• Blog

    Suede backpack

    September 15, 2010 - By 

    You may remember a while back I used a suede jacket to make a book.  I still had lots of suede left waiting for inspiration to strike.

    As the old saying goes…Necessity is the mother of invention….

    I needed a bag of some sort to carry at the Renaissance Festival this weekend that would look a bit more like a bag from that period.  After seeing the crazy expensive prices of the beautiful tooled leather belt pouches I knew I needed to come up with my own design.  I’d already spent too much on my new bodice… Did I mention how much we love the Renaissance Festival!!

    I must apologize for the poorly lit photos…it is a very dark and rainy day here but I just couldn’t wait any longer to share…

  • Blog

    August Dress

    August 1, 2010 - By 

    Wowsers…August snuck up on me. I had to quickly whip up this dress so I wouldn’t fall behind the rest of the Dress-up project participants.

    I call it the Summer of Love sundress.
    The fabric was scavenged from a pair of pants my son wore many, many years ago. I had fun drawing on the fabric with markers before sewing. 

    I was going to make a mini replica of my flag twirler outfit from high school but decided that would be just too difficult to figure out on the fly. Maybe I’ll make it for October…like homecoming. My junior year when I was a flag twirler was my best year of high school…so many good memories. Hard to believe my 20yr reunion was just last week! Although, I skipped it. 🙂

    Don’t forget to check out all the other August Dresses over at the Alice and Camilla blog.

  • Blog

    Scrap bag

    July 25, 2010 - By 


    I started this project over a year ago. But for most of that time, it’s been in a drawer..out of sight and out of mind. I had to clean out my sewing table (aka small desk I refurbished years ago) because it is now our aquarium stand.

    Anyway….I had intended on making a tiny little string purse for going to garage sales and festival type things. Since then I’ve discovered that I really need to carry more stuff all the time…so a bigger bag was born.

    An old piece of table cloth was used as the base for the random scraps. I used different colors of thread and stitches for a fun crazy quilt look.

    I decided on a jagged edge on the flap for interest.

    The lining is a re-purposed pillowcase. I wish I had the forethought to sew a pocket or two on the inside but when you’re winging it…those things don’t always come to mind.

    I did learn a couple things while putting this together that I’ll *hopefully* remember to apply to my next purse project.

    The only purchased item on this purse is the magnetic closer. I bought 3 of these a while back when I was making more purses

    Otherwise everything used to create this purse is re-purposed or scrap.

    A girl can NEVER have to many purses! Maybe I’ll sell a few when I actually stock my etsy store… It’s just an empty storefront right now.