I picked the gooseberries yesterday morning during our regular trip to the allotment to hunt for strawberries.

A week ago there were about twice as many on the bush, but we’ve ended up sharing our crop with the birds (again.) W tells me that they took to landing on the netting, which lowered it enough for them to get the fruit.

I admit to being impressed. 🙂

There were just enough here to make a fool, which was delicious.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, my recent crafting time has been taken up sewing the Expandable Pack It In Tote by U-Handbag.

It’s been a relatively large sewing project – I’ve probably spent about 5 evenings in total making it. I’ve learned a lot of techniques I haven’t used before – things like putting in magnetic clasps and how to put in a lined letterbox pocket like the one on the front. To be honest it’s all been a bit daunting, but I’m really pleased with the results.

I’m also really pleased that the fabric all came from my stash.

The outer is Munki Munki – which I bought back in 2004 I think – and the inner is Kaffe Fassett (even though it is the most unlikely Kaffe Fassett I’ve ever seen!) which I bought from Liberty’s a couple of months ago, and which I used for the cuffs of FB’s blue trousers.

The rest of the things I needed came from UHandbag, and arrived amazingly quickly, (like overnight quick! Which was great because once I knew what I wanted to do, I wanted to get started right away.)

I have a big head.

Literally.

It’s 24″ in circumference, which is an inch or two bigger than most commercial sun hats. Therefore I’ve gone without a sun hat for the last few years, always searching but not finding one that would work.

This year I decided that enough was enough and that I would make my own bloody sun hat!

Luckily I found McHats who was an utter star.

She made me a custom pattern that fits brilliantly, and which arrived far sooner than I expected, given that it was a custom job and was coming from Australia. She also emailed me tutorials which taught me everything I needed to know about making sun hats. Oh and she sent me two crown patterns so I basically got two patterns for the price of one.

I was very impressed – as I’m sure you can tell. 🙂

This is my first finished version:

Of course being home-made it doesn’t have any labels which means it’s reversible…

Cool huh?

I’m planning to make another in some Heather Ross fabric I bought recently. And since – as luck would have it – the pattern also fits W’s big head I’m going to make him a bucket version in linen too.

Now all we need is some more sun…