Friday, January 21, 2011

Pouches to go!

Backtracking to Christmas, I decided to make good use of my sewing skills and produced a few bags and pouches for my step-daughters and other family. I love working with colors and trying to mix colors and patterns for a fun effect. I wish I'd kept one of these for myself, but as I was running out of time, I was only able to make them as presents. The tutorial for these great pouches can be found at the Noodlehead blog.

A plain linen type cloth with polka-dots makes up the body, and an inner panel with 3 different fabrics and an appliqued hexagon.
Same style, just reversed the fabrics a bit and used a different hexagon.

Used a different background fabric, a linen-type with fun bright flowers on it, and a subdued darker fabric for the center panel. To brighten the center I put a bright green hexagon on it and added some embroidery detail with light colored thread.


Inside the bags I used a fun purple fabric which I bought for 50% off in town.

Made 2 of these Charlie brown themed bags for my son and one of our good friends.


Different styled bag which is really easy to sew up, the exterior is all Christmas scraps sewn together randomly, and a linen type darker fabric with polka dots for the inner panel.


Backside of the random Christmas scrap exterior.


Another bag in the same style as above, but with brighter flower fabrics which I found on sale at Jusco's Pandora House (if anyone goes to Jusco)


Inside of these bags uses a dark purple fabric decorated with Japanese rabbits, this is the year of the rabbit!

And when I remembered it, each bag got a little tag on the edge....

Close up of some fabrics I used. All are cotton and bought around me.


I love making bags, I think so far they are my favorite item to sew up, but I made a couple of hand made scarves, and those were pretty cool too.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Some scrappy free-style log-cabin candlemats I made for small Christmas gifts. No pattern involved, really simple using strips and leftovers. Embroidery was mostly straight stitch using leftover thread from other projects. Threw some beads in for accent. Have never done the log cabin block before, so it took a few tries for me to get the hang of it.


Used a snowflake embroidery theme around the edges on this one.




Tried for a holly and leaves look with the beads.


Straight stitch embroidery is relaxing, no thinking involved, just trying to get the lines straight!


Tried to put some simple Christmas trees in the corners.




For those of you asking about buying some of these, many of them are originals and I don't usually make more than a few at a time. But if you see something in particular you like, jot me a note and I can re-do it for you, though probably slightly different fabrics will be involved.