Pieced Bag

So I’ve found that the thing about doing more crafting is that I must do less posting.  I’m not averse to this, just this whole time sink up there at my sewing machine is getting crazy.  Here’s a finished project, also been working on 2 blankets, a cactus, practicing my Illustrator and … what else?  Oh, I have 2 more sewing  projects in the works, a little embroidery to do, a couple of jewelry holders nearly done, a large wood project, a painting project …  Oh dear, do you think I’ve gone and overdone it?

Well, one project’s done, anyway.  This is a bag of my own design, with mirrored front and back piecing, three interior pockets and a self-covered button closure.  Sorry about the picture quality:  it was night and all.

The fabric:  the 2 blue cotton fabrics are remnants my mom gave me.  You can tell the patterned one is from the seventies because it features mushrooms.  The navy one is actually chambray, which has a nice subtle pattern.  I like these dark fabrics with the bright green, it’s a good contrast.  The green is a cotton velvet, a recent remnant I bought.  Soft, kind of a pain to sew with, needs reinforced edges.  Also, doesn’t sew like regular velvet, frays easily, has a tendency to create friction while sewing, which means that if you haven’t pinned things properly, your pieces will quickly derail.

I’ve been wearing this one, see what I think about the design there.  The flap was my main issue, ended up crooked after I measured it and everything.  Pissed me off what with all the work I put into this. I have to remember - this is a prototype, and I am not perfect, and things happen.  A mantra I often disregard.  Here’s what an interfaced, lined bag looks like inside out before it’s sewn together.  Aren’t those huge pins?  They’re my quilting pins, and are about twice the size of normal pins!  Fun!

Details … I had fun with the self-covered button, and with the pockets.  Bags without interior pockets, for me, are as good as useless, unless it’s a very small bag.  I carry lots of junk.  I can’t ever find anything without pockets to help.  Thus, I made three pleated interior pockets.  I think that they are (1) too big and (2) too floppy, but it was a nice first try for what I’m aiming for.  Although … these are the first pockets ever to fit all my pens and pencils, and my sunglasses.

This is the wall above my sewing machine.  The important bit is that picture that’s right in front of my face, which is a picture from Lisa Lam’s U-Handblog website, from her glasses case tutorial.  See, Lisa’s freaking brilliant at bag-making.  And I’m completely mentally challenged when it comes to remembering which piece of what to put inside where inside out when sewing together lined bags.  This shows me.  With this picture in front of me, I do not have to (1) swear, (2) rip seams, (3) search for the tutorial 20 times to make sure I’m doing it right or (4) give up on a bag because I’m so frustrated.

This here is a sneak peek of another project.  This is for you, Paula.

Experiments in Applique

I’ve never appliqued anything before - it seemed, well … it seemed like too much trouble.  Me = occasionally lazy.  But yesterday I spent all day sewing, and I thought, well, what the hey?

So I made a cover for my sewing machine (and a seat cushion, but it’s not done yet) out of the leftover fabric from the crochet accessory holders I made a while back.  Actually, I just found the post for that project, and it tells me it was last July 24.  I can’t believe it was that long ago that I made those.  I was sure it was just October or something.

The fact that I’ve had that project sitting on my shelf for almost 9 months is scary.  On the other hand, going back through my blog like that I’m amazed at all the things I’ve done.  Sometimes, it would probably be helpful for me to go back and read what I’ve written and posted.  I appear to be somewhat busy.  Not quite sure where I got the time to do all that.

So here’s the cover, which is part of my plan to make my sewing area decorations & furnishings purple and green with flowers:

It has lavender quilted fabric with appliqued strips of the purple-green flower fabric.  This lovely cover features no pattern, some alarmingly crooked seams, and wonky applique.  However, I think it is perfectly serviceable, not too bad looking and  turned out surprisingly well for sorta making it up as I went along, and having only fabric scraps to work with.  Oh, and bias tape that was too thin.

Like I said, I’m practicing applique, so this seemed a good thing to test stuff on.  The larger applique is fabric on green felt.  I hate ironing this kind of tiny little curved edge fold-under.  HATE IT.  No wonder I haven’t done this before.

The smaller one is the same fabric-on-felt, except instead of turning the fabric edges under I used my machine’s satin stitch to embroider the edges and offset the fabrics.  I liked the way that one turned out better.  First time I’d used the satin stitch on my machine, too.  Interesting.  Must experiment further.

I’m off to camping this weekend, so I shall see you all on Monday!  Happy weekend!

Ever heard of needle punch embroidery?

Today’s another show-and-tell, this time from Jeff’s grandmother. It seems that Dolly was like many a crafter - she collected stuff, and she held onto what she didn’t use. A couple of weekends ago his mom and I went through the boxes of things she had collected to see what was what. I love other people’s collections of crafting paraphernalia, particularly when some of it is rather old. You never know what kinds of designs and crafts you’re going to find.

So here’s a few things from her collection, a collection not unlike many crafters. It’s not huge (well, her button collection is) but it’s representative of someone with many interests, and it’s representative of several decades, too. It’s it many ways a typical stash, one that brings back memories for the people who know it. My husband remembers his grandmother embroidering with that thread, and she made him a shirt from that blue plaid material with pearl buttons.

I think maybe I like this picture the best, because it has memory for me, even though I wasn’t around for this … Those yarn potholder-type-hotpads are something that Jeff and I got from his grandmother’s friend Lola for our wedding. The fabric is still neatly packaged, very much a project for a busy woman. The type of embroidery hoops there tell me when they were purchased - they don’t actually hold fabric that well, but I’ll tell you, they’re going to make awesome frames. And the Star Trek pin is pure grandson - Dolly saved three of his Star Trek pins

Tools are always great - crafting mostly takes tools of some sort, and so you can really tell what sorta things somebody did by their tools. What they were interested in, what they used a lot, what they thought about and never did. Painting, crochet, beading, tatting, knitting … I’m definitely going to have to learn to tat now.

My favorite of the bunch is definitely this bonnet. Jeff’s mom actually found 2 different bonnets.

This bonnet is the one that still has color in the fabric, obviously a nice, ruffled bonnet for good use. I find it interesting that you can totally take it apart with the buttons. When I tried it on, the brim was so huge that if fell down over my nose.
But you can see the strength of the sun in these babies. The other one has almost no color left.

Each has a wide brim and a long collar to keep the sun off. The other one actually has about 15 little pockets in the brim for cardboard pieces! The cardboard is replaceable, and it keeps the big floppy brim off your face! Ingenious!

These are truly fabulous. Maybe I just used to like Little House on the Prairie a lot, but … it’s a bonnet!

Oh, oh, and needle punch embroidery? I’d never heard of it before, but here it is. I even have a needle and some fabric and designs. I have no idea what this really is, but apparently there’s still a lot of people doing it. You never know, maybe it will be the Next Big Thing.