Crafty bits and bobs

I nipped into town for a look around as although I work in town its not every day that I actually get to have a look around as I quite frequently meat friends and we are collectively ladies that lunch!  Anyway I nipped in to go to Wilkinsons as I needed a new brewing bucket for making some wine.  I was only able to get one but may be able to get another one during the week.  Fingers crossed. 

Needless to say a few more things found their way into my basket practical things.  I topped up on some other winemaking bits and bobs like yeast and yeast compound and bottle covers, and airlocks  

I also wanted some lever arch files and plastic inserts.  I have come up with this idea on how to save my seeds and sort them out month by month without cluttering everything up.  I thought that if I put a packet of seed in a plastic sleeve (or several packets of the same type of seed) it would be easy to find what I was looking for plus if any seeds came out of the packets then they would be safe in the plastic sleeve.  The A4 folders would then be kept on a shelf.  I hit upon this idea for storing the seeds because the seeds if needed over two or three months could be moved into the next month's section and so an aide memoire as well.  I am going to trial it and see how it gets on.  I have chosen some turquoise coloured files for this purpose as the colour is so cheerful.

I then went to a couple of charity shops in town but no pickings today.  Sometimes you just fall lucky.  When I go to the charity shops I look at what I can do with the item - use it as is or recycle it into something else - particularly with fabrics but also with individual items themselves.

I also needed to get a new garlic press and I came across this one which looks sturdy and easy to use.  I use garlic a lot in cooking but have a habit of not being able to find the garlic press or indeed bits of it!  Hopefully I will not lose this one quite so easily.

The above batter/mixing bowls I was attracted to the colour with first.  I just love this particular minty green colour.  So fresh looking.  It was only when I was looking for the price label that I found they had been reduced from £9 apiece to £3 each.  Result.  So am well chuffed with these.

Then I went to a shop called Tiger Tiger - it is quite a quirky shop and has lots of different bits and bobs in and I came across these packs of fabric at £1 per pack and it is cotton.

The bunting pack which has 16 mini triangles in at £2 per pack.  I bought four packs as I did not know how many triangles were in each pack.  So I shall look forward to backing these up with some plain cotton and then sewing them on my sewing machine**  see below

There was then the toning ribbon at 3 metres per colour and £1 apiece.  These are to go with the fat quarters of fabric  at £1 per pack.

I then went to John Lewis to have a look around and came away with these:

Two Christmas remnants

A pinking effect blade for my circular fabric cutter and three lots of seasonal ribbon

And two new style pom-pom makers  and some green cotton to go with the Christmas fabric.

The reason that  I went into Lewis' in the first place was to see if I could speak to someone about the sewing machine I was looking at.  I had been in for the past two weeks in my dinner hour but there was no one available to help.

The demonstrator was busy so I had to kill some time by looking around the store but I eventually managed to get a demonstration and an overall idea of how the machine would work.  Ermm I ended up buying it as it will do what I need it to do and has 100 stitches to choose from.  It is the machine I referred to earlier so I am highly chuffed.  It is an ideal sewing machine for patchwork and a more than good basic machine and it has a nice large platform table attached to it which is removable which will be ideal for patchwork and quilting.  Now I just need to get used to it.

I am still thinking about an embroidery only machine as well; but want to get to grips with this one first.  I have also got my eye on an embellisher.  Whether it will come to anything remains to be seen but I do quite like the look of them and can see the potential as always in both of them.

As for fabrics I do have a considerable stash and some of it I have had quite a while so I am hoping to use some of that up.  I also need some trousers for work so I thought after all these years of not doing any dressmaking that I would dip my foot in the water again and see what I can do.  However I will need to pay a trip to the market during the week to source suitable fabric for trousers as most of  my stash is polycottons, cottons and silky fabrics.  So will have to see what I can find.

Right I need to tidy up - a lot has happened today and this is only part of it.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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