Review : Crimson & Clover Train Case by Sew Sweetness
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Hi everyone and welcome to the sewing room in 2020. Hope you had a great Christmas and are up and ready for the new year and all the promises it brings. New Years Resolutions….mmmm…..well, like most people, I never struggle to make them, but can I actually keep them, this is the question. This year, one of my resolutions is to use up some of my fabric stash. I sometimes wonder what on earth I am doing with so much fabric - I would have to live three lives concurrently to have any chance of using it all up and how tragic would it be not to use it - I love all of it. So I pulled down a plastic box from on top of my cupboard and inside were some remnants of home decorating fabrics. One of them was this really beautiful piece of silk taffeta fabric, which had been carefully folded and stored in tissue paper. It was one of the those lucky finds in a bucket somewhere long ago and has been periodically taken out of it’s hiding place, lovingly stroked but then put away because I wasn’t sure what to do with it. It has gorgeous floral brush strokes and pops of embroidery to highlight the flowers and has a sheen and exoticness all of its own. For some reason, when I saw it this time - I decided it was time to use it and I knew instantly what for. It is quite a large piece so I figured I could do several things. The first is to recover my sewing shaker box, which had a faded and rather uninspiring old cover on it. I added some new padding and iron on interfacing to the fabric and then simply stapled it on. Honestly it looks fab and of course, the beauty of a handcrafted shaker box, never fails to feel like real treasure. This looks so smart now, that I feel it can happily sit in any room in the house, where I might be pottering with my needle.
I also wanted to tell you about the gorgeous little shaker box with the wool pincushion insert. This really is treasure which I picked up at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching show. Hand made by Keith Shorrock, it is just divine if you love beautiful sewing things. Small enough to tuck in your bag if you are travelling and just full of style. He uses different woods for his boxes and it is written on the bottom - mine is made from Padauk and Maple and is just an absolute joy. There is a link to his website at the bottom of this posting.
For the rest of my gorgeous fabric, I decided to make a ‘Crimson and Clover’ train case by Sew Sweetness. I have had this pattern for quite a while and it wasn’t until I bought the accompanying video that I really felt I could tackle it. The video is absolutely superb with step by step instructions and tips and clever ways of doing things. For example, I was delighted by the way in which Sara Lawson shows you how to do piping - always something that makes me quake in my boots. It was so simple and effective. In fact everything she does on the video is exact and carefully thought out and my project progressed like a dream. I even discovered how to really use Wonder clips (a real light bulb moment!).
Having the video to keep checking back with is like having a safety net. It gives you confidence and you can rewind and stop and start as often as you like. There are some tricky bits, but actually it is really fairly straight forward if you concentrate. I chose to make the bottom panel in Essex linen because it seemed a bit silly to put silk underneath and I used this fabric for the piping too.
I am not sure that using silk fabric for my first one was a good idea - it is probably more difficult to work with, but I have to say it is just delicious. The lining fabric with it’s typewriter keys is a quirky accent to the case and I suppose makes it mine.
I added one of my ‘Ruby tags’ inside and also a metal bag tag from the Emmaline range at Sew Hot and it all helps to make it look pro.
After making the Amy Butler Weekender bag, which was such a huge project, I never thought I would tackle something like this again, but having the video made all the difference. I can honestly recommend Sara Lawson’s website for any bag you might want to make. I will definitely be making more of these - especially as I do have some interesting fabric remnants in my box. What a fabulous gift for someone too. I am really so thrilled with this first project of the year, but there is just one thing - I think I need to go somewhere on a long train journey now!
