Merchant and Mills Orton Bag

This may just be the perfect summer bag for taking to the beach or park. (Mr R did question that statement, and wondered why this bag was in any way better than the purchased reusable-type canvas bags we had previously been using. I ignored him.)

This is Merchant and Mills' free Orton bag pattern, described as a marvellous oversized linen bag... it really is! Both marvellous and oversized

Fabric is some linen in gooseberry from FabricRehab. I may have chosen this colour simply because it is called gooseberry.

The pattern asks for the facings to be kept in place with a cross stitch on either side panel so I managed to introduce a little grey because this greeny-yellow and grey - perfect!

Hope you are enjoying these summer days... I've managed to find some crochet time as well as early morning sewing. Happy summer!

A french rose and powdered egg citron

This wool was purchased just because I couldn't walk away leaving it on the shelf - they looked so delicious all piled together. Though I had no plans for them I bought a couple of balls of each of the beautifully named powdered egg and french rose, a 4 ply wool by Excelana. I then spent a happy while looking through my Ravelry oh-yes-one-days and decided on the Citron shawl by Hilary Smith Callis. This really is a summery, ice-creamy sort of shawl

I knitted two extra repeats, which meant that by the end I had over 730 stitches on that ruffle edge, but it was simple knitting, just the thing for television watching and days out and about. Now to finish some other ongoing makes. Oh, and short and sweet blog posts are about all I can squeeze into these gentle summer days!