Whoops – a bit late in getting this up!!
For those of you who don’t know what the Summer Sewing Swap is, the lovely Kerry from Kestrel Finds and Makes arranged a wee sewing swap for any bloggers who fancied signing up. I jumped at the chance and was very lucky to have Dibs from Dibs and the Machine as my swap partner.
After a quick chat via emails we both agreed to surprise each other with our swap gifts. I spent a good time trawling through her old blog posts and tried to get a vibe as to what she would like to find in her parcel. I then turned to the internet to make my purchases and am subsequently still waiting for one final thing to arrive! Epic FAIL! I’ve apologised profusely to Dibs about the very late arrival of her swap parcel, but she has graciously told me not to fret as she is now off on her hols until the 17th August (lucky duck!). Anyway…I hope it will be winging it’s way to her very shortly…and I hope she likes what I’ve got to her.
Dibs was, however, a lot more punctual with her parcel dispatching and I was completely overwhelmed by her amazing generosity. Seriously – this girl went ABOVE and BEYOND the call of the swap. Her reason – she couldn’t decide what I would like so she just sent me a bit of everything thing! Take a look at this pile of goodies:
Holy Moly!!! Ok, let’s break it down into sections. Dibs said she had written a lovely note explaining her choices, but forgot to put it in the envelope before posting, so I shall attempt to guess her thought processes…
Here we have two lengths of gorgeous stretch lace in black and pink, which I’m guessing are for me to make some more knickers with. Plus 3 narrow stretchy elastic (probably for underwear) and some two lengths of very pretty narrow lace!
Two lengths of gorgeous fabric. Both cotton I think. The one on the left has an almost moleskin-like feel to it, while the one on the right has a bit of stretch to it. At the moment I’m thinking nice skirt for work with the left, and I’m going to see if I can squeeze a shift dress out of the blue/black fabric.
This lovely collection was bundled up together, which made me wonder if perhaps Dibs had put together a little project for me. We have a length of really soft pale yellow jersey fabric, a length of light and soft striped cotton, some thick elastic, some pretty decorative lace and some narrow elastic/strap. What would you make out of this? I’m thinking perhaps this is to be made into a vest/camisole and shorts combo? Jersey vest with spaghetti straps and lace detailing, and then stripy elasticated waist shorts (or trousers if I can get the length).
Yep, there’s more!! I honestly can’t believe how much Dibs sent my way…I am so lucky! Ok, so here we have the coolest little book called “Designer’s guide to color”, which basically is filled with loads of colour combining options. It’s a really great inspirational book which will help me think outside the box when it comes to colour combining. Next we have the “Handbook of Crochet Stitches”. I have ‘learn to crochet’ as one of my 12 in 2012, so I’m guessing that was Dibs thinking behind this book. I’m so excited – I haven’t even started to attempt crochet so this will be a little kick up the butt and a lot of help! Finally from this section is the gorgeous Simplicity 2250 by Cynthia Rowley. I don’t think I have mentioned this pattern on my blog, but I have been wanting this for a while…so Dibs must have just read my mind instead!!! Awesome!! I’m thinking it would make a gorgeous Honeymoon day dress in Chambray.
The final lot. This one is a total mix of goodies. some lovely eyelet floral trim, an apple shaped pin cushion, a fabric marker, some sewing machine oil, more elastic, some shirring elastic (which I’ve never even seen before – how do you use this, does anyone know??), 2 packs of green seam binding and finally, a cut of really awesome purple faux snake skin – which is destined to be turned into a fab envelope clutch bag I think (what would you make out of it?)!
So…not too shabby hey?!!! OMG, I cannot believe how many fab things I got!! Thank you so so much Dibs!!
