What I'm Working On: Custom Orders

I started out my Etsy shop with a small stock of things that I enjoy making.  Recently I have expanded into taking custom orders, both for variations of items already in my shop and for completely new items.  Here's a little peek of what I have going on this week.

My LeapPad cases are hugely popular and my most requested custom order.  I have several fabrics to choose from, but customers keep gravitating toward the awesome robots.  I also have a big demand for cosmetics bags, and have started making them as custom orders because I haven't had time to make new ones for the shop!

A couple local shops have shown interest in selling my accessories.  Just a couple of weeks after I put some of my sparrow wallets on consignment at one of them, it got word that it had to close.  I did sell a couple of things there in that short time, though!  

This is my largest project right now...a wholesale order for one of my favorite shops in town.  When these beauties are finished they will only be available for purchase at the shop.  I'll give the details when it is complete!

I've also been working on my gift for the Covert Robin exchange.  I'll be writing a guest blog post for the recipient's blog, but I can't give away more than a sneak peek until the recipient has received her gift!  I'll also be getting something fabulous from another blogger and am anxiously checking my mail daily for its arrival.

Another of my hobbies is photography.  I am by no means a professional!  One of my friends taught me how to photograph the Northern Lights a couple weeks back.  Here's one of my favorite shots!

Weekend Project: Girl's Messenger Bag

I started out my weekend with the itch to finally use these fabrics with the cathedral window block tutorial that I have been eyeing.  It was fun and really easy!  I upsized the initial square size to 14 inches to accommodate the size of the print in my feature fabric.

After completing a block featuring each the girl on the swing and the boy with the kite, I needed to make something with them.  I remembered seeing a fun embellished messenger bag and thought I'd give that idea a try.  I followed the general size guidelines in this tutorial from mmmcrafts, and then I put it together using my own method, adding tweaks along the way.  The more I worked, the more interested my 6-year-old daughter became in my project.  It slowly evolved from my bag to her bag.

The bag body is a heavy duck canvas

I installed a magnetic snap on the front flap, and picked up some buckle hardware to make the strap adjustable.  Since I live in a *very* small town in Alaska, I usually order my supplies or drive 80 miles to the nearest craft store.  Since we wanted to finish this bag ASAP, we took a trip to our local outdoor gear manufacturer's store and found plenty of options for hardware.  I decided that I'd like to use cotton webbing for the strap, so we stopped by our local fabric store, which is inside the TrueValue Hardware.  They are primarily a quilting shop and only had 1-inch webbing, so I put two lengths side-by-side and zig-zagged them together with red thread.  I think that detail makes the bag!

Outside pocket under the front flap

Inside of the flap

I posted a quick photo of the bag last night on my Facebook page and got a ton of positive feedback.  I think this is a favorite of everything I have created to date.  I have already ordered some more fabric (since I used nearly everything I had to create the bag) and hope to put some of these little beauties in my shop soon.  They are a great size for kids, but would also make a fun everyday bag for adults.

I added this to the list of fun weekend projects over at Skip to My Lou.

The Honolulu Bag

I posted about this bag on my Facebook page a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I'd expand on it here.  I was looking for a bag pattern to expand on my skills and definitely got more than I bargained for with this one.  The main concept of the bag is based on the Wasp Bag pattern from machen/machen.  I am not new to bag-making.  I can whip out a lined tote in no time flat.  This pattern had a couple of extras thrown in to give me a bit of a challenge- magnetic snaps and darts and pleats, oh my!  I started by scaling down the pattern a bit with my printer as I wanted it to be more of a shoulder bag than a tote.  I ended up with something in between, which was perfect for my intended use as a carry-on bag to hold my iPad and Kindle for a plane trip (to Honolulu, of course!). 

For the most part the pattern was easy to follow.  My main departure from the given directions came with strap construction.  The pattern pieces themselves were not clear on how to attach the pieces of the strap pattern together, so I had to improvise with strap length.  The method described for sewing the straps just seemed too difficult.  I opted to put wrong sides together, sew the edges, turn right-side-out, and then continue on with attaching and topstitching.  Much less room for error on the edges!  I tried leaving the button color choice up to my kids and offered the options of turquoise and orange.  They suggested a different color on each side of the bag (!) so I settled on the orange, which brings out the centers of the flowers perfectly. I really love the effect that using the print fabric on the backside of the straps gives. On my totes I use canvas for both sides of the straps, but I think I'll try using the lining fabric on the back next time.

On the bag interior, I designed my own interfaced slip pockets and sized them to hold my iPhone securely.  I also decided to finally learn how to insert an inner zip pocket using this tutorial.  The only issue I had with the inside came from the pleats on the lining intersecting with the pockets, which called for some careful placement.

I love the end result, and the bag has served me well so far and held up great through plane trips, beach excursions, and toy toting.

The main body of this bag is constructed of brown medium-weight canvas, and the outer and inner prints are cottons from Joel Dewberry's Aviary 2 collection.  My new labels from GutenTAGs made their debut as well.

Introducing...a.Amelia handmade, the blog!

I have been putting this off for awhile now.  I have an Etsy shop and a Facebook page...why do I really need a blog?
I guess there are a few reasons, really:
-to share my finds on everything sewing- patterns, tutorials, fabrics, shops
-to get input on works in progress
-to be able to enter contests which require a blog (which is the real motivator that put me over the edge today!)

So take a look around and let me know what you think.  I'm still working out the kinks with appearance and hope to add a photo gallery-type page of my favorite completed projects within the next couple of days.