Postcard from Devon

Postcard from Devon

The thing about having a National Trust membership is that you visit places that might otherwise slip through the net and oh how sorry I would have been to have missed this one. It is quite simply one of the best houses I have ever visited, probably because of it’s 1930’s vibe, but it also is part of a much bigger story that is filled with great ambition, great wealth, great success and ultimately great sadness.

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Making a floral Duster Coat

Making a floral Duster Coat

With the BBC’s ‘Sewing Bee’ in full flight at the moment, I find myself with twitchy fingers to try a little dressmaking and I had long harboured a dream of making a long floral duster coat. Jubilee Weekend seems like the sort of time you would wear something like this and as much as it is a wistful backwards glance at those Laura Ashley days, it is also quintessentially English in it’s style and as comfortable over jeans today as it has would’ve been a couple of decades ago.

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Knitting a Capelet

Knitting a Capelet

If you are wondering what a ‘Capelet’ is (and I didn’t know at first) it’s a small cape that usually just covers the shoulders. They seem to have been quite popular in the 1920s and 30s. Over the last few years, poncho’s have been very popular and they do make sense, keeping you warm but allowing your arms freedom of movement. A capelet is much the same, but shorter and sort of somewhere in between a cowl and a poncho. Living in an old stone house in Yorkshire, I confess it can get quite chilly in winter and these are the perfect solution and they have such a vintage vibe too.

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The Haberdashery Pattern Tidy : A new quilt pattern

The Haberdashery Pattern Tidy : A new quilt pattern

It’s been a while since I did a new quilt pattern, but I was really inspired with this one, because it is actually useful too. While I have been watching the Great British Sewing Bee on BBC tv, I was thinking how wonderful the studio haberdashery was and I thought about how I could use this happy image to make a quilt and then it struck me that it could be a ‘pattern tidy’ as well. I don’t know about you, but through all these months of lockdown, I have accumulated quite a few quilt patterns both printed and pdf’s and as always I am full of promise to make them all. Sound familiar? Well this way, you can have a charming quilt to hang on your wall and somewhere to keep them all - there is a pocket for the smaller printed patterns and one for pdf’s. What is more, you can customise it for your sewing room or craft space and use scraps from favourite fabric collections or themed prints and make it modern or vintage.

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