Patterns and links

 

When I put my Bloomsbury bag pattern on sale I said that I'd share some photos of the bags that my pattern testers had made in a later post. And here they are. Above, is a peek inside the lovely bag made by Elisabeth from Shark's Dinner. Wonderfully, Elisabeth chose to use a pair of her husband's old suit trousers as the outer fabric. I love the contrast of the delicate Liberty print piping and Dresden petals against the masculine base fabric. You can see more on Elisabeth's blog.

 

Val who write Dottie Cookie made this beautiful bag below and I have fallen in love with the print she's used for the lining, which is by Jennifer Paganelli. Val used the smaller bag pattern, which doesn't have the internal zipper pockets, but she went wild and put them in anyway. She's also put a beautiful horizontal strip of fabric across the front of the main body of the bag - I love this detail.

 

 

This is the inside of the bag, below. I reduce the size of photos for my blog so that the page loads quickly, but if you were able to see the full size photo you'd know that Val has a selection of beautiful fabric covered buttons in the open pocket.

 

I'm so grateful to Val and Elisabeth for their feedback and suggestions, many of which found their way into the finished pattern. Thank you. x

 

With extraordinary speed, seemingly the day after I'd released the pattern, this gorgeous version by Millie (writer of Needles and Haystacks) popped up in my Flickr pool. It's beautiful and apparently a version for her ten year old is to follow soon.

Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of the pattern - I'm so looking forward to seeing what you make.

And while we're on the subject of patterns, I love giving these sleeping bags for bears, dolls and creatures as a gift and hoped you wouldn't mind my reminding you of them, just in case you're stumped for what you could put under the Christmas tree for a small person in your life. You can find the PDF pattern for instant download here and a post about how to deal with sizing for any awkwardly-shaped but much loved animals here.

Finally, I wanted to link to a few things I've seen elsewhere recently. Firstly, I've been following Cathy's hand-sewn Museum Medallion quilt coming together on Instagram and Cathy's now put together a post featuring the same pattern made by others. It's gorgeous and I thought you may enjoy seeing it too.

Dragonfly Fabrics have added some new Christmas bundles to the shop featuring the Kitzbuehel fabrics I'd mentioned in my giveaway post (closed), so they're now available as affordable sets if you're interested in them.

Finally, I've been looking at handmade gifts on Folksy and happened to come across this beautifully designed t-shirt, loosely based on the traditional Tunnock's Teacakes design. I'm considering buying it for my husband, as it's entitled Mr Teacake. It is, I think, no secret that my blog name isn't quite what I would have chosen had I put more thought into it when I signed up on blogger nearly six years ago - it had never occurred to me that people would end up calling me by my blog name (I am very much a Florence, not a Flossie - the blog title refers to a favourite childhood book). However, my husband finds this highly amusing and has taken to bellowing 'Teacakes!' through the house when he needs something as though he is mid-game on a rugby pitch. Just horrid (although it does make me laugh in a slightly frustrated way). Whilst I normally veer away from giving punishments* as Christmas gifts, I'm very tempted to buy one for him. But then again, one must at least attempt to rein in ones propensity for acting in the manner of Roald Dahl's Mr and Mrs Twit, no?

Florence x

* I've realised he wouldn't see this as a punishment at all though - he would probably wear it with pride.