Hello everyone - long time no see
I left my job ("retired") at the end of February with the intention of decluttering the house, reducing the fabric stash and not buying new clothes until the stash was reduced! Then the virus happened (so very little on the to-do list happened and what did took an *age*). I took the decision to withdraw from all forums at the start of lockdown for the sake of my mental equanimity and promised myself that I wouldn't come back onto this one until I had something to show for it. So I dived into the stash and came up with some chambray-like cotton, some milk-white vyella and a couple of cotton checks, which seemed like just the job. I ordered a couple of patterns and started with Vogue V8689. My local John Lewis being shut I turned to Empress Mills for notions and rang them up to request a thread-wrapped shade card. Net result was a three-week lead time to get thread and Vilene. Then I discovered I had no suitable buttons. Waited for JLP to open and went button shopping. Got some but they in the end didn't float my boat (but they'll be fine for some of the other fabrics).
Meantime, MiL died (heart, not covid) in June so the three siblings, assisted by me and the lad, have been clearing 65 years of clutter. In there we happened upon MiL's mother's sewing box (granny died in the mid-90's) and in there was a little card of tinted pearl shirt buttons that did the job, so today I got it finished. This is the result.
In the declutter I found lots of oddments and offcuts. My friend gifted me an industrial quantity of white cotton tape, inherited from a laundry-running ancestor, so I turned the offcuts into bunting and now have 60 or 70 metres ready to go for either VJ Day or the first opportunity we have to get together with our re-enactor buddies, whenever that may be.
Finally, I have, like most of you no doubt, been making face masks. I used prettyhandygirl's pattern as a basis but amended it to my liking. Again, materials ordered from Empress and again, a three-week lead time. If nothing else it teaches us to be Zen!