I took a break from “mass production” of products during the past couple of months. Instead, I worked on various personal projects, such as a ukelele bag and a yellow patchwork comforter cover.
The first resulted from a request from my husband who teaches guitar for a living. He asked if I could make a bag that would protect his ukelele as he carted it around to lessons (he teaches that instrument, too). Two of his favourite colours are bright orange and bright green, so I found some bright orange denim fabric in my stash, and paired it with a piece of green vintage cotton fabric for the lining. I’ve been wanting to try painting on fabric, so I designed a stencil to use for this. I mixed up some paint colours along with a fabric medium, and stenciled this onto the orange fabric. I was pretty excited to see a design of my own being imprinted onto fabric! After the paint was set, I sewed the whole bag together, along with some padding to keep the uke safe. I made a drawstring opening that is pretty easy to open and close. I put the ukelele inside, along with some other music paraphernalia, and my husband was quite pleased with the bag!


The next project I did was a quick one. My daughter loves the music and personality of local fiddle player, Fleur Mainville. She got to meet her and talk with her a few times over the years at some of Fleur’s concerts. So when the news of Fleur’s all-too-young passing came, my daughter was very sad. Apparently the symbol used to rally behind Fleur when she was ill was a daisy with a heart-shaped middle. So I crocheted one for my daughter, and she hung it on her window.

My daughter and I then proceeded to plan out a quilt cover I’ve been meaning for awhile to make for her. She chose yellow as her dominant colour, and she picked out scraps of fabric for me to make into squares. I realized that there wasn’t enough fabric yet, so I took down the current shower curtain (yellow fabric with pink flowers) and cut that up (yes, I made another shower curtain from a sheet that looks like a painting). After I’d cut out the number of squares I thought we’d need, she laid them all out until she was pleased with the design. Below is the result (notice some scraps of vintage cotton floral fabric – swoon!!) – doesn’t she have a great design sense?!

Another project was a hat and scarf combination for someone who loves the colour blue. I crocheted the hat (the stitch being the requester’s choice) and knit the scarf.

And the last to show for now is a drawing I made from coloured pencils. It has been a veeeeerrrryyyyy looooonnnngggggg winter here, and I craved flowers and colour!
