The past couple of weeks have been extremely full on here at Ragged Life. I had to submit the first ten projects for my new rag rug book and was crafting from dusk til dawn to get them done. Rugs aren’t the quickest projects to make it has to be said! The good news is that I dropped them off with the stylist last Thursday and have rewarded myself with a couple of days off. My hands are seriously thanking me! Below is a little sneak peek of some of the detail of one of the projects, but you’ll have to wait for the book to come out to see more I’m afraid….

So, what have I been up to over the past couple of weeks?

Book Project Sneak Peek:

I obviously can’t share tooo much detail of what projects the new book will feature, but I honestly couldn’t resist sharing a little sneak peek of one of the projects that I was most excited to get finished for the first round of ten projects. Classic feet in shot photo, but this time I’m wearing slippers to represent the highly fashionable “lockdown look”.

Organising Spices:

I find it quite difficult to sit and do nothing, so when I finally managed to get the first round of projects off, I found myself plenty of jobs to do around the flat. My partner is an avid cook and our herb and spice collection would make a professional chef gawp. However, with so many to choose from, we were getting into a bit of a pickle organisation- and space-wise. So, the other day, I painstakingly decanted all the herbs and spices into these reusable, re-sealable bags and labelled them all with a 1970s Dymo label maker I got for an absolute bargain off eBay.

It wasn’t the quickest process, but I’m pretty chuffed with the end result as it created a lot more space in our cupboards. I’m hoping that the system will last for years to come and wasn’t a massive waste of my time. Plus, when things are a bit more normal, I can refill some of them at the zero waste shop. Fingers crossed!

Designing and sketching out new rag rug projects:

It’s true that there’s no rest for the wicked! I may have only just submitted the first ten projects for the new book, and now I’m on to the next ten. Here I am doing a bit of mental maths to sketch out a fun geometric rug. I won’t go into more detail, as I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but I’m feeling very good about the design. At this stage in the sketching out, I already thought the design looked pretty neat.

Balling up Blanket Yarn:

It’s all hands on deck here at Ragged Life with the new book making in full swing. So, even poor old Christian has been roped into balling up blanket yarn in the evenings while watching TV. Aren’t I lucky to have such a handsome and caring partner 🙂

And now I’m off to the rag rug coffee morning on Zoom, so catch you later. Read my previous Behind the Scenes at Ragged Life post here where I talk dying fabric with tea and broken sewing machine needles.

Happy rag rugging,

Elspeth x