Necessary Clutch

I purchased the Neccessary Clutch pattern by Emmaline Bags as soon as it was released a couple of months ago. I immediately fell in love with the look of it but it recommends the use of a twist lock, which I did not have and kept forgetting to order. This pattern just sat in wait :(

As fate would have it, I went to JoAnn's a couple days ago to get some magnetic snaps and sitting right next to the snaps...twist locks!!! Eek...a magical new discovery, (when did they start carrying these?!). I was so stoked to get these home and start this wallet. I mean it was a complete sign right?!

Fabric choices were surprisingly easy, I had just finished the Lapin Noir Bag, and I had some of the fabrics from this bag left over. For the second clutches, I had some Amy Butler fat quarters that had been sitting around waiting for a purpose.

This pattern is so well put together, and the way it's laid out with the photo tutorials, I'm confident a beginner could do it. The most difficult part was cutting away the Peltex reinforced piece to put in the twist lock, I'm convinced that requires no skill, just luck and LOTS of patience (and cursing helps a LOT, well it does me anyways). Thank God that's like step 4. The super nice thing about the twist locks JoAnn's had was that the pieces were screwed together, so it required zero fabric glue or time to get them in once I got that annoying little hole cut!

I seriously LOVE this wallet....LOVE LOVE it. I want to keep BOTH of them but my hubby made me promise I would only keep the stuff I was making if it didn't sell. Since I'm doing my inaugural craft show this weekend, I have to wait to see.

Look at all the goodies you can stuff into this baby!!! It also doubles as a clutch and I know Emmaline has a tutorial on her blog that show you how to had a wrist strap if that's your thing but for me it's the perfect sized wallet.

I would have made more of them but JoAnn's only had 2 twist locks when I went in...how bad is it that I want to start calling around to other JoAnn's to see if they have them? That's how much I love this wallet!!!

Lapin Noir Bag

Have I said how much I ADORE Sara of SewSweetness' bags?

They are seriously amazing.

Every. Single. One.

When Sara asked for testers for her newest pattern, the Lapin Noir Bag, I of course volunteered. This bag, like her others, is very unique and practical. I love that her bags are just as functional as they are adorable! This bag was no different.

Sara's patterns are seriously so easy to follow and walks you through every step clearly enough that you can finish any of her bags, even if one of the techniques is totally new to you. I think the most time consuming part of any of her patterns is the cutting, interfacing and organizing of all the pieces. I think that took me just as long as the sewing did....but I HATE those steps.

This was easily an afternoon project for an intermediate sewer. I cut and interfaced the bags on a Friday evening and started sewing the bag Saturday afternoon and was done in just a few hours. It has so many pockets!! The exterior has a HUGE zippered pocket nd a small cell pocket to keep your phone handy. The interior has both a zippered pocket and a large divided slip pocket. It's a really versatile bag and can be worn as a shoulder bag with the bag folded (so, so cute) or you can use the handles if you prefer.

This bag is so awesome, I love it!!! I want to keep it for me, I need to make another one ASAP!

July? Where did you come from?!

How the heck did it get to be July?!

June was a complete blur around here. I feel like I didn't get a lot of crafting done, mostly just little projects here and there, sadly nothing that is even exciting enough to share. It was one of the those months that I feel like I devoted my energy elsewhere and quite frankly, it was a nice change of pace.

Around Memorial day, I drug out my summer clolthes and when I went to put them on, they were snug. A LOT snug. I stepped on the scale to convince myself that somehow these clothes had magically shrunk while in storage for winter and was appalled at the number. Said number was approximately 15 pounds heavier than the last time I had stepped on the scale. I wanted to cry. I'm ok with maybe 5 pounds here and there, especially from the winter, but FIFTEEN.

So, for the past month I've been focusing on changing my lifetstyle and getting back into a fitness routine. I started running again ( I still hate it) and back to journaling my food. As of the first of July I am down 4 pounds...it's a solid start yay! SO, between working full time and hitting the gym, I've either been too busy or too exhausted to craft much.

Now that Juky is here, I have a craft show less than 2 weeks away and since I've always worked better under pressure, here we are. Eek!!!!

I'm hoping July will be a month that I can start to find a better balance and I will start finding better ways to manage my time so I can do what I need AND what I want to do :)

Happy July :)

First craft show

I just officially signed up for my first craft show. What am I doing instead of making stuff? Pinning of course. Pinning all things craft fair related. Because that is totally more important than actually making stuff to sell. Wait...

I'm really terrible at keeping an inventory of stuff, most of the stuff I make is for a certain project or indiviudal or is a custom order (which I have 3 to complete still...eek!) so I have a lot of stuff to make.

Thankfully, I'm thinking it's going to be on the smaller end of the spectrum, and only for a few hours so I think a month to prepare is reasonable. I'm also hoping it's a good way to see what it's all about and maybe make some connections with some local crafters. I'm not expecting to sell a lot but don't want to make a fool of myself either. I wish there were a magic number of how much to make!

So, hopefully this will kick me into gear and get me off of Pinterest in the evenings. I work better under pressure anyways. Nothing like a deadline!

More to come!

Random tutorials... My summer must dos from Pinterest --

Seems like the more time I spend on Pinterest, the more things that accumulate on my boards. I want to live in Pinterest land, but seeing as that's not gonna happen I am just going to settle with finally comitting to do some awesome things that have been on my radar for much too long! Maybe by writing a post about them I will hold myself accountable.

Enameling Pennies. A friend of mine made some amazing earrings by using pennies and nail polish...The possibilities are endless!!!

DIY extracts...This has been on my list of to-dos for a while. I recently bought a stevia plant for my herb garden and can't wait to try my hand at my own Stevia Extract.

Baseball bracelet. I've had this one pinned for over a year, and I honestly don't know what is taking me so long. LOVE this.


Fabric Watches....how awesome to use up scraps! I always keep forgetting to look to see if I can find the watch faces without the bands when I go to craft store.

Chevron Table runner. It's no secret I am clueless when it comes to quilting, but even this looks like it may be doable for even me.


Garden stones...I want to have my three year old make one, then add a new one each year :)

Gah!!! So much prettier than the cheap terra cotta pots...and so much cheaper than the pretty pottery ones!

Cloth napkins....This is one I'm kind of ashamed to admit! I've still been using paper napkins, and for no other reason than laziness! I know I can make them uber cheap and they are so much prettier than the Brawny designs but it's not been a priority...but it needs to be! Shame on me.
No tutorial for this one, just inspiration. I knew I held on to all those old ticket stubs for a reason, they were waiting for just this! This would be easy to re create with either something printed on the paper in the shadow box, or as I would like to do but etching something onto the glass.
This is another that has been on my list, much too long! It needs to happen this summer!


 Now, I better get to starting some of these before I find something else to add!

Nursing Cover

I actually love it when people ask "Can you make that"? Because even if the answer is "I don't know" it gives me a chance to at least give something new a shot. I feel like my sewing repetoire is small, and I think it's because I often limit myself to making things in my comfort zone. So when a friend asked "Can you make a nursing cover?" although I hadn't tried, I was actually pretty confident that I could.

I perused several nursing cover tutorials (there are oodles of them)...thank goodness for pinterest, and after reading through a few, I got the basic components down. Really, they were pretty basic. I gathered my supplies and set to work with a few measurements. 

This was my first time using boning and putting on bias tape the "correct" way. I usually just do it the lazy man's way. I see now, I was really missing out. It was infinitely easier and ends up looking much crisper and professional.

P.S. Sorry for the terrible pictures...lots of rainy days and late nights :(

The baby's name embroidered on, per mom's request :)

The only thing I would change, if I make another, is that I would add some interfacing to the strap, the fact that it is merely quilting cotton with a bit of binding makes it feel floppy, and it doesn't stay as firmly adjusted in between the d-rings. I think some interfacing would easily solve this problem.

This was a super duper quick project, maybe 45 minutes of sewing (including the binding) and maybe an extra hour for the embroidery.

Baby shorts

A friend called me yesterday while she was out trying to find some shorts for her one year old daughter. She was frustrated that all of the shorts were around ten dollars. Have you seen how little fabric those things are made of?! Ridiculous. It takes less than a half yard of fabric to make.

So of course I offered to make some shorts! 

I had made my 3 year old a few pairs this year, but the patterns used seemed very masculine. I didn't want to buy a new pattern considering I was aiming to be way below 10 dollars for the project. Then I remembered I had just bought a pattern from peek a boo pattern shop that seemed to fit the bill perfectly. 

I purchased two half yards at JoAnn's of some gray quilting cotton and some girly buttons. Total for the buttons and fabric? 8 Dollars. 

I chose to go with the quilting cotton as opposed to a bottom weight or linen because I wanted something lightweight and didn't want to deal with the wrinkling of the linen. Also, all the linens felt very masculine to me for some reason...weird I know.

I cut all the pieces out and then read the directions...terrible I know. It was then I discovered that the 18 month size ran small. Really?! Ugh. So I decided to go with a 1/4 inch seam allowance as opposed to the 1/2 inch called for in the pattern.

They came out exactly as I had hoped and took a couple of hours start to finish for the first pair. This was the pair that I followed the pattern exactly as written.

For the second pair, I wanted something more basic so I traced the front and back pieces but took a lot off of the leg length. They are just plain Jane shorts but I think it works with the polka dots. I was able to get the pair from the remainder of the contrast from the first pair.

For the last pair I just used some bottom weight khaki fabric I had left over. The fabric itself felt boyish, so I added some pink piping on the side seams. 

Total cost for the 3 pairs? Less than ten dollars. Time invested? Less than 5 hours.

This is exactly why I need a little girl :)