November 2017

The frock and the bag are not a set, and the only thing they have in common was that I rushed them off before my 5 day work week routine began. I was a bit frantic trying to ‘finish’ projects before part time work status ended, and I got these two out of the way.

The five minute frock was pretty much that! I had found a wallis maxi polyester skirt on the reduced rail (€1) in the charity shop and picked it up with the intent of maybe making another skirt, for the new job. Some days later I wondered if I cut armholes in it would it make a dress? I did and it was. I wore it for the day to see if it was comfortable to wear – it was – so shaped the armhole cuts to curves and hemmed them, and sewed down the elastic waistband which gives a slight structured boat-neck collar. It also can technically be converted back to a maxi skirt later …..should it be needed!

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The blinged bag was a whim. I had picked the bag up for €3 in a reduced bin. I figure it was reduced as the lining was shredded and the bag, while being a functional black, was also a vinyl bag. I had been rather inspired by Kate’s cross stitching (at our knitty-stitchy group that meet up in Carrolls pub, Dominick St Wednesdays if anyone is in Galway and wants to pop in!) and Lulu Guinness Handbags when I planned this bag. What I had not realised is that Kate makes cross stitch look easy, which it is not. I had trialed a few cross stitch hearts and they were disastrous…..so resorted to a few hours on the embroidery machine and did this one!

I used a screwdriver to loosen the bag, and made a new lining. I then embroidered the vinyl, and then got the gutterman glue, put it together again and hoped I did it right. I get a bit frantic towards the end of fixing the bag into the clasp again as i am always convinced it will fall out or I will have missed a bit, but this is the second one ever I have done and both have been fine.