost as many times as you want – although successive projects do tend to diminish in size as the amount of useable fabric reduces. This fabric has lasted so well though – on the left above you can see it in its original incarnation as a blind for my kitchen window in Devon. Then, when I moved house it became a second (smaller) blind, again for my kitchen window, as well as part of a tablecloth.
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Now I have only a much smaller portion left, but it’s still making an appearance from time to time in some of my projects. Last month I used it to line a peg bag project for the May Magazine and this month I used it both for the handles and to decorate what I have named “the prettiest tote!” a new pattern for the Bustle & Sew Magazine ….
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And even now I still have some pieces left! I used a lovely vintage floral fabric for the bag exterior from a seller (buttonwoodcrafts) I found on eBay and the pattern will be in the June Bustle & Sew Magazine that’s published on Thursday along with five more projects…
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Along with the tote bag, I think my favourite project is the Lily Pond hoop. I particularly enjoyed scattering sparkling seed beads across the work to represent bubbles in the water – taking me back a few years to when Freddie had Grandma Daycare and we’d head off to the local garden centre to see the fish!
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