Tag Archives: japanese fabric

My Little Red Riding Hood bag.

I love this bag already, even without handles!

I took a break from creating for others on the weekend and finished this Saturday night. I stayed up way to late to get it done I was so excited. I intended to sew the handles on Sunday morning and have a lovely new bag. BUT turns out the handles I bought (before I knew what fabric I was going to use) are too small. I won’t be able to put the bag on my shoulder and they’re so small they look a bit silly.

So I’ve rearranged my BFF night out (Thanks BFF!) so I can head to the store tomorrow and pick up a longer set of handles.

Guess I’ll have to just sew another purse for these handles I already have *smile*

I made a purse!

I know, you’re shocked right?

When I went to the Creativ Festival I hit upon 2 super exciting booths in the last aisle (apparently where I should have gone first). The combined powers of those booths have spawned this amazing purse. Oh and me staying up until 1:30 possessed with finishing it. That’s misleading, it’s a really quick bag to make, I just wandered down to my craft space really late.

Both of these booths were so crowded I had to fight my way to get to the things I wanted. At the Kallista Quilts booth I was amazed to see some Echino fabric. I have never seen any in person so it was great to get to pick from some pre-cut pieces and buy some right off the bolt. Kallista Quilts are also on Etsy if you care to see their selection. They have great quality Japanese linens.

A few booths away I found Quilt A Bag. These ladies also carry some lovely Japanese fabrics, some of the more cutesy stuff I like. They also carry all sorts of fun things to make bags and purses and totes and change purses . . . all of which are my weakness. I’ve got a little rule in place to curb my addiction, I’m not allowed to buy myself another bag/tote/purse/etc but I sure am allowed to have a new one if I work my butt of making it!!

I bought a kit for the vest bag but then went ahead and made it using a $5 piece of the Echino I got, it was just enough, a random fat quarter and I used the piece they included in the kit to line the bottom. I also got fancy and added an interior pocket and a magnetic snap.

I was really intrigued by the webbing used for straps. It was super easy to make the bag, there’s no turning because the webbing hides all the raw edges. Just fold it over and sew it on!

I’m so happy with how it turned out. Now to tackle the key ring coin purse.

Wheee new fabrics and some Japanese ribbon!

Spent some time just before the holidays shopping for myself, as I’m sure many of you did. I’ve become addicted to checking Etsy’s front page a few times a day, sometimes even before it’s had a chance to change. I’ve also been in many treasuries lately which has led me clicking around the handmade heaven that is Etsy. Here are some things that arrived last week.

These lovely fabric ribbons from boqinana. The fabric was just bonus!

Fun fabric and ribbon from DoodooShop. I have plans for that air mail ribbon, I’ve been busting with excitement waiting for it to arrive so I can start the project.

These arrived a while ago and I just didn’t get to posting about them yet. Fabric scraps from starlitnest. She apologized for a delay in shipping, which I hadn’t really noticed, and said she added some extra fabric to the mix to make it up to me. Isn’t it bad enough I have my own stash of scraps but I have to keep buying other people’s!?

I also have some pretty masking tapes coming from kimamaya. Should be here shortly. It was probably evil of me to be ordering ‘just because’ things during the holiday shipping rush. Ooops.

Selfish crafting.

The kids went for a sleep over with Grandma and Grandpa so we had some time to ourselves, went to a movie, had some sushi and came home to goof off!!  I spent some time reading about screenprinting VS purchasing a YUDU.  I think I’m going to try setting up my own little screen printing nook.  Everything should go well.  I also decided to make myself a purse organizer!

I ordered this pattern from The Crochet Diva a few nights ago. It was really easy to follow and I love the results.

I used some awesome Japanese fabric I have with a Wizard of Oz print. Having a fabric addiction is sort of horrible. I was so torn between, “I don’t want to cut it!” and “Well what’s it here for if I’m not going to make something with it?”. I took the plunge and decided to cut into it.

And now for the action shot!

I also ordered the modernish messenger bag pattern.  Perhaps I’ll get to making that in the next little bit.

ipad cover full of cute usefulness

I’m not sure why, but I keep taking my ipad to work.  I don’t have time to even look at it while I’m there, and we can’t use the wifi so it’s basically just a fun toy to look at.  I suppose we’re still in that early honeymoon lovey dovey stage of our relationship.

I was just tossing it in my ‘teacher bag’ and figured I needed to protect it a little bit more, especially from the freezing cold!  So I whipped this up last night.

Making this was really easy, I just laid out fabric and cut it a tad larger than the ipad and went from there.  The hardest part was deciding what print to use!! I went with this one because it’s a super fun design and also it’s a canvas so it’s a little bit thicker than just plain cotton.  I might add some red rick rack trim alone the top, haven’t decided yet.

My first zippered project!

I went downstairs last night to make something that was consuming my brain.  I did the usual, ‘oh I’ll just work through 1 show and then go to bed’ and as usual didn’t go to bed until hours later.  After completing enough to get my creation out of my head inspiration struck while looking at some of my new lovely fabric scraps.  Originally I wanted to attempt the boxy pouch but quickly realized none of my scraps were the right measurements.  So I ventured off on a journey to make a lined pencil case type thingie.  And boy did it turn out to be quite the journey!!

After much stitch ripping, brain scrambling and muttered potty mouth words I have a very sweet and cute Snow White zippered pouch!  I even got fancy and stitched one of my new labels into it.  Shout out to Jennifer for those wonderful little labels by the way.

I only had the one zipper, there was a trip to the fabric store this morning.

A fun package brightens my day!

Today was a really, really rough day at work. I know I only work every other day, and this week was my 2 day week but today was worth about a month of full day every day work! But I need not burden you with tales from my classroom, instead I’ll share the fun package that was waiting for me in my mailbox when I get home.

This fun stuff, my fabric and ribbon.

I purchased it from here, silly etsy and the ease of clicking to make purchases.

Plus, gotta love all the little free fabric squares that were with my order, freebies are fun.