more scarves

Today I made two more scarves!   These two have a black flannel backing and are about 65″ long.

michael miller's love tattoo

This one is made with Michael Miller’s love tattoo cotton fabric.  I think the print lends itself well to being a 6″ strip of a scarf.

love tattoo scarf

love tattoo and black flannel backing

And this scarf features Timeless Treasure’s burlesque girl.

burlesque girls

For this scarf I went with a beaded fringe, which is actually a row of black beads and a row of red beads.  This time I basted them on first and sewed the whole outside in one go, which made for an easier time with the fringe.

beaded fringe

The photos really don’t do it credit – the fringe looks great with the burlesque girls.  I’m quite pleased with these two scarves and my guru thinks I should have no trouble selling them.  In fact, I think she wants the burlesque girls one herself.

burlesque girl close-up

black flannel backing

Oh, and the fabric I used for the interior of the business card holder (Got it!) is Buttercup Eggplant by Joel Dewberry.  Good to know!

 

bags, bags, bags

Yesterday I received an email from Amy Butler’s website announcing her new line of fashion and travel bags for Kalencom, and today I received one about her webshop having a sale on her older bags for Rowan.

The new line of bags looks great – check them out at www.amybutlerdesign.com

amy butler's travel bags

amy butler fashion bag

amy butler laptop cover

I love the look of the leather accents.  But I can’t even begin to imagine how much she’s charging for these babies.

As for the older bag collection, I went to the webstore to check them out (http://www.amybutlerdesign.expressfulfillment.com) – yikes, expensive!  These are bags from her “Sweet Life” line for Rowan that she has marked down to clear for the holidays.  I had no idea her signature bags sold for so much though.  You could buy a Coach bag for those prices!  Good thing I can sew and make my own bags…

amy butler's hampton bag

sanibel bag

dew drop sling

$97 for the Hampton bag, down from $176.  $106 for the Sanibel bag, down from $192.  $70 for the Dew Drop Sling, down from $126.  They look lovely, but that’s outside my price point for holiday gifts!

 

pillows and banners and etsy, oh my!

I have a new banner!  Yay!  Big thank you to Paige who is a Photoshop wiz-kid for making it for me!  I am totally delighted by it – and now will be hitting Paige up for all my Photoshop needs!  No good deed ever goes unpunished…

I am currently doing the groundwork for setting up an etsy shop.  I think it will be worth it once I’ve got it up and running, but I did not fully realize just how much work setting it up properly would be.  I need to figure out prices for everything, figure out the shipping weights and rates for everything, make tags for all my saleable items, get better photos taken of it all, right on down to picking a name for my shop.  Oy vey!  I planned to have it done last weekend, but other things distracted me too much and I didn’t get to it.  Story of my life!  But when its the Eastside Culture Crawl, it really isn’t a good day for getting your own work done, its time to go see other people’s creations.  And covet, covet, covet as you get inspired anew.

In the spirit of the etsy shop, I pulled out some older finished projects and took photos of them.  These are two 12″ x 12″ pillows I made well over a year ago.  I believe the cotton prints are Michael Miller for the dress forms and Alexander Henry for the pin-up girls, but don’t quote me on that.

pin-up girl and dress forms

I just love the pin-up girls!

isn't she stunning?

 

scarves

Two more scarves finished!  Both with cotton patchwork for the front side and plain poly-cotton brown fabric for the reverse.  This time I added a fringe to one of the scarves.

two scarves

I don’t think I will go with the fringe again, or at least not that particular kind of fringe.  I found it hard to work with – its quite slippery and getting the fringey bits to only hang vertically is awkward.  I also found that as I sewed the two ends first, then one side from a to b and finally the second side from b to a, it made the scarf pull on the diagonal a little.  I’m sure that could have been avoided if I had basted the fringe on to just the patchwork side first and then sewn around the entire scarf as I usually do, leaving just a small hole in the middle through which I pull it right side out.  But why put myself through that again?  I recall the fringe being just as awkward to work with when I made Carrie’s scarf.  I would rather just use pom-poms or beads or something else when I make more scarves, if I feel the urge to embellish.

fringed scarf

plain scarf

 

urban cowboy

I made these two-stepping pillowcases for my favourite urban cowboy’s birthday.

two-steppin'

Unfortunately, his pillows are exactly as long as the pillowcases and so the more they are used, the further the pillows start to stick out the open side.  Not exactly the look I was going for.  Time to add on more fabric!

The first dilemma was which material to add.  I didn’t have enough of the original print to add a tab going the other direction, and there really wasn’t anything in my stash that matched well enough to use as a believably intentional contrast.  Darn, I had to go on E-bay and order new fabric.  It was a hard task, but I managed to tough it out and find not only a lovely contrasting print, but several other lovely prints as well – combined shipping you know!  To complete the pillowcases I chose this Michael Miller print called “lucky bandana” to keep with the cowboy theme.

 

lucky bandana

The second dilemma was how to add on more fabric – I needed it to look like it was intentional, but I also didn’t want to spend an excessive amount of time fixing the cases.  I used double-seams on the original pillowcases (where you sew one seam with wrong sides together, then turn it to right sides together and sew a second seam over the first so the raw edges are caught between the two and don’t show) so ripping out the end flaps to add on was not practical.  For the same reason neither was cutting the pillow case somewhere in the middle and adding in a strip of the contrasting fabric.

I contemplated several methods of adding on to the open end before settling on what was perhaps not the absolute easiest method, but the one that I thought best balanced a good-looking finished product with breaking the least amount of sweat.  I cut a strip of the lucky bandana fabric 8 inches wide and 2.5 inches longer than the opening.  I sewed the strip in half, right sides together, leaving a small gap in the long end so I could turn it right side out.  I ironed my seams flat and started pinning it from the middle of the strip to the top seam of the pillowcase, seam end of the strip 1/2 an inch inside the open flap of the pillowcase, one side first and then from the middle to where the overlap of the strip was curving around the bottom seam of the pillowcase.  After I had the first part of the strip sewn on I pinned the as-yet-unpinned tail of the strip over it, so that the bottom of the strip forms an overlap over itself rather than a seam.

 

the assembly from the inside

Getting the strip even on the pillowcase was the only tricky part.  Once it was pinned correctly it was a simple matter to top stitch the lucky bandana strip to the pillowcase.  There’s an extra seam that shows from where the original pillowcase was turned back at the open flap, but besides that I think it looks like the lucky bandana flap is an intentional flourish to the two steppin’ pillowcase.  I’m quite pleased with the end result and so is my favourite cowboy!

 

finished product

 

flowers and mexico

bouquet of flowers

gerbers and mums

I got flowers!  And my favourites too!  I adore gerber daisies and nothing beats a chrysanthemum on lasting power!

I am loved and appreciated.  That is a damned fine thing to know.  I appreciate being appreciated!

Okay, enough of the sap, on to other matters.  Ones just as fabulous as getting flowers – planning a vacation!

I just inked the deal for my vacation in Mexico in February!  I’m very excited!

I’m headed back to Playa del Carmen, aka paradise on earth for a whole month.  28 glorious days of sun and beach and relaxation – bliss!

Which means there may not be much crafting going on – there’s only so much room in my suitcase and I can tell you right now that there will not be a sewing machine at hand while I’m there.  I hope to get myself started on a few hand-sewing projects that will be easy to pack, but I think my time away will be spent more on checking out other people’s creations than on making my own.

I fully intend to re-visit the store where this winged heart came from.  The store was full of wonderful hand-made creations.  This one is by Rocio Pindter, hecho a mano in San Miguel de Allende, Gto, Mexico.

winged heart

I am obsessed with sacred hearts (to the point of having one tattoo’d on my body) and think that this winged heart needs to be joined by a similar sacred heart.  I will probably also come home with one of these skulls and most likely a bowl as well.

mexican skulls

Not to mention a brain on overdrive with inspiration for new projects, and a really great tan!

 

patchwork scarf

Finished project #4:

patchwork scarf

The patchwork scarf is 60″ long and loosely based on the “knit not” scarf from Cassie Barden’s The New Handmade.  For the patches I used 100% cotton prints that all feature brown in them.  There’s an Amy Butler print in there, some Michael Miller and the rest of it I just couldn’t tell you where its from, but I love how they all work together.  The other side of the scarf is a plain brown poly-cotton blend that lends stability to the shape.

I am very pleased at how the scarf turned out – I am quite tempted to keep it for myself.  I don’t think these photos really do it justice – it looks fabulous and I definitely think people would be interested in purchasing it.

patchwork side and plain side

I have two more sets of patches cut out, still in the brown theme as I have a lot of the plain brown poly-cotton fabric to use.  Many thanks to Steph who gifted me with several yards of the stuff – it is coming in very handy as bag lining and scarf backsides!

partial view of patches

partial view 3

partial view 2

 

I think these scarves could be saved for fancy dress accessories, or used every day.  To that end I have purchased some black flannel and intend to make a couple more with black flannel backsides and playful prints for the frontsides – both patchwork and single prints.  I’m picturing pirates and tattoos for one of the patchwork series, and burlesque dancers for one of the single prints.  I think playful prints will lend themselves well to everyday scarves, and the flannel adds to the more casual nature.  The brown scarf is more dignified and really would dress up an outfit for, say, the ballet or opera, or cocktail party.

I can’t wait for my next crafting day when I complete the two brown patchwork scarves, one with fringe and one without, and extend a set of pillow slips that I inexplicably made a couple of inches too small.  I think I’ll also add a throw pillow to match the pillow slips into my to do list as well.  Full afternoon of crafting!

 

Gifts

Two other finished projects are gifts. The first, a knitted scarf, took me forever to finish. Not because it was remotely complicated or actually time-consuming, but because I just never find the time to knit any more.

knit scarf

Two years after my friend’s 8 year old daughter chose this purple sparkly acrylic yarn for her scarf, at 10 she fortunately still likes the look of it and was thrilled to receive the finished product just in time for winter.

purple acrylic scarf

I went with the gauge suggested on the yarn label and cast on 24 stitches to get me a scarf of approximately six inches width. I used a checkerboard pattern for interest, and knit until the ball of yarn ran out.

checkerboard pattern

 

The second finished gift project is a sock monkey bag for Stacey’s birthday on December 17th – I actually completed a project well in advance of its due date!  And it looks great!

sock monkey bag

I used the usual Cassie Barden pattern, with the usual added inside pocket and my preferred straps. After seeing the dimensional issues of the striped bag, I made this bag a square. The bag and its alterations to the published pattern worked out perfectly and I know that Stacey, an avid monkey fan, will love it.

inside pocket and lining

Now I just have to get to the post office to mail it by the end of this month!

 

striped bag

Next on the finished project parade is this striped bag.  I used the basic bag patterns in Cassie Barden’s book again, mixed with the 1970’s pattern.  The result?  A deep, but narrow bag with a shaped bottom and two inside pockets.

the striped bag, strap down

the striped bag with straps up

I am quite pleased with the end result.  I think the only change I would make in the future are the dimensions – I would go a bit wider with the amount of depth.  Or skip one of the stripes if going with this width again.  In the meantime, this dimensions of this bag work well for groceries (heavy on the bottom and produce sticking jauntily out the top) or beach essentials.

The shaped bottom makes the empty bag look a little odd, but boy does it ever hang nicely when it has contents.

shaped bottom

Because I was using several prints, I figured why not use one for the straps, another for an inside pocket and yet another for a second inside pocket.  I think the contrast of strap to the top and lining of the bag is striking, and that two inside pockets will be twice as handy as having a single one!

the first pocket

the second inside pocket

Overall I think the bag turned out well.  Now I just have to decide if I’m keeping it for myself or gifting one of my friends with it…

 

patchwork bag

And here it is, the finished patchwork bag!

side one

side two

Mostly following Cassie Barden’s “vintage is the new modern patchwork bag” pattern, and using a Moda charm pack for the patches, I made this bag over the course of a couple of afternoons.

The pattern calls for 20 3 1/2″ squares per side.  I just happened to have 5″ squares, so I used 9 of those for each side and adjusted the lining size to match.  The pattern also called for the straps to be fastened lower on the bag.  Esthetically I prefer the look of the straps up with the binding, so I modified the pattern there too.

It took very little time to put the patches together and make the lining.  A little bit trickier was putting the machine side of the binding on between the lining and the outer bag.  My sizing was off just a little bit and the bag is not entirely square.

the lining, binding and straps

I had no issues at all with my first attempt at hand-binding.  It was easy as pie, and although the hand-stitching is not entirely invisible, its darned close!

outside and inside binding

If I were to make this bag again, and I very well might, I would take more care with the machine part of the binding to ensure that the bag ended up square.  And I’d remember to put pockets on the inside!

In the meantime I quite like my stars and stripey patchwork bag.