Anthro Inspired Tote

I'm trying to teach myself how to mix prints together. I see pictures on the web where it's been done and it always looks so good. I tend to stick with the safe pairings, like a print with a solid. This is my first sort of over the top mix of prints. What do you think?

I'm not sure I have a "natural eye" for it, but I'm convinced I can learn how to do it. I think this first attempt isn't too bad. I was inspired by the Yunga tote at Anthropologie. Isn't it pretty?

Here's a few more shots of my version.  

  

I was first going to pad it well to use as a lap top bag, but during the course of making it, I decided I'd rather use it as a flea market bag. Do you ever change your mind half way through a project, or it that just me? 

It's really big and will be a great bag for carrying my purchases around. I put wall to wall open pockets on the inside to give me a place to toss my keys, camera, phone, billfold...you know, the usual "purse" stuff. And best of all, it's mostly all made from reclaimed or recycled fabric. The lining is a table cloth I picked up at the thrift store. The interior pockets are fabric dinner napkins. The daffodil print is remnants of the fabric I used for my kitchen curtains and bar stool recovers. I think the only piece of fabric that was purchased new was the animal print that I bought from the clearance area at JoAnns. Even the leather straps that I riveted on for handles came from the thrift store, (and by "I riveted" I mean Mr. ShowMe-while I watched), and the rings that the handles hang from are reclaimed drapery rings.

Do you mix patterns in your projects? If you have any tips or want to share your own projects I'd love to hear about them.

Thanks for stopping by!

Organizing Ribbons & Fabric

I've already posted about how I organized my beads, and my sewing patterns. Today I tackled my ribbons and fabric. 

Here are my "after" pictures. I recently read a post by Tiffany at Making the World Cuter, and she said you should start with the best pictures on a blog post. And since I'm still learning, I'll take free advice, especially from seasoned bloggers.


So let's start back at the beginning. This is what my ribbon mess stash used to look like.

Remember that roll of wallpaper that I scored from my mother-in-law's basement? I've already used it to make beads, sewing pattern envelopes, and covered a box to store my patterns in. We can now add ribbon organization to the many uses of the roll of paper. I started out with Oatmeal containers. 

 I had one scrap left from one of the other projects that was large enough for one of the small containers.

I marked out what I needed and cut the paper for covering with a glue stick. (I had previously figured out that school glue didn't stick to this textured wallpaper.)

I knew I wanted a slot in the oats container so I measured and marked it out down one side.

I don't have an X-acto knife. I'm really clumsy and think it would only be a matter of time before I lopped off something unintentional... not to mention painful and messy, so I opted for a serrated steak knife. To aid in cutting the slot I used my trusty sewing awl, (still haven't found a use for it in sewing!), to punch some holes along the cutting lines to serve as a sort of perforation. If you're brave enough to use an X-acto knife you could probably skip this step. 

 With the opening cut down the side of the container, it was time to get the paper ready for gluing. I made two cuts so the part that would have been over the slot would fold to the inside.

 Changing the subject.. have you made pattern weights? Mine are three washers glued together with E-6000 glue. They are the best thing ever!!! I use mine all the time!


So here's the first one all glued down and clamped till the glue takes hold.

 I realized I needed a longer piece for the inside. That first one gave me a little trouble, so on the next ones I made the cuts more generous.

I have a much longer tab here than I had on the last one. I also curled those center tabs the opposite direction from the way they wanted to go, so once inside they would follow the interior curve of the container.

 Here's one all glued, set, and filled with ribbon spools.

 Here's the final product. I can see all of my ribbons at a glance without digging through that messy pile. Much Better!

On to the fabric!

 My fabric stash was getting out of control, so Mr. ShowMe brought a couple of shelving racks up out of the basement for me. The ends of the racks were open so I wove some twine back and forth across the ends and tied it off so the fabric wouldn't fall out.
We drink a LOT of Diet Coke, so I cut apart 12 can cartons to make bolts to wrap the folded fabric around. I cut tall ones (14") for the back of the shelf and shorter ones (8") for the short stacks in front.

I used that system for the top two shelves. The very top of the rack holds shallow tubs for smaller pieces of fabric, fat quarters and the like.

The bottom shelf has some larger pieces that didn't lend themselves to the bolt system, like vintage drapery panels. 

I have one shelf finished. I'm still working on the other. Once I get them both done I'll probably do some color groupings, but for now, I'm just trying to get everything bolted and in place on the shelves.

What organization challenges have you conquered with your craft supplies? I'd love to hear about it!


Thanks for stopping by :)

Brought to you by the letter H

I've had a busy holiday weekend. Our hot water heater went out, so we had that ordeal to deal with... ok, that's a bit of a stretch. The hubs is really the one who dealt with it. But I did go back to The Home Depot to get a thing-a-ma-bob during the installation. Don't ask me what it was. Luckily there were two and he had one, so away I went with it in my hand, showed it to the salesman and declared, "I need one of these". But, thanks to my handy hubby,  now we're good as new in the hot water department.

I wanted to try my hand at making Gypsy Carpet bags. I just love the feminine look of them. I have a lot of vintage linen and lace in my fabric stash, so it's a good use of that too. Here's the first one I made. I finished it about about a week ago.

 I added a piece of vintage jewelry to this one. The flowers are the satin ones where you burn the edges to curl them and stack graduated sizes of circles. I had some vintage floral tapestry fabric that I used for the purse base and handle.

Today I finished up another one. 

I think I like this one better than the first. I looked up how to make ribbon by cutting woven fabric on the bias. I had linen pieces left from where I had cut away lace corners to applique on other projects, so I was able to use up the remaining linen by cutting strips that I made into the fringe. I used the same method to make fringe of some more of the seafoam green sheer fabric that I ruffled on the first bag. I'm really happy with how this turned out.

Then I was back in Home Depot this afternoon. The hubs needed a piece of lumber to fill an order he had for another barbed wire cross like this one.

So I guess this holiday weekend was brought to us by the letter H... Home Depot, Hot water Heater, and Handbags.
I hope you had a safe and happy holiday!

Potholders

I'm relatively new to the blog world. I know.. I can be slow about things at times. I had heard about blogs, but all you hear about in main stream media are the radical political types who go too far complaining about someone of some importance, or the occasional news story about the person who got a little too mouthy in a negative way about their employer and got fired for it. To be honest, it was the movie Julie and Julia where I really learned about the blog world. I love that movie! I wish I had found her blog as she was writing it and followed along, but I'm not sure I hadn't even heard the word blog back then.

When I discovered I could make purses, that lead to internet searches and the wonderful discovery of all the sewing and craft blogs. After a quick lesson from Mr.ShowMe on how to subscribe to a blog I was on my way. Imagine my surprise when I then discovered that these talented blog creators give stuff away! I've yet to win anything, mind you. I'm horribly unlucky when it comes to drawings, but it's still fun to enter.

One such blog, had a potholder making contest. Now I knew I'd never win, I'd never made a potholder, in fact I'd never even quilted anything, but we need potholders, so I thought I'd give it a try. I did this one by quilting some scraps together. It turned out ok, but a little wonky.

It's not quite as wonky as it looks in the picture. I propped it up on something and it wasn't sitting level. Here's a picture of the back.

Not bad.. but not great either.
I went back through my fabric stash and found a piece of fabric that I had fallen in love with. It was one of those fabrics that I didn't want to use because I was afraid if I cut it, I would mess it up somehow. You've had fabric like that, haven't you? But I got brave and used some. I did a fussy cut and quilted around the pattern on the fabric.

I liked the effect from the quilting like this, but it was still wonky. So after a bit more tweaking, I ended up with this.

I know! Right? I backed it with a rust colored corduroy fabric and seemed to conquer the wonky factor. Oh! And I almost forgot. For quilt batting, (since I didn't have any), I used an old mattress cover for a bed size that we don't even own anymore. And if you're wondering where the loop is, I didn't forget it. I don't hang up my potholders anyway, so I didn't put one on it.
So I figured out how to make a decent potholder, and I also learned that even wonky potholders will keep you from burning your fingers when you're taking a hot dish from the oven!