Off to the Farmers Market

I picked up a new book while I was at Piece by Peace Quilts in Fort St. John last month (last month already?) by Terri Degenkolb called Reminiscing: a whimsicals collection. Actually, I bought it for the Rusted Moons pattern, but it has lots of other neat patterns in it, including the Tag Along Tote. It just caught my eye. Well, really, it doesn’t take much for a bag pattern to catch my eye these days, but I decided to actually make one for my best friend whose birthday was last week. I had just bought the Summer 2014 issue of Primitive Quilts and Projects and no bags, but lots of intriguing patterns and designs. Terri had a flower as the centrepiece on the bag, but Primitive Quilts had Henrietta Little (by Deb Day) outlined as a needlepunch project, and my friend loves her chickens. I don’t do rugs, but it was easy to turn her drawing into an applique project. 

Chicken + Bag = birthday present. Terri’s pattern is so simple that I figured I’d have it done in a day! Well, except for the chicken applique. That always takes a bit of time. But her pattern was so simple, it threw me for a loop. I was expecting the straps to be much more complicated than they were and so couldn’t understand her instructions. Looking back on them now that I’ve finished, I see exactly how I messed up. Anyway, a little bit of unsewing and a little bit of improvising, and the bag was finished and delivered.

Because there were no pockets inside, I made up a matching Cake Clutch, which did take me less than a day to make because I’ve been making so many of them lately. I added a fob inside the bag and a d-ring outside the clutch so it could be attached to the bag. Oh yeah – the lining is dotted with chicken fabric! Just the thing for shopping at the local Farmers Market.

Until next time,

Back to work

I didn’t mean to take such a long break from blogging – it just happened. Yesterday I went back to work after four weeks of holidays, and just before that, I was so busy getting my work finished up so that I could leave on holiday…. It’s always something, isn’t it?

I barely spent any time at all on my computer this past month, but I did manage to get a fair amount of sewing in as I divided my time between the garden and my sewing machine. It’s raining today (and yesterday, on my first day back to work – how appropriate!), but it was smoking hot here just up until last week, and I spent every minute that I could outside. Yes, those are some of my tomatoes up above.

I’ve been working on a few things, but I’m still making more of these cute little Cake Clutches from Make it Handmade. I made one for a co-worker as a Christmas present, and she loves it. She wanted a black and white one for her mother, so I put one together with some pretty fabrics I bought while vacationing. I visit Piece by Peace Quilts every summer when we visit family and friends in Fort St. John and I always leave with a pile of beautiful fabrics and the occasional book.

The free Cake Clutch pattern doesn’t call for an inside pocket, but I almost always add one (I think I’ve made over a dozen of these handy little critters so far). And a tab with a clasp to hold a key ring or something else small that you want quick access to. Inside welt pockets are pretty easy to add. When I first started making them, I googled welt pocket tutorials until I found instructions that I could follow.

But after I finished her mother’s, my co-worker asked me to make her another one. Just a little bigger than the last one I made for her, in black, and with an inside pocket with a zipper. I haven’t done many inside zippers, and the last one I did looked horrible. So I was as careful with this one as I could be, using Seam-A-Seam 2 double-sided fusible tape. I’ve used the tape before when making zippers, and it’s useful for holding them in place while you sew. But last time I tried it on an inside zip pocket, a lot of the tape was exposed because there was more of the zipper showing. This time I fused the tape to the back of the pocket where it wouldn’t be seen, and then ironed it onto the zipper. I think it turned out pretty well – neat and even. Hope she likes it!

Until next time,