Twirly Skirts

So one of the Fabrics I posted about yesterday was a light purple/lavender feathery fabric.  I also bought a few packages of fold over elastic for the waistbands. 

Thirty minutes of cutting out the pattern I already made.  Then an hour and a half of sewing and three skirts are ready for twirling.

Here is a better picture of one of the smaller skirts for the twins.  I will try and get pictures in the skirts in November. 

Fabric from Spoonflower

I want to make my grandson ties, for Christmas, so I have been searching for good fabric for ties for him and his father, plus maybe my Hubby and sons.  So my age range is 12 to 60.  All the men in my life are into space. techie stuff and such.  I mentioned Legos fabric and my Hubby said Y"ah, if it turns out okay, he'd wear it".  I bought a yard of Lego fabric, from Spoonflower.

Then I saw the Minions from Despicable Me.  Love the Minions.

But when the fabric came yesterday, the images are too big to make good ties.  The minions are 3 1/2 by 5 inches and the lego blocks are 2 1/4 by 4.

 

So while I had some time between errands I stopped at my local Ben Franklin and bought a few fabrics to try.

Yes the brown is familiar, I used it to make a crochet hook case. I think the fabric will be good on the bias.  The green/blue has little signs, cabins, moose and bears.

Twirly Skirts are the plan for this feathery purple/lavender.

 

 

Apple Table Runner

I found this picture of a Table Runner I made for my Mom.  I hand sewed and was so excited to give it to my Mom.  She collected table kitchen stuff, like a cookie jar and pot holders.

A while after I gifted the Table runner I found it in her linen closet.  She told me she didn't want to mess it up, because I worked so hard on it.  I talked her into using it on her dresser.  When she passed away, I made sure this is one thing I grabbed to bring home. 

Embroidered Name Tags for Luggage

At church we have three girls in our young women group who are blind.  We decided to make tags for their bags for going to camp.  On one side is the embroidered name and on the other is their name embroidered in braille.  I digitized it myself.   I found a cheat card online for the braille alphabet. Using a period, I just arranged each letter and saved that.  After lined up each name I sewed them out. 

We also as a group one adult lady with a sewing machine to each young women, helped them make a tote bag for their materials to carry to camp

Quilted Carryall

The middle daughter and I saw this great tote bag while on the way to the Twin Cities.  We sketched it out and then tried to measure it without the owner knowing, based on the size and location at the booth in McDonald's.  It had tons of pockets.  A Busy mom of three needs lots of pockets.

The daughter went out and bought fabric for the bag, but she bought a knit/rayon, not a cotton.  The stretch took me a bit, but after a few tries, that didn't work.  I found the perfect pattern.

The Quilted Carryall from Craftsy.com 

After a few days of cutting and quilting I had my first Quilted Carryall. 

The directions were pretty good, it had you cut out each section and then you quilt each section
After all the quilting, you cut each section down to the finished dimensions (This where I had a problem).  The amount I cut off was a lot.  Next time I make one I will start with smaller sections, closer to the finished dimensions. 

Next you attach the binding to the pockets. Then you begin to sew each panel to the next one.

 

A new technique I had not tried was using web belting as binding for the top edges, it  held the zipper band to the top and captured the web belt straps in place.  I really liked how the zipper band worked out. 

This is the finished bag.  I found if I labeled each section, with a pinned on Post-It-Note, it was easier to figure out what part was what. 

My favorite part was the size and all the pockets, there are eight pockets inside and eight on the outside.  The end pocket you can see in the last picture held my big 32 ounce water bottle.  The bag stood on it's own because I used two layers of duck cloth and the fashion fabric, stray basted together with the batting.   I did lengthen the straps, I hate short straps holding my bag up under my arm to high.  You know when you wear a bulky winter coat in northern Minnesota, the extra three-four inches of a strap is nice.

Lamb Bag

A friend's daughter was visiting with her toddler.  During church, the toddler "A" kept watching my granddaughter over the pew.  My Granddaughter, "K" has a church bag with colored pencils, and drawing tablets and such.  I asked my granddaughter to c=share, she loves that.  After church service was over I mentioned that "A" needed a church bag.  Two days later I was rummaging in a drawer looking fro something and I found a partially finished bag.

It was a lamb, too cute, So I embroidered her name and "I am a Lamb of God" on the bag, filled it with colored pencils and notebooks, and mailed it the same day.   I got Facebook pictures two days later, that "A" loved getting mail and the bag was the perfect size for a three year old.

Zipper Crazy

I am a little zipper crazy.  I have three drawers of zippers.  But when I need a zipper, I can't find what I want.  I sorted the zippers by size.  7 inches and smaller, 9 - 12 inches and 13 inches and larger.

 This is the before.

This is the after.  In side each size drawer I rubber banded like colors and sizes together.  I also flipped them where the tops are at the front of the drawer, so I can see what I have fast.

This made finding zippers for the GPS bags the other day so fast.