Monthly Archives: October 2010

A Girl and Her Shoes

30 Saturday Oct 2010

Posted by in Sewing Projects, Shoe Bag

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I’ve been working on a special project. This one is special because I had someone near and dear to my heart in mind to receive it. My daughter is en route home at the moment to visit us for the weekend. A quick reprieve from her studies. I have made up a quick shoe bag for her to have something elegant to carry her footwear in.

The fabric is leftover from a tiered skirt we made for her many years ago. The bag is approximately 12″ wide by 17 ” long with a simple drawstring closure. I cut out a shoe appliqué to grace the front, applied it with HeatnBond Lite and zigzagged all around the outside of the shoe.

Here are a few close-ups of the bag.

You could make the bag without a shoe appliqué  and in various sizes and it would be useful for any number of things.  I hope you like the bag. It was simple and quick and makes a great gift.

Pretty Bird

28 Thursday Oct 2010

Posted by in Fabric, Michael Miller Fabrics

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I’ve been busy on a project which I’ll reveal very soon but in the meantime I managed to spend a little more money on some eye candy.

Imagine my delight when I found an online source for current designer fabric in Canada. Now imagine the added bonus that this source is just 15 minutes from my home. I met Pam the owner of MadAboutPatchwork today. We had tea and talked fabric and blogging, then made our way to her “fabric store” in the basement. It was a hard decision what to bring home and what to leave behind.

The selection I chose is part of the Pretty Bird Fabric collection by Michael Miller Fabrics. The designer is Pillow and Maxfield.

I love the beautiful bold colours. I picked up some coordinating Kona Solids to round out the collection. I’m not sure what it will turn into just yet. It will sit on my shelf above the sewing machine tantalizingly until a project reveals itself.

Cozy Cube

16 Saturday Oct 2010

Posted by in Cozy Cube, Sewing Projects

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The New Sewing Room Colour

Wow, I just realized it’s been almost two weeks since a post. It has been hectic. First the painting had to be finished (that was a longer job than I planned!), then Thanksgiving came and went – it was good to have family and friends around the table, after that the customary “the-big-day-is-done-so-my-body-can-let-down-it’s-guard-and-get-sick” time ensued, and finally I had to do a project to show off. (Just between us we won’t tell my husband that I’ve been calling this the “Sewing Room”. He thinks it’s called “The Lounge”. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?) The paint colour is called “Bonjour” from C2.

Here’s my latest project!

I chose the “Cozy Cube” from Anna Maria Horner’s “Seams to Me”.

I wanted to use up some of that delectable new fabric I’ve been collecting. I chose some bright colours and made the box in two different prints with a third inside. The pattern called for some heavy, double-sided fusible interfacing. It’s very stiff and does a wonderful job of holding up the sides. The end product was originally supposed to be an 8″ X 8″ cube but I chose to make mine a little smaller. Mine is 5″ X 5″. It got a little fiddly in spots and difficult to iron the interfacing on to a 3-dimensional box but I was quite pleased with the outcome.

In the end there was only one slight problem. In my zealousness to finish the cube the fabric sides ended upside down! A detail I’ll definitely remember for the next time!

On to the next project!

Seeing Yellow

04 Monday Oct 2010

Posted by in Fabric, Kaffe Fassett Fabric, My New Sewing Room

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A sneak peek at the colour going up in the new sewing room.

The dropcloths are laid, the painting has begun, but oh, the agony. Do you ever feel like everyone and everything is against you when you all you really want to do is get your teeth into a project? It seems life gets in the way and takes over at every turn. It’s been non-stop interruptions throughout this painting project and the job is only half-done.

To appease my creative soul, however, one of the interruptions was a trip to the fabric store. A lovely little quilt shop I’ve only just discovered. Without a specific project in mind I chose to stock up on as many different kinds of fabrics as I could. I stood in front of the fat quarter wall for a good hour pulling out samples and trying patterns and colours together in different colourways. In the end I left with two series that included some Kaffe Fassett and Philip Jacob prints with two meters of co-ordinating plains. It was a very fruitful trip. Oh, and then I decided I needed a new sketchpad to scribble my ideas into. I think it needs a nice fabric covering, don’t you?

Back to the paintbrush…..

Fall Colours

01 Friday Oct 2010

Posted by in Inspirational Books, My New Sewing Room, Sewing Projects

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There doesn’t seem to be a lot of sewing happening just yet. Lots of thinking, dreaming, web-surfing, idea-gathering, and organizing. My new sewing space is taking shape. After many years in boxes my treasured sewing books have emerged and made their way onto the shelves above the sewing machine ready for quick reference or ideas. A few other books that haven’t seen the light of day for quite some time joined them as well. It was like Christmas pulling them all from the boxes. The paint for the room is purchased and ready to go on the walls. And a couple of projects have been half-started. Can you half-start something?

One more step to cleaning out my old stash and making room for new was to pull out some flannel I had purchased for pyjama bottoms for my boys. I couldn’t find a pattern I liked so am using a comfortable used pair as my pattern and tracing them. It wasn’t as easy as it looked and I’m still tweeking the pattern.

I made a slight boo-boo and ran out of tracing paper at the top of the pyjama pants when it came time to include the elastic casing. A simple “cut and paste” was in order.

Tomorrow’s project – Paint!