Sewing, knitting, craft circle!

Over the past year we've been having the odd craft evening now and then - but we're now trying to establish something a little more regular. The first of these involved Melissa, Emma, Christina, Shasha and me - and although we probably did more eating of crumble than sewing we did get somewhere!

• Shasha started customising a jumper with peppermint sequins. They look really effective.


• I sewed up another musette as a souvenir for people who'd helped in the ToB


• I reminded Emma and Christina of how to cast on. Knitting samples were made!


• Melissa started a bead ring.

We had a great chat and crafted until late, discussing our future projects and what's going on in our lives. Session 2 is tomorrow at another member's house - we're swapping venues each week. It's lovely being in the company of creative people - I need inspiration!

More musettes - and what's to go in them!

Sue and I sewed on the handles last night - for 15 of the bags. Only a few more to go! Then it's the fun part: ironing on the transfers. Hope it works.

Bag making has been fun and it's been great to do crafty things together, but we have been a bit rushed. We do wish we'd had more time to finish the seams properly and make a more durable product. It has, however, been really good practice for me (as I'm inexperienced with using a machine) and everyone will have a memento of the weekend.

Meanwhile, the Oxford crew - Whippers and Verity - have been busily planning and baking delicious treats to put in the bags for lunch on Day 1. I won't tell you what's in there so you'll be surprised, but the food will be delicious, compact, edible while cycling and energy-rich.

Making musettes: 20 is quite a lot actually

Last night Beccy and I started the musette production in earnest. Wine and B's delicious veggie moussaka distracted us for at least an hour, but then we began feverishly pressing, cutting straps and whirring away on two sewing machines. I did the top hems (bumpily - MUST try not to force the fabric through) and Beccy sewed up the pouches on Sue's delightfully heavy and seventiesy machine. It felt like a real production line!


Two of the world's best inventions?:
the bicycle and the sewing machine

We sewed late into the night, chatting loudly over the machine noise, and criticising our workmanship. By the end of the evening we had ten pouches made, and five top hems sewn. Tonight it's me and Sue on the remainder of the pouches, and straps!

Making musettes

On Friday Sue, Beccy and I had a prototype musette-making evening at my house. Beccy had been very busy researching traditional musette dimensions, making up a paper pattern and sourcing and pricing up calico and wide twill tape from John Lewis and eBay. She arrived with sewing box, gushing (ha) about her lovely new plumber who had saved her from the misery of dripping soil pipes (plumber loving happens so fast)!

Beccy and Sue set to work bravely making the first cut in the calico, ironing the seams and running up the bag pouch to test the design - which turned out to be very simple yet effective. The only debate was how to create the fastening.

Velcro? Press stud? Button with loop?

After hand-sewing on the velcro (which took some time) and realising that trying to open velcro with one hand while cyling could be perilous, we decided on studs.

Within about half an hour we had a bag. We tested it on this lovely model, and loaded it up with bananas and dried fruit. We think it works! All it needs now is the iron-on logo.

This week we will be making about 20 bags for all the cyclists according to the pattern. We reckon we can create all the bag pouches in one evening (with two sewing machines running) and then sew on all the straps another.

It was such a cosy and pleasant evening. My cottagey house lent itself to the activity and we enjoyed putting together the bags, tidying our sewing boxes and having dinner while talking about future projects and how we'd learned about sewing - from mothers or grandmothers. It seems lots of our friends can sew. Personally, I'm just learning, as my Mum was more of a knitter than a sewer. But my second term of 'beginners machine sewing' starts tonight - which I'm really looking forward to. Strange to think that the craft of sewing is now a hobby for us when it would have been a career for many women in the past. In my village, apparently, a lot of the women were lacemakers.