Summer sews

I’d been hankering after the goodies on the Clothkits site for some time when their sale came around in June. The kits are pretty pricy, so I used the sale as an opportunity to justify the purchase of a Birdie bag and purse kit, and a Rob Ryan ‘Hold me‘ skirt. For those unfamiliar with clothkits, essentially they contain everything you need for one sewing project. There are no paper patterns to deal with, as these are printed direct onto the fabric. Clothkits was originally launched in the late 1960′s before being taken over in 1988. It was relaunched back in 2008, and immediately caught my attention, given that I was a clothkits child of the 80′s I still have photos of me sporting some of the original designs, and fondly recall ‘Little Ted’s’ matching outfits (kits incorporated doll-sized garments into the spare fabric).

The kits are aimed at beginners, so I was slightly disappointed (okay, more than slightly) to find that the Birdie kit was completely lacking any instructions to create the purse (so I followed instructions from elsewhere), and that the bag instructions contained obvious omissions in measurement details. I’ll make sure to provide Clothkits with some feedback along these lines.

Here’s a snap of the finished articles. They are a lovely red needlecord (one of my absolute favourite fabrics), lined with a heavy striped fabric. They look great, but I actually found the fabric a bit of a nightmare to work with. Will definitely never be attempting another purse in cord- far too bulky for such a small fiddly article. Here’s hoping the skirt project runs more smoothly!

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