A World of Imagination: Tote Bag

Are you all enjoying the weekend? I'm back today to tell you about the sewing workshop at Guthrie and Ghani. When I walked into the shop, I was like a kid in a sweet shop, I didn't know where to look first!!!!

The shop interior was an amazing Aladdin's Cave, full of pretty bits and bobs from buttons to ribbons, yarn and fabric and everything you could wish for from an Haberdashery store.

I didn't get chance to take many photo's of the shop as Lauren Guthrie (one of the Sewing Bee finalists) was there to greet us and asked us to chose a fabric that we would like to make our Tote bag with. I was very impressed with the quality of the fabric and that we had so many to chose from.

We went upstairs to the bright and airy workshop, where Lauren got us started, the majority of us were beginners and some who had never used a sewing machine apart from school, many years ago. We were shown how to pin and cut a pattern out, this was something I'd never done before and learnt some great tips.

I've got a sewing machine at home which is very basic, these sewing machines were fantastic, with lots of features but it did take a while for me to get use to using it, it even threaded your needle!!!!! The one thing that I was especially pleased with, was how to make a button hole, my machine has the accessory to make button holes but I've never known how to use it. Lauren was such a good teacher and very patient with us all, I came away a lot more confident in giving more sewing projects a go.

Here's my finished Tote bag with front pocket, can you see how the pocket matches the front perfectly, well that was a total fluke and really don't know how I managed it, lol.

When I choose my fabric, I didn't realise it matched my knitting bag, that my friend, Kerry, bought me.

Of course I couldn't leave without buying something, I bought these beautiful fabrics..........

and pretty zips, I would love to make a little zipper case to keep my notions in so that might be my next project.

Yesterday, I had great afternoon with fabulous food and great company, Gilly from Gilly Makes, invited me to a Midlands Bloggy meet-up. My friend Sarah had been to the first one and said what a lovely time that she'd had and how nice all the ladies were, so I was looking forward to meeting everyone.

Gilly made a gorgeous lunch with the choice of two soups, I had the mushroom soup with homemade bread which was delicious!!!! Gilly said she would put the bread recipe up on her blog soon, it's apparently a very easy bread mixture with no proving. We then had a gorgeous roasted vegetable and goats cheese tart, wow, it was a treat for my taste buds.

Here we are very full and contented after our delicious lunch, we then went to the lounge and settled down. Gilly said to bring my crochet with me, but that they didn't end up doing any the last time as they were all chatting away and getting to know each other. Well. that's exactly what happened yesterday, I only knew Sarah but you would have thought we'd all knew each other for ages, we spent the whole afternoon, chattering away. While we were nattering away, Gilly brought us some some tea and coffee and the most delicious cheesecake with dark chocolate drizzled on the top, it was the best cheesecake I've tasted.

Here's a photo of us all including Gilly on this one.