Recent Projects

I am SO behind on my sew-a-longs! Between gifts and custom orders, I have fallen behind on personal projects again.

 But I've made several fun things lately! I found this cute tutorial a few weeks ago for a kid's sling-style bag. It was meant as a fat quarter project, but I made a couple of alterations to the tutorial directions. Well, really, I made several! The tutorial wasn't all that clear, especially for those who may not be familiar with sewing bags. I used canvas for the bag body since the inside is not lined. I also made the accent fabric on the outside a larger width to show off more of my chosen print. I used cotton webbing for the strap, and on this version I even sewed some cute red trim down the center. I made two of these prior to this one that have the outside zip pocket. The tutorial is not clear on how to make this part look nice, and the original pocket size given is about the size of a Matchbox car. I am happy with the end size of my zip pockets, but in order to make the zipper part look nice you really need prior zip pocket experience!

As soon as I finished up that bag as a birthday gift for our cute next-door neighbor, I got a call about making some of my boxy vinyl-lined cosmetics bags. Twenty six, to be exact! Since the timeframe was too short for me to get more supplies, I ended up making 12. They went to our local Nordic ski club instructors as thank-you gifts for their season of teaching. It's so fun to make things for local people, and even more so when they are the ones who taught my family to ski this winter! The organizer thought these bags would be perfect to hold ski goggles and wax, since they are lined with vinyl. Great idea!

 I am also caught up with Mother's Day gifts, but they remain a secret until next weekend. I have internet-savvy moms and grandmas...wouldn't want to ruin any surprises! This weeks's plan is to finish up my very first international order (to be sent to Australia!) and then begin again on my New York Beauty blocks. I'm sure I'll add some other things in there as well. I have joked about it before, but I really do have sewing ADD! I can't work on one thing for very long without getting bored, so I always have several small projects going at once.