The importance of a prototype

I created two new designs recently.  One was a new diaper bag for myself, and the other one was a new style of framed clutch for my shop.  The diaper bag was my effort to create a bag that looks more like a purse but has spots for sippy cups still.  I wanted them to be more hidden away.  The idea that I came up with was good, but I didn't create a mockup before jumping in with the fabric.  I had a daytrip the following day and wanted to use my new bag, so I didn't take the time.  I really wish I had, because the bag could have been so much more awesome if I had gotten the kinks out!

As it is, I probably won't finish it.  There's a lot I like about it, like the wipeable fabric on the inside.  It has the perfect amount of pockets for me.  But it needs to be just a tad bigger.  And the overall style is just not quite what I want.  So I will have to work on that more.  For now, I have pulled out my very first diaper bag from the closet.  It's a smaller bag and works well now that I have only one kid in diapers and the other one is done pottytraining.

Here's the other bag design that I worked on.  This was my first prototype.  It's okay, but certain areas needed to be adjusted.

The second design was much closer to what I wanted. I did make a third prototype but it was pretty bad so I didn't finish it.  I used this second prototype to make a pattern for the final bag.

This is it! I'm really happy with how it turned out.  There are a couple of minor tweaks I will make to the pattern, but overall I really like it.  This is by far the most complicated framed purse pattern that I have come up with, except maybe this purse.

This quilt might be ugly

I enjoy making quilts.  I have made a handful in the last few years, most of them for children (because machine quilting anything over toddler sized would stink!).  This was the first one that I made that was larger than a wall hanging. 

It was for my daughter's second birthday.  For my nephew's birthday I made this:

This one was unique because the back was as fun as the front:

For my other nephew I made this. You can tell I have a think for squares and rectangles!

I've even made a t-shirt quilt for my brother:

And the largest quilt I've ever made was a king-sized one for our bed.

My son's second birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, and I decided to make him a little quilt.  I wanted it to be simple, so I decided on a variation of a nine-patch that I'd seen awhile back.  I found some cute turtle print that I wanted to be the main fabric, since he loves his turtle pillow pet.  Well, it has some strange greens in it.  And while trying to find coordinating fabric I picked out some polka dot fabrics that had blue and brown.  I bought a few different browns and blues and greens to add to the mix.  I thought the combination would look good together, but I'm really not feeling it:

This is not the completed quilt top, it's just the blocks laying on top of the green fabric, but this will be sort of how it looks when pieced together.  It's just kind of weird.  In fact, I am afraid that it's kind of ugly.

I also have some brown to be a border, and I took it out and laid the pieces on the brown.  I think I like it better?  But I'm not sure.  I'm sad that it's not really living up to my vision.  I don't really have the budget to get different fabric, so this will need to work . . . somehow! One part that I'm excited about will be a line of marching turtles across the bottom.  That might salvage it.

On a positive note, I also made some placemats tonight.  The ones I originally made were pretty beaten up, so I need some fresh ones.  These came together super easy: two layer of home dec fabric and two packages of skinny bias tape.

Dress for myself inspired by Pinterest

I made a dress for myself this week to wear at our family pictures this morning. I bought two lengths of fabric so I can make this dress in two colors. This is the first experimental one. My goal was to get out all the kinks on this dress so that the second one will be perfect. I am fairly happy with how this turned out.

Here is the shirt that I found on Pinterest that inspired this dress.

To come up with the pattern, I used a shirt and another dress of mine and traced them until I had a shape I was comfortable with. It ended up fitting pretty accurately and I just had to adjust one seam. The sleeves took more work, but I finally figured them out. It's very comfortable. The next dress will be made of a slightly stretchier fabric, so I might make it a little more fitted. This one is closely fitted but not tight at all, just how I like it. But I still feel like it makes me look lumpy.

The draping was the hardest part, since I don't have a dress form and just had to put it on myself and then pin it to figure it out. I think that for the next dress, I might skip out on the buttons. I will also try to cut out the front draping part on the bias if I have enough fabric for the next dress.

I like this shape on me. I normally go for A-line dresses and I think this is much more flattering.

My current studio

I glued ten purses last night into their frames. The last time I did a large amount of purses at once I ended up with a numb finger that didn't regain full feeling for over a week! So I tried to be extra careful to not injure myself. I still ended up with red fingers though, so I'm definitely taking a vacation from framed purses and concentrating on some shoulderbags and wallets.

Another view of the same purses. I'll be busy editing photos and listing new items all morning tomorrow!

And now that I've finished the fringe purses I can send off my next shipment to the shop that I consign with down in Florida. Most of these purses I will make duplicates of to stay in my Etsy shop.

And finally, I have a new iron! It's a massive, gravity feed iron. It has a water tank that is suspended above the iron. It's also really heavy, which is nice. You can see my old faithful iron on the left, which is actually a hand-me-down from my mother when I left for college 7 years ago. I think it's the iron my brother used to wax his snowboard! I am way past due for a nice new one. We actually haven't figured out how to suspend the tank yet, so I haven't tried out my new Sapporo yet. But I will this week.

My list of non-purse projects is growing again. I got a shipment of clearance fabric this week that only cost me $25 for 10 yards of fabric! That fabric will be turned into two sheets for my kids' beds, and two dresses for me. We have family pictures on Saturday, so I have to get one of the dresses done before the. I'm making up the pattern myself inspired by I shirt I saw on Pinterest, so I'm hoping it turns out well. There is great capacity for disaster! Once the dress is done, I need to make new placemats, the two sheets, and a birthday quilt for my soon-to-be 2 year old. And then three Christmas gifts for the little boys in the family! I will be busy!