A bag for my cruise trip

I am off to Florida and then on to the Bahamas on a BIG ship. I made a carry bag for this vacation from some beautiful Kaffe Fassett fabric. The bag has an inside zippered pocket which I am sure I will find useful to prevent losing little items.

Off I go, I wonder if there will be an fabric purchasing opportunities?

Litte bags and luggage tags for traveling

I am preparing for a vacation in a very sunny climate, yipee! I have made a few things from the patterns in Made for Travel by Mary Mulari.
The one at the left is made out of a cherished piece of my favorite fabric. I have had it for many years. I sure wish I knew where to get more.

The one below, with the bobby pins, is for my sister who is a hairdresser.











I have also made a couple of bright luggage tags, hopefully to help us find our luggage at the airport baggage claim area.

Cream puffs

Happy New Year!
I had a hankering for a Sanders hot fudge cream puff sundae, so this became our special New Years day dessert. Made here with peppermint ice cream. Yum!

Fabric gift bags and wabi sabi

I like the idea of using fabric to create gift bags, I only managed to do a couple this year. My son's girlfriend is a beginning sewer so I got a copy of Bend-the-Rules Sewing by Amy Karol for her. This gift seemed to really call out for a cloth wrapper. So, I made a crazy quilted bag for her gift. I wasn't sure how to close off the top, I didn't want to cinch it as you would lose the view of the quilt and a flap over would also cover the quilt. So I placed 3 sets of ribbons on either side of the top edge. Tie off the ribbons and you have a nicely decorated top edge.




I also made a gift bag for a gift exchange with my circle sisters. The gift was to be a wabi sabi one. Wabi sabi is from the Japanese aesthetic that emphasizes the value and beauty of simple things. A wabi sabi gift is one that would have a humble grace, not necessarily new, but loved. I found my wabi sabi gift at a local thrift store, it is a brass item which probably had candles in it (it had a lot of wax on it). I made a little circle of cloth for the bottom and put in this gift bag.

I was casting about for a good link to help explain wabi sabi and found this site. It is a non profit organization in Moab, Utah that helps people in the community by running a thrift shop, recycling building materials, and other activities that truly exemplify application of wabi sabi. Their definition of wabi sabi: "beauty lies in the imperfection that surrounds us, that new is not necessarily nicer, and that our discards could very well be our salvation."

Elvis Christmas stocking

Last year when my local Hancocks Fabric was going out of business I purchased some Elvis Christmas fabric. The print was set up to make a very large Christmas stocking. One side has Elvis with his guitar and a red background, the other side has Elvis just looking cool with a green background. Who better to make this for than my DJ musician son? What fun this was. I layered it with white cotton quilt batting and lined it with a solid white. I did some free motion sewing around the poinsettias and Elvis' profile and the topped it off with red and white polka dot bias. There was a small print of a stocking shape on the fabric, about 6 inches long, so I made that up to match the uber stocking.
Nathan loved it, we all shared quite a laugh. As you can see it even can be "worn" on both feet for a warmer.

Merry Christmas

Wishing you a Merry Christmas, In what ever way you celebrate this time of year, may it be joyful.

We had a visit with my son and daughter in law last weekend. Here is a photo of the table napkins, bread basket cloth and dog Christmas tree ornament that I made for them. 2007 is the year they adopted Sirius, so the commemorative ornament honors her this year.

Pieced Peace

I made another peace grocery bag a couple of weeks a ago. Here's the first one I made awhile ago. I donate these to my congregation and they are sold at the grocery store coupons table. I was told that someone requested a bag for a man with a peace symbol. I forgot to take the finished shot of this bag. So this is the most complete I can share.

Here are some along the way shots of how I put the peace symbol together. First I draw a circle and put in the center bones, I used seam binding tape for this one. Then I cut several little squares of a variety of fabric colors and patterns. I iron the pieces in place with a little bit of stitch witchery tape. I sew the pieces down by going around the inner and outer circle and then putting a serpentine stitch down the middle. The pieces of peace are left with unfinished edges on purpose, after all peace is not easy to attain.
Once again, my wish for you... May you find peace.