Crafting for mr pickledweasel

I don't get many opportunities to craft for my man. He let me knit him a hat for Christmas (using this pattern, which was nice and easy and helped me lose my double pointed needle virginity. Oo-er), and he even wears it! But I haven't been able to make anything else for him.

Until the other day, when he put in a custom order. Do you know what this is?

No, it's not a 70's replica denim and sheepskin wallet. No, it's not a covered note-book to write down brilliant ideas that will revolutionise the world and end our financial woes (which he has on a regular basis. The last one was something about putting algae in the sea to end global warming, and the one before that was to open a chocolatiers. Fortunately they are never pursued :)

It's a fly wallet, of course! He's still tying flies to catch fishies with, and this is a little wallet he can store them in when he goes out fishing. The inside is fleece, although really it should be sheepskin but my budget doesn't quite stretch that far :) The outside is recycled denim jacket backed with interfacing to make it nice and sturdy. My sewing machine cried a bit when it had to sew through the seams with lots of layers, but I promised I'd only sew using quilting weight cotton for the next week and it forgave me.

I really had to resist the impulse to applique / stamp / embroider the front :)

Mr Pickledweasel's Crafty Corner

Mr pickledweasel has recently been spending his evening hunched over squinting at a needle and thread and a pile of feathers rather than blowing people's legs off on his PS3.

No, I haven't got him making bizarre feathery bibs for me, he's been tying tiny weeny flies in an attempt to catch big fat fishes. He's been a bit of an armchair fisherman for years, regaling me of tales of the ones that got away in his youth. Recently he's decided to put his rod where his mouth is (that sounds wrong in so many different ways), and he's actually been doing proper real fishing. And he's caught some fish! I have two lovely plump rainbow trout in the freezer, and I'll be oven baking one of the blighters tomorrow night.

I have no idea how fishing works. Or rather I do have an idea - take stick with string on, put hook on, put worm on hook, dip in water, catch fish - but apparently it's a bit more complicated. My only fishing experience was one sunny afternoon when were camping a few years ago. Mr pickledweasel couldn't find a bait shop open, so used tinned sweetcorn and spam on his hook, and caught two lovely fish which looked very nice but we were apparently not allowed to eat.

Anyhoo, this time round he's doing fly fishing, which doesn't involve any spam (much to my disappointment, as I quite like spam), but does involve eating what you catch. And lots of funny little pretend flies which are works of art in themselves.

Mr pickledweasel has bought all the kit for tying them himself (and stolen half my reels of cotton AND my embroidery scissors), and today went and picked up a lovely handmade chest to store all his gubbins in. Isn't it nifty? I might just stash a few packets of sequins in there, he'll never notice :)