Serger purse

I found myself with a mostly free day yesterday and a four year old who wanted to contentedly play Legos.  Whats a mom to do?  Whip up a one-day-wonder, of course!

Here is a little purse made from the scraps from Leah's quilt.  Its a small over-the-shoulder job for when you just need keys, wallet, and phone and want to be hands free.

The pattern is from 'Ready, Set, Serge' which I currently have checked out from the library.  It has to be returned this week so I thought I'd give it a whirl.  The pattern is so-so.  Not the best instructions or photos in the book and when they said 'serge through all layers' I found myself with about ten or twelve layers of fabric that was just too thick for the serger.  I'm not sure if I didn't follow the not-so-good directions properly or if the author has some super heavy duty serger that can munch through anything.  I finished it on the sewing machine stitching very slowly so as not to break a needle.  And that was after trimming a few layers away.  I've tried two projects from the book now and its going back to the library and not on my Amazon wishlist.  Cute ideas in the photos, good to look at for inspiration, but not worthy of the sewing room bookshelf.

I love the patchwork strap.  That was not in the pattern, but instead inspired from here.  http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2012/05/more-small-projects.html   I think those lanyards are adorable.  I don't really have a use for a lanyard too often so I made it into the purse strap instead.

Time to stop the one-day-wonders and focus on designing a quilt for a friend.

Also, lest you think I spent a whole beautiful day indoors in the sewing room, I also spent the afternoon outside picking rocks as part of a landscaping project I've got underway.  Morning in the sewing room, afternoon outside weeding and picking rocks.  A good mix, I think...   :)  

Two quick gifts

Here are two quick gifts for mom-friends:

A pincushion...

and a little cosmetic bag...

I'm thinking about using the pincushion pattern to jazz up our couch pillows.  The pink triangles are folded and stitched on top of the black and white for a dimensional touch.  I used the pincushion to figure out the sizes of squares to cut.  I think it will work for the pillows.  In quieter colors, of course...  :)  

Not sure whats up next on the sewing plate.  I have a quilt to design for another friend, and also want to try and make myself some summery dresses for church.  We'll see what happens next.

More swimsuit practice....

I also got to make another swimsuit for a five year old niece (or whatever relation the daughter of a cousin would be).  She's bigger than Grace but smaller than Leah so I was able to just adapt the pattern I used earlier to make one to fit her.  I've got the basic construction down pretty well by now so I used this as a chance to practice on the trickier parts of finishing the armholes, neckline, and the bottom hem.

I mustered up some courage and put a twin needle in the sewing machine.  That is a feature I wanted on my machine 'just in case' when I bought it a few years ago but I wasn't sure if I'd ever use it.  Now I can say I have.  It was pretty slick!  I love the neat and professional look it gives.  It took more than a little messing around to get the tension right for a curved seam on lycra fabric but I think it turned out alright.  I'll definitely use it again on sturdier things (ie cotton) because it was easy and gives perfect looking topstitching.

The second experiment was doing a lettuce/wavy edge on the bottom hem using the serger.  That involved swapping out regular thread for wooly nylon in the loopers and adjusting every possible dial and switch the serger has to offer.  Thats why I haven't tried it yet - so much time doing picky adjusting for one little seam.  But after lots of messing around I was happy with the results.  The pink wooly nylon thread worked well and blended in much better than the black thread I'm trying to use up.  The lettuce edge wasn't as wavy as I was thinking but its still cute.  Hopefully it looks wavy enough that it was intentional and not that I tried for a straight hem and did a terrible job!  :)

If and when I get a picture of the suit on the intended five year old I'll post it here.  Overall it was a good chance to practice sewing suits.  I took notes on all the different settings I used so it will hopefully get faster in the future.  

More beanbags... this time for pay!

A family member placed an order for 50 beanbags to use in a camp program they run.  See one of my first posts for details on the bags.  Fifty bags took just over 4 hours to make (spread out over a couple of days).  Not bad!  I used up some leaf/acorn fabric I got from my mom ages ago.  I was glad to finally use it and its sort of camp/woodsy as a bonus.   And, just in case you're curious, its takes an entire 8 pound bag of dried pinto beans to fill 50 bags!  :)

Table Runner and Placemats for Screen Porch

Here is a decidedly more 'quilty' project.  After all that sewing of clothes and swimsuits last month it was fun to work on this for a while.  I picked out a Jelly Roll from the quilt shop (I have always admired those, but never actually bought one before) and stitched these up.  Quick and easy piecing, a quick-turn finish with no binding, and simple stitch-in-the-ditch quilting.

I think they are pretty and will brighten up the porch all summer, but they aren't so fancy that I'll worry about ketchup or ice cream dribbles.  They can just go in the regular laundry weekly with all the cloth napkins.  (In the top photo, the runner has been washed but the placemats haven't.)