Some in-progress works

I took a break the week before Christmas from purse sewing so I could focus on my kids' Christmas gifts.  Now that Christmas is over I went kind of crazy cutting out purses to sew!

 There are about 20 purses here and 15 wallets.  Enough sewing to last me...I don't even know.  Weeks!

 Unfortunately my work area needs a little cleaning.  This is my pile of scraps.  These are big enough that I may want to use them later, so I save them.  But my scrap tubs are getting pretty full, so I'm not looking forward to trying to stuff these into their respective bins.

 This is a big part of the reason I haven't done scrap organization yet.  This is underneath my table.  I went through my closet and took out everything that didn't fit, was too old, or that I plain didn't like anymore.  This left me with about four things left for winter!  Instead of trying to replace that warddrobe by buying new clothes, I am determined to upcycle some of these old clothes into new clothes for myself.  So this pile is sitting on top of some of scrap tubs and I'm trying to ignore it. 

 My cousin commissioned a purse for our aunt.  I picked a brown wool with embroidered flowers on it.  I did used my familiar woven design, though I altered the pattern to make the purse a little narrower and taller.  It also zippers up instead of using a magnet clasp; one of my goals for 2012 is to put zippers in all of my purses. 

 It still needs a purse strap, which I will do today.

Hope everyone has a wonderful New Years weekend!  We will be having a sleepover with the grandparents and on Monday I'll be starting the joy of inventory!

Behind the Bag: Harlequin diamonds clutch

I keep a notebook for jotting down random ideas for purses.  Anytime I feel the need for inspiration I'll browse my idea notebook.  I get ideas from various places.  Browsing supply shops on Etsy is a sure way to gain inspiration!  Clothing and home decor often give me little ideas.  I thought I would share the inspiration behind my newest bag.

This is the purse, and this is the inspiration:

See that mask? I saw that and thought, that would make a cool purse!

And aren't those costumes amazing?  They are made by the designer Horst Raack, who designed them for the Carnivale di Venezia.  He's won several different years.  I found a blog post about him while looking for faberge egg fabric. The fabric is discontinued, sadly, but I highly recommend you visit the blog and take a look at all the costumes this man has made!  It's rather lengthy, but even just looking at the pictures is fun.

Round-up of Christmas Sewing and Gifts

I had a whirlwind week sewing several gifts for my kids and nephews, so I thought I would share since I am very proud of these projects.

First of all I made my son and nephews some fabric garages with wooden cars that I bought from Etsy.

Next I made both my children a stuffed dragon from this pattern I bought on Etsy.

They both loved them! And so do I; they are probably the cutest thing I've ever sewn. :]

And finally, I made a dollhouse out of a bookshelf and some wooden dolls.  I'm hoping my kids get a lot of fun out if it.



I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!



New clutch design

My posts have been rather spotty lately!  I've been working hard on a lot of made-to-order purses.  But now the rush is over and I can concentrate on sewing some Christmas gifts and enjoying the rest of the holiday season with my family.

One thing that I've managed to do this month is create a new clutch pattern.  The pattern that I currently use is great, and I still will continue making clutches with it.  But for various reasons I wanted to come up with something new.  Something a little more interesting, something a little bigger, something that would work with both patterns and solids.  So I experimented a bit.  I am really happy with the final results.  I have made five purses now out of this pattern and have bought some lovely silks and velvets to make more.

You can see I've kind of got a peacock theme going on!  I am really excited about this pattern and I can tell I will have lots of fun with it.  I have plenty of designs from my other pattern in my head too that I'll be making after the holidays.  Plus, I need to make a bunch of wallets since my inventory has grown fairly small.  Lots to do in January!

Finished toddler quilt

Well, I finished my son's birthday quilt for his second birthday.  It turned out better than I thought it would!  He doesn't care about it, but that's okay, he's allowed to be a bit of a stinker. :]

 The marching turtles all are made of minky or fleece for some added texture.

 Usually I handsew the binding on the back but this time I didn't feel like it, so I machine-sewed.  Unfortunately, I did it fairly poorly!  I will probably take a seam ripper to it and redo it all.  Boo!  Should have done it right the first time!

 The quilting is all stitch-in-the-ditch or 1/8" from each seam. Fairly simple and easy.  This was the first quilt that I used spray adhesive instead of safety pins.  I will never go back!  Spray adhesive is totally the way to go.

And one shot of the birthday boy.  He loved his pizza and fruit, two of his favorite foods.