Saturday 20 June 2015

Brightening Up Everyday Jobs (Hillarys Blinds Craft Competition Entry)

Last week, Hillarys Blinds were kind enough to send me a metre squared piece of their lovely fabric, so that I could craft up something lovely, to enter in to their Craft Competition.

There were four lovely fabrics to choose from:


I chose the pretty, Orla Keily-esqe Daisy Pistachio and stared thinking of what to make.

When the fabric arrived, honestly, it was so lovely, I wanted to make a cushion from it!  I thought about a cushion trimmed with yellow ric-rac, to set off the yellow in the daisies.  A quick look at the craft competition entries from last year though, and the few starting to trickle on to this years' Pinterest board, suggested to me that a cushion just wasn't going to cut it.

I needed to be a little bit more creative with my entry, I thought.  But I was stumped.  Honestly, I had this lovely metre of fabric, and couldn't decide what to do with it!  This happens to me a lot with lovely fabric - I just can't seem to settle on the project worthy enough of cutting in to it!

Anyway, I dithered long enough that the deadline was looming and I just needed to get something done, so I changed tack.  What had I been meaning to make for myself for ages, but hadn't ever seemed to find the time for?  Would this competition bring the kick up the bum I needed?

While I was thinking, the washing machine started beeping at me - I'll just put the washing out while I think about it.  Then, oh my goodness, check out my peg basket!!


What a disgrace!  It's held together by duct tape, doesn't even hold all my pegs, and the slightest gust of wind tips it over, scattering my page all over the garden for the dog to eat!

So that was it, a new peg bag was getting made, but I didn't want the usual coat hanger style, as I thought that would probably fall off the line too.  I thought one that clipped on the line would be nice and secure, and still be able to be bought in the house easily when I'd finished using it.

I remembered a bag I was making, following the excellent instructions from Very Purple Person's blog. If you need to make a quick reversible tote, I recommend you check her tutorial out. 

I remembered that at the time, I thought that the handles could pop together.  I only wanted one handle for my peg bag though, so I went about changing the pattern piece.


I just put some baking parchment over the pattern and redrew, from half way along the strap, so that once cut on the fold, there would only be one strap on each side of the bag.  Does that make sense?  You could use any tote pattern in this way, if you'd prefer a squarer peg bag, for instance.  Also, you don't really need to 'box' out the curved bottom with the darts, but I think it makes the finished bag nicer.

From there, I pretty much followed the original pattern instructions, except when it came to sewing the strap together at the shoulder, I sewed each strap closed and then used my very handy Kam Snap tool to put a bright yellow snap in the centre of one of the flowers.


And voila, so much nicer than the old one!






And finally, and action shot of it hanging on the line!  I really love my new peg bag!  Is that totally sad?  Wait, don't answer!

Thanks very much to Hillarys Blinds for sending me this lovely fabric.  Mr Rowberry even commented that our new peg bag was nice and made in lovely fabric!

And I think I've just about got enough fabric left for a cushion … with yellow ric rac trim …!






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