Flowers, a denim bag, and a good book or two

 

I thought I'd start with these beautiful flowers.  A few, like the extravagant peony and the astrantia, are from my garden but most off the allotment.  I'll never make a flower arranger, will I?

My technique is pretty much 'shove them in a vase and make sure there's water in it'.  I admire anyone who can artfully arrange flowers, it's a real skill to get the balance right.

I've been doing a few crafty things lately, some more fulfilling than others.  

This bundle of rags is actually a tangle of zips.  The clothes were from charity shops, and I've harvested the rest of the dresses, etc for my fabric stash.  I've been saving the zips, and finally got around to unpicking the material around them.  It makes sense to save them, not that I'm a dressmaker but occasionally I get the urge to make a zip up pouch or two.  

There were several hooks & eyes too, squirrelled away for future projects.  

Another charity shop purchase was this denim dress.  I was hoping to wear it, but it's one size too small for me.  Snug rather than baggy.  A shame because I do appreciate a dress with pockets.  Anyway, I decided to make a denim tote bag from it.  I cut off the hem as it's too bulky for my moody-teenager of a sewing machine to deal with.  That hem became the bag's strap, and I added a stripy binding too.  

The denim's sturdy and handsome enough that it doesn't need lining.  I might add a pocket on the inside for keys and coins, so they don't disappear into the depths of the bag when it's filled with shopping.  

The strap's got a raw edge along one side of it, so I blanket-stitched that to stop it fraying too much, and have appliqued on a couple of patches.  I think I might try and gradually add patches along the length of the strap, but there's no rush.  The bag's perfectly usable in the meantime.  

I've a section of the denim dress left over, and will have to decide what to do with that.  Make a little denim purse perhaps?  

Moving to the subject of books, I finished this one yesterday.  It's an odd book.  Enjoyable and worth reading but it's a strange hybrid of a Regency romp - aristocratic lady meets tall, dashing aristocrat turned highwayman - and also a feminist commentary on the treatment of women and girls in 1800s England.  Their legal status, the evils of forced child prostitution, the disgusting treatment of 'mad' women in asylums.  So you get the Mills & Boon style swooning-in-his-rugged-yet-tender-arms but also serious discussion about the lack of legal rights of women to property, employment and basic safety.  I'm not sure the two strands mesh comfortably together, but there's still a lot to admire here and I'm glad I read it.  

I'm moving back to more familiar ground with the next book pulled from my overly-full To Be Read pile.  Tudor England, spring 1543 and obese, irascible King Henry VIII has his covetous eyes on Catherine Parr for wife number 6.  (Run for the hills, Catherine!  Don't do it!  Though of course she did.  The poor woman would've had no choice.)  The book's C.J. Sansom 'Revelation'.  The cover blurb tells me 'Don't expect to put the book down until you've seen it through to the apocalyptic finale'.  Let's hope it lives up to that hype.  

Okay, it's time for me to consume yet another cup of tea and make my list of chores for today.  Sadly, hoovering and cleaning and tidying will be on that list.  Who gave the maid the day off?!!!!