My Bag Is So Bright, Ya Gotta Wear Shades

As promised, this is the confidence-builder project number 2: my orange Harley bag.  I have been trying to find a tackle twill hoodie to make a bag for myself.  I've calculated, sketched, planned and searched trying to find an appropriate hoodie and a final prototype. I'm finicky about my bags so this has not been an easy chore.  But, once I saw this bright, hazard orange and black Harley hoodie at a local Harley Davidson dealer, I knew it was the prefect one for me.  This photo does not truly capture the color of this bag.  It is bright hazard orange, the type of orange that you see on state road construction worker, the same color as traffic cones.  But I like orange so that is fine.  The photo is purposefully dark so that the reflective stripes show.  The hoodie was trimmed in Scotchlite reflective material and I've tried to retain as much of that as possible.  Notice the stripes on the sleeves were trim for the pockets which are the sleeve cuffs.  The lining fabric was another fabulous find.  I'm sure it was originally meant to be a open-weave fabric design but at first glance, it looked like diamond plate to me and that was more than perfect for this bag.

What cannot be seen from this angle is a large embroidered Harley Davidson on the back of the back.  It came from the back of the hoodie, not a problem I've had with the previous hoodies.  So, I simply moved the kangaroo pocket to the front which is where I wanted the pocket.  This bag is so roomy, it holds my Slate in the laptop pocket inside and even has enough room for the accompanying bluetooth keyboard. One of the cuff pockets on the end is large enough to hold my two-part power cord while the other will hold my phone.

And another design touch is to keep the labels and the care tags and re-attach them inside on the lining.

Ahhh, I'm finally happy!  I have a bag for me and my toys.  But, now, there are more hoodies to convert into diaper bags and messenger bags and that is just the beginning.  I have my design pencil out making notes on other pocket options.

Long live hoodies!

Meaningful Distraction

So, what to do?  My current quilt project is literally kicking my butt.  It is for a client and I'm having the worst time with it.  It went together flawlessly and now, way too many months later, my mother's health has deteriorated and my projects are piling up.  My sewing machine is soooo NOT even trying to be agreeable.  Quilting it has turned into a nightmare.  I have the feeling I have lost my sewing touch.  All my years of expertise and skill could not be found in my sewing studio.  My heart was breaking over my new machine and my inability to use it.  I finally had a fit.  I mean a throw-down, knock-out fit and decided to seize the situation in my grubby little hands and wrestle it to the ground.   I've been around enough years to know that when I'm struggling with a project, I need to lay it down and come back to it.  So, that being decided, I grabbed up a couple of quickies that would inspire confidence in myself once again.

Thus, you see above, one of the fruits of the wrestling match.  I have an ASUS Eee Slate at work.  My Slate is a lovely little device that I have grown fonder of as the days wear on.  The problem is a cover for it.  The accompanying sleeve is nothing but institutional, generic black and vinyl.  And because of its new cutting-edge design, there are no commercial covers, not that I'd buy one.  I'm not the type to be average.  The Slate is a PC alternative to an iPad but it is different in that it is not the same size so even those covers or carriers won't work.  So, the creative juices have been flowing and an idea blossomed.

I purchased these two place mats at a local Pier One store.  I hadn't been in one in years and suddenly, these place mats caught my eye.  Yes, the ones you put on your table under your dinner plate kind.  Once, very expensive, they were now on clearance for 77¢.  They had a lovely paisley on one side with coordinating stripes on the other.  The large white button is actually a piece of jewelry found in the clearance bin at Hobby Lobby.  The colors are lovely and unique.

One design problem:  I can make a cover for my Slate but it loses battery power rather quickly so I can't take it very far without needing the power cord so I needed a pocket for the large power converter and the associated cords. And this is what I came up with.  It is hard to see in this photo, but a zipper was inserted in the fold on the top place mat and then the place mat was folded and stitched down to create a pocket that barely holds all my accessories.
I really need to spend some time writing this project up.  I've not seen any other sleeve patterns with a similar pocket.  And I don't know how people take their gadgets with out pockets.

Yay!  I carried it in to work today and it looks like part of my mojo is back.  This is the first of my 2 confidence-building projects from the weekend.  Stay tuned for number 2.  It will blind you!

Double Duty Reversible Purse

I couldn't help it. I love this little purse, courtesy of Quilts and More Magazine.  It was in their Spring issue.  It only takes a half-yard for the outside and a half-yard for the inside.  It is so light and easy.  I had to work one in this weekend between diaper bags.  This is my second one out of a really kicky Anthropology fabric.  Love the purple!

There is even a longer strap option:  Pattern

Many, Many Moons Later.....

Once X-Libris was up, it was time to turn to the next project on the To-Do List. Hmmm, maybe I need a To-Do List Gadget here so we can all see what I have in progress and pressure me to stay on task.  Just when I was ready to start the next projects, I got sick.  Then I took a vacation for the annual Quilt Show pilgrimage.  And then I got sick again.  And then a vicious storm hit our area and I was without power for nearly a week, specifically the vacation week I had taken to knock out most of the To-Do list.  I am not ashamed to admit that I do have a treadle sewing machine that needs no electricity and I did have a oil lamp out trying to thread the treadle out of frustration with the piled up projects.  Needless to say, I'm so very behind I cannot even think about it.

Miraculously, I have dedicated (or chained) myself to my sewing machine in the past couple of days and have finally completed a project.  I have a short list of hoodie diaper and messenger bags to complete.  This is a pic of the first one.

So join me in saying, "Goodbye Texas. Hello Cincinnati!"

Another One in the Sweatshirt Line

After the recent success of the hoodie diaper bag designs, I wanted to return to the handbag designs.  AND, being married to a Univ. of Tennessee fan, I had to rid my house of this Univ. of Kentucky sweatshirt.  LOL!  And neither is the university that pays the bills every month! 

Anywho, this is a short handled hobo style bag made from a book of slouch purses.  It started its life as a youth hoodie.  I removed the kangaroo pocket from the front of the sweatshirt and reattached it to the inside, using it as a pocket. I stitched it so that it could be used as 3-sectioned pocket.  I reattached the label and fabric care tags inside the top edge of the pocket.  There is just something about having the care instructions with it that appeals to me. 

The plan is to put it up on my Etsy and send it far away from my home.  That's not to say that more UK stuff will come into the house.  I've been getting orders from several states for the hoodie diaper bags and they are a variety of schools and colors.

Notes on a Gunny Sack

Recycled coffee bag

This is a project that has rolled around in my mind for quite a while.  I'm as supportive of recycling as the next person.  But I love how the young people think it is something they thought of.  I grew up during the Energy Crisis of the 70's and I remember when all of the public facility light switches had a fluorescent orange sticker on them saying to turn off the lights when the room is not in use. I am also a reformed plasti-holic.  I have actively returned to using glasses and fabric towels and real plates instead of the paper versions that kill trees.  But I love bags and I grew up on a farm with gunny sacks and my husband has recently discovered coffee so I found a certain appeal in the purses and bags on websites that are recycled from a burlap coffee sack.

Surprisingly, on a fall Rural King visit, I found a large pallet of used burlap bags.  One look revealed a multitude of coffee houses and roasters from exotic European countries as well as the South American continent.  I couldn't help it.  I grabbed up 2.  One was a standard dark brown burlap with green and black stenciled markings  from the Rain Forest.  Another visit to another regional Rural King yielded another bag.  This could become a habit! The price was right.  When the cashier could find them in the register (they were listed as gunny sacks and she couldn't spell that,) they rang up at 99 cents.On particular one enticed me.  You see a portion of it in the photo.  it was an especially light colored burlap, coarsely woven with 3 pink and green stripes woven in.

A visit to a local quilt shop produced another bargain that just screamed to be paired with this particular bag.  The fabric was adorable, something from the Fiesta dinnerware days.  It was in a particularly familiar pink and dark seafoam green and there were Mexican motifs all over it.  There was a quaint Mexican couple in sombreros with their donkey and cactus and pottery scattered over it.  It was perfect!

So, on MLK, I could ignore the voices in my head no longer and grabbed up the colorful gunny, a favorite bag pattern and the lining fabric as well as some piping in the corresponding pink and green.  A bag materialized from my efforts but let me say, many a lesson was learned in fabrication AND patience.

This I learned:

• use a finely-woven burlap bag......coarse burlap is too open weave to use with a backing of white canvas.
• wear a mask when cutting and sewing....these fibers fly everywhere when cut or stitched, so always wear a mask to keep the guck out of your lungs. (Beware, it goes everywhere.)
• choose a flexible bag......when the burlap bag did not want to fold up and go in the bag at the cash register, I should have seen that as a warning sign.
• use a very unstructured pattern ....this fiber does not lend itself to pressing seams open and turning shoulder strap.  I spend an hour trying to get the fiber to flex enough to turn the strap.  There were cuss words.

So here it is.  I'm not so sure that I've done Juan Valdez justice.  But I had to answer its call instead of working on e-book readers that I had cut wrong and growing list of projects.

Glee, volume 2

In keeping with the Mildred Pierce quilt from a previous post, I had leftover blocks when Glee was completed. Leftover blocks and a new purse pattern plus a pressing need for a new purse caused me to create this. I added a black batik I picked up at Backyard Fabrics, a quilt store that I love but frequently forget. The basic design was my own. I kind of made it up as I went. I wanted this basic shape with a zipper and a long shoulder strap. The results suited me better this time than with Mildred. A friend carries Mildred Jr. now. I'm planning to carry this one and at least this way, Glee will never be far from me.

My purse is so bright, I gotta wear shades!

Rural King........yes, again.

In some previous postings, I remarked that I found some treasures for sewing projects at the Rural King, a regional chain of farm stores. Vacation week would not have been complete without a visit to our favorite store and it yielded yet again some creative ideas.

It appears that Rural King is celebrating a 50th anniversary and commerative shirts were available. I search every time thinking that THIS time, they will stock something in my 4X wide-load size, but I always wind up sadly disappointed. I want to celebrate my favorite store's anniversary, too! Then an idea struck.

I've made several t-shirt quilts and many of you remember the hoodie diaper bag that I made recently. So why not a Rural King bag? The whole plan came together at a quilt show fabric sale when this fun green print with sunflowers and holstein cows fell out of the pile. I even purchased a sunflower iron-on applique for effect.

Fire and Ice

I find that I sew best when there is a movie on. Being a huge movie buff, I'm addicted to the two hour glimpses into other worlds and other lives. I prefer to sit in front of the TV in the evening and cut out the pieces. Then when I start construction, I like to be at home with a TV in the front of the house and a TV in the back of the house synchronized to the same movie channel while I move about from cutting table to sewing machine to ironing board. I did not realize until this bag that certain projects bring to mind the movie that I was watching at the time.

I was cutting out this bag last night while watching The Cutting Edge: Fire and Ice. I think this wonderful Indonesian Batik from Batiks by Design could go along with that fire and ice theme. It has deep red for fire as well as navy blue which could be thought of as an frigidly cold dark color. Also, there are parts of the design than could be similar to fire "licks". The movie that was on while I sewed was The Flight of the Phoenix, the original best version. Elements of the motifs made me think of the ancient Phoenix as it rises from the ashes (fire again). So there you have it.

The pattern is nothing special.....something from a commercial pattern manufacturer, but a shape that I wanted to try, none the less.

On a Roll Now with Another Bag

Making bags, for me, is like eating potato chips for most people. You can't stop at just one. And this week has been not different. After the hoodie project was finished and blogged, I couldn't stop. Next came the recycled jean bag that can be called nothing but "Hot Lips".

Jeans are the main staple of my wardrobe and it truly hurts me when I must give up a pair as unsuitable for wear in public. So, remembering fondly the jean purses my mother made me in the 70's, I recycled my latest cast-off pair of denims. There was not pattern, simply an idea of size and the best use of the pockets on the jeans. I couldn't resist the lining fabric with the pink, purple and orange lips. It was a piece that I picked up on a fabric shopping trip with no plans in mind. The shoulder strap is the inseam of the jeans, backed with lining fabric.

I love Ed Hardy designs and hearts and wings and could not resist sticking this little heart "tattoo" on the front.

Brilliant idea!

At long last, the dark days of winter are over. I worked so much with my hands for the holidays that I had to take a break for a while, but I am now back and have tons of ideas and supplies. Even though I was not crafting, I was still shopping and creating in my head. Here is the first of what I hope are a flurry of new items.

In my continuing effort to perfect my own purse/totebag/accessory patterns, I have been working on some sweatshirt purse patterns. Being larger than a 2X, I always struggle with wanting the t-shirts and sweatshirts that market our life interests and accomplishments but know that they are never available in my size. I long to support breast cancer, my favorite music group, my latest tourist stop or festival event but the shirts never are large enough. But I buy them none the less in smaller quantities than if I could wear them. I hope some day to be able to wear them or use them in some way. And I finally came up with a way!

I've developed a sweatshirt purse. I have not displayed those prototypes here due to their need of tweaks, but this one I could not pass up sharing. A very dear couple were expecting a baby and she works at the same institution as myself as the Athletic Director's Administrative Assistant. So what better way to use the sweatshirts that I crave AND make her a serviceable gift than to make a sweatshirt diaper bag! After a week of deliberation, sketching and thinking then 2 weeks of careful cutting and construction, I finally completed it. And it is absolutely wonderful!

The sweatshirt came from the local Walgreen's, making it reasonably priced (should the project end up on the sewing room floor) and the lining fabric from Hancock's. But the rest is all me.

Notice the extra design elements:

• the sleeve embroidered logo displayed on the base of the strap
• the use of the chest embroidered logo on the front flap
• the use of a sleeve cuff on the bottle pocket
• the use of the hood (embroidered with the team name) and accompanying drawstring as the front pocket
• the use of the kangaroo pocket on the back

This was incredibly fun and I hope to develop this idea more and some day market my patterns.

P.S. I love, love, love Picnik and the ability to edit and collage photos on the web.

What do you think? All comments are welcome.

Indonesian Batik Sack

I finally reached a decision on what to do with the treasured yard of green Indonesian Batik purchased from Batiks By Design at the Paducah AQS show. After much deliberation and study, I chose a bag pattern borrowed from my mother. It was a "fat quarter friendly" pattern purchased, but never used, from several years ago. I forget the name of the company at the moment. My greatest concern was to use a bag style that would show off the whole border print to it's best advantage. Even though this pattern was written for fat quarters, I was able to adapt it to regular yardage and had enough left over to use the batik as the lining as well.

The bag pattern was very easy and was a simple shape. I created my own pocket on the back side (not showing) and didn't use the velcro closure on the tab as instructed. Because after all, its against my principles to duplicate someone else's items. The whole fun of crafting and sewing is to add your own personal style to each item. I'm all about one-of-a-kind and unique items.

Batiks By Design recently opened a retail store in my town. I'm pretty excited about it. I had to purchase a couple more batiks at the grand opening along with this fat quarter in red. I picked up the idea for this key chain off a blog that I read about sewing, CraftGossip.com. One post was about creating keychains with fabric and elastic and if it is one thing I like better than bags, its keychains.

So, be on the look out for more posts as the holidays are coming up and I have been busy churning out home-made gifts and as always, the post-holiday season includes time off. Plans are already turning in my creative mind and supplies are being stockpiled. I made a huge discovery at Rural King. I'm leaning toward bags for that. Wait til you see!

And I have also been inspired by portrait quilts seen on Quilting Arts in the past couple of months. Hmmm, now to figure out whose face/picture to start with.

Crash and Burn

I had to take a break from the sewing machine to direct Vacation Bible School. Now that is over and its time to get back to hobbies! I love the purse pocket and the pursekets design idea. I bought a pattern at the last Quilt Show....spent hours making myself one.....love it, love it, love it. But HATED the pattern. And I'm telling you I can figure out most anything. But that pattern was awful. "To complete the large version, repeats steps 21-24 twice" and then "For smaller version, skip to step 34". I kept losing my place and getting confused. I also could not get all the pieces out of the yardage that it required.

Needless to say, my second attempt at the purse pockets pattern for a version for a friend ended in a horrible crash-and-burn. I tried and tried and persevered and worked and only succeeded in making my blood pressure go up. So, I finally admitted defeat, wadded it up and threw it in the trash. (I pulled it back out long enough to take a photo of the horrible thing!) And here it is above.

Thus begins my search for a pattern for an equally useful purse insert with both better construction techniques and pattern instructions.

Bleck! Onward and upward to the next project!

Neon Forest Patch Bag

Here is the Patch Me If You Can bag from Tammy Tadd Designs.......modified! I took 3 inches out of the body width of the bag. An 18 1/2" wide bag is just too big for me. And of course, I use prequilted fabric for the exterior, not patchwork.

I like several of the design elements of this bag, but they are proving to be a problem in functionality. I liked the straps and loop configuration but my strap knots keep slipping through the loop so I have temporarily fixed it by tying a knot. And that slips too. Either I carry too much junk (what would I have carried in an 18 1/2" bag!) or my straps are not fat enough (go figure, didn't know I had anything not fat enough!) or I just have high hopes......I think I need to convert to a buttonhole and large neon button. I always love a chance to innovate and personalize. And this pattern has definite potential.

This project sets me back a little. I have a prize piece of Indonesian batik fabric I had intended to become Patch Bag #2, but now I'm not so sure it is the best use of that fabric. So.....I must ponder some more. Ahhhhhh, the creative process.......