Monthly Archives: September 2021

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Sophie

30/09/2021 1:48 pm \ 17 Comments \ Carolyn

It’s the last day of the month and even though I have several recently made things to write about, it’s all kind of paling into insignificance for me right now since we lost our dear Sophie earlier this week…

We’ve had this lovely girl the longest out of all our pets so far; she lived to be nearly 18… oh it’s so easy to fall into a trap of thinking she’s going to be with us forever. I know I certainly did.

I can vividly remember my first sight of her; a friend of Tim’s had a litter of kittens they were giving away, Tim happened to go over for a sleepover and convinced us the next day to go over and check them out. We were NOT in the market for a new kitten, however as soon as we laid eyes on this adorable little grey ball of fluff with huge green eyes she came home with us pretty much straightaway.

Right from the start we were all head over heels for this wonderful sweet lady… she’s always been the sweetest and most good natured and placid of cats imaginable: even tempered, calm, loving, always up for a spot of purring curled up on your lap. We would often joke about how much she loved her food, and was sometimes called (meanly) the Fat Cushion; but actually she was quite a little cat really, she just had lots of fluff. And of course as she got older and slowly started losing condition I would have given anything for her to regain some of that lovely soft plumpness.

She would follow me around the house and just “be” with me while I was doing whatever, often sneakily trying to insert herself onto my lap if I happened to sit on the couch for a bit, and especially if I was sitting out in the sun. Her solid purring presence was always such a joy. I remember after losing Sienna I would often seek out Sophie and cuddle her, and the warm fluffy weight of her was such a huge comfort. We always used to say in the family that cuddling Sophie was an instant tonic to feeling sad because just holding her brought peace.

Some favourite pictures of when Sophie decided to “help” me with my blog:

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: sophie

Betty boop

15/09/2021 3:13 pm \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made a pair of cute little trousers! well at least I think they’re pretty cute anyway…

So: here’s the funny thing; I really do love and want to wear a lot of trousers/jeans/pants but I kinda struggle with them. I genuinely worry that I look terrible in trousers and I’m convinced I look better in dresses and skirts. If anyone has taken even a passing glance at my ootd blog it’s obvious I rarely wear pants. And yet, I’m always on the eternal search for pants that look cute AND that I think I might look ok in.

And I think these fit the brief! I’m very happy with how they turned out; they have a sorta fitted feel to them without being in the slightest bit tight, they’re loose enough to be comfortable, but have no hint of bagginess in them. Yes!

I have an extra special reason for loving these; my grandmother was known as Betty, even though it was not technically her name. SO I have a special soft spot for the name. I’ve always held this deeply secret wish that my name was Betty, because I loved my grandmother so much.

Anyway! I’m happily adding these to the small collection of pants that I really love… I have several pairs that I feel really good in; up until now my blue Sashas and my Morgan jeans were the top of that list. I also still love my Ginger jeans, although I wear these less nowadays. Yes, all Closet Core patterns, hehe.

Coinkinky-dink; the fabric I used to make these are the leftovers from my old Ginger jeans! I made those back in *checks blog archive* wow 2014. I can’t believe they’ve gone so well, for so long! I could have sworn I got the fabric in Spotlight, but my blog reliably informs me I bought it in KnitWit,so there you go. I have zero memory of that. Ha! Thank goodness for the blog!

I cut the pocket lining from this cute evil-villain, cotton fabric, that was leftovers from one of Craig’s surgical masks, and I also made a few Covid masks from the leftovers this year too.

I used a red top-stitching thread for all the topstitching, I dunno, just for fun, because I had it. In fact, 100% of the materials for my Betty’s were from my stash, which always feels amazing; if I can achieve it. The potential of my stash is quite exciting to me, I’ve discovered so many garments in it this past year!

The top I’m wearing them with here is a Burda pattern; 04/2014;111, made in a bobbly stretch stuff from Fabulous Fabrics. And in another funny coinkinky-dink, I am wearing this very same top in my blog post of the Ginger jeans too! Another old favourite that has stood the test of time for me 🙂

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: Betty, daily outfit, fibre mood, jeans, trousers

blue and pink clogs (shoes)

06/09/2021 8:52 pm \ 2 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made some new shoes! and of course I’m over the moon with how lovely (I think) they look… ! A few months ago, during one of our infrequent and thankfully very short lockdowns – and I’ll just say it again; I am SO GRATEFUL to live in Perth! – anyway, I decided to treat myself and bought a clog making kit from leather needle thread; this is the one that I bought here:

And this is the result! I was very happy with the quality of all the materials in this kit; the wooden soles are really nice, with a solid and very sturdy looking rubber undersold… the leather is a beautiful quality and of course those beautiful colours!

All the other bits and pieces are really beautiful quality… the little brass tacks are so pretty! I bought a tool kit too which was terrific and worked really well. I did think the brass buckles were just a tiny bit tarnished but not too bad and definitely not enough to detract from any other part of the clogs.

The only not-so-good thing was that the tiny little tins of glue supplied with the kit had both dried out, but fortunately I had my own glue that I’d purchased through Lisa of the Shoe Camaraderie from previous shoe-making adventures … I can appreciate that Esther of leather needle thread had gone to the effort though, even though the tins hadn’t worked.

Honestly I can understand it would be a pretty difficult thing to divvy up between kits and expect it NOT to dry up, I can even imagine how you could achieve it actually.

The other thing I did was to separately purchase some clear, water-based varnish, with which I varnished the soles before making my clogs… I’ve made several pairs of clogs already, for which I had carved the soles myself! and I believe they have lasted longer, stayed cleaner and been easier to wear too, thanks to varnishing the wooden soles.

Anyway I made another little “making-of” video, currently up on my YouTube channel… please enjoy!

https://youtu.be/xy2E9qpEkQ8

In other news, I’m now on TikTok too, since apparently it is The Thing to do now… I’m pretty new over there and am still learning, and it takes me forever to make a tiny little video, even on top of making the thing! but hopefully I’ll get better at this too. My Tik Tok video for this is here.