Hey Mercedes Purse: Jackalope Style

For Christmas, my sister gave me Sara Lawson's newest book: Windy City Bags.  The "Hey Mercedes" pattern really appealed to me, so I went to work making it over the past few weeks.

Yes, it definitely took me more than a few days to make this bag.  Bag making is serious business, you almost spend more time cutting out fabric and interfacing, as well as locating hardware, than you do actually sewing.  

But the reward is pretty sweet when you're finished.  Here's the front:

Here's the back:

I just love a good fabric pairing outside the bounds of using fabrics from the same collection.  I used Tall Tales Jackalope in Dusk and Geometric Bliss Polygons in Yellow.  The red solid is a Cirrus solid from Cloud9.

I didn't put a magnetic snap in because I thought I had one and when I realized I didn't, I didn't want to waste a good half hour going to Joanns to get one.  I am fine with that choice- if it had really mattered to me, I would've gone to the store.  I found the metal rectangle rings at Hobby Lobby- they were a buckle style, but I just used pliers to remove the middle bar.  So much better than special ordering them!

I really like this purse and I am excited to carry around this whimsical fabric that I enjoy so much.  It's a bit bigger than the purse I've been carrying around for a while now: my 241 tote.  I am glad to have something a little bigger that will better accommodate the few things I like to carry around with me.

Linking up to Sew Sweetness Bag Contest 2017.

Quilt Donations Sought for International Institute of New England

Do you have any baby sized quilts or quilt tops lying around?  Do you have the desire to make a baby quilt for a worthy cause?  Please consider contributing to an important charitable effort:

I have been contacted by a good friend of mine, Kim Andreasan, regarding her efforts to collect 50 baby quilts to donate as part of a "diaper bag" initiative to help refugees in the New England area.  Kim and I attended the same LDS ward (congregation) in Billerica for the seven years I lived in Massachusetts and she has some responsibility for a big service project taking place on September 9, 2017.  The women of the LDS North Shore stake (larger organization of multiple LDS wards) is joining together to put together 50 diaper bags filled with infant essentials, including a handmade baby quilt.  These items are to be donated to the International Institute of New England, IINE, an organization with Lowell and Boston branches.  Their mission statement is:

The mission of the International Institute of New England is to invest in the future of our cities and towns by preparing refugees and immigrants for participation in the social, economic and political richness of American life through active citizenship.

Kim explained that most clients of IINE, ".....are women and children.  Two out of every ten women are pregnant when they arrive here or in the camps.  By providing bags/baby quilts, we hope to give them something to help them adjust to this society and know their babies are welcomed and cared about."

Kim thought I might think it was strange for her to contact me when I am all the way in Colorado. Of course I don't mind at all and I am confident that quilters tend to be generous and don't allow the "hassle" of sending a quilt in the mail when it comes to a worthy cause.  

I feel excited about this project because I still love New England and my friends back there and it combines two of my long-held interests: sewing and humanitarian outreach.  My educational background is social work and as a young adult, I spent quite a bit of time abroad doing international volunteer work.  I don't pretend to be an expert, but I have witnessed a lot of tragedy and suffering and I miss those days when I lost myself in serving wherever I was needed.  Assisting refugees stateside is definitely a great way to reach out and serve when it is no longer practical for me to be an international volunteer.

An advantageous aspect of this project is that there are no strict guidelines about size, colors, and materials for donating a quilt.  I can offer some of my own to help give some direction:

• 40" square is a great sized baby quilt, it's been my preferred size for my own babies and it's small enough to quilt on your domestic machine without too much hassle.  Bigger or smaller is okay but don't go TOO big.
• Gender neutral themes would be appreciated in interest of simplicity in giving out the quilts but it's not mandatory.  If you have something already made or nearly made- that's fine.
• Machine binding would be helpful in prolonging the life of the quilts.  Machine quilting as opposed to tying would also prolong the life of the quilt.

If you'd like to donate a quilt, Kim has asked that you send it to her by late August.  She would like some time to inventory and organize the donations.  Please message me and I can give you her mailing address for sending the quilt. If paying for postage is an issue, it can be worked out, just contact me.

If you are local to me, I can collect the quilt from you and get it to Kim myself.  If you are really ready to donate, let me know as soon as possible, as my parents are visiting in June and they can take quilts back to Kim for me.

Thanks for reading this long post and for considering contributing to this cause.  I will admit that I don't do a lot of "charitable quilting" for a variety of reasons (mostly time!) but I will commit here to make at least one quilt to donate.  Will you join me?

(I didn't want to have a picture-less post, so the pictures in here show a gender neutral quilt-the rainbow log cabin- and 3 quilt tops I bought at a yard sale recently.  These tops are too big to be baby quilts but my intention in including them in this post was to help you think of what tops you might have lying around that could be used for this cause).  

Marker Totes for my Etsy Shop

As I've been working on stocking my Etsy shop, I've really been racking my brain to offer some unique products.  I started with my repurposed vintage pillows.  Now I am working on something pretty different: marker totes.

In 2014, I made my two oldest children these marker totes for Christmas.  I honestly think they were the best handmade gift I have ever given them.  I thought they would be used primarily for church, (during the first hour that is very adult-centered), but they use them everywhere, all the time.  For example, we've brought them to waiting rooms at doctor's offices but the kids often like to simply use them at home too.  

When I made them, I didn't enjoy the process.  I was stressed out to be making something without a pattern for sure.  I know some people don't like using patterns but I love using them because they tell me exactly what to do.  I was also stressed because they were very tedious and time consuming to make.  Recently, I decided to revisit these and see if I could make the process easier and I did!  

Here's the first one I recently made.  I love this Pandastronaut fabric from Pink Castle Fabrics.  (It's Japanese, and I have a special love for Japanese fabrics!!! Seriously, if I could only sew with Japanese fabrics, I would still be a happy camper).  So, as you can see from this picture, I simplified the construction of the marker tote significantly: I used cotton webbing for the handles instead of making my own (I seam ripped them off of a store bought tote bag I already had), I didn't bind the outside, and I used snaps for the tab closure instead of velcro.  

But here's the problem I am dealing with and have not yet solved: when you put the markers into the tote, the tote really gets warped and squeezes in on itself.  This version was especially bad because I used a big piece of peltex to give the tote stability.  It doesn't bother me too much because I made it for my youngest son and I am not a HUGE perfectionist when it comes to items I make for my family.  But if I am going to sell something, I want it to be just right.

I decided to make another version, this time using Pellon Flex Foam (just like automotive headliner or Soft and Stable) as the main stabilizer for the tote.  It still warps and squeezes in on itself, as you can see:

I talked to a talented sewing friend and she gave me some ideas, emphasizing that different interfacing is probably not enough of a change to fix this problem.  I need to change the construction of the marker pockets......

This picture shows the other side of the interior, you can see that pulling on the right- it's so bad!

My friend gave me one idea to try and make the pockets as an elastic gathered strip, like in the free Noodlehead pattern: Snappy Mani Pouch.  It's been almost 8 years since I made a pocket like that (for the diaper bag I made to use with my first born), so I decided to do the Mani pattern to relearn.  Here's the outside:

Here's the inside.  Such a cute pattern that I will have to revisit again to make friends gifts.  Making the elastic pocket wasn't too bad but it's definitely not fast, which is definitely a drawback.  If I am gong to make those marker totes over and over for sale, I need to make them very simply and quickly so that I don't have to charge $1,000 for them because they take so much time.

One significant piece of my progress with this project is that I discovered an awesome local resource for cotton webbing.  Believe it or not, I've lived in Colorado Springs for just over 3 years and there was a fabric store I'd never been to until recently.  I just didn't really know about it and none of my sewing friends were very "into" it or encouraging me that I should go... But they have a TON of webbing and their whole store was 25% off over the past 2 weeks, so I went and got a bunch of colors, 18 yards for $21.

I thought it would be a good post to share my process in trying to design something "original."  I hope to update soon, sharing my success that I've figured it out.  If you have any ideas, please let me know.  I'd love to hear if you've had a similar process in trying to design something unique.

Garden Party Easter Dress 2017

 Time to document the Easter dress I worked on last week for Charlotte.  I had this Art Gallery floral in my stash from the awesome Keepsake Quilting sale this past summer.  Initially, I paired it with a simple geometric blender for the strip accents, I loved the way this bunny fabric looked with it but I was unsure because the bunny is a bit of a "stripe" and I worried that I would be able to keep it straight.

I sewed the first fabric accent onto the back piece and decided to rip it off and try the bunny fabric.  I am so glad I did.  Even though a bunny fabric really "screams" Easter, this whole dress turned out very spring-y and will work well in summer too.

The pattern I used is the Garden Party dress, a predictable choice for me since I almost exclusively only sew Oliver and S patterns when it comes to dresses for young girls.

I really did get some great pictures of her modeling this dress but it wasn't easy.  She was in no mood to cooperate and I pretty much had to say that she'd have to skip having any more Easter candy unless she complied!  After a little while, she warmed up to it, as you can tell.  I really do have a great appreciation for professional photographers who have the talent to work with kids- it seems like an impossible job based on my amateur experience.

I gave Charlotte the assignment of sifting through my vintage buttons to choose one for the back closure.  Can you believe she found this cute little bunny one within minutes?  I was thrilled and was definitely not going to make a trip to Joann's to buy one bunny button!

I liked the Garden Party dress pattern a lot.  I am so in the mood to make her more dresses right now, I just love the challenge and the speed with which these projects come together compared to a quilt.

Scraptastic Tuesday April: Leaders and Enders Project

Thanks to everyone for their kind words and support about my "repurposing vintage needlework" post.  It was great to hear from so many of you and I really would love to see if you decide to make your own pillow or mini quilt from discarded or sentimental needlework pieces.  For that post, I forgot to include a mini quilt I had made with the same idea.  This piece of embroidery was found at an estate sale for about 50 cents.  I think the black word on the bottom right is the name "Dawn."  I decided to frame it with scraps and this was the March entry I submitted for Scraptastic Tuesday through Instagram.  

For April's submission, I'd like to share a recent scrap busting endeavor I decided to start as a "leaders and enders" project.  I loved a scrappy quilt Nettie shared on her blog in February.  She shared the dimensions she used and I decided to cut a bunch of these squares and rectangles from my scraps.  I've put them in a tray by my sewing machine and when it works out, I sew them before and after other projects- this way, it will get done without me devoting a TON of time to it (hopefully).  I am not sure if I really love the results so far though, maybe my fabrics are too busy or maybe it will look better as a whole rather than in parts.  I truly do admire other quilters who seem to put together any and all kinds of scraps to make such gorgeous creations.  So far, when I've made things out of scraps, I've stuck to specific color palettes and that's been the approach I've been more comfortable with.  I'm excited to give this "anything and everything" method a try.

Linking up to Scraptastic Tuesday for April at She Can Quilt.

Re purposed Needlework in Patchwork Pillows

I've been busy making pillows.  It's fun stuff I tell you.  I've had an idea for a while now: I can't seem to resist buying handmade embroidery and cross stitch pieces when I see them at yard sales.  As a person who sews, I appreciate all of the time and effort that goes into hand stitching.  I can't resist buying these pieces when I see them, and for the items I detail here, none of them cost more than $2.  $2!  Think of all that time and care given to these pretty pieces of needlework, only to be given away for mere pennies.  But I do get it, they aren't appreciated by everyone and I am sure a lot of people don't know what to do with these items.  Styles and decoration preferences change.  Some items become irreparably stained or damaged over time.  It feels exciting to take these treasured pieces of the past and transform them into something pretty and useful once again.

Here's a picture of me holding all of these pillows in front of a recently finished quilt top:

I bought this chair cover (?) piece for $1 this summer:

I cut it up and put it with just two other stash fabrics, using my favorite size of patchwork square: 2.5".

This table runner was in rough shape but look how pretty the flower and butterfly embroidery is:

Here's what I made it into:

On the blog, I've shown this before.  But I found these armchair cozies irresistible!  The pair was only 50 cents.  I love me a bright orange/red.  I found a way to use the roses and butterflies in two separate projects:

This pillow was made with all scrap fabrics and vintage tiny ric rac:

A mini charm pack of Moda's PB & J added some fun and style to these butterflies:

Hot air balloons have a special place in my heart because every year we attend a balloon festival in the Springs and the whole family loves it.  I found this piece framed at a garage sale for $2.  In pondering how to use it, I was tempted to go a little crazy and add all sorts of colorful, scrappy fabrics to frame this cross stitch but when I found this somewhat muted blue/gray polka dot in my stash, I loved how it coordinated and I knew the pairing would better allow the needlework to be the center of attention.

Finally, this butterfly embroidery was previously part of a small white tablecloth.  I went ahead and kept this design simple too.

All of the pillows have zippered flap backings like this:

I think I've said before here that I have been trying to get an Etsy shop.  In the fall/winter, I had success at craft fairs selling many items: bibs, reusable snack bags, patchwork dish towels, crayon wallets, etc.  But it isn't very stimulating or super creative to sew those kinds of items over and over.  I've been trying to think of something I could sew that is unique and more fun to create and designing and creating items from "upcycled needlework" is one of my more unique ideas for the shop.  I intend to develop a service for people where they could give me their (perhaps) sentimental needlework items and I could transform them into a more meaningful keepsake/item such as a pillow, mini quilt, etc.  By making all of these "examples" of what I can do with embroidery pieces, I have created a bit of a "portfolio" to show what I can do.  I have listed these pillow covers in my Etsy shop as well, I'm hoping this idea will appeal to people whether they purchase a custom order or not.  It's still a work in progress and I am not done setting it up, but feel free to check out my Etsy shop: Dresden Lane Designs.

On the side, I have still been working on plenty of "personal" sewing projects which I will share soon!