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Kitty Patchwork Pouches

Kitty Patchwork Pouch

These patchwork pieces have been waiting to be made into pouches for too long, so this week I got my act together and finished them up! 

Kitty Patchwork Pouch

Both of these are the same size, which is the #1 pattern piece in this document in the Secret Stash.  These documents aren't full patterns--they are pattern pieces only.

The zip pull pattern is here.  These pulls are really short, which is great for small pouches.  But please be careful sewing them and consider making them longer for larger pouches. 

The cat print is called Whiskers and Tails.  It's still available, but I can only find it in aqua and lilac colorways.

Both pouches are lined in this mini heart print from Stof.

 

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New Pattern - Cord Keepers

Cord Keepers PDF Sewing Pattern
 

With a cord cord here and a cord cord there, here a cord, there a cord, everywhere a cord cord...

Oh my, so many cords in modern life!  These things are out of control, so let's sew some pretty little cord keepers and get them wrapped up and put away, or shortened enough to make them more manageable.

Who knows where the idea for this came from, but come it did.  At some point I realized the technique used to make the zip pull in the Intro to Improv Zip Pouches could be used to made these cord keepers.  It's hard to sew things this small neatly, but this is the trick.  Then other sizes started cropping up, and here we are today with a pattern for them! 

This pattern comes with pattern pieces for 3 sizes, and yes, if you have the Intro to Improv Zip Pouches pattern you might not need this pattern.  But you might want it anyway because the fabric pieces need to be a different size than the zip pull, these have interfacing pieces cut to a special sizes, and the pattern pieces in this pattern are super handy.  They have the interfacing outlines marked right on them so you can lay the interfacing over them and trace around the outlines, and then there is also some other info you'll want--like the best place for the print you want to show on the front. 

There are three sizes in the pattern:

Extra Small - This is good for earbuds or headphone type cords or any other cords that are  thin and fine.  Look how small this thing is and yet how nice it turns out:

Small - This is a nice size for small cords like USB cables for cameras or your phone charger.  One of these has shortened my camera cable nicely and there's one fewer too long cord slinking around my desk.

Medium - This size works for small appliance cords--iron, curling iron, blow dryer, coffee grinder, etc.

Finally, you might find your own unique use for these cord keepers.  I'm using a few of the ones I've made to get my velvet ribbon and vintage trim under control. 

 

 

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It's Scrap Bag Day!

New scrap bags are available...come take a look:

Quilting Cotton Scraps

Denim Scraps

Tiny Quilting Cotton Scraps

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Cherry Print Fabric

Farm Girl Cherry Pie from Riley Blake

The last of the strawberry print grocery bags sold over the weekend, and now I'd like to make a couple more in fruit or food theme fabric, but first I need more fabric!

I've made quite a few grocery bags in a variety of strawberry prints, and every one of them turned out great.  But I think it's time to branch out cherries.

The nice thing about cherries--besides being delicious--is they are naturally adorable so there are quite a few really cute cherry print fabrics.  Here are some that would be perfect for grocery bags:

Cherry Dot from Michael Miller

Picnic Party Cherries from Robert Kaufman

Tossed Green Cherry by Dana Brooks for Henry Glass

 

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Making the Messenger Bag into a Wristlet

 
This has been done for a few weeks, but once it was done I decided it needed a thicker wristlet strap.  Which meant getting a bigger swivel clip, so this project had to wait for a bit.  Then last week the larger clips arrived (along with some other hardware) and wow, they seemed huge! I wasn't quite sure how I felt about them at first, but by the time the new strap was sewn the clips had grown on me. 

Here the details:

• This was made using the Messenger Bag pattern, but without the cross body strap and with a wider flap (see next bullet point).  After many times of just carrying this bag when running quick errands, it dawned on me in some instances this bag would be better without the cross body strap.  The long strap is perfect for when you are walking around a lot, but if you are putting the bag down frequently, the strap becomes more of a hindrance than a benefit!  This is big for a handbag, so if you make this into a wristlet don't carry it around dangling from the strap.  It's just too heavy and the wristlet strap should only be used for securing the bag to you.  
• An extra 0.5" (13mm) was added to the cut on fold side of the flap piece.  The sides of the bag have some room for the cross body strap, but that's not necessary if you make it as a wristlet. 

• This one has the zippered front pocket from this tutorial.  A link to this tutorial has also been added to the sidebar to the right.
• The fabric for this bag is this Sevenberry cotton/linen.  This is nice fabric and easy to work with, but it is heavily surface dyed, so expect some spots where the dye flakes off or didn't take to the fabric.  Of course, the polka dots also hide these imperfections fairly well, so this is not a big deal.

• A few of these large swivel clips are available here in my etsy shop.  The strap fabric piece is 4.25" wide x 15.5" long (11cm x 39.5cm).  The footing is 4" wide x 4" high (10cm x 10cm) and the D-ring has a 1" (25mm) opening. 

 

 

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Houses Organic Cotton Fabric

This Houses print from Carolyn Gavin's Flower Pedals collection for Windham would look great in my fabric stash. :0]

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