Sunday, April 28, 2013

The perplexity of interfacing

I tend to use this blog as a way of recording things I have completed, whether they be sewn, knitted, embroidered or any other technique. However, things don't always go to plan. Sometimes I'm busy and don't get much time to do anything creative. And sometimes I spend a lot of time and energy working on things that don't work out how I wanted them to.

This week, I've been looking at the best support structure for bags. I've tried out some of the products I had in my stash, browsed the bewildering array of information available online (and found very good advice at nicolemdesign.com.au and u-handbag.com), acquired additional interfacings and tried them out.


But I haven't finished anything, although this bag is almost finished. I miscalculated when I cut it out and it's quite small, plus I made the buttonhole loop too small. I was going to discard it but a friend wanted it - she wanted to take it as it was but I persuaded her to leave it for me sew up the gap in the lining. And I replaced the buttonhole loop. Now I just need to attach a button. It's big enough for a mobile phone and a small purse but not much else.


Sunday, April 21, 2013

Pa Ywel's quilt

When my friend Pa Ywel said that she wanted to make a quilt, I invited her to choose some fabrics from my stash. I had bought these purple/red/orange fabrics to make a quilt but then got cold feet about how to put them together. As you can see, Pa Ywel did a great job with her first quilt. And I managed to reduce my stash a little without actually doing any work. :)



Sunday, April 14, 2013

Silk purses

I found a small piece of blue-green handpainted silk, left over from an earlier project, which I used for an experiment in free-motion pintucking, making it even smaller. However, despite the small size of the final piece of fabric, I managed to make a croissant bag:



And two coin purses, with beaded zipper pulls (they look rather large compared with the croissant bag but they are about 12 cm across):





And a card:



I even have some other small pieces left over that might turn into something else eventually.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Japanese bag

I haven't done much in the past week but I found these fabrics while rummaging in a box of quilting fabrics, so made this cute little Japanese bag. 


I've made this style of bag before and they are very quick and easy to make. And two more pieces of fabric transformed from scraps to something useful.