Summer's in the bag

It's amazing how many things become so urgent and important when there's the small matter of having to write a thesis on my mind. After a frantic few days of knitting (the results of which you'll see shortly once I've put the buttons on), I suddenly got the urge to dig out the sewing machine last night. I'm not normally good at sewing by any stretch of the imagination, but I came across a straight forward pattern for a shoulder bag here at tiny happy so I thought I'd give it a go.


The flowery fabric was originally a summer shirt that I persuaded Barry to buy last year, forgot to take a pic before starting, sorry. He's only ever worn it a couple of times and I suspect he didn't actually like it that much, especially since he decided to leave it behind here in Scotland. I decided to give it a new lease of life and convert it into something that I could use and enjoy, hope he doesn't mind hehe...

I need to sew on the central band (should have thought of that before I sewed the outer and the lining together!) and then find a toggle or button for the front. I cut out the existing shirt pocket and sewed it to the lining inside. All in all, I'm happy with the result, especially given my lack of coordination when it comes to cutting and sewing fabric. I've got loads of the lining material left so I'm thinking of making a slightly larger one with the beige fabric as the outer, then sewing on some flowers cut out from the leftover shirt material. My next challenge might be to work out how to incorporate a zip for that one.


I had some lovely boiling hot weather in Cambridge last week, and although it's definitely less warm and summery here in Dundee, I have sprung into summer eating patterns. For me, this is summer on a plate, yum yum! And ooh, look at those lovely yellow tomatoes! I would urge you to spend as much as you reasonably can on balsamic vinegar for uses such as this, you're looking for the thick and sweet stuff rather than runny and overly acidic. I'd say aim for the 4 leaves mark (balsamic is graded from 1 leaf up to 4 for quality/maturity etc), aged for over 10 years and priced at upwards of £10 to £12 a bottle. A little goes a long way and it's so worth it :)