Clamshell Clutch

I really intended to make a clutch bag for my daughter-in-law to be for Christmas but sadly never found the time. However, the Ho,Ho,Ho and on We Sew Link party launch seems like the perfect time to remedy that omission :)

I have had this clamshell clutch frame in my cupboard for ages and had already cut into the fabric for it when putting together one of Scrappy Trip Around the World blocks.

So, really it was about time that I knuckled down and made the bag before I found other uses for the fabric.

Lisa has instructions for covering the clamshell frame, so I downloaded them and set to work. I didn't have the glue that Lisa recommended for attaching the fabric to the shell, but hoped that Modge Podge would work just as well. I did have the Gutermann glue that Lisa recommends for attaching the shell to the frame, as I have used this several times in the past.

And here it is! The fabric is "in crowd" by Alexander Henry. The clutch only needs two pieces of fabric 6" x 9" for the exterior and two more for the interior, so it would be ideal for that last scrap of a treasured fabric too.

I lined the clutch purse with some 1001 Peeps fabric that I have been hoarding for ages but that really deserved to be used!

As you can see the clutch frame can also have a chain added and fortunately I had a 24" chain lurking in my cupboard too.

So I now have two Christmas presents neatly tucked away for this year. If I keep this up I will be so organised in December I won't know what to do with myself :)

If you would like to be that organised too, join Paula at Mud, Pies and Pins and myself at our monthly link party. You can link up any Christmas or Holiday projects that you have made this month over at Mud, Pies and Pins and be in with a chance of winning the Ornamental and Sew Seasonal pattern bundle from Quiet Play and Blossom Heart Quilts. There are 25 great patterns in the bundle so that should be plenty enough to tackle throughout the year. Paula also has a great tutorial for quick and easy decorations to tuck away for the Holiday season too. The Link party will remain open until the end of the month so there is still time to link up and win those patterns!

Linking up this finish to Crazy Mom Quilts




Linking up this finish to Crazy Mom Quilts

Swaps, Boots and WIP's

Last weekend my daughter-in-law, son's girlfriend and I nipped off to Dusseldorf to sample our first German Christmas market. Last year we all went to Copenhagen for some Christmas market retail therapy and spent the weekend dodging howling gales and rain, so we were hoping for a better experience this time. Well, whilst there was heavy rain on Saturday night it didn't put a dampener on our fun as there were places like this to shelter in!

My lovely blogging friend, Fiona, had explained the deposit system for the Gluhwein glasses before we went so we didn't waste precious shopping/drinking time working out what to pay :)

As you can see we were so taken by a couple of the wine mugs that they managed to sneak into our bags for home! The Gluhwein was pretty good too.

We would have loved to have fitted one of these fun bird boxes in to our bags, but just couldn't make the space :(

And whilst space wasn't a problem with the biscuit cutters from this stall, narrowing down the choice was!

Aside from indulging myself with the odd Gluhwein there has been some sewing in progress too this week. Today is the deadline for sending off my package for the Modern Scrappy Bits Swap. As well as scraps participants are asked to send a handmade item, so I have been having a go at a pouch pattern I found in an old issue (12) of Making magazine.

The Christmas one will be ideal for the OPI nail polishes I have as stocking fillers for my fellow market shoppers. My partner in the Modern Scrappy Bits Swap has said that she likes linen and text fabrics, so I am hoping that the second pouch will be to her liking.

This is what is going in the package today.

The pouches used a construction method that was new to me. You attached the zip by making two tubes, one with the lining and one with the exterior then turned it lining side out to stitch the ends before turning the pouch back right side out. It makes more sense probably when you see this photo!

It was a neat way to do it and quick, although it does mean that you have a raw seam at each end on the inside.

More stocking fillers are on the agenda with my Origami Liberty flower brooch kit that arrived in the post yesterday from the very talented Catherine at Knotted Cotton.

I am really looking forward to having a go at these and they may not all make their way into stockings! If you haven't already check out Catherine's tutorial for the Origami flower brooches here they are lovely.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

There is still time to enter my entry in the Sew Mama Sew giveaway, you will find all the details here or vote for my entry in the Ring Your Neck scarf challenge.

Miss Maven ruffles my feathers

Have you ever been halfway through a project and wondered why you ever started it? Well, that is where I was with my latest project for 12 WIP's in 2012.

At the beginning of the year I committed to making a bag from Amy Butler's Style Stitches book, having only made the Origami bags since I bought it (and let's face it you don't really need this book to make them!) the book was turning out to be an expensive ornament!




I have been putting this off but couldn't put if off any longer as it was the only one of my remaining WIP's that I could reasonably complete in the time I had available. To be honest I had been underwhelmed by Style Stitches when I first looked through it so hadn't had much in the way of motivation to get cracking on anything. I think that part of the problem was the text heavy instructions. Style Stitches is full of arty photographs of the models and even of the completed bags, but completely lacking in photos of the techniques or process involved in making the bags. The odd hand-drawn illustration here and there just doesn't cut the mustard as far as I am concerned.

 I decided that I would have a go at the Miss Maven Ruffled Handbag, it didn't look too complicated! Hah! First problem was that I didn't have the double-sided fusible Pelltex called for, but I did have double-sided Ultra Firm & Flex, so thought that would be a good enough substitute. Well it was, but it was a real pain trying to fuse the fabrics as the Ultra Firm & Flex doesn't have a protective backing like the Pelltex has, so fusing only one side at a time per the instructions wasn't too straightforward! Lots of peeling the fused handle off of the pressing cloth was involved.

Making the body of the bag was straightforward although now that it is finished I really don't like the large inner pocket, it is just too big even although it is stitched in the middle. It runs the width of the bag including half of the side so it gapes too!
That as it turns out was only the beginning of my problems with this bag. Attaching the handles to the main bag and lining was tricky as not only were there curved seams involved but the double thickness of the handles with the Ultra Firm made manoeuvring the pieces under the needle difficult. Seams were ripped several times! Then this happened

Spotted the problem?

The instructions for this part were to "Pull out the remaining top edges of the exterior and lining main panels on each side of both handles. Match the top edges, and pin the top edges together." Now tell me that I am not the only one who would have matched the lining pieces together and the exterior pieces together. OK maybe I am!! I did try and convince myself that I could use the bag like this, but only managed to remain convinced for 30 seconds before reaching, yet again, for the seam ripper :(

By this time I was determined to beat this bag, and really pleased that I had followed the previous instruction to stay stitch the curved edges, as they were taking a real hammering with all the seam ripping going on.

Finally I ended up with this

The instructions tell you to attach the magnetic snap tabs when top stitching at the end, but I think it would have been better, and easier, to attach them when attaching the lining and exterior together. This by the way is the small bag,  you could probably use the large one to carry a small child if this one is anything to go by.

I suspect that all of this means that Style Stitches will revert again to gathering dust on my bookshelf.

Linking up to Craft Buds Craft Book Month
and Sew Darn Crafty
and Manic Monday
and Sew Modern Monday


Hope you spent less time ripping and more time sewing than I did this weekend :)

High Rollers and Fashionistas

Yesterday the Rolls Royce Ghost Club from the UK came to town as part of their Nordic and Baltic tour. Fortunately it was a glorious day when they pulled up in formation outside Riga City Hall. It was very funny to see so many grown men unashamedly drooling! Here's a flavour of what they were drooling over!

And

This little lady attracted the most attention!

Today is the last day for submitting entries to Sew Sweetness' Purse Palooza, so true to form I swithered about whether to make the Fashionista bag from Lisa Lam's Bag-Making Bible, which is on my 12 WIP's in 2012 list, in time to submit. Yesterday I decided to go for it. Nothing like a deadline to concentrate the mind!

I have already made two of these bags, both of which I gave to my daughter-in-law, so had decided that the next one was definitely for me. I had even bought the perfect bright pink wool fabric for the bag a long time ago on a trip to Tallinn, so I have had very little excuse not to have it completed before now.

Once I started making the bag I remembered why I had been putting it off for so long! The first step in making the bag is to construct both sets of handles and although the shoulder length handle with the chain is fairly straightforward to sew, getting the chain cut and attached is another story. The instructions tell you to cut the chain to the desired length, an action I have found impossible to do on my own in the past. Fortunately, our local ironmongers at home has a very willing owner who is happy to cut my chains with his professional-looking wire cutters as often as I need, so I have gathered a store of them for just such an occasion. The instructions also tell you to open the chain links to attach them to the D-rings on the end of the strap, another action I found impossible to do, so my solution was to attach a split ring to the end of the chain, which then attaches to the D-ring.

The short handle provides a whole different set of problems. To attach the bolt hook to the end of the piped handle you need to sew 8 layers of fabric whilst trying to avoid hitting the top of the bolt hook with your machine needle, not for the faint-hearted that is for sure! It took several attempts is all I am admitting to :)

Actually once the handles are sorted, the rest of the bag is fairly straightforward, even fitting the twist-turn lock and inserting a zipped inner pocket is pain-free compared to grappling with 8 layers of fabric. Although I did need to grit my teeth, cross my fingers and hope for the best when cutting into my already sewn bag flap to attach the front part of the lock and then again to fit the eyelets for the short handle.

Finishing this bag also means that I can shift another project off of my waiting list and on to the completed list, which is very nice, and it is this month's finish for 12 WIP's in 2012!

So here is how my list is looking now

Completed projects

• Shades of Green, Fleur Bleu, Checkered Heart, Orange and Reindeer cushions
• Orphan Block needle roll, Pieced Arc Tea towel, Purse and Padded Hangers Tutorial
• Sunflower and Sew Happy QAL quilt
• Play mini-quilt challenge quilt 
• Patchwork Block, Dragon and Fashionista Bags

Ongoing

• 6 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM 
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
• 8 Zakka-style SAL projects completed
• First border of teatime quilt completed
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
• 12 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (on schedule)  
• Yellow rainbow cushion waiting to be appliqued 
• In the Bag Ugly Fabric challenge fabrics arrived waiting for inspiration!
• 4 Summer Quilt Bee blocks completed
• 1 Star of Africa Bee block completed

Waiting

• Indigo and violet rainbow cushions
• Last block of Sampler quilt
• Amy Butler bag
• Christmas mini quilts

There is a bit of a logjam in that ongoing list I think, will have to work on that soon.

Tomorrow's posts in the Let's get Acquainted Blog Hop are from

July 12

    Rebecca from Sew Festive Handmade 

    Marti from 52 Quilts in 52 Weeks

Rebecca has been posting tutorials this month for her Christmas in July series, so I am looking forward to seeing what she comes up with tomorrow and Marti has a giveaway running on her blog at the moment, so both are definitely worth checking out. 

Linking up to  Purse Palooza , Sunday Showcase,  WIP Wednesday  and We did it Wednesday. 

 

A jumble of June projects

I am beginning to like putting together a Mosaic at the end of each month, when I think I haven't actually finished much in a month it is a pleasant surprise to find that, actually, I have been busier than I thought!

The makes this month are a motley selection, and probably a good indication of my "butterfly" tendencies of flitting from one project to another :)

Lots of little projects have fitted in with the travelling we have been doing recently, so portable projects like the crochet flowers and Dorset buttons have fitted the bill. I am most pleased with finishing the Campervan doorstop as it has been many months in the making, it is just a pity that the reason for making it, for youngest son's flat at University, has now disappeared with his graduation a couple of weeks ago! Still, a finish is a finish.

We have no travel plans for the next few weeks, so I am hoping to get stuck into some bigger projects and maybe even finish off the NY Beauty QAL blocks that are haunting the cupboard!

If you have missed any posts in the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop check out the great tutorials here This week's posts in the Blog Hop will be from:

July 3

Di from Willowbeck Designs

Jennifer from Knotted Thread

July 5

Sarah from Sarah Lou

Catherine from Knotted Cotton

 

I have seen sneak peeks of a couple of the projects being lined up and can't wait to see them revealed in all their glory. My post for the Blog Hop is due at the end of the month so I need to get cracking on my post and project for that too, so the NYB blocks might not see the light of day after all :)

Linking up to Fresh Sewing Day

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Dragon bags deconstructed and reconstructed

Although I managed to polish of most of my BOM's in the early part of this month, I somehow left my June project for 12 WIP's in 2012  until the last minute. So I have been sneaking in some sewing (and seam ripping) time in the last couple of days to try and get this in before June disappears.

Last year I wanted to make a special bag to have at my son's wedding, and when I saw u-handbag's Big 'n Beautiful Betty pattern I knew that this was it.  Finding the perfect fabric was not quite so easy, the bag had to match my purple outfit and I wanted the fabric to be extra-special. (I actually ended up with 3 outfits to choose from, all purple, but we'll not go into that now!) On a late night internet trawl I found an Alexander Henry fabric that fitted the bill perfectly, but as it was an old line it took some weeks to track down a large enough piece for my bag.

With the pattern and fabric I set to. I have made several purse frame bags from u-handbag kits and patterns so although this was by far the biggest frame purse I had attempted, I didn't think it would be any more difficult than the previous ones.

Well that frill along the top gave me all sorts of grief! I have always struggled a bit with the final stage of gluing the bag into the frame, but with a frill to complicate matters it took even longer, so that it was not finished in time :( As you can see, I did finish the bag, but after the first use I noticed that the frame and the bag were beginning to part company, so put the whole thing away resolving to sort it out sometime.

Well that time was this month, sorting out this bag was one of my 12 WIP's for 2012 and I hoped, the only one that I could feasibly finish in time for the looming end of June. So, I set to with scissors and brute strength to wrestle the bag from the remainder of the frame, no easy task given that the point of the glue is that it will withstand the very thing I was trying to do!

After a lot of tugging and pulling I managed to separate them both, where I discovered that my original gluing had been less than even, which was I suspect the reason that I had problems in the first place. So with the bag deconstructed I set about recycling the fabric to create another bag, using my favourite Kyoko Frilled Pouch pattern from u-handbag. Most of the fabric in the new bag was recycled from the old, except for the exterior bag base, which needed a small piece of the leftover fabric from the original bag.

Now that the bag is completed and (fingers crossed!) unlikely to fall apart, all I need is another wedding to go to :)

Unlike large parts of the UK, the weather here in Riga would be ideal for a wedding and there would be no shortage of flowers as these stalls at the Central Market show.

If we only had somewhere to put them we would be investing heavily in these hanging baskets and potted plants!

Another finish to tick off the list by the skin of my teeth! I shall definitely try not to leave it to the last minute next month.

Linking up to 12 WIP's in 2012 and Purse Palooza and Threading My Way features

Zakka in the pink

With wall to wall sport on the TV over the weekend to keep the husband occupied (think rugby, cricket and football!) it was the perfect opportunity for me to get cracking on some of the Zakka-style SAL projects I have been stockpiling recently.

First up was the organiser, which was the project for the week just gone. I wasn't too sure about this project at first, but as I had some nice, bright pink and white dotty linen/cotton blend that I had already earmarked for this, I decided to go with it. I am so glad that I did, as I really enjoyed putting this together, which is not to say that it all went perfectly but even the mishaps didn't put me off, so my faith in the Zakka-style book was restored.

The cutting instructions were a bit confusing I have to say, I didn't quite get the difference between inner panel and lining, even after several read throughs, and I lost track of the various cutting pieces for all of the different pockets. It wasn't helped by the fact that there were several errors in the instructions, I think 7 out of the 15 cutting instructions were incorrect, so even although I had marked the new measurements in the book, it doesn't exactly fill you with confidence that the rest are right, does it? In the end I managed to cut one of the pockets out wrongly, but, fortunately, too large rather than too small. I was also confused as to where each pocket would end up (I am easily confused as you can tell!) and would have changed the placement around if I had worked it out beforehand, but once the pieces were cut that dictated where half of the pockets would end up. That is not the pattern's fault to be fair, but rather a lack of vision on my part!

As the various branded types of interfacing are not readily available here, as with other projects I end up guessing and using what I think is the nearest equivalent from what I have to hand. So, I backed the exterior of the organiser with a fusible fleece, and re-inforced the centre with a flexible, firm interfacing, which meant that with all the pocket layers there were a lot of layers to sew by the end. My sewing machine coped manfully, thank goodness, which is more than can be said for me as I managed to sew the end of the zip into the binding! It was only when I was hand sewing the binding at the end that I realised what I had done, see what I mean about a lack of vision!

Despite all of this, or maybe because of it, I was really pleased with the organiser and I am already thinking I might make some more to give as presents to my daughter-in-law and son's girlfriends. I will try to remember the next time, though, to keep the zip out of the way when sewing on the binding :)

In a rare burst of productivity I also tackled this week's Zakka-style SAL project, a tweed pouch. I don't know if it was a reaction to the unending sport but this was also a pink project. I had some lovely bright pink wool fabric that I had bought a while ago to make myself a Fashionista Bag from Lisa Lam's Bag-Making Bible book. Whilst I haven't gotten around to making the bag yet, although it is on my to-do list, I could at least make a pouch to fit in the bag in the meantime.

I changed the pattern slightly by using Lisa Lam's method to insert a top zip by adding tabs to the zipper ends, and chose to outline the appliqued hexagons in bright pink rather than the transparent thread recommended. I discovered when I went to unzip the pouch once it was finished that the lining on one side is a tad too close to the zip, so some tugging is required to get past the spot, a lesson learnt for the next time I use the zipper foot!

Just to round off the pinkness of this post, I have been getting more ambitious with the crochet and have purchased these lovely balls of yarn to make a crochet cushion cover.

I shall close this post now before you overdose on pink, normal service will be resumed shortly!

Linking up to Manic Monday , Sew Modern Monday Pieceful Life and Sew Darn Crafty