Hip hop

 

In last week’s blog I mentioned I’m going to be out of action for several weeks. On Thursday I'm going into hospital for – fingers crossed – life changing surgery.

To cut a very long story short four years ago I got an infection in my hip replacement (you can read all about it in my other blog ‘The Joint Journals’). Because the infection was so severe (it destroyed pretty much everything; skin, muscle, bone, even the metal joint itself !!!) I’ve been ‘hipless’ ever since.

As you can imagine having no hip joint has had a huge impact on my life. I went from being active to housebound and having to rely heavily on Mr Gertie.

After searching the country to find a consultant who had the skill, ability and love of a challenge, I eventually found Professor Cobb from the King Edward VII Hospital in London who was willing to – in his words – “reattach my leg”.... 

I’m both excited and nervous in equal amount. If all goes well I should get my life back. However it’s a mammoth operation and although the Professor is confident it’ll work, there’s always the risk of failure.

Given that we will both be staying in two different places (Mr Gertie will be staying in a hotel until Sunday) we have to take two separate pieces of luggage. One will be a small suitcase, the other will be a canvas holdall I finished making a week ago.  

We had a leather holdall which we took everywhere with us but it had seen better days so I took some quick measurements of it and use them to make the canvas bag.

It was the first time I’ve sewn with canvas and it wasn’t the easiest thing to work with as it was so stiff.  Had I known how difficult it was going to be I probably would have chosen a different fabric? Still I was stuck with it so had to plod on....

For the lining I used a soft denim fabric and black leatherette for the binding.  I reinforced the base and sides to give it extra strength when carrying it. Even though I’d put some wadding in the handles they were still quite stiff and uncomfortable to grip. So I made a pad out of leatherette and wadding then stitched velco to it and one of the handles.

I was really pleased with how the holdall turned out so the blood, sweat and tears were worth it in the end.  I’d certainly make the holdall again but it’ll be a long time before I venture sewing with canvas!!!

I'm off now to see what fellow craft bloggers have been up to on 'Handmade Monday'.

Have a great week.

Gertie xx

PS from Thursday I will be blogging a day-to-day account of my time in hospital over at Mr Gertie and myself blog ‘The BOGOF blog’, so why not pop over and say hello.