Craft Room

I've been seeing a lot of pictures on flickr of people's craft rooms, so I thought I would post a picture of mine, now that there are some things up on the walls. Eventually I want to make a skirt to cover the underside of my table, but for now, this is it. I love the swatch portraits that I put up. I also did the scrapbook papers in frames, which you can see in this picture:


And here's a close up of the swatch portraits:


I've also been working on my apple print jacket, I put the band on and tonight I'm going to work on the sleeves. Hopefully it will be done soon!

Progress....No Progress

As you can gather from the title of this post, I was making progress on some projects, but now I'm making none! I started to work on the jacket I talked about in my last post. I found that I had already applied the interfacing and done all of the staystitching. So, I put the front and back together and was about to apply the top band when I discovered that the apple print on the band would end up showing upside down when the jacket was done. Luckily I had some of the fabric left and I did cut out new pieces to solve this problem. However, I don't have the lightweight interfacing I need, so at some point today or tomorrow I need to go to Joann's.
Here is what I have so far:

I also tried making another Artsy Clutch, but it didn't turn out good and I decided that today is just not my day for sewing projects! However, last night I did work on some projects for my sewing room. Here are some things that are waiting to be hung:

The swatch portrait idea came from this post on the Purl Bee. The framed pictures are scrapbook papers in cheap frames from Michael's. The pink clock is from Target. Love that! Special thanks to Craft Bug...I had the idea for the swatch portraits and the scrapbook paper in frames for a while, but when I saw this post where it was actually done, it inspired me to get moving and do it!

Last picture is of all the things I got at Joann's and Michael's recently (actually, I got more fabric at Joann's than is shown in this pic...and it was all on clearance!).

The rose fabric is for an ipod pillow for my bedroom, the other fabric covered a cheap basket, there are the scrapbook papers I used above, a pink fat quarter (I can't resist fat quarters when they are only $1), ric rac, cupcake print ribbon, a Martha Stewart jewelry project and cute little tins that would be great for putting magnets in for gifts. I'm sure you will see all of these in upcoming projects!

Fabulous Frenchy

Here it is, my finished Amy Butler Frenchy Bag. It came out SO GOOD! I have previously made the handbag version (you can see a picture and a review I wrote of the pattern here) so this time around I made the shoulder bag. It's huge! The fabric is called Night and Day by Robert Kaufman, I bought it from this Etsy seller a few months ago. The interior is polka dots from Joann's. Here's a shot of the inside:

This bag took one afternoon to complete, although this was because I had cut out the fabric and interfacing before. I already entered it in the U-Handblog contest and I'm going to enter it in the Craftzine contest too. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Next up is this Simplicity pattern. I cut out the bottom middle view in this adorable apple print corduroy before I moved and have been procrastinating about it ever since. I'm a little nervous about sewing it together, although it seems simple enough. I really want to sew clothes, so hopefully this will end up good. I'm going to just try it and see what happens. I'm hoping it will come out good so that I will stop being chicken about joining this group. Pictures and a review to come!

Busy Busy

Wow, yesterday was a busy day! My father came over and hung all new blinds in my house and also hung curtain rods in my living room. The picture above shows my just about finished living room (just need some photos for the walls) with a runner, coasters and a pillow made by me and some new curtains just hung.

I also hung curtains in my bedroom and my sewing room, but since those rooms are still works in progress, no pictures just yet!

I had my mom, aunts and cousins over last night so for that I made a Weight Watchers dip and dessert. The dip is called Festive Feta Spread and came from weightwatchers.com. I forget where I got the dessert from, but it's an ice cream pie made with low fat Edy's ice cream. I used different ice creams than the recipe called for, but it's what was available. Usually I take pictures of my finished dishes, but I forgot. They were delicious though!!!

I also started cutting out my Frenchy bag. I need to get some interfacing for it, which I will do this weekend so I can get started. I want to enter it into this contest and this one too (provided it comes out as good as the first one I made!). I also need to hit Joann's for this pattern, although I just noticed it's out of print. Hopefully they still have some. I've been looking for a pattern for the pleated tote forever, after seeing some made online. Finally I saw this post on Craftster and she gave the name of the pattern! I'm getting it this weekend because of the sale, but it's going to have to get on the list of things to be made (which keeps growing and growing!). One more thing - I did have time to make the Artsy Clutch from Bend the Rules Sewing (love this book!). I have so much of this fabric I think I'm going to make a whole set of things from it :-)

That's it for now, hopefully new projects and pictures to come this week!

A Small Project

I had the weekend off from work, so I got to spend some quality time in my sewing room. I made this, a card case. I have been working on perfecting this for ages. It looks so simple, but it had some quirks, mainly applying the snap. However, this is as close to perfect as I have gotten. I see these all over Etsy and I knew I could make my own. I definitely plan on making more of these, both for me and for gifts. I even got a compliment on it from a salesgirl at Bed Bath and Beyond!! The fabric is from Joann's and the lining is Denise Schmidt Flea Market Fancy polka dots. Both from my stash.

I also attempted a bird from the Last Minute Patchwork Gifts book. However, like many of my first attempts, it didn't come out that good, so I'm going to try again before posting.

My next projects are a table runner and some pillows for my living room, a black and white Frenchy bag and an Artsy clutch from Bend the Rules Sewing to match my little card case. Pictures soon! Hope everyone had a great weekend!!!

New Year...New Books!

One of my favorite things to do is to go to my local bookstore and browse through the craft section. Then I come home and purchase what I want on amazon.com. The prices there are amazing! These two books are my latest purchase and I'm so happy with them both.

First is Sew What! Fleece. I have Sew What! Skirts and I love the way it was written. Sew What! Fleece did not disappoint. I only glanced at it in the store, so I was so excited to see all the projects that the book included. The only drawback is that, as with "Skirts," the projects in "Fleece" do not come with patterns, they need to be drawn out by the reader. However, the projects in this book are so cute, it will be worth the extra time.

The next book is SEW: Sew Everything Workshop. This book, by Diana Rupp, founder of Make Workshop in NYC, is a must have for a beginner. The projects will satisfy many though, and the book includes ten designs (yes, ten!) and most of them come in an envelope which is included. Both books are spiral bound, which is fantastic for using while sewing. Make Workshop is now on my list of places to visit. Now, I just need some pattern paper and some patience.....

New Year's Day

Happy New Year!! Well, unfortunately I woke up this morning with a bit of a head cold. So, I figured that a tissue holder would be an appropriate first project for the New Year. I got the tutorial here. I used some of my precious Japanese elephants fabric and lined it with white and black polka dotted cotton from Joann's. I love the elephant fabric so much that I'm almost afraid to use it, but I'm going to work on getting over that. This took less than a half an hour from cutting to inserting the tissue. Wow, I'm looking at this photo and hoping this blog will help improve my photography skills! Oh well, I'm sick and this is new to me, so it will have to do!!!