A bag and a felt softie to share

It has taken a while but a I have made a new bag with help from Crafty Things. The pattern was Huntington Hobo by Pink Sand Beach Designs.

I had a bit of trouble with some of the instructions. The photos in the pattern instructions were hard to see as they were too small but with some help from Crafty Things I finished it. I used a different interfacing so the bag is floppier. This picture shows the back of the bag with the zipper pocket and there is another pocket inside without a zip. When I test ran the bag I found the inside pocket to be a little on the small side and some things fell out. It is going to be used for carrying books to school and probably not as an everyday handbag. I like how it looks and it is very roomy. This was the first bag I have made with zippers and these were the bits where I needed the most help. Thanks, Crafty Things.

Here it is part way through construction.

A while ago I made this cute kitty. It was a kit from Cupcakes for Clara and came with everything you needed to make the kitty. I think I might have run out of one of the threads but everything else was perfect. I wasn't quite sure if I liked him at first but he has been growing on me lots.

Applique on Drawstring Bag

A quick post to share this little applique. I needed to repair a pair of denim shorts - they have been so well loved that the fabric had worn thin on the front. I added an applique flower just like the one in the photo with a smaller one on the other leg. I did some repair work to the inner leg seams with a multi stitch zigzag, some bias tape and a bit of fusible webbing and will now get a little more wear from the shorts before they fall apart. I fused the bias tape to the inside of the seams and then used the multi stitch zigzag on the outside to hold it all together.

I like the colours I had chosen for the applique so made another and added to a lined drawstring bag. This bag will come in handy to hold those little bits and pieces that need a home in my creating space.

Off to sort some of the accumulated stash of fabric, felt, yarn, buttons and other things crafty.

A New Bag

I have had great fun with the sewing machine this week. A few little fishes, a few drawstring bags and then this. It all started with a little piece of patched fabric - just a few rectangles sewn together and the thought of "what will this become?"

I added two strips of osnaburg either side and then some more fabric top and bottom. At this point I was thinking of a tote. I then hand-stitched the three rows of running stitch using Perle cotton and found the the three buttons. It needed to be a bit wider if I wanted to use box corners at the bottom so I added two more fabric strips at the sides and at this point thought I would experiment with a different back.

For the back I used osnaburg with a layer of flannelette and added satin stitched ovals with two different coloured threads - the idea from this came via the book "Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts".

At this point I joined the front and back together. I added a backing of flannelette to the front as well. I added box corners on the outside instead of hiding them on the inside of the bag. I had tried this on a bag before Christmas and like to look of it. The lining was a piece of light weight cotton.

What kind of handles was the next step along with a closing of some sort. In the end I went with a drawstring top that was the same as the one I tried here. The last idea was for it to have a long strap so that I could use it messenger style - I like this style as it is hands free. As always I made the strap too long and had to shorten it by folding the strap on itself for a little bit and adding another button. I added some more patchwork to the strap but should also have interfaced it - it is a bit soft.

The end result is OK but the drawstring doesn't work very well hence the addition of some beads that can slide along and help keep it closed. I have been using it for the last couple of days and I think I will like it. I have a zipper pouch and smaller drawstring bag inside it to keep things organised. Avid Crafter likes the fabric I created for the back of the bag.

I think it is now time to get stuck in and finish the crochet food and then move on to working on some of the kits that are just waiting to be finished.

Happy crafting.

Sewing, Sewing, Sewing

Well the bag lead to some inspiration to keep sewing. Do you get like that? Start one sewing project and then that snowballs into more so sewing becomes the obsessive activity for a while before something else catches your attention and you switch to that.

In the photo there are a couple of fabric baskets made using Pink Penguin's tutorial. In the second one I experimented with stripes as well as patchwork squares.

Browsing through my favourite tutorials and my rather large stash of fabrics led me to creating a set of criss cross coasters. I found a new tutorial for a reversible drawstring bag and I had a few squares left from the bags so I created a bag for the coasters to live in. Everyone who sews has more fabric than they could possibly use, don't they? There is fabric that just begs for a home when you walk past it in the shop, doesn't it?

Last was another drawstring bag using the techniques from a bookmarked favourite. This blog has a series of posts that document the development of her drawstring techniques. I use this often because it creates a very nice lined pouch for tucking things in.

Two new felt project kits have arrived from paper and string. The robin and the reindeer kits plus some ribbon and brads winged their way to my house from the UK. These have jumped queue to the top of the to do list. Hopefully I will get some time to start these soon but an unexpected house guest is arriving late today so I will just have to see how much time is left.

Bag Making

Some more sewing has been happening. I needed a gift for a lovely friend so I decided to use a small stitching that I had just finished and incorporated it into a bag loosely based on the tote bag from the Bend the Rules sewing book. It is larger than the bag in the book and I lengthened the longer strap quite a bit. The stitching was part of a kit purchased at the Craft Fair earlier in the year. It is called Stitched with Love and is by Calico Farm Designs.

I was very pleased with the end result and it was one of those gifts that was so hard to give away. I would have loved to keep it for myself but know that it will be well used by the recipient. The bag is big enough to fit a medium sized lunch box or book and a drink bottle. I added a small zipper pouch for keeping small things in and looped that around the strap. For the zippered pouch I used my favourite tutorial by Sew Sally. I really like her construction technique and the way the zipper is on one side of the pouch. The last part of the gift was a small drawstring pouch for holding stuff. For this I used my bookmarked tutorial from happythings.

I modified the base of the bag by making a feature of the boxed corners. This idea came from my copy of the Zakka Sewing book that I was lucky enough to win earlier in the year. I folded the corners to the outside after sewing across them and added a wooden button as decoration.

I seem to have found a few tutorials that I go back to again and again. Do you have tutorials like that - bookmarked to get back to easily or used so often they become just part of your sewing repertoire?

Tote Bag

Sewing is starting to fit back into the scheme of things. After the very quick whip up of the Discovery Bag the weekend before last, I found time during last week to make a very simple tote bag.



The front panel is a print from a piece of Japanese themed fabric picked up at Picture Patchwork the weekend before last. Each panel is different and I have seven more to play with. I simply added two bottom panels and then two side panels to the picture piece. I then used a piece of textured cotton for the bag and lined it with calico. I used flannelette for the inter-lining as is described in the Bend the Rules Sewing book. I like using this technique because the bag still looks quite soft. The handles are made from calico folded four times for added thickness.



The bottom of the bag has box corners. There are lots of ways to make these corners. Here are some tutorials I have come across.

Lazy Girl Designs
Craft Apple
Sew Mama Sew - Classic Tote Tutorial

One of the amazing things about today's Internet connectivity is the amazing array of ideas, how-to's and tutorials that are so freely shared.

Useful Bag

I made this bag before we went to WA and used it every day while we were travelling. It fitted the essentials just nicely and stayed slung over my shoulder messenger style even when I was in the car making it so easy to hop in and out. The pattern is a Melly and Me design called Sunshine.

Changes made were:

* added lots more length to the strap - too much it, as it happened, so I shortened it by adding a button on the strap to hold the not need length together. See second photo.

* I did not want the ties for a closure so I added a stretchy hairband that reached to the first button on the bag. This made the closure off centre but in the end I decided that I liked that. The hairband needed to be knotted to make it hold securely to the button. This first button was then stitched on with twice the number of stitches to make sure it did not fall of with constant use.

* I lined it with calico and added a layer of flannelette (as described in Bend The Rules Sewing) to the calico before sewing it all together to give the bag a little more structure without being too stiff.



Some of the fabric used had been in the stash for a very long time. It was a textured open weave in pale greens and natural tones. I combined it with a texture cotton in an off-white colour and some small pieces of patterned quilting fabrics. The buttons have been lingering in the button jar for a while as well.

Two different sized zipper pouches kept all the items inside neat and tidy. When I was in the plane I squeezed in an extra zipper pouch containing MP3 player and earphones.



Last photo is just to show the bag in use.

Still Sewing

Well I am still sewing along but it will slow over the next few weeks as other parts of life take priority. This time I have had some fun making lined drawstring bags as per the instructions on this blog. These are a great size for stashing small items in for packing and I have also found them useful for taking coins to the bank. My DD is busy selling chocolates to raise funds for her school band trip later in the year so many coins find their way home.



I am going to vary the size of the bags when I make the next ones. Maybe some big enough to put shoes in. They will be very useful on our trip that is getting nearer now. The fabric is a varied selection from the stash - some is over ten years old and some purchased recently.

Next little sewing task came from the purchase of this great little felt kit from paper-and-string.



A terrific little felt kit to make a little owl ornament from felt. Look at how wonderfully it was packaged and I was also lucky enough to order at a time when some free felt squares were being added to every order. Lucky me!! I wanted to start as soon as the parcel arrived last week but I was very good and finished off the drawstring bags, did the housework, went to work, taxied children and all that other stuff that intervenes with perfectly good creating time - not to mention watching lots of Olympic events on television. Anyway I have found a little time for the creative stuff of life and here is the little critter all finished up.



I enjoyed stitching it and will be creating a few extra a one is never enough for owls - you have to have a parliament or they get lonely! I got everything needed to make one owl aside from thread and needle. There was a pattern, instructions, felt, felt ric-rac, beads and ribbon. I used press and seal to cut out the pattern pieces - have found this very useful with felt. It is see through so that you can lay it over your pattern and trace of pieces and then lay it over the felt to cut out the pieces. Probably not very environmentally friendly being plastic but I get very accurate pattern pieces this way.

The weather has been very wintry this week so finding good light for photos has been difficult. There was a little bit of sunshine earlier so the little owl found its way outside for a quick pose in the trees. The pouches were just photographed inside as there were no dry spots to put them down outside. Another wintry shower is moving through as I type - wetting the clothes that I foolishly hung outside on the clothesline in a vain attempt to get them dry. Oh well they will just have to have a second spin through the washing machine later and then get hung on the clothes-airer - just have to wait for what is already on it to dry first!

Crafting is so much more fun than housework.

Some Stuff

Here's the latest of our sewing stuff. I made another little Arno Cat softy to give to my 2-year-old cousin. It's made from wool felt and was really a joint effort from both of us. I hand-sewed the face and Crafty Things did the machine sewing to put him together and stuffed him.


He is from the Softies book and is very quick and easy to make. He is the perfect size for little people to hold and play with.

Another present has also been made for a friend of mine, whose birthday is tomorrow. I thought of a bag idea that I liked and Crafty Things tried to make it up. It didn't turn out quite as I imagined but I still like it.


The front view. It has two small pleats to give it shape, a longish strap and flap held shut with a magnetic clasp. After it was finished I thought it needed some decoration near the bottom as it was rather 'top heavy' so we came up with adding the ribbon bow. Crafty Things found the instructions to make the double loops which looks more interesting than a normal one. It is on a coil-less safety pin so that it can be taken off. It is lined and we made a matching zippered pouch and handbag organizer to keep everything tidy inside.



The back view. The flap was put on after the bag was finished and lines up with the pleats, kinda by luck. Size-wise it's in between a tote bag and handbag so that the recipient can fit everything under the sun inside it! We put a layer of flannelette in between the bag and lining to make it a bit firmer, like in Amy Karol's book.



Next time, I'd make the pleated part a bit shorter and add a yoke on top so the pleats are further down and not as hidden by the flap. The strap could also be a little narrower.

Christmas is over and Happy New Year

Well Christmas is over and the new year has begun. I can now share some of the things crafted before Christmas as the gifts have been given, opened and taken to new abodes.

First up the finished product from this post.

From Secret Christ...

Thanks so much to Autum from Creative Little Daisy who created this wonderful applique based on the owls created by Moonstitches from this book.

Autum was so generous in giving me permission to use her applique design on a big, roomy bag that I made for my Mum for Christmas. I had previously made one of the little owls following Moonstitches tutowlrial for her and when I came across this design on flickr I just knew that it would look great on a bag. The bag is big and had a pocket on the inside with two sections.

I based the construction of the bag on the instructions for a tote from the Bend the Rules Sewing book. I also found the flickr group for Bend The Rules Sewing to be very helpful. It has lots of great pictures of finished products and also has many useful discussions about all the patterns in the book.

I also sewed some little drawstring bags following the instructions from here. Unfortunately as these were created very close to Christmas there are no photos. One was for a little teddy to live in, one was for a travel games bag that held a Yahtzee score pad, dice and two packs of playing cards and the last one held a stretchy frog.

I made two more pencil rolls as blogged about here. One was made from bright yellow fabric with coloured dots and the other from some blue fabric with soccer players. The only modification was to add a layer of fabric to the felt closure as I have found that the felt stretched when used on its own.

Last was a little dress which I will save for another post.

Happy New Year to anyone who wanders past.

Pretty Little Bag

From Avid Crafter'...

I made this bag to give as a present for a friend's birthday. It held lots of little surprises all wrapped up. It is made of felt and the heart is just fabric from Mum's stash. It was from an Usborne craft book about fairies with all sorts of stuff to cut and sew. It was fairly simple. I machine sewed the heart on and the rest was blanket stitched.

A bit of cross-stitch and my to-do list

We haven't been blogging for a little while but we're still being crafty.
I've gone on another cross-stitch craze and have been doing nothing else! I have stitched up a pair of little owls, one is sheltering from rain under a daisy and the other is a saluting sailor owl. The designs were in an old issue of Cross Stitch Crazy. We have so many old magazines stashed away downstairs and all of them have great designs to be stitched. It would take several years to stitch all the designs in them by which time we would have bought MORE magazines! So I'm not even going to try to do that.
I've started stitched a little kit of two birds and the words "Forever Friends" on it. The kit includes a tiny hanger and instructions on how to hang it. It's for a friend of mine who's changing schools. I've done a couple of this brand of kit before but I cant remember which brand it is now! They use unusual threads in them and are all of small cute designs.
I also have some stitched things to be turned into somethings, one a card, one a bag and a few others too.
And of course I have a line of other designs to get started on as soon as I finish this one.

I recieved a knitting book too, full of quick designs which I love. I've picked out about 5 projects to do from there too. It looks like I'm going to be busy!

Crafty Things whipped up a couple of amigurumi ladybirds over the weekend which soon became missiles in the hands of my over-exuberant brother!

School holidays, hooray! More time for crafting!

Bags, Bags, Bags

From Sewing Stuff

I have been making a few bags just lately. The first two are my own design made to fit around a rectangular plastic ice-cream container. The first one is lined with a contrasting striped fabric and this also make the casing. I find them very useful for travelling in the car and I have made several for my daughter and her friend to use as knitting bags and holders of all things crafty. The bag and lining are just large rectangles with seams at the sides. The next step is to create the sides of the bag by sewing across the bottom at the corners. The ice-cream container is then nicely hidden inside where it holds everything together and give the bag a very rectangular shape. Not a trendy bag but a useful storage bag that recycles the growing collection of ice-cream containers. The bag is just the right size for my French Knitting tool to live in.

The second one is not lined and the drawstring casing is a piece of wide ribbon attached to the outside of the fabric. I loved the spotty fabric. This one was made to hold the ice-cream container I have used for many years to carry the assorted medicines and stuff needed for kids when we are travelling by car. Much nicer than tying it into a plastic shopping bag! The cord for both was made with my very handy Clover French Knitter.

From Sewing Stuff

The last bag was my attempt to create a grocery bag like the green bags sold by supermarkets. The fabric is a secondhand table cloth. This was made in a similar way to the other bags. I added some heavy weight iron on interfacing to the top of the lining to make it firmer. Once I had put the outer bag and lining together I added handles. The depth of the sides was much greater than my small drawstring bags so I folded the the sides at the front and back and stitched alongside the fold. This gave the sides more definition. I also made an insert for the bottom which had some stabilizer sewn into it. Not sure if what I have just written makes any sense. I was fairly pleased with the end result, mismatched squares and all.

From Sewing Stuff

So each bag basically started out as two big rectangles, seamed at the sides and given side panels by stitching across the bottom corners. Here is a link to a tutorial on creating a simple tote with a good photo of how the bottom corners are done.