Apron Thrift Girl

Stitched in Time - Felted Sweater Bag

Yesterday we celebrated my friend Deborah's birthday at the superb Peter Lowell's restaurant in Sebastopol. Deborah is my artist friend who makes these beautiful handcrafted cards using vintage illustrations. Last fall we worked a lot together including a craft show at a Waldorf School in Sonoma County. She is such an amazing woman who seems to know everyone and is fabulous enough that she often bring bubbly to our twice monthly craft parties. What's not to love?

I wanted to make her a present rather than buy one even though Dave is gone and my schedule was tight.I usually make this kind of handbag but I just didn't feel that I had the right material for the outer layer. I also wanted to try something a little easier.

I went to the bookshelf and picked out Alicia's book Stitched in Time. Her Felted Sweater Bag pattern looked like something that I could handle.

I have to share with you how much I loved making this bag. Oh it was of course stressful since I only started it at 7pm the night before the breakfast party. But for me to complete a bag the night before was something to be excited about. I love Alicia's instructions. They are so easy to follow and the way she writes makes it very clear on what step to do next. She doesn't leave you guessing.

The red & white wool fabric is another swap from my friend Jacki on Bainbridge Island, the cream wool is from a vintage felted blanket, the red ovals is a scrap from a wool sweater, the buttons are all vintage, the blue felt to secure the handles is from my fabric collection and the bamboo handles were originally attached to an ugly worn purse from a garage sale (.50 cents). 

The lining is Alexander Henry's "Spotted Owl" fabric that I bought from Pink Chalk Fabrics.

Alicia mentioned gathering the sweater material with the lining because she uses an actual sweater bottom edge for the top part of the bag. I tried to gather the wool but in the end was left with a lone single gather in the front and one in the back. Hopefully it adds character rather than looking like a strange flaw.

I wasn't sure how to attach the handles as Alicia suggested a different kind of handle in the pattern. I googled "attach bamboo handles to handbag" and clicked on images. A number of handbags popped up using a similar handle. I knew what to do. I love the information at my fingertips especially at 10:30 at night.

I'm planning to use this pattern again and again. Really....it was that easy. I can't wait to make myself a bag.

Some blog giveaways......

Sandy over at Reluctant Entertainer is giving away a beautiful piece of art by Kelly Anderson. What a generous gift. I'd love to own a piece of her art. It speaks so much of spring.

And don't forget to visit Just Something I Made not only sign up for the German Glass Glitter Kit Giveaway, but Cathe being her incredible giving self, has created all of these entirely FREE PDF labels for your glass glitter jars. Cathe and I have become close friends and I adore her completely and I still remember my first impression of her in that she just gives, gives and gives. She is one of my favorite bloggers on the planet not only because she is so talented but her writing is warm, kind and inviting. Please visit if you have a chance.

embellish

Shopping for alternative thrifted clothing usually goes quite well for me. With all my visits to the Free People rack's at Macy's (noticed I said visits and not shopping) and my strolls through Anthro, I tend to spot the more unique clothes on the racks of Goodwill or Value Village. As I am looking at tags, the nicer ones jump out at me. Once I went in to Anthro with a little notepad and pen in hand and felt a little like a detective  started writing down their clothing brands. I wanted to be able to spot them on the 2nd hand market so that I could still shop Anthro but only pay a tiny price for their very expensive clothing. My friend Lissa emailed me the other day mentioning that she was so tired of every shirt & blouse there being $88.00. Now 8 is my favorite number of all time, so I can understand the beauty of this price but I can't fathom having that much money to spend on a cute, must have but not really, thinly made, long sleeved top.

I usually have good luck with finding this look at thrift stores but I struggle finding interesting pants/trousers and jeans. The other day I found this pair of cords and this Japanese fabric from our local fabric store.

I picked up a used Boden top with some embellished fabric, beads and sequins and it inspired me to do this. Although I'm not quite there with sequins yet.

 
While you probably wouldn't notice I still have to say that the walls behind the trousers have only had one coat of paint on the bottom section. Our dining room where we are currently painting is one of the lightest rooms in the house and often the best place to capture natural light. Behind me all the chairs are up on the table and the china cabinet is pushed up against it as well. It's been like this for nearly 2 weeks. We are hoping to get the 2nd coat on this weekend in order to get our dining room back together. 

I went with a Bernina flowery stitch on the top but it was too hard to try to keep the leaf flat and not bunch up as it did. Being a non perfectionist I changed the stitch on the other three. Instead of a just going straight and a little dull I sewed straight and back stitched a little crazy and then front stitch uneven and so on. If I had to do it over again I would have gone crazy stitch on all four but I don't have a good relationship with my seam ripper. Or maybe I should add I have too good of a relationship with it and I prefer to consider us not speaking at the moment. So I left the stitches in because that's the kind of gal I am. 

I'm giddy with excitement that Seattle is getting a Free People store in downtown this November. I don't go in these stores to shop, but I do go in them to be inspired. Also, you have to read their blog. I just adore it. 

The Aqua & Red swap is officially closed and Sara and I are now matching everyone up. Sara is celebrating her 100th post (although she is sadly ill today) and she and I will be sending out your swap partners over the next couple of days.

school bags take two

Sorry for the extra long picture. I don't take too many long pictures mostly sticking to the wider kind. When I try to make the pictures smaller they tend to get pixely and strange. Maybe it is just on my computer or maybe I need glasses. 

Here is Keiran's bag. I found Cerys's mermaid fabric within two seconds of entering the store but I took 15 minutes to find Keiran's fabric. I wanted it to be somewhat boyish but I didn't want it too colorful or busy. He's a little past cartoonish dragons or fluffy bears. I picked out some lovely Japanese fabric   with scooters on it but the scooters were in a dark pink and I didn't think my son would go for that. He's okay with bling and dressing up in his sister's clothes but he has learned on the playground that pink is unacceptable. And if I dare mention it he will tell me why it is unacceptable for at least five minutes. For a little boy who waited nearly 2 1/2 years to really start talking, he has made up for it ten fold. He wakes up with conversation in him that he has to get out.

I had already cut the fabric for the french pattern from H-E-double-toothpicks but did appreciate Sarah's link to an online tutorial. I will certainly try that next time. With my already cut fabric and everyone's positive support to just do it without a pattern, I headed back into the craft room, threw the french book to the side and started sewing. I'm a visual person which is partly why I was drawn to the book. I loved the little hand drawn illustrations. Of course since they were missing out some vital parts to the pattern they are as useful as a recipe forgetting to mention to cook the ground beef before adding them to the taco shells. I had to close my eyes and try to see what steps to do next. Somehow it worked and the bag turned out as planned. It even has a very boring, thin brown lining. I know sweet Christine shakes her head at me when I mix my fabrics poorly but I am a tactile person. Oh and I love breaking rules of course. When I reach into a bag or purse, I love it to be soft and fluffy. Cerys absolutely loved the inside of her bag. I have tons of the yellow fabric left over and she keeps wandering into the craft room just to touch it before leaving again. She and I are so alike.

I will say that the best thing I did learn from this whole bag making experience is that I now can make a pretty wicked tote bag handle. That was the part that I actually enjoyed most. I was sort of scared of the handle making process. When I made my first ever bag I cheated and purchased an already made handle just so I wouldn't mess up on that part.

And despite Keiran not liking pink from the influence of his friends he did tell me this morning that the bag I made him was so pretty.

cousez ce qui ?

Being the last minute type of person that I am, I decided yesterday at 4pm to make the children new bags for school. Not that Trader Joe bags don't do the trick but I thought something more personable might be fun for the children. I made it down to the fabric store before closing and bought some a half yard of the Heather Ross mermaid fabric for Cerys. I found a lovely fluffy yellow fabric for lining which would match sweetly. Wanting to use my recent book purchase, I opened up this book and found a pattern for a ballerina bag. It seemed like it would work well for the extra clothing and shoes Cerys would store in the bag at school.
 
Here's the finished product.  It would appear that the bag looks simple and easy to make. Not. at. all. I somehow managed to get through making the handles but only when I stopped trying to read the pattern.The weird seam on the right is party because of the thickness of the inner lining but also because the pattern is just plain incorrect. I even brought Dave in to look at the handle I thought was something similar to the book and he couldn't figure it out. I said to him, "but you are the instruction guy". He seemed to think that because it had to do with sewing that he hadn't a clue. I sighed and continued on. The handles looked a bit like the photograph of the bag so I continued on hoping that they were the biggest challenge of the evening. I was wrong. It got worse, way worse and yet I still didn't get too upset. I would leave the bag when it annoyed me using the excuse of checking my email. I'd come back to the bag only to be more puzzled at what the author was trying to tell me. Liesl sums up this book better than anything I could write.

In the end, I had to go on basically sewing blind. I had to leave the pattern because it made absolutely no sense. She sometimes mentions whether to do something on the wrong side of the fabric, other times she doesn't mention which side you are working on at all. I was left feeling like I was a poor lowly newby seamstress even though I was sewing on a Bernina. It was so sad. I left it last night when it looked in such a pathetic state. Not even good enough for Cerys to drag to school. Somehow this morning at 6am when I woke, I had the nerve to enter the craft room and take another look at it. I took out some stitches to try to make the edges look better and while biting my lip I finished it. I'm not proud of it but when Cerys saw it I didn't share the pain of making it. Instead she made my day when she told me it was the best bag in the world. I love an 8 year old outlook on life.

Here is a peek at the inside.

Now the challenge is making another bag for Keiran for his first proper day of school tomorrow. There is no way I am going to attempt to follow the same pattern. I guess I'll try to make up my own and see if I can do better than this poorly translated french book. I'm not sure how I'm going to cope with the rest of the book. Maybe after a few mohitos it would be easier to understand?

Here is Cerys on her first day of third grade, Keiran for his Kindergarten (third year) introduction and Elffin wondering who he is going to play with when they are in school. At the moment he is moping around the house. I've been getting lots of fake smiles from the children recently when I go to take their picture. Keiran's smile is stranger than Cerys's. It's sort of plastered on in a weird creepy way. I was trying to get a real smile from Cerys this morning. I asked her to think of something funny and managed to snap this one of her.

Does she not look full of mischief?