Evening Bags

These bags are further examples of exploring the decorative capabilities of my sewing machine. Both have found new homes.

Tote Bags

I made these tote bags to explore the computerised machine embroidery feature of my Husqvarna Epic sewing machine. This design is one of the built-in designs:

Denim bags

I have made a lot of bags but this one, made from a sturdy denim, is the first one I've made for myself:

I lined it with some hand-dyed fabric I had in my stash and included a zip pocket on the inside:

I also made open pockets for the other side of the lining:

And I made this bag, with an external zipper pocket, from the leftover fabric:

Turquoise dress with a peacock

I was surprised when Emma asked me to make her a turquoise dress with a peacock - because her favourite colour is purple. When I asked her why she wanted this particular dress, she replied, "Because I think it would look good!"

I could't argue with that logic, so here's the turquoise dress with a peacock, plus a hat and bag:

Catching up - turtles

It's a long time since I blogged - for all the usual reasons of being busy - but I have been making things over that time. The theme for Olivia's birthday party was turtles and her favourite colour is green, so I was very pleased with the fabric I found for her birthday outfit - if you enlarge the photo, you will see that the dress and bag are covered with turtles.

This photo gives a better view of the dress:

A wedding

I've been making more bags, this time for a wedding. My daughter-in-law's sister was married yesterday.

It took me ages to settle on a design for the bride's bag. I wanted to do hand embroidery or beading but in the end I opted for this machine-embroidered heart design with a pair of ladybirds. But I did hand-stitch the beads in place around the top of the bag.

 

I then stitched the names of the bride and groom, bordered by hearts, onto the back.

I also made this bag for my d-i-l, whose black dress featured a fern design in silver sequins on the bodice:

Christmas outfits

Okay, it's already March but here is the last of my December sewing bee - I can't remember what I actually made in December but there were dresses, hats, bags, Christmas stockings . . . And it's taken me this long to finish getting photos. 

Emma was reluctant to model her outfit: "I don't wear it every day, you know. It's only for Christmas and special parties". However, after some high-level negotiations involving chocolate frogs, she really got into the spirit of it. I used Simplicity pattern 5540 for the hat, dress and matching purple shorts (not visible in this photo) and scaled down the reversible bucket bag pattern from Lisa Lam's The Bag Making Bible for the matching bag - which is lined with the dotted fabric I used for the dress.

And here is Olivia looking very cheeky in her Christmas dress (Simplicity 7189):

Olivia wasn't very happy when they opened their presents on Christmas Eve. She acted as if there had been a gross miscarriage of justice - or someone had switched the gift tags around. Why? Because she didn't get a bag! So the next day (yes, Christmas Day), I made a bag for her to match her birthday outfit.

Here are the two girls with their hats and bags, posing with Daddy before heading off to the coast:

Both bags are reversible - this is the reverse of Olivia's bag:

Messenger bag

Six months ago, I did a bag-making workshop with Nicole Mallalieu. Nicole is a very good teacher and I learned a lot of hints and tips to improve the finish of my bags. However, I didn't quite finish the bag on the day and it has been languishing in my craft room. With my pre-Christmas sewing fest out of the way, I pulled out the bag and finally finished it. 

Stripy bags

After traveling around the Mediterranean Ocean, I'm finally back at my sewing machine and finishing off a few projects (I started both of these months ago).

The first bag is made from leftovers from Pa Ywel's quilt.

Some years ago, a friend gave me a box of fabric strips (one of those grand plans that languish along the way). The strips include a wide range of colours but I think these autumnal ones made a nice bag.

Blue silk

I had a piece of light blue and white silk twill (which I forgot to photograph). It looked a bit anaemic, so I overdyed it with turquoise - and was very happy with the result. 

And then, of course, I made it up into a croissant bag:

and an evening bag:

and a little coin purse, with a bead zipper pull:

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.

Silk & Potassium Permanganate

Following on from my previous post, the first piece of fabric I encountered in my attempt to tidy up the Cave was a piece of silk twill dyed in potassium permangate (Condy's Crystals). It was left over from a gift I'd made more than 10 years ago and was only 96 x 93 cm. However, I managed to make five items from it: 3 bags (approx. 22 x 25 cm), a croissant bag and a pyramid purse.

Unfortunately, the straps I made first were too short - so I ended up dyeing another piece of silk twill for the straps. I could justify this on the grounds that I already had the fabric in my craft room, so was still using up my stash. However, I now have another piece of rusty-looking silk twill to transform into something else - but that can wait for another day.