Monthly Archives: March 2012

the orange slice bag

1 Reply

Recently, Dixie and I started a local sewing book club. Since I have a few  a lot  a metric ton of crafting books, I’m excited to have this great motivator to use them and to compare experiences with the group.

During our first meeting, we reviewed Fabric-by-Fabric One-Yard Wonders. I made a few projects from this book, including The Day Out Bag (p. 111). Here’s the version that was photographed for the book:

The Day Out Bag in yummy Echino fabric

I made the exterior in a home dec weight fabric in Amy Butler’s August Fields collection, which has been lingering in my stash for a while. A friend dubbed it my “Orange Slice Bag,” and I loved that name so it stuck… Continue reading →

my favorite source for inspiration

2 Replies

I love Pinterest.  I can get lost in it for, ahem, longer than I intend, and it is a source for so much inspiration for me. So when I saw this posted on Ucreate, I had one of the strongest whydidn’tIthinkofthat moments I’ve ever had.  While I often like the raw edges look, I didn’t love it here, so I decided to make my own version…

pin it pincushion

Continue reading →

a place to lay their heads

4 Replies

As I’m sure some others can relate, I never accomplish all of the handmade gifts that I plan for the holidays. Last year, one of the places where I ran out of time was for my twin nephews, who turned 18 months old on Christmas Day. (Very cool half-birthday!) I’m playing catch-up now. My sister requested some embroidered pillowcases for them since they are about to start using little pillows for the first time. I made the pillowcases using the “burrito” method to enclose the raw edges of the body/cuff/trim seam — there are numerous tutorials for this construction out there on the interwebs. I just adapted the normal sizing to fit the 14″x20″ pillows that they’ll use.

embroidered pillowcases

For the embroidery, I backstitched with DMC glow-in-the-dark floss, then wrapped it with 1 strand of a coordinating color for a little more pop, which is hard to see in the photo.

For the second pair, I used one of my current favorite fabrics, Washi Tape by Rashida Coleman-Hale. My sister is a longtime lover of happy tape so I knew this would be perfect… Continue reading →