Sewing By The Sea

I borrowed the title of this post from a nearby fabric shop that I recently became fascinated with after  I  came across an article written about this shop.  The article explains that it is run by the wives of some local fishermen.  In all the times we have driven by this shop I have never once stopped in, until this past Monday.  Turns out it is closed on Mondays.  But until I can make it there, I have built it up in my mind of what I may find inside.  Whenever I come across unusual sea-inspired fabric I'm like a kid in a candy store. 

I  have this romantic image of old steamer trunks filled with exotic fabrics carried by ancient seafaring vessels.  And of course there would be containers of exotic teas inside too.  I just love how these two fabrics look together, but I have yet to decide what to make with them.  Any ideas for me?   Keep in mind my skills are basic though.   

Several years ago I found a single linen napkin with an embroidered blue lobster that I kept even though it was badly stained thinking I would eventually think of something to do with it.  The other day I happened to  remember my blue lobster and decided it would go nicely on my new white hoodie.

After tacking it down with a few hand stitches to hold it in place, I headed to my sewing machine.  The fanciest stitch I ever do is a zigzag and I found out it needed several passes around to cover up my hand stitches.   It's not perfect, but I like it and most people would not ever get a look of it this close up anyway.  But here it is. 

Since I was on a roll, I remembered another fabric I had in my stash that I thought would make a nice strap cover for my camera.  Mind you, I have never made a camera strap cover before, but after looking at a few samples on-line I realized they were much narrower than than 5 inch width that would show all the pattern repeats of my fabric.  Below is the width I originally wanted, but it was way too wide for my camera. 

I ended up making it with a 2" width with the pattern wrapping around the strap.  Here it is on my camera.  I like it and it probably won't show all the grime from the elements that I constantly seem to drag my camera through everyday. 

But before I go I wanted to show you what a difference just one day of rain made here recently.  This is a scene from our harbor just before it began to rain the other day. 

The next day during our walk we saw all this ice!  The ice was from the more shallow coves and the rain caused it to break up and flow out of the coves. 

We didn't see any evidence of it left today, but I'm sure it was a challenge for the fisherman to get out to their boats when it first showed up!  Or, even for trunks of exotic fabric to make it safely into our harbor.  Sure glad it's gone!