Cool Summer Skills

Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn and you will. — Vernon Howard

Our relatively cool summer continues here on Vancouver Island. I am quite comfortable with this, as is our wee doggie. It means we can get out for walks during the day without suffering heat stroke, but we still seek out the shade of the forests whenever we can:

Fewer hot days mean that some of my plants were a bit slow to start, but I was very pleased that my little dahlias are starting to bloom. I got the bulbs from a community plant sale earlier this year and I had no idea what they would look like. I am totally entranced by the richness of colour that appeared on my deck this week:

Of course, cool days mean that I can still turn out a batch of scones whenever I want. I'm not baking all that much these days, but sometimes you just need a good fruit scone:

My projects hit a bit of a wall recently as I was trying to figure out how to get the supplies I needed to finish my Heads or Tails Zebra Bag. The instructions called for using pre-quilted fabric as the lining. Having never used it before and having little time to peruse the fabric store, I wondered if I could sub it out for something in my fabric stash, but I was really not sure how well that would work. I wandered around a bit online looking for places where I might order it, but everything I found would take ages to ship here and was a bit too pricey for my liking.

And then I had a breakthrough. I found a couple of these: king-sized waterproof quilted pillowcases. A pair of them cost less per metre than the fabric and shipping alone. AND it was already nearly bag-shaped. I was a little nervous that the finish wouldn't work inside of a bag, but when they arrived I was relieved to see that they were absolutely perfect:

The pattern also called for buckram to stiffen the upper opening of the bag, which was another thing I'd never used and was not sure I'd be able to get around here. When I searched for it online, the price was way more than I wanted to spend when I just needed a wee bit for my bag. In the end, I opted for this plastic mesh which I could cut to size and sew into the upper band:

And voila: a finished bag. I'm quite pleased with it:

It turned out larger than I expected, which was surprising to me. My crochet gauge is usually much smaller than what is called for in the pattern. I'm not bothered... I suppose it just means I can use it to carry more stuff.

This is the first time I've ever lined a bag so successfully. Since I was using a pillowcase and not a flat sheet of fabric, I altered the instructions a bit to make it work, but it's given me much more confidence in my sewing skills:

So now that is done, I'm going to try to discipline myself to sit down and actually knit. I'd really like to finish a summer top before the summer is actually finished. This will entail less scrolling on my phone and more actual knitting. Imagine that.

 But first: dinner. Thanks for stopping by. Have a good week.