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.

New dress, Burda 7254

I finished a dress for myself and wore it for church today.  It is Burda 7254.  I am fairly happy with it, though it does have a few issues.  First, a picture of what it looked like when finished.  I hate the angle of this picture but oh well, my husband doesn't understand that I don't like pictures taken with the camera angling upward.

 This is what it looked like after a day of wearing it--sheath becomes a-line! Apparently a little stretchage happened around the hem. I wonder if it will change back when washed?

 Wow, I have some lovely expressions in these photos.

 My mother-in-law helped me pin it, because I think I made it at least one size too large, so she helped figure out where to take it in, and then I had to take it in even more on the shoulders.  I also lengthened the sleeves with a band around the cuff.  It's supposed to have a zipper and a slit in the bottom, but it's stretchy enough that it doesn't need a zipper, and I cut off 5 inches from the bottom (this pattern is made for someone who is 5'6" and I am 5'1"), so I did away with the slit.

Hello demanding child hand.  You can kind of see in this picture what the main problem is of this dress--the neckline.  It gapes horribly.  It doesn't expose anything, so that's not a problem, it just perpetually hangs down in a gape.  I think it's because I stretched the fabric while attaching the facing at the neckline, or something.  It's really irritating.  Other than that, I like the dress well enough. It's very comfortable.

Bridal orders

I love bridal orders; brides have really creative ideas and think outside of the listing!

This brides wanted two colors, purple and lilac:

 This bride wanted gold interiors, which look fantastic with the gold ships' wheel.

 And this bride wanted sideways chevrons, which is such a great variation on the current chevron trend.

And she asked for navy interiors (I promise they're navy!) with embroidered monograms.  I was happy to comply!

Fun metallic purse

I've been wanting to make some metallic clutches for awhile, but never could find quite the right fabric. I had a customer ask for a metallic bronze clutch, and so I went on a search for the right fabric. We both like a bronze leather, but it had to ship from Canada and she needs it soon, so we went with a spandex fabric I found.  In fact, I'm pretty sure it's the same sort of stuff gymnasts use on their uniforms.

 You'll notice that it's not really bronze.  In fact, it's a very bright copper.  I contacted my customer with pictures and she liked it, so we went with it.

 I really like these turquoise colored stones, sadly my supplier is out of them.

I really love how this turned out and am planning on using the leftover copper fabric for some other purses.  I'd also like to buy some silver and gold from the same company.





Custom order and a new design

I've been quite busy lately with order and realized it's been awhile since I wrote something.  I wanted to share this order I just finished last night for a bride who wanted all her bridesmaids to have the same purse but in a different color according to their personalities.

 I really like all the colors she chose and hope her bridesmaids do as well.  I didn't really capture all the colors very well in this photo; the red in the back is darker and more vibrant, and the pink in front is shockingly bright.

 I have introduced a new style of clutch, a foldover zipper pouch with an asymmetrical curved zipper.  I have a bunch of these cut out and am slowly getting them done in between custom orders.  Here are a couple I've finished and listed.

Bridal Order

I got an order last week for six navy blue satin ruffle clutches.  I just finished them last night!

I love how these turned out and I hope the bride does too.

Yoki the dragon pattern review and changes

For Christmas I made my kids two dragons from the Yoki the Dragon pattern I bought from Etsy. 

 They turned out really well.  My daughter especially loves hers.  My sister asked me to make one for her son's birthday, so I set out to make another one.  However, I decided to make a few changes.  There were some things that bothered me about the original pattern.  Mostly, there is so much hand-sewing!  I don't enjoy hand-sewing, and I don't feel like it's as secure as machine sewing.  The head especially was hard to get on securely.  I'm positive that my kids are going to end up pulling them off.  So this second time around, I set out to do as much machine sewing as possible. 

 I was able to eliminate all the hand-sewing except the nostrils and sewing the hole up at the end. 

 I machine sewed on the wings and arms and ears.  I should have had the ears point up instead of down, but oh well.  In order to machine sew on the head, I had to adjust the pattern.  Basically I just figured out where I wanted the neck to be in relation to the head, and cut the head pattern there.  Then I taped that piece to the other end, overlapping a bit to account for the seam.  This worked out perfectly, though you can see he's looking upward a bit, so I probably should have moved the neck forward on the head a bit more. 

 Because the neck is where it's turned in the original pattern, I left the back open, and hand-sewed that up at the end.  I also made a change to the belly lines.  In the original, you're supposed to use embroidery thread to make the lines.  I only did this for my son's because both my husband and I really disliked how it looked.  And sure enough, several of them have popped off since Christmas time.  So for this one, I stitched the belly lines on in a lighter thread.  Oh, and I interfaced all the satin pieces.  My son's had some popped seams because satin ravels at the edges really easily.  This one for my nephew should be as secure as the minky one for my daughter.  Oh and one more change--the original pattern calls for felt spikes.  For my kids' I used tulle and for my nephew's I used some velvety scraps.  I like them much better than felt because they are softer.

Still cute, right?  And hopefully much more secure and long-lasting.