Domestic things: Peg bag

I have been meaning to make a peg bag since we moved into this house, the garden does, after all have a hills hoist. Ridiculously without a peg bag, said pegs end up all over the place and I find my self stuffing them in my pockets, maybe a peg pocket?

On boxing day I made a list of domestic type things I wanted to sew and here is the first.

peg bag

I had a quick look on pinterest and the 'net and decided that the hanger type ones wouldn't do. The Hills hoist can, on a windy day get a bit windmill like and hangers do not survive. Made from bits of himself's old shirt and trousers, ribbon from a present (thank you NGA) and a clip from a former bag, this pegbag is functional if not as pretty as some. Thank you to Nicola Foreman and her posts on swedish pegbags for inspiration.

I made the pattern by scrolling some paper into a cone, trimming, drawing an opening and measuring the resulting circle. Amazingly a maths equation solved the size of the base.

Will post a picture of the bag on the line...in daylight. 

If I make another, I would extend the base for more peg room and maybe stiffen the base as well or add two seam lines and add that pleat at the bottom that many bags have....

pegbag in use and rather bleached out by the bright light

A surprising day out in Phillip...

The first year of my BVA (studio Glass) I gave my Dad a very wonky blown glass 'beer mug' for Father's Day (in September here in Australia). It became a bit of a tradition, you can see my progress in glassblowing through 4 years of 'beer mugs'. This year I'm out of class and I do more casting than blowing...

So I had this idea to make Dad a cast 'Display' tankard for this year's Father's Day. I thought I would find a tankard I liked the shape of, make a rubber mould of it, pour a wax, add some design elements and then cast it in glass. I have decided to go for an English woodland theme. Oak leave and acorns with, if it works 3 woodland animals; a fox, a hedgehog and a squirrel.

So I have been searching all the op shops in Canberra for tankards of any description as long as they 'fit' my aesthetic (see pinterest board dad's tankard).

I have found 2 specimens so far...

The surprise about the suburb of Phillip is that I went there for op shopping and found, 2 sewing machine shops, 1 fabric shop, 1 yarn shop, 1 beading shop, (2 paper supplies shops I didn't even get around to looking in) and a few decent looking cafes...in one of which I had an excellent coffee (not the easiest thing in Australia's Capital City).

I was pleasantly flabbergasted, mostly because, in Sydney Spotlight and Lincraft have driven out the independent stores. I bought yarn, industrial sewing needles and oil (yes I do want a litre of it) browsed fabrics, buttons and beads and found somewhere that will take a look at my aged Elna.

Awesomesauce!!