Sunday, November 28, 2010

A bag for my cousin

My cousin Rachel turned 19 yesterday and we were invited to her parents place for afternoon tea today to celebrate.  Normally we just give the cousins cards on their birthdays, but I had nothing to do this morning and felt like making something.. so I made her a buttercup bag!

Too bad I didn't take a decent photo of it before I gave it to her
 It's made with quite a heavy striped black/grey denim.  My brother was given a bolt of it for some reason ages ago, and he was nice enough to pass some on to me. 

I lined it with some hot pink/black fabric.  The denim makes the bag hold it's shape quite nicely so I didn't bother with any interfacing.
The only issue I had was top stitching around the top of the bag.  My machine did not enjoy that at all.  I ended up having to do it half a cm further down than I normally would have because I couldn't get the machine to feed it through evenly higher up.  My walking foot was making quite the clunking noise as it went too.

I think maybe I need a new machine with more grunt!  Right Jase? :P

Friday, November 26, 2010

Letter Name Art

I've seen this idea on a few different blogs and loved it, and I've always thought it would make a great wedding present, so when we were invited by some friends to their wedding (right at the time of year where all our spare cash is going towards Christmas) guess what I made!

Not that I went to the wedding.  Jase had to go without me since it was today and the ceremony was too close to school pick up time.  And then we didn't have anybody that would have been able to take all 3 kids tonight.  Turns out Friday weddings don't work for me :P

Anyway, back to the gift!  All photos were sourced from the awesome Leo Reynolds.  He's taken a zillion photos of different letters and numbers and signs etc and arranged them all into collections and he allows people to use them, so long as it's not for profit. I spent hours going through his photos!  
All except for the "est".  That one I wrote on our blackboard and took a photo of it myself (but I think I did steal the idea for that from somewhere else).

I love how it turned out!  And then when I was finished with that I decided that I liked it so much I should make one for us too!


I pondered which year to put for a while, and even if I wanted to add a year at all since we were a family long before we got married, but I really wanted it to fit nicely into the square in my lovely Ikea Ribba Frame so I went with the year of our marriage... and I love it!

I want to hang it in our entryway so it's right in front of you when you come in our front door.

Here is a link to a blog post which links to some other blog posts if you care to see my inspiration.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Mikey's birthday present

I asked my brother if he thought his wife would let him put nerdy cushions on their couch, and he said maybe not, but I should make them anyway.. so here they are!
I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out! 

I also made him some melty bead lemmings.  He asked me to make him some like mine ages ago (and his wife may have said "noooo").  Sorry Kate :P 

I forgot to take a photo of them, but they looked pretty much identical to these ones. 

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Yet another drawing bag

I made another drawing bag for a 2 year olds birthday present.

I actually took photos of the whole process this time and was going to blog about it, but haven't gotten around to it yet, perhaps later.. if I can be bothered :P

Sunday, November 07, 2010

Pad Holder

I decided to make something that I could pop a couple of pads in for my oldest daughter to keep in her school bag.  After a bit of googling I found that while that sort of thing does exist already, I couldn't find a tutorial for one that I liked, so I ended up making up my own pattern.

She doesn't actually need to use them yet, but she's 9 now and it's only a matter of time before she does.  I don't want her to be caught short when the time comes!

It's just a basic little flip open wallet with a velcro tab to close it.  There's room for two pads, and I figured why not add a bit to keep some bandaids in as well, always handy to have a couple of those on hand!

Now I think I might myself one to keep all my bits and bobs in one place in my own handbag. That'll save me some rummaging in the future!

Saturday, November 06, 2010

Another Girls Birthday Present

Caitie asked me to make a bag for her friends birthday next week, so naturally I decided to make her a Buttercup Bag.

I let Caitie choose the fabric, so we ended up with a bright pink flowery cord on the outside and a contrasting blue fabric with little white fishes on the inside.

The matching wallet was made using this tutorial from bluebirdswing.  I made a small boo boo when I was cutting the outer fabric, accidentally cut it half an inch short, so had to adjust everything else accordingly.

I also had a minor issue with the top stitching.  The middle section with the zip and the card slots was way too fat to go under my walking foot, so I ended up just doing a U of stitching around either end and left the middle section as it was.
It's not a bad wallet, has 6 card slots, a zippered coin pouch, a place for notes behind that, and a receipt pocket.  I'd probably go for a different fabric selection if I make myself one though :P

Actually it's probably too bad I didn't accidentally cut it a bit narrower too, because it's a bit snug in the bag.  But at least it wasn't too big to fit at all! 

So now I guess I'll make some hairclips etc to go with it!

Thursday, November 04, 2010

51 Days until Christmas

I have just completed the first of my handmade Christmas gifts.  It's a drawing bag for my niece Ellie!
You don't want to know how long it took me to get the eyes in just the right spot so that the panda looked neither angry, nor stupid.

I never think to take photos when I'm putting the face together for some reason.  I only ever seem to do it after I have pinned it to the bag front.  

Hopefully her name doesn't fall off.  The directions on my fusible webbing say that you don't have to sew it as well, and it would have been on the fiddly side with the letters I used so I didn't do it. 

Admittedly it's the first time I have bothered to read the instructions, usually I just use it.. so I hope I don't regret following them this time!
The bag is lined with some Ikea fabric.  I thought it looked pretty spiffy with the panda!