coincidentally, my knitting and sewing projects consist exclusively linen at the moment, a silent welcome for my first summer in georgia.

i'm so loving this cornflower tunic (pattern from rebecca 29). doubling the thin linen thread really makes the stitch less hollow yet the drape of linen still shows through beautifully. i quite enjoy working on plain stockinette, so soothing and mindless! the only worry i have right now is if the hem would be wide enough for the dress to be a little floaty. also, when i cast on the stitches, i had only this teeny bit of yarn left which was not enough to do a solid darning. this little piece of yarn keeps poking out... oh well. i'll worry about this later.

so the sewalong community has just announced the next project: a top! just so happens that i already had a cute pattern in my stash. more on that later. now, i want to show you the bag i made for the sewalong.

hmm... it did not work out well for me. i was not getting the amy butler magic. my intown bag was sadly transformed into a linen hanging pocket for our take out menus. it was probably too excessive for such purpose but i hate throwing something i made away, especially with the most beautiful linen fabric!

what went wrong? well, i have just one word: interfacings. i read from others' comments that this pattern did not involve any interfacings, so lining the fabric would provide some shape, which i like for bags. however, i decided to use the stiffest interfacings... hence, when i needed to turn the whole thing inside out, it was almost impossible. so, i couldn't even top stitch properly. so sad. but it was a good lesson and now i have the posh-est take out menu holders so i can't really complain.

there will be another intown bag, soon, i promise!

speaking of home improvement, my sewing ego had extended to making some linen table napkins. i went by the store to get some matching color, 100% linen fabric to make napkins and cocktail napkins per williams-sonoma standard. boy, was that a touch job. sewing squares were much more labor-intensive that i thought. it involves:

dinner napkins in the making

washing the fabric
ironing linen fabric (which was difficult as it was really wrinkle after washing)
squaring off the fabric
drawing the cut lines
drawing the seam lines and fold lines
cutting carefully
pinning, folding and ironing along the seam and fold lines
sewing the lines and mitered corners

honestly, it was really exhausting! i made two dinner and four cocktail napkins this weekend and still had some more to make in order to complete a set. but it really was worthwhile. look just how much more sophisticated a glass of water now looks on my 100% handmade, tailored cut cocktail napkin.

tailored made napkins make water tastes better

for the first time, i told my husband to wipe his mouth on my FO project. and don't worry to stain it with red wine or spaghetti sauce. it was made to wipe off dirt.