Stash

I have two pieces of fabric in my stash that I was thinking of using for this part of the project.  This first one is a vintage Liberty print which I absolutely love, and which has very sentimental attachments for me.

I'm not sure when it's from but it's definitely been in my mum's stash since the early 80s, so maybe it's late 70s?  As I've mentioned before my mum was a textile artist/embroiderer and she did also make some of her own clothes - mostly trousers and tops in lots of lovely bright colours.  I remember asking her what she was going to do with this and she always said she didn't know, that it was 'too nice to use' unless she had something specific in mind.  It's an awkward shape I think, 90cm wide by just over 4metres long.  I'm not sure what to do with it so I'm not going to use it for this challenge.  I was thinking I could maybe make a blouse? or I could use a small section of it as a waistband on a skirt?  Does anyone have any pattern suggestions for this? Even if it's more difficult than beginners as I could put it aside for later.

So, I had to think of something else to do for Make&Mend 2011.  I have decided to make use of this beautiful brown/mustard yellow coloured cashmere - also from my mum's stash (it doesn't look as good in this photo, it's actually a lot brighter in real life).  I've got a gorgeous navy blue cashmere too that I think will make a skirt but there isn't so much of this mustard one and it's got big bits cut out of it so it seems perfect for the laptop sleeve.

Luckily during Grosgrain's free pattern month there was this great pattern tutorial for making a laptop sleeve from Say Yes to Hoboken.

I picked up a scrap of teal fabric from the  sale box at John Lewis and I'm planning to line it with the teal as teal and mustardy yellow is such a fantastic combination and a combination I can see me wearing a lot of come autumn/winter.  I'm also thinking of trying some quilting on the inside on the teal fabric, diagonal squares in the same colour of thread - I've never done any quilting before so I'll need to try it on some old scraps first! 


Of course in order to get on with this I need to stop reading Grosgrain and Say Yes to Hoboken but they're both filled with so much inspiring stuff and so much advice and teaching that it's hard not to get lost for hours!