Mock Up

Mock Up. Ysterday I had an Ah Ha Moment. I was drafting out a small hip bag to carry cash, cards and my phone for our Vegas trip. Who wants to carry a ten pound purse running around Vegas. The measurements kept coming out weird. So I decided to make a mock up with card stock. I used two colors trying to lay out the size and the pockets.

Picture One is the outside of the lining with all the stitch markings, so I could see if the size fit what I wanted. The first version ended up too big, using the weird measurements from my drafting on paper. So I quickly cut it down to better match what I wanted.








pictures 2 and 3 are the insides of the lining folded out. Picture 2 shows the cash pocket on the left and the ID pockets on the right. Picture 3 shows and up close of the draft of the ID pockets. Now I have a full size template/pattern to cut out my fabric with. I didn't use full size paper for the folded pockets, but I also have the width measurements from the cash pocket.

I also made another tote bag yesterday for my daughter. The outer fabric is called bark cloth. It had a nubby texture to it, Because the pattern was Hawaiian. I decided to "Aloha", the pocket.

I looked up Hello on the computer and got a link to 800 words for hello in foreign languages. I added a bunch for the embroidered pocket, except I got a thread tornado under the third from the last hello. So my daughter gets a bag without embroidery. I'll fix the stablizer problem and make another bag with Hello, I have a great green fabric and maybe the lettering in a matching green.

My kitchen smells so good I could drool. The Nesco is cooking a Prime Rib roast. We're having our delayed Christmas dinner with our Army Son. I've been wrapping presents. At least I remembered to take pictures before I wrapped the last tote.

Feeling better

Catching you up on my week.

Saturday I found the best colored chopsticks for turning. I love the colors. I use drink mix containers all over my sewing room, they hold my rotary cutter perfect. I also have one my lint brush/roller fits in like a glove. No more stuck to everything.

Late Saturday night our son came home on leave from the Army. He got back to the states from Iraq mid-January. His unit sent our a letter that the guys could not start leave until 20 Feb, but then they would have 4 weeks.
Sunday was church and family dinner. It was great I had to pull out the leaves for the table to sit all eight of us at the table.

Monday












I made another tote bag for sale. K picked out this nice hawaiian print from http://www.hawaiianfabric.com/


They even make a Hawaiian Shirt to order. Love them. I ordered matching Hawaiian shirts for the hubby and I for our Vegas trip.













Fussy cut the fabric to have the medalion sit in the middle of the back. The quote is Psalms 91:11.

Tuesday I finished the tote and was playing with a tutorial I found on Fat Quarters at http://www.sewmamassew.com/

I used two Diet Coke fat quarters. Quick and easy. iPod holder or Camera case. My camera fit great. This makes me want to sew a bunch of theses to clean up my laptop bag. I have loose parts every where. I had made a holder for my loose parts out of a firm placemat. I'll have to see if I can find that picture or maybe take another. The placemat holders were quick and easy, embarassingly easy. Fold and sew.

Wednesday. Nail day again. Fabulous nails. Then the history center, when I showed someone how to get started searching her genealogy.

I got home and found out the Hubby and Army son bought a car. My son saved money while in Iraq to buy a car. I wanted them to wait for me, because my hubby pays full price, no dickering for him. The boy is happy. He'll have to drive it back to Texas from Minnesota, but he's excited about that. He said, writing the big check was tough. I checked blue book this morning, they got a good deal on the Ford 500.

Thursday (Today) I spent getting Insurance and the car ready. This afternoon is about my blog and my paperwork. I bought a copy of Quickbooks, for tracking my receipts and such. The accountant's recommendation. Oh yah, I went to the accountant on Tuesday morning, between runs to the auto repair shop for the teenage daughter.

Can't believe its been two weeks

Hi, long time no snarffle. I got a whopper of a cold and have been hacking and snarffling for over 10 days now.

So last time we talked I was up two days in a row of sewing. Normally my Weds are crazy. I meet friends for breakfast at 930 and then shop. At Noon (every other week) is Nail Day.

Happy Nail Modeling and fancy fingers. lol

Under my hand is the latest tote.

This was made for a friend as a thank you. I'll write more about this tote and such in a few days. I'm writing a tutorial on how I make these totes. I was asked to teach a class on the bag for the ladies at church. I agreed, except the embroidery part. That's my thing.

My girlfriend and I spent Thursday, playing with fabric and designing her tote bags. It was crazy with no actual sewing done.

This is one of the samples we measured and diagrammed as an option.The sides had edge stitching to make the bag more boxy. They added a hard bottom and using weird bais tape sewed it in. I may have to try this.

Then Friday I woke up with an awful cold. and lost a week. When you can't move your head with out your sinuses sloshing, sewing is not on your list of things to do.

Busy day even got to sew for three hours

Three days of sewing in a row. I got up and dressed early. Packed up my sewing machine and laptop into the car. I meet some friends for breakfast at a place called the Wild Hare cafe. Great hot chocolate. Then I ran to Ben Franklin and got some necessities, but left my "need it list" at home by accident. I was so surprised that they didn't have an small ruler, like I lost yesterday. but luck would have it I found the lost critter. It was in my To Go sewing box.

So after Ben Franklin it was nail day. It's so nice to have nice nails. Then at 1-4, I volunteer at church in our family history center, but nobody has been coming in to use the center due to the weather. So I brought in my sewining machine and fixed two aprons that I made earlier for christmas presents to the nail lady. The bib needed to be trimmed. and the straps reattached. I had embroidered the business logo on the front of the apron. The tough part is the aprons were made out of Ripstop, which is really slippery. I also did some design work on the computer. I figured out the way to line up the stitches to attach the backing and vinyl, and also give me guidelines for cutting. I should have photos tomorrow of the finished project.

A friend is coming over tomorrow to sew with me, in the morning. We bought a bolt of natural (undyed) duck cloth. She wants to make tote bags.

two yes two sewing days in a row.

I got a second sewing day in a row. Wow that almost never happens. Love it when the weather gets bad. Its been raining and is now snowing, which made the roads slick.

I got my new Creative Embroidery Magazine in the mail. Lots of good stuff, but I was struck by a contest to be Green. My friend, K, just move back home from Hawaii, and was admiring my tote bag on Sunday. Because I like to try new things I give away the experiments and ask them receipient all sorts of questions, what they liked and what they hated, etc. When I asked, K what color her eyes lite up. She loves everything Hawaian. So I sent her to a great site hawaianfabric.com. I have/had two old hawaian shirts that don't fit right in my closet. (Not any more).

It was weird I ironed the shirts, before I chopped them up. While the embroidery machine was chugging away, I removed the buttons, and deconstructed theses tow lovelies.

Green is one of my favorite colors. Even if K decides on something else, I'm going to use these for my next bag. I need my Timtex. And green web belting for the handles. So the contest it to send in pictures and decriptions of how your project was Green. (get it, Green shirts). I crack myself up sometimes.

I laid out some great designs, I'm going to make luggage tags for one of the guys my hubby works with who is leaving to go to Germany the middle of April. I also drafted a Travel journal cover for him, but before I go to far I need to buy the notebook. I'm using some of the ultra suede. Note: use a topper when embroidering on ultra suede, my lettering was sinking into the nap, while it looks good, it could be better. I'll have picture tomorrow or thursday of the luggage tags, because I'm not done with them yet. Well off to watch Biggest Loser and sketch more ideas.

Sew Happy

Today was a great sewing day. I cranked up the iPod, sang and sewed all afternoon. I had to show you, my iPod set up, funny huh. My favorite of the week is Brooks and Dunn. Although I want to buy the new Wynonna CD.

The weird picture of my measuring ruler, is because I lost my ruler for most of the day. I have another just like this with a red slide that I still can't find. But I finally found the blue one at 3:30 this afternoon. You don't know what you need most until you can't find it.

I wanted to show you what I finished. The Embroidery Library tutorial for the sketch pad covers. So, I finished three covers that I had embroidered last week.


This picture is turned on it's side, but it's for my daughter what I also embroidered the dragon on a sweatshirt for christmas.






This is the modified inside of the book cover, I made two pockets to hold the book instead of only the one. I liked the feel of it better. I also added a pen/pencil holder to the side and deleted the button closure.






This is of a dragon and a wizard, from Embroidery Library, for my son-in-law. He and my daughter (not his wife) love dragons and drawing.

This is the two pockets and I made my own labels using the printer fabric sheet method, love it. I will change the color on the text to a darker red, but I was so happy.

This is the red cover I made for my doodle pad, I take it everywhere, it fits perfect in my purse. I added a pencil pocket (red). The fabric is a woven suede from Syfabrics.com
at $5 a yard I went over board. This was some of the fabric I thought was ultra suede.

I had sewed in a hair tie to use for the button closure, but it had a teenager malfunction. When I was showing off what I finished today. One tug and poof. At least I hadn't sewn on the button yet.

I'm thinking about making up a bunch of these and adding them to my etsy store. Maybe with matching totes.

Over all I am pretty please with how the tutorial worked out. The Embroidery Library has a ton of great tutorials and video. Today also included fixing a tote bag I made a few weeks ago. I used web belting for the straps and forgot to scorch the ends, so it was fraying and climbing out of the bag. It only took ten minutes to fix, but I also added a label.

Life's hardest thing to do is to throw your hard work into the washing machine and close the lid. I used pencil on the duck cloth of the two blue covers so now to wash the marks out. Tomorrow is supposed to be an ice storm so maybe I'll get two days in a row of uninterrupted sewing. WHoo Hoo.

Non-Stitching day

I hate when the non-stitching days out number the stitching ones. I wrote out bills and then did a bit of cutting material. I volunteer at our local Family History Center. So I packed a bag to mark fabric and sweatshirts to stitch out for tomorrow.

Tonight is date night. Hopefully it will be better than ladies night out. My daughter, age 19 and I showed up and no one else made it. Maybe the cold kept them away, -18 below. Yes that is why my blog is call BRRmidji Designs. I need to take some pictures of the fishing houses out on the lake, we call that the second city on the Mississippi, Brrmidji. Bemidji Mn is located near the headwaters of the Mississippi River in the north part of Minnesota. We're half way between Duluth to the east and Grand Forks to the west. Four and a half to Five hours north of Minneapolis. Today was a heat wave it is 9 above. Tomorrow it's supposed to be above 30 degrees maybe I'll wash my car. Nothing funnier than to wash your car and then the doors freeze shut, with you inside. lol

Date night with the hubby is always good. I have an Applebee's gift card or maybe Green Mill. Its nice to connect for a few hours as adults. Our kids are old enough to forage of food once a week. The two left at home are 19 and 27. The oldest one is driving me nuts, he's looking for full time work after graduating from college, very very slowly. Our younger son is coming home on leave from the Army in Feb, for 4 weeks. He just got back from his second tour in Iraq. He wants to buy a car and saved up enough money to buy a good used car, maybe one or two years old. The hubby is having a good time truck shopping before the son gets here. I hope the small truck the hubby likes is still available when the boy arrives. I know the hubby will want to cruise the dealership parking lots on the way home from dinner. I showed him Car Soup.com, last night I got home and hubby was staring at the computer (my computer) and had to show me all the vehicles. He found car heaven like I found fabric heaven over the weekend.

Today was much better sewing day than yesterday, with my semi-annual doctor appointment. I had to donate blood, fasting labs, she took four vials of blood. I call that a donation. I'm diabetic so my doctor checks all the necessary levels. I'm doing great. But I want to talk sewing not doctors.

I finished the marroon scripture tote bag. I also began to put together the child's tote that I embroidered the other day. I finied the straps, and boxing the corners. All that is needed is to attach the straps and wash out my markings. The bag is inside out.

I also did a couple of sketch pad covers. I embroidered two more and began to cut out the lining and pockets on the red one I embroidered the other day. I alos set up to embroider three sweatshirts for a co-worker of my son-in-law. I had to adjust the font, because the S was cut off linda funny. So I cut and pasted to make the swoop of the s look like I wanted. I had to play with it so it sews out in the proper order.

Tonight is ladies night out. I will be picking up a tote bag I made a few weeks ago, one of the straps is coming loose. Sometimes I hate nylon webbing as straps. The end unraveled, which is why it came loose. I saw a trick on tv I might try. I saw this neat paint that is rubber, you dip your tool handles in it to get rubberized handles. I wonder if I dip he strap ends in if that would work better than scorching the ends.

Fabric heaven

Friday afternoon, my girl friend drove down to Minneapolis with my daughter. My Daughter had a seminar at the U of M about the MCAT (Med school ACT). WHile she was learning we went in search for a fabric outlet I found on the internet. SR Harris http://www.srharrisfabric.com/. After much going in circles, my friend can't read a map and I can't read and drive on an Interstate, we finally found it. This place was fabric heaven. I was in search of Ultrasuede. Anita Goodesign http://www.anita-goodesign.com/ has a couple of great in the hoop embroidery design CDs, that use Ultrasuede. Ultrasuede does not ravel, so you can leave the edges raw.

A few weeks ago I took a class using the designs to make checkbook covers, etc. So I bought a bunch of remanents. Each piece was 3/4 to 1 3/4 yds for $10 a yard. I was happy, it still makes me want to do the happy fabric dance.

I bought 11 remanents, two black. I makes me was to pet them and sew like a wild woman.

I also bought nice piece of decorator fabric, marroon, with beige flowers, for tote bag linings. I should have the direction for my simple tote bag up as a tutorial soon. I fold the lining to form some of the inner pockets. Everybody else cuts and makes patch pockets.

So now is the hard part to figure out what to sew on each color, I have the tutorial from Embroidery library to make notebook covers, but I want to add pencil pockets. I might have to make my own tutorial. The Emb Lib's tutorial makes it easy to mark and figure out where to embroider a design on the cover and maybe on an inner pocket. I have the CD with the in the hoop designs. Where oh where to start (petting the fabric of course).