Tote Bag

Tote Bag, a photo by cmgsweet on Flickr.

Another tote bag, this one was made out of a canvas remnant I had found. I didn't use any interfacing for this one, but the seams/edges are all serged and the bottom has boxy corners to hold books, etc. while retaining its shape.

Tote bag

Tote bag, a photo by cmgsweet on Flickr.

This is a tote bag that I made to match my bible covers from an earlier post. I used my serger to finish the inside seams.

Now that I've figured it out, I love my serger for finishing up projects or quick straight line sewing!

Sorry for the fuzzy picture...apparently I don't get along wel with Instagram!

Sewing Caddy

Sewing Caddy, a photo by cmgsweet on Flickr.

It only took me a couple days of sewing to decide that I needed something to help me keep track of my scissors and an easy place to put small bits of fabric and thread as I went. This little caddy has a trash pocket and little pockets for my scissors, marking pins, etc.

New sewing machine!

In December I bought myself a serger and a new sewing machine to keep at my house (old one stays at my Mom's).  I didn't get a chance to even open the boxes until last week between holiday travel and getting back to work (1st week of the semester barely leaves time to breath, much less create).  Anywho, in typical me fashion I jumped into long-term projects!  I've decided to do a couple quilt alongs and a weekly sewing group over on flickr and some other home decor type projects for here at my house.

So far I've signed up for a half-square triangle block of the month group from In Color Order, a sew along from Sew Much 2 Luv, a swoon quilt along from I'm A Ginger Monkey, and a mixed sampler quilt along from SewHappyGeek. 

 Here is my 1st block for the HST block of the month group.

Book Covers

Over the Thanksgiving weekend I also made a couple fabric book covers for my Bibles.  I saw these fabrics at a little independent fabric store in the town where my grandma lives and I couldn't help myself!  I've got about a 1/4 yard of each left so I'm going to try to make a small tote bag or something, but haven't gotten to that one yet.

The covers are lined on the inside also. 

This was my first project that really need to be fitted and a specific size (they won't work if they don't fit the book) so I was a bit nervous but they turned out pretty well.  This was also the first time I've used interfacing...I used the fusible kind but Mom's iron wasn't really cooperating so I ended up having to use it like the sew-in kind, but it worked out I think.  :)

The inspiration/guidance for these covers was this tutorial from 33stitches.  It is very straight forward and easy to follow.

Mary Quilt

I've had quite the collection of Mary Engelbreit fabric for a couple years now and after covering every surface in my craftroom/office/spare bedroom/woman cave that  I could find with some of it I finally decided to try to make the rest into a quilt for the spare bed.  I just got a new memory foam mattress for it so figured some new sheets and a new cover were only appropriate :)

This was made in the rag quilt style except instead of using a middle layer of flannel and then a 2nd layer of the cotton for the back I just used the top layer of ME cotton and a layer of fleece.  It is warm and the back is so soft when I'm taking an afternoon nap taking a momentary break from important must-not-be-disturbed work.  It took a few hours (I think 3 movies and a couple episodes of Jeopardy) during Thanksgiving weekend to do all the little fringy cuts, but cutting the squares and sewing them together didn't take very long at all.  I think the fringing really was the longest part of it.

I'm back!!!

After a little hiatus to buy a new house, finish up my Ed. S. in Instructional Technology, and take care of a couple other "life" things, I'm finally back!  I'm about to post a couple posts about some recent sewing projects and other craftiness. Hopefully I'll get back to a regular creating schedule in the new year.

Seaside Portrait

This card is for MFT sketch challenge #27. I know it isn't all that good, but I had fun playing with some different techniques. The cardstock colors are sahara sand, river rock, bordering blue and soft sky. The lady and dog are colored with prismas and oms, then I scribbled in the background with my prismacolor markers, trying to go for a soft almost washed look. All stamps are By The Seashore by MFT Stamps, the different layers are torn to look like waves or the tide line where sand goes from wet (river rock) to dry (sahara sand).If you are comparing this to the sketch, the flock of birds is the star, the water layers are the strip down the middle.Thanks for looking!

Saffron Flowers

This was for a couple of the Gina K release party challenges at SCS. The flowers are from Cammie's Framed Flowers set and the sentiment is from Gina K's Rectangle Greetings set. The colors are so saffron, old olive, and very vanilla. The ribbon is old olive 5/8 in. grosgrain. I sponged some old olive on the so saffron mat of the main image.

Certainly Pretty Chocolate Merci

This card is for sketch challenge 173 and color challenge 163 (certainly celery, pretty in pink, chocolate chip) on SCS. The ink is chocolate chip and certainly celery (just a little celery peeking out from behind the pink pattern paper on the green panel), some piercing. Stamps on main image are from Merci (SAB 2008), and Baroque Motifs on the green panel. Both peices of Pretty in Pink are patterned papers.