Giveaway winners

Thanks to everyone for participating in my giveaway!

The red clutch goes to Melissa Palmer and the black clutch goes to BlackAsphodel! Thank you everyone for entering, and I'll be contacting the winners!

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway!

***Giveaway Closed***

Today Sew, Mama, Sew is having a bunch of giveaways, and I thought I would join in.  Today I am giving away TWO items.  These cute little clutch wallets are some of the very first things that I made for my Etsy shop over a year and a half ago.  I now have gone in a different direction, but I still think these little purses are cute, and they are very convenient for storing everything in and tossing in a bigger purse.  I carried one myself for a long time before I started carrying around another prototype from my shop (that's what I allow myself to keep, just the prototypes!). 

First off, this little pinstriped clutch with embroidery.  Yes, I was having a bit of fun with my new embroidery machine!  I like the juxtaposition of business-like pinstripes and girly flower.

It closes with three little snaps.

 This clutch is made of a soft red suede-like fabric.  I quilted it heavily to create the criss-cross pattern.

 The interior of both has a zippered pocket,

 and six credit card slots.

So, rules for the giveaway!  First off, this giveaway is open to both U.S. and international entrants!  The giveaway goes from today through May 25 at around 8:00 Eastern, or whenever I remember to close it down!  The winners will be picked at random and then emailed and announced in this post. 

To enter, just leave a comment.  If you have a clutch that you prefer between the two that I'm offering, let me know which one you like best.  Make sure I have a way of contacting you, whether through your blog, your email in your profile, or your email in your comment.
To get a second entry, visit my shop and let me know what your favorite purse or wallet is.  Do this in a second comment, please.

So that's it!  You have two chances to win.  If you would like the chance to enter more giveaways for all sorts of handmade goodies and sewing supplies, make sure to go to Sew, Mama, Sew.

****Winners****

The red clutch goes to Melissa Palmer and the black clutch goes to BlackAsphodel! Thank you everyone for entering, and I'll be contacting the winners!

Largest Order Ever plus some new labels

I had a bride ask for 11 purses for this order, but the tricky part was that her wedding is next week!  I bought the fabric Monday, cut it out and interfaced it Tuesday, and sewed it yesterday.  I stayed up until 2, whew!

 These brocade clutches are gorgeous, this picture I took last night shows off the color a bit better.

 For this order, she requested the bridesmaids' names inside.  I have been experimenting with using my printer to create labels.  I have a laser printer, and when I researched online, lots of people said that laser printers couldn't print on fabric.  However, some people said you can, so I gave it a try. 

 First off, my printer popped this out.  Thanks sweetie.

 I will definitely be offering these as an option for custom orders.  They are exciting because they are so customizable.  A name, wedding date, quote, inscription, etc, all are options.  I've been offering custom embroidery, but anything other than simple monograms is difficult for my older embroidery machine, and even those are kind of tricky.  So I'm happy to have an easier option.

 And inside the purse:

 Here's another bridal order:

 And another custom order:

Several custom orders

I loved these brooches that this bride chose for her nautical clutches.  It gives them such a different look, doesn't it? Very elegant though.

 And another order of cameo nautical clutches.

 This custom order was made with fabric that the customer sent me.  It's from Ikea. The inside is teal.

 This clutch is for a wedding, for the mother-of-the-bride.  This fabric is the same fabric that will be use for her dress and a lace jacket.  A friend of mine on Etsy made her dress and referred the customer to me for the purse.

 And here are some fun new listings that I really enjoyed.  I love this metallic fabric and bought it in all sorts of colors.

 And more foldeover zipper clutches:

 And this one I cut out backwards, whoops.  Guess it doesn't really matter, but it bothers the perfectionist in me a little to see it oriented differently!

Some Easter clothes

With Easter and a fancy dinner celebrating my husband's parents' anniversary, I made several items of clothing this week
 I made this dress for my daughter for Easter/her birthday.  I came up with the pattern on my own and am really happy with how it turned out. The hem is done with fishing line to give it the twirly effect.  Super cute, right?

And here is the dress that I made.  It is Butterick 5559.  Adding the top crocheted lace layer made it a bit tricky, but it still came together fairly well.  I had to make a couple adjustments to the neckline, and I added an extra strip along the bottom for length.

 These pictures are kind of dark, sorry.

 I got a few compliments on it today, so that make me happy.

 I also made myself a reversible circle skirt this week.  These pictures are awful, sorry, but Adam was busy getting the kids lunch and so I had to use the timer and set the camera at a funny angle.

 I am not sure how flattering this skirt actually is, and I'm not sure how often I'll actually wear it away from home.  I need a close-fitting cardigan or jacket, I think.

It was a super easy skirt to make.  Here's the tutorial. The original isn't reversible, but it was very simple to adjust it to make it so.    I might make Katrina some skirts like this, since you can whip one up in about half an hour!

And here is a bridal order I finished this weekend.  I love the peacock interior.  We picked a silver silk charmeuse for these.  I typically don't use charmeuse for bags, but it was the color that the bride wanted, and I like the soft silky feel of these.

Custom order, woven and pleated clutch

I had a bride ask me to make her a yellow woven clutch.  Partway through our discussion, she found a purse on Pinterest that she really liked.  It was basically a combination of two of my purses, woven:

and pleated:

So I said yes. 

Here is the original from Pinterest:

And here is the purse I made for the bride:

I love how it turned out and I hope she's really happy with it! It was a lot of work, involving tons of ironing and gluing.  But a very fun result.

New packaging and other pictures

I've been thinking over my new packaging for awhile. Previously I was using a clear cello bag, closed with a sticker with my shop name, and that's all.  I decided I wanted to upgrade a little, without making it too frilly or creating extra waste for people to throw away.  I decided to use a patterned cello bag instead of the clear.  I also commissioned a new logo from a graphic designer on Etsy back in December.  The final part of my new packaging was to order some postcards with my logo to fold in half and close the package.  Overall, I'm really happy with the new look!

 I've got some personal projects coming up that I'm reallycited about.  My daughter turns 4 in April, and I'll be making her a new dress for her birthday and Easter.  She sometimes accompanies me to the fabric store, and on one trip she fell in love with some coral organza with silver sparkles.  I bought some coordinating fabric and have sketched out a design that should be quite fun.  I don't have a pattern, so a few parts I'll have to wing, but I think I can get it all to work out. I also bought a pattern to make her a stick horse for her birthday.  She will be thrilled, and if my son wants one too, I can make one for him.

 My fabric scrap pile was getting huge and taking over.  My scrap bins were all too full, so I decided I needed more storage!  This is the pile of fabric I needed to organize.

 I bought a third cube shelf to go under my craft table, as well as several storage bins.

 I organized the scraps by color.  I also emptied out every one of my existing scrap bins and went through every single piece.  Anything that was smaller than 2.5" square was tossed.  The small scraps all went back into the plastic bins.  The new shelves are full of scraps that are big enough for a wallet but too small for a purse. At the end of several hours, I had this pile on my ottoman of fabric to be thrown away!  Part of me is sad to see so much fabric go into the trash, but I always get satisfaction of streamlining things and getting rid of excess. 

 I finished a bridal order today.  Love this one!

 And I finished this one last week.

I have two to work on this week, as well as a custom order that is based on a purse the bride found on Pinterest that is basically a combination of two of my styles.  I'm excited about that one.