Another Knitting Bag

Making Mothers Day presents is not easy when your Mother is also a bit of crafter...but she's not really one for making things with a sewing machine so making her a bag is a good choice. She's into her knitting at the moment and apparently stashes her knitting in a carrier bag when she's done for the day...can't have her doing that.

For Mothers Day I made her a knitting bag to stash her unfinished projects in, using the tutorial over at Emmaline. I've used this tutorial previously to make my Nan a knitting bag for her christmas present, here's the post if you want to see it again.

This time I used a pair of circle handles rather than twisted rope effect, just means the bag will look totally different to my Nan's bag. The fabric is different too but I wanted to experiment and see how it would look using different handles as it changes the shape of the top of the bag.

Once again there's a pocket inside with one of my handmade labels sewn to it.

Hopefully Mum likes her new knitting bag and it shall keep her knitting safe in a more stylish manner than a plastic carrier bag.

 

Vintage Plane Cushions

 Last October I bought this gorgeous vintage aircraft print fabric from a craft show and I was going to make cushions from it straight away.... 6 months later I've actually got round to making the cushion cover I planned to do...well in the end I made 3 as the new cover made me hate 2 more old covers on our sofa cushions.

I used the tutorial over at Craftaholics Anonymous to make my cushion covers, you can get to it by clicking here.

This cushion used to be a plain coffee colour with a couple of applique birds I added to it years ago, safe to say it looked a little lifeless and sorry for itself so I whipped the cover off and measured it up ready for it's new fabric.

 The tutorial is easy to follow and they really are quick and dead easy to make...well as long as you're paying attention when you pin it all together and don't sew it together with a right side facing a wrong side, then not realising the mistake till you turn it out... Had to unpick it all and start again but that will teach me to pay more attention when I'm pinning... 

Please say I'm not the only one who has those days were you sew the wrong sides together?

After putting the new aircraft cover on the cushion then throwing it onto our cuddle chair I realised the 2 cushions on the main sofa also looked awful, the brown and red leaf pattern just seemed so out of place. So I ran off to my fabric stash and cut some more pieces out to whip up 2 more covers.

20minutes later this is how our cushions looked....much better..and I still have more of this fabric to play with but I think it may become a handbag for me as I've just bought an ace set of handles that need a purpose.

I'm thinking cushion covers could feature in 2015's presents for friends and family..simple, stylish and personal...something they won't be able to buy and that most of them don't know how to make themselves.

Crocodile Soft Toy

 So what do you make your young nephew for christmas when he is under the age of 1?

That was the dilemma we had this year so I took to looking through my Pinterest boards, scouring through patterns I had saved and finally I found a pattern in the new Cath Kidston Sewing Book.

The pattern for the crocodile toy jumped out at me, seemed the perfect gift for a little boy. A few tweaks to the instructions and substituting bead filling for soft toy fluff to make it more suitable for a baby.

Here's the finished crocodile in all his glory.

  A large amount of ricrac, a few fiddly bits of sewing, a long time stuffing fluff in and the crocodile was finished.

Love the lazy eye look and the big cheeky grin made by the whit ricrac but I can't understand why the pattern only gave the croc 2 legs...strange.

'Phoebe' Handbags

Once again this christmas I have tried to make more presents than we have had to go out and buy. I prefer to give people something handmade as it just makes it a little more special and personal to that person.

Seeing as I seem to have become good friends with my sewing machine this year I decided to venture into making the women in the family handbags for christmas. My mum knew I was going to be making handbags so she had the luxury of picking the fabric she wanted at a craft show...but she didn't know what design of bag she would be getting as I hadn't even decided when she chose her fabric.

In the end I decided to use Rebeka's design for the Phoebe Bag from her blog ArtsyCraftyBabe.

Here's the finished 3 handbags to be given as presents.

For my boyfriend's Stepmum I chose a dark blue floral print, a little like a Cath Kidston print

For his Mum I chose a pale yellow floral print, once again very similar to a Cath Kidston style of fabric...after all who doesn't like a CK print?

After much deliberation and changing her mind from dotty to hearts to butterflies and back round again, mum finally settled on this butterfly print fabric. The only thing any of the fabrics she chose had in common was that they were all purple as she has a bit of a thing for purple still.

As a reward for making everybody else's bags I decided to make myself one with a white and blue floral print fabric. by the time I got round to making my bag I totally had the knack of it and mine only took an hour and half from cutting all the fabric to putting in the last stitches, very impressed!

Each of the bags has a simple plain ivory cotton lining and a large pocket made using the outer fabric, as shown in the photo below. I also stitched in one of my handmade labels as well so everybody knows I made the bags instead of having bought them somewhere. The bags are held shut by a magnetic clasp on the flap that comes over the opening of the bag.

Here's hoping they all liked their handbags and they get some good use out of them. I have masses of each fabric left so there may be some matching items made for future presents too!

I really recommend this handbag design to anyone who wants to start making their own bags, the pdf pattern is great and so are the instructions. A little googling on how to do the darts for the first bag and I was well and truly on my way getting them whipped up in a flash.

Making A Peg Bag

Presents for grandparents are not an easy thing, if they want something they've probably already gone and bought it for themselves by now anyway. So for my Nan's birthday this year I decided to try out a sewing pattern I'd been keeping hold of from a magazine for ages.

The pattern was for a peg bag, not a massively exciting present but handmade and something that she couldn't just nip into the shops and buy.

Here's what the peg bag looks like.

The hardest part of this project was trying to find a curved small wooden hanger to fit into the peg bag, in the end I bought some kids wooden hangers from Ikea and they are perfect for the job. As my hanger is a slightly different shape to the simple curved one used in the pattern the end result of my project is slightly different to the original pattern but that just adds my own personal twist to it.

 

The lining fabric is from a stash I bought at a vintage show a couple years back that I've just never found a good use for until now. Be prepared to see more of the outside fabric in a post I'll be sharing after Christmas as I've used it for someone's Christmas present. The bag is held closed by a chunky vintage deep pink button and a small loop of ribbon.

Here's hoping Nan likes her new peg bag and she doesn't think I've given her a dull birthday present.

Knitting Bag

 At a fabric show earlier in the year my nan found out I was making handbags for the women in the family for christmas so she asked me to make her a knitting bag for christmas...this was my plan all along but at least with her asking I could get her to pick a fabric that she liked.

 So she picked a dark blue dragonfly print fabric and some plastic twist handles that look like they are wooden. I had plenty of lining fabric leftover from the handbags I made so that was nice and easy.

 I always tend to buy more fabric than I need, anyone else have that problem too?

I roughly followed the tutorial over on the Emmaline blog here.

I stitched in a large interior pocket to store smaller bits in. I ever remembered to sew one of my hadmade labels on the pocket as well.

Quite a roomy bag and I'm really impressed by it. Took me longer to whipstitch the fabric around the handles than to cut all the fabric out and make the basic shape of the bag!

My nan has a thing for giraffes and I managed to pick up a few giraffe buttons at the show without her realising so I've sewn them onto the internal pocket, see how long it takes her to notice them.

 Here's hoping the bag lives up to the expectation and it has many happy trips to the local knitting club my nan goes to. 

Baby Present Bundle

Some friends recently had their first child and they decided to keep it a surprise rather than find out the gender before he/she was born so I had to make a bundle of gifts that weren't too girly or too boyish.

Turns out they had a little boy, called him Oscar, as they had a surprise they didn't have many things that were blue, lucky for me I did a few blue bits and pieces.

So heres my first ever attempt at making a diaper bag, I used the tutorial over at Sew Much Ado that can be found here. A days work and cursing at the sewing machine....how much of a faff are pockets and elastic tops to the pockets?!  

I stuffed the pockets full of all the other goodies I made for baby Oscar...well after all the time I spent making the pockets right I decided I had to use them.

Normal style bibs, bandana bibs, burp cloths and a soft door closer were the goodies I stuffed into the pockets.

    They seemed to like their goodies so hopefully we shall be seeing them in use soon. The last batch of bibs I made for my nephew were in full use out in Spain when they came out on holiday too, so it's good to see all the bibs are working well and being used.  

Sewing Machine Pin Cushion

Using my rest days to start making some of the things I've had pinned on my pinterest boards for ages... I started a rather pesky sewing project and had pins everywhere when I suddenly remembered I had pinned a tutorial for making a sewing machine pin cushion to save the hassle of pins going everywhere. The tutorial can be found here.

Now I've got this nifty little pin cushion and I'm using it I really don't know how I managed so many sewing projects without it. Certainly wouldn't have finished some of my recent projects without having my pins to hand as easily, grabbing off the desk isn't ideal when you're trying to hold a seam together and just need that one extra pin while the fabric's going through the machine.

Quick and easy to make but oh so very useful, could have stuffed it with wire wool instead of cotton wool then it would have kept my pins sharp too but oh well. Just held on by a bow tied in the ribbon so I can move it round to the back of the machine or remove it if need be.  

Making Fabric Labels

 For ages I've been saying I want to have some fabric labels to sew onto my handsewn goodies...especially now that some are being ordered and given to people that I don't personally know...so I kind of want these people to be able to look me up and tell other people about the things I've made.

 So I took a look on Pinterest and found an awesome, simple tutorial for how to make my own fabric labels...you can find it over at Dolls and Daydreams. The hardest part of the tutorial was finding shops in the UK that actually stock freezer paper...Hobbycraft do in case you are wondering.

Here's my labels drying off...love them...think I'll be making plenty more of these in the future!

 Here's to sewing them into everything from now on!

Been Sewing...Baby Gifts

 Been doing a lot of sewing recently and there's seems to be a lot of baby things I need to make for friends and family who are all having kids this year...

These are for my new little nephew Isaac...choosing the fabrics were made easier by knowing that my sister in law was having a little boy, whereas everybody else I'll be making for are having surprises...gender neutral baby fabric is so hard to find!

I chose 2 fabrics for Isaac's presents...I love the bee fabric..thought it could also be used as quite a good gender neutral fabric too. I made a standard shaped bib and burp cloth from the bee fabric.

Then I found this awesome blue dinosaur fabric which I totally fell in love with, shame it didn't come in more colours though. I made a standard shaped bib, 2 bandana style bibs, a burp cloth and a soft door closer from the dinosaur fabric.

 The soft door closer idea came from the Practically Functional blog via a pin on Pinterest, such a simple yet brilliant idea and it works so well!

 My sister in law loved them and the bibs fitted baby Isaac well so I'd say that the first batch of baby gifts were a total success!

Tote Bag

 Ages ago I won a bundle of goodies from the lovely ladies over at Live It Love It Make It loads of fabric sewing kits to play with. The kits sat in fabric stash box for ages till I finally decided on a day off that I'd start playing with them, the tote bag seemed like it'd be the easiest so I thought it'd be a good starting point.

 Love the colour of the fabric and the awesome turquoisey blue thread that came with the kit. The little owl was an applique that my Nan stuck into my handmade birthday card that she knew I'd find some purpose for in the future. Been a very useful little bag, it seems to have become my bag for taking my card making goodies to and from card club. Only thing I might change for next time is having the straps sewn into the inside of the bag instead as sewing the perfect X's on the front wasn't easy and with a more visible colour thread would be a nightmare to make look neat.

 

Fabric Apron

Another old one that I never got round to sharing, found this picture among the pictures rescued from my old laptop...

Mum bought a large piece of fabric at a craft show and gave it to me to make her an apron and said my payment would be all the leftover fabric to play with...which was quite a large piece so I was more than happy to do it.

Had a few issues trying to get the tie straps in the right place for the shape of the apron to stop the top flopping at the sides...but after a few unpicks and restitches it all came good.

 

She says she's been wearing it so I guess it was another successful order for me.

Elephant Make Up Bag

Been trying to get myself a little organised on the birthday presents front, a few ladies I call friends will be getting fabric goodies for their presents this year....

I started with the smallest fabric make as it can be the most frustrating to get right, pesky zips never sew in quite how I want them the first time...

Saw this elephant fabric as a fat quarter at a craft show and just had to have it, made this make up bag/pouch from it and still have loads left over, think I can squeeze another 2 pouches out of it too :)

 

Love the bright colours of the fabric and the lining fabric inside is a coordinating red flowery patterned fabric...forgot to sew one of my homemade labels in before I sewed the lining together so I shall have to handstitch it in before I give the pouch away as a present...

Next up is a few tote bags for friends and perhaps matching make up pouches too...

Plenty of Purses

 There's been lots of purse orders over the last few months, certainly kept me busy!

 Black lace with hot pink cotton lining

Midnight blue lace with silver satin lining and hot pink lace with silver satin lining

These cute ones are doubling up as prayer pouches too.

In July I completed a Hen Do order where everyone got a purse with a personalised hen night label inside. The wedding colourscheme was midnight blue and ivory so I used that for the purses. This is the Bride's purse, she got the full size purse with scissor zipper pull as she's a hairdresser.

The rest of the hens got the smaller size purses which still fit in a pair of reading glasses or credit cards, keys and lippy.

Ivory lace with midnight blue satin lining

Smaller version of the brides purse, midnight blue lace with ivory satin lining

And here's the completed Hen Do order all together