March 2013 - Panel Bag for bag challenge

Back In March someone suggest a bag challenge. I had a pattern and fabric sitting in the stash ready to go so I jumped straight on it.

 

The pattern is the Panel Bag by 'You Sew Girl' and I used a light denim from the stash as the main fabric. I think I had used the same denim in a kids clothing swap a few years ago. I wanted to use a grey fabric instead, but decided to go with the dark side of the denim after taking a few photos. The feature fabric was a fat quarter of an oriental print that came in a grab-bag of fat quarters that was one of my earliest purchases of quilting fabric.

 

 

The lining fabric was leftover from the backing of my big star quilt. I had pellon and interfacing in the stash, but decided that the silver bag rings wouldn't work and got some rectangular antique brass ones instead. The rings and a fancy zip were the only things I needed to buy to make it.

 

 

The bag was a fairly easy make - really clear instructions in the pattern and a walking foot helped get through the multiple layers.
I wasn't overly fussed with the pocket construction (probably because my lining fabric was fairly flimsy) but they have held up much better than expected, so I would probably do them the same way next time. The picture on the right shows a slip pocket that is divided into three compartments. Each is big enough to hold my Samsung Galaxy phone and they are handy for phone, sunnies and notebook and pen - the stuff you need to find quickly and don't want disappearing into the depths...

 

 

And here is the finished bag. It has become my everyday bag and I pretty much take it everywhere.

It is big enough to hold colouring book and pencils when we go out for dinner, as well as my normal wallet, phone, brush, make-up purse, water bottle and 'stuff' that stays in my bag for work. The straps are wide and comfortable on the shoulder and it is structured enough to keep the shape but still be soft and flexible.



13 Books in 2013 Reading challenge

When Rach posted a reading challenge at the start of the year (here is the link to her blog, with links to everyone who participated) I jumped straight on board. The idea was to read 13 books of the non-small-person-variety and share the reviews of them on our blogs.
I started well with my first book read and reviewed early in January.

After that I fell of the bandwagon. I read a lot, and reviewed a lot in my head, and even joined the Goodreads website but didn't get around to writing anything. I haven't kept a list of everything I read during the year but here are the highlights - the ones I enjoyed and would recommend searching out. I might still do some reviews of the best ones.

1. The Casual Vacancy - JK Rowling
2. The Complete Mary Poppins - PL Travers (6 books in one)
3. Instructions for a Heatwave - Maggie O'Farrell
4. Patron Saint of Eels - Gregory Day
5. The Railway Man's Wife - Ashley Hay
6. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion
7. Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
8. The Signature of All Things - Elizabeth Gilbert
9. Virgin Earth - Phillipa Gregory
10. Gone Tomorrow - Lee Child
11. The Story of Before - Susan Stairs
12. One Little White Lie - Loretta Hill

The not so great ones, but I read then to the end:
1. The Rose of Sebastopol - Katherine McMahon (disappointing because I had read the Alchemists Daughter by the same author and really enjoyed it. This one was just long winded and I didn't care what happened to the characters. Should have been a short story then it would have been okay).
2. Jilted - Rachel Johns (Rural romance, it was okay for the genre but felt clumsy and it bugged me for a week after I finished because I couldn't work out what was wrong with it. I finally decided that the author had a story in her characters but she told the wrong one).
3. The Goddess Test - Aimee Carters (Harlequin romance for teens. It was not a bad read but the way the teen female lead willingly gave up her entire life for a strange guy she just met...irked me. Left me disappointed)
4. The Age of Miracles - Karen Thompson Walker (Another teen book about what happens when the Earth suddenly slows down. Started out promisingly but dragged and didn't really have an ending).
5. Second Sight - Meg Henderson (Too many characters, too many pages, bored).

So there we go - 17 that I can remember, 12 of them really good that I would happily re-read. There are certainly a few authors I will seek out to try out some more of their work, particularly Gillian Flynn.

Thanks for the Challenge Rachel. I look forward to another this year.

March 2013 - Awesome Hoodie (I'm not really on fire, it just looks like it)

 

It has a pocket. It has a hood. It is made of fire. How could the wearer not be the coolest person ever?

 

Made from a very easy Kwik Sew pattern (except for printing and sticking it all together because I was silly enough to buy a PDF download version) it took an afternoon to make. The flame polar fleece had been in my stash for about three years and was always intended to become a hoodie.

 

It is easily the single most worn item in his wardrobe, and should still see him through another winter. He feels the need to point out constantly that he isn't really on fire just in case anyone panics.

August 2013 - Very Hungry Caterpillar Overalls

When this cute little outfit popped up in my Pinterest feed I smiled and then didn't think too much about it. (Image from Two Little Banshees Blog (Overalls for Olive)

 

Then a few months later I stumbled across a meter of a very light drill fabric - a special remnant of Very Hungry Caterpillar that my Mum had picked up in Japan - and thought that the overalls would be perfect for a special little niece who was having a VHC-themed first birthday party.


I went on a Pinterest hunt to track down the blog, find out the details of the pattern, and then put out the call to my online quilty friends to see if anyone had a copy of the Ottobre magazine with the pattern.

 

Sure enough one of them did and a short time later the magazine turned up in the post courtesy of the very generous Carmel. I got tracing and cutting and sewing and soon enough I had a finished outfit that I loved. It was wonderful to know that this special fabric would be going to someone who would appreciate it - much easier to cut up and sew when you know it will be valued.

 

The legs in the pattern seemed very short so I added length based on the measurements of the little girl, and boy am I glad I did. They fit perfectly.

(Thanks for the loan of the pattern Carmel, it should be back to you by now.)

And I'm chalking this up as a contribution to Rachy's 'Totally Pinspired Challenge' (see here: The Dove Nest - Totally Pinspired ).

Welcome 2014

I'm not sure what happened to 2013 - disappeared as fast as it arrived!

I've got a bit of catch-up blogging to do, sort of a summary of 2013 before I can clear the decks and get stuck into everything planned for this year.

Ruby - the Christmas dolly

Here is Ruby, all dressed up in her best Christmas frock, ready to meet her new family.

Ruby is a Ric-Rac Kinder Doll. She is made from soft wool flannel, with wool felt hair and black satin shoes. She even has undies!

And here she is with her new mum - I think Ruby will be calling the shots for a little while yet.

Thank-you gifts

Back in December Jack finished his first year of school. He had a great year, and I was lucky enough to be able to volunteer in the classroom for one day a week, most of the year. We wanted to do something as a thank-you to his teachers, and as there were two part-time teachers and a teacher's aide, we needed three.

I feel pretty strongly that a thank-you gift for a teacher should come from the child, so we had a think about it and Jack wanted to make something with fabric from my stash which was fine by me. We decided on a cushion for the main teacher and pencil cases for the others (I only had one cushion insert handy).

We found some fabric dye crayons at a local craft shop and some cream fabric, jelly roll strips and a bag of bright scraps in the stash and set to work.

Artist at work

The first step was to draw on some squares of cream fabric. I taped the fabric to some cardboard to stop it shifting, wrote the names on a bit of paper for him to copy and left him to it. The names were my suggestion but Jack decided on the rest. He drew a picture of each teacher surrounded by flowers and love hearts.


I love how each teacher is drawn with a big heart taking up most of their body

 The next day Jack picked out fabrics to frame each drawing and then sat on my lap to sew them together. By this stage he was running out of steam, and a bit bored by all the pressing going on, so he picked out fabrics for the backs and found something else to do.

He was particularly adamant that the two pencil cases needed to have the spider fabrics on the back "cause that will freak them out, Mum". Charming child.



Photobombing

The pencil cases turned out much larger than intended, but that may just make them more useful? The cushion cover was all jelly roll strips, so was easy to put together. I made an envelope back with a velcro closure, and really loved the way it turned out. (Jack's Dad even liked it enough to request we make some for his family for Christmas. We made two but forgot to take photos. The picture Jack is drawing in the photo at the top of the post is one of these.)

We finished off the gifts with cards Jack made by drawing a Christmas tree on the front of a pre-cut blank card. He wrote his own message to each teacher inside the card and I so wish I had taken a picture of them to put in his scrapbook.

The only thing I purchased specifically to make these gifts was the set of fabric crayons, everything else was from the stash so they weren't expensive but there was quite a bit of time and effort from both of us to create them. The look of pride on his face when he carted them off to school was more than worth it.