Bucket Bags!

Today was a good day for stitching! I headed for the sewing room right after breakfast and got out the pattern and fabrics for this cute number (pun intended!).

This was my first time working with laminate. It was interesting. I had difficulty with my tension. My teflon foot didn't help with that, and I really didn't have any issues with my regular foot, so put that back on to finish up. I added a zipper pocket and two patch pockets to this pattern.

This one was easier with regular quilting cottons. I also added an additional zipper pocket and inside pockets to this one. Love the fun fabric in it! I also started another bag, but it's not ready for a photo op quite yet - I'll finish it up tomorrow.

Bags made using Keyka Lou's Bucket Bag Pattern. I made the bags wider and added extra pockets to the lining.

Ella and the Art Caddy

I woke up today with a sore and stiff back, so I'm feeling a little slow and off-kilter. Despite that I headed into the sewing room this afternoon and accomplished a couple of projects. The first one was The Ella Carry-All. Aren't the fabrics cute?
I've never made an actual duffle bag like this, so I was curious to see how it would go, and it went great! The pattern is very well written and quite easy to make. The trickiest part was the round bottom and the tips in the instructions made it a breeze! Instead of using the pattern, I put my handy circle ruler to work, the ruler made cutting the circle shape a breeze.
Sorry, no picture of the final product - I dropped my camera :( and it keeps shutting off. I'll get new batteries tomorrow, and hopefully it will work again. For more projects by the designer go here to see some great ideas and downloadable patterns!
After that I worked on making the Art Caddy - super cute! I'm getting pretty practiced at making this pattern. There's a lot of layers and fusing, but it comes out nice every time!
One of these days I'll have to make one for myself! Now, it's off to bed for me, hope my back feels better tomorrow, I have more projects to work on. Make sure you make a few minutes to go enter my Give Away before next Thursday!

Fun with Amy Butler

I must say that I officially love Amy Butlers patterns! They really are wonderful. I finished the Weekenter Travel bag last week, and while there were some difficult bits, the bag is fabulous. I have to say that I do not like working with the stiff stuff in between (peltex, timtex). Not good on the fingernails, especially when you are trying to sew cording onto it around a curve with another layer of interfacing and fabric to shape the corners of the bag - you get the idea, I'm sure! But the bag came out beautifully, and I know my client will be very happy with it. And I did a fabulous job of matching up the pockets and the sides of the bag.

My next Amy Butler project will be the laptop cover - Sharan got a free sample at Quilt Market last weekend, so I'll be excited to work on it next! Plus I found a site with some free patterns! I cannot wait to get started making some of these great things - they will make great gifts!

What am I sewing today? I have a wedding dress to hem and bustle, and another 16 blocks to machine quilt for a quilt I'm trying to finish up this week. Won't be able to put pictures up on this one till later, but it's really a neat quilt. Not too much fun to quilt - it has a lot of embellishment - feathers, buttons, ribbon. It has 56 blocks with 1" sashing in between, so I stitched in the ditch all the blocks over the weekend (about 3 hours worth of sewing) and am now outline stitching the blocks. If I do about 14 a day I will finish it up on Thursday, and be able to pass it on to the binding person.

What I really need to do is work on the Round Robin, and the Row Robins that are all due in about 16 days!!! Yikes! Deadlines get me motivated, but this one is getting way too close for comfort! Time to get sewing - so hopefully I can get everthing finished on time!

Doing The Work

Last week I was pretty excited about the opportunity that presented itself - this week I am in the middle of the reality of making all those bags! Believe me, it's not free money, I will have earned that paycheck when I am finished, and while I do love sewing and creating, I also get tired and would rather play than work - just like any other human being. Not to mention I have a stack of quilts that I'd really rather work on!



I have all the outside panels cut and sewn for the bags, so right now I am working on constructing the bag bodies with lining. I am binding the seams of the bag because it's a nicer finish than just zig-zag stitching them. I have 7 of these done, so I have to do 9 more, then I'll make all the handles and attach them to the top of the bag. At that point they will be ready for the lining strip that goes on the top, a little top stitching and the bags will be done. I am also making matching tags, so those will need to be done also. I have to go get some grosgrain ribbon for those. I have made each tag different, to match it's bag as much as possible. These will make really nice gifts, I think

I also have a home project today. I bought my husband two 6 foot bookshelves from Staples yesterday and have to put those together today so he can get going on moving his music stuff to the upstairs room. He is really having a time with it because he likes to know how everything is going to fit and look before he gets it done. I keep telling him to think of it as a work in progress and he can always move things around later if he doesn't like it the first time around! So far I haven't had to do too much of the moving stuff (hurray!), but when he gets ready to move the stereo equipment I will probably be called into service. It's fun to see him excited about having his own space. I remember how thrilled I was two years ago when I got to have my own sewing space. I rearrange my room quite often, still haven't found the perfect arrangement, but it doesn't bother me so much. I got an area rug for my floor and it is fantastic - lot's nicer to stand on that the old linoleum that is in there, and really lightens up the room a lot.

Pamela - getting busy on those bags!