Back to It

As school goes back this week after the long summer break, it's with mixed feelings that I get back to a more normal routine. I've loved being able to be around with the kids these holidays. My work has been a bit quiet, as it usually is at this time of year, but there's been plenty going on in other ways. That said, a few things have been on the back burner and I feel a bit behind on the routine things; sewing hasn't really happened much and blogging too has not been very regular.

I did manage to finish my first ever bee block for Adrianne in the Simply Solids bee I'm part of.

I looking forward to more in this bee. Our Australasian group is called Fallow.

We have been doing a (for us) big undertaking in building a foundation for a new pool fence. For which my son and I hauled lots of concrete yesterday. When I say hauled I mean staggered a few steps between hardware store shelf and trolley, and trolley and car, and car and back lawn with lots of 20kg bags.

We've also dug trenches, built boxing and troweled the wet concrete to hold a carefully levelled aluminium channel in place. Time will tell how well we've done, but so far so good.

Incidentally I'm about to start doing some Pilates classes!

Our daughter has a new computer for school, so of course she needed a sleeve, so I made one of those last night.

The angle of this photo makes it look as if the flap isn't centred, but it is- I think the computer inside slid down the slope of the chair-honest!

Isn't it great fabric? It's Type by Julia Rothman

And the lining is a Timeless Treasures Graph Paper Red

I used Elizabeth Hartman's tutorial from Sew Mama Sew. Great clear directions, but I had to tweak it a bit. The computer's a Macbook Air which is very skinny; so perhaps that's why the formula Hartman uses made the sleeve a bit roomy.  My machine in the past has not had a happy relationship with Velcro, so we decided to do magnetic snap closures, which I hadn't used before. (Annoying that ironing on the metal on the ironing board made a little mark where the snap is below the fabric :-( )

I couldn't get fusible fleece and quilting was not desired(!), so instead I found double sided fusible padded interfacing, which was OK but I wouldn't go that route again. I don't really like the way it feels and trying to fuse the lining and the front separately then get them together at the end was a bit dodgy: no room for fiddling or repositioning!

All in all I'm happy though and there's learning in every project!