As I wake up to our house so cold that I cannot bring myself to leave the cozy bed, I dream of past and future camping trips. Early last fall, we went camping on Kalalogh beach,
meeting up with a great friend from Victoria and her two amazing
dogs, Raine and Finn. Little Noodle was shy at first and then decided
that nothing was better than jumping on Finn and nipping at his long
ears for hours. Poor Finn was a trooper. We made scrambled eggs, our
staple camping breakfast, and I went off to wash the dishes as my
husband stared blankly into the horizon. If you met him for the first
time in the morning, within an hour or two of him waking up, you
would probably wonder how he functions. To say that he isn't a
morning person is an understatement. Luckily for me, he becomes,
later in the day, a witty intelligent guy. It was a beautiful west coast late September
morning, i.e. foggy and cold. Done with dishes, I stared at my wash cloth and towel,
wondering what to do with them since there was no hope of them drying
anytime soon, as my friend pulled out this great waterproof pouch
from Monkey Foot Designs. Well that seemed brilliant. I planned to purchase one, and
decided to try to making some myself as soon as we could catch Noodle who was flying across the beach and convince him that it was time to head home.
I was pretty excited to have found my
first independent sewing project, after learning to sew earlier that month. I looked for tutorials online, chose to follow this one, bought some
supplies and started. First, I neglected to watch the entire
tutorial, and cut the fabric too small. So I started again. The
waterproof fabric seemed too thin and finicky,
so I decided to use some polka dot fleece to line it. I put the
zipper foot on my machine, and quickly everything got stuck and I gave up.
Turns out fleece is not beginner-friendly sewing fabric. Determined to succeed,
I tried again, this time lining with thin cotton similar to what I was
using for the outer layer. That time, bingo. Well actually, I failed another few times,
but who really needs to know that. I had a zippered
pouch. I excitedly made another one with the waterproof fabric, and
since the wavy sewing and scrunched up fabric was on the inside,
declared it a success. I could now carry my umbrella in my purse
without getting everything wet. Magic.
Since the waterproof pouches are
usually described as diaper bags, and not umbrella carriers (I'm not
too sure why, really. It seems to me that more people carry umbrellas
than diapers, but hey, what do I know), I decided to make one for
my friend who is due... well at that time it was pretty soon. I cut the fabric, and was
about to get started when I realized that I cut my nice patterned
fabric without paying attention to the direction of the pattern. Well
that was dumb. I moved on to something else, and never told her I had
planned to send her this great surprise through the mail. But then, the holidays were coming around, and I figured I should buckle down and make it. I even managed to send it in time for Christmas. Kind of shocking. The chevron band on the side is a result of my cutting mistake, but I actually love it.
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