the bag making bible

I received The Bag Making Bible by Lisa Lam as something of a late
Christmas gift, and let me tell you: I love it! The book contains a mix of
specific techniques and complete tutorials (including patterns in the back)
for a range of bags with suggestions for customized modifications.
It's chock full of photos and hints. The way the concepts and projects
are interspersed makes it very fun to flip through and gradually absorb.

It's a treasure trove of beauty and function! Also fabulous is the
copyright, which allows for small-scale sale of hand-sewn items made
from the patterns and ideas in the book, a generous and rare feature.

diaper clutch

I just made my first Grab'n'Go Diaper Clutch, and I love 

how it turned out! It sewed up easier than I expected and

has lots of fun details. Also, isn't this fabric fabulous?! Yum!

cleaning a soleplate

Since I have been ironing gobs of interfacing to various fabrics 

and recently tried out the ol' freezer paper template idea (more on 

that later) with no barrier between my iron and the wax that

melted out around the edges, I found myself in need of soleplate

cleaning. I was nervous about this, because my iron was more

expensive than any I've ever used before (it won't be replaced
any time soon), so I did some research. I found a product that gets pretty
good reviews, but my motto of late has been "work with what you have."
So in the end, I just whipped up a thick paste of baking powder

and water, rubbed it on with a damp paper towel, and then moved

on to the scrubby side of my kitchen sponge to finish. 

This cleared up most of the sticky spots and just left me 

with a little powder residue in the steam holes. I cleaned them out 

with a toothpick, and she looks about as good as new!

fun fabric pairings

I recently bought some new fabric for upcoming bag projects. 

It's all washed up and ready to sew. 

I just love to see these things come together!

makeup bag

 I found the tutorial for this cute little makeup bag at 

flossie teacakes.

It's easy to follow and makes a 5"x71/2" bag with 

nice finish all around. Difficult to make with upholstery

fabric, however, as it gets quite thick in spots.

Below are bits of it in different stages along the way.

I think I'll buy the license for this pattern and 

whip some up for sale on my someday-etsy-shop. :)

tooth fairy pillows are done!

learning to applique

The tooth fairy pillows I'm making require monograms.

I thought I might be able to embroider monograms on my 1950's Singer, 

because the booklet shows lots of monograms (unaccompanied by any 

instruction whatsoever). However, how they ever managed to produce them 

on this particular machine is a complete mystery to me. My attempts were dismal. 

So I moved on to applique, and I'm pretty happy with the results!

For these little guys, which will become patch pockets, I found a scripty

font on my computer and printed it out at the size I wanted. I backed the 

fabric scraps with Pellon Wonder-Under and traced the letter outlines onto 

the fabric using a light board (although a well-lit window would suffice). 

I peeled the back of the Wonder-Under and ironed the letters onto white

muslin which was already backed with iron-on, woven interfacing for 

sturdiness. Then I got to satin stitching the whole thing together. It all

looked a bit choppy, so I took the time to do a small straight stitch 

around all the outside edges to even it up. I'm glad for all the adhesive

interfacings, which kept things sturdy and firmly attached along the way!