My Shelves are Done!

My wonderful sweetie husband finished up my shelves last night.  Even though he had been on a class field trip with our oldest and seems to be getting the cold/sinus infection I had last week, he put the finishing touches on it and I helped him move it into our laundry room, which doubles as my sewing storage.

I was really tired last night but I still started going through my fabric.

What fun - I found things I forgot about.  I emptied 4 storage totes onto my shelf and still have some room.  I also need to do some straightening and told Mitch that what it looked like is not final, that I want to clean it up and make it organized, because right now it's an organized mess.  I kept storage totes for quilting projects and scraps and larger scraps to be used for gifty items.  So I didn't quite get as much on the shelves as I hoped. 

I have a shelf for fleece/outdoors fabrics (meaning hunting items for DH and boys), a shelf for knits (even though I have yet to sew knits), a shelf for wovens and the top shelf is obvious fall/winter fabrics.  I'm thinking about getting out my larger pieces of crafting/quilting cottons and storing them on the shelf instead of the fall/winter fabrics, but then again, fall/winter sewing is just around the corner and having them out will inspire me,

First thing first though - the laundry room needs curtains for the window and I also want to put a curtain down the front of my shelves too, just for the extra protection.  I think I found a piece of fabric last night that will be perfect for the front of the shelf.  I received a bunch of fabric from my husband's step-mother's mom when she cleaned out her sewing room.  I think it was a sheet sewn into a curtain and it will be perfect to cover the shelves and protect from the sun.  So that's first and I need to finish sewing up all the baby items I cut out on Friday to put in my etsy shop.  And it's time to sew some clothing again too, so I will have to decide what to do, but it's easier now, I just walk into the room, look on my shelves and see what inspires me.  I guess I need to organize my patterns too, but I'll get to that eventually.

Just Wondering . . .

Why is it that all during the day at work I dream about what I want to work on sewing-wise that evening?  I read blogs during breaks and get all this inspiration and ideas and add to my google documents with your wonderful tutorials and patterns I buy from etsy and then when I get home, I sit on my butt and play computer games after all the evening necessities are done (supper, kids prepped for next day, baths, clean up, etc.).  I can't blame my kids.  They are 5 and 9 and pretty easy going.  The 5-year-old needs something every once and awhile, but the 9-year-old gladly helps me out with that.  Hubby is easy-going too - he often cooks supper or we work together on it and will help with the kids gladly.  In fact he and the older son have taken to watching movies (and the youngest, Jacob is invited with appropriate movies) in the evening so I am really free for whatever.

But I just don't.  I sit in the living room with my laptop, playing a game and listening to whatever movie the boys are watching (currently on a western kick, but we all watched Back to the Future the other night - funny to think that movie is 25-years-old).

So what can I do.  I work full-time and have just a few hours a night free before I have to get some sleep to start it all over the next day.  I guess the best thing is, don't sit down in my chair - set up my sewing machine right after supper (I sew on the dining room table) and get to work.  I'll have to try it, but sometimes the motivation I had at noon is not still around at 8pm.

Something that may help is Hubby built me a wonderful shelf for Mother's Day to put my fabric out on.  First off I need to make a curtain for the front and fill it full of my fabric that is now in storage totes.  Hopefully just having the fabric out and organized where I can see it will inspire me in the evenings.

We'll see.

The Miche Purse covers I made for my mom were a big success but I forgot to take pictures of them.  I was going to post them for Made By Me Monday, and I forgot.  I think I have a picture of mom holding her purse with one of them on it, but I'll have to check and see.  She loves them and wants more :)

My very own messenger bag

Back in March I became the very lucky recipient of a new-to-me laptop.  My dad bought himself a new one and gave me his old one (which was less than a year old).  I was one very happy girl.  I had been using a laptop at home, but it was a small old one I borrowed from work when I had surgery last year.  So to have a very nice big laptop was a wonderful thing for me.

Of course since I now had a laptop, I needed a bag for it.  So I went back through my purchased from etsy patterns and found the Aivilio Charlotte Messenger Bag.  I think this was one of the first batch of patterns I bought from etsy over a year ago.

This pattern is very well done - essentially it's just directions as the pattern pieces are all rectangles that she gives dimensions for.  This pattern offers a small, medium and large version.  I made the large.

The first thing I fell in love with is the fact that you do all the prep work in the early steps and then when you sit down to sew, you sit down for awhile.  No up-and-down with this pattern.  You cut it all out, interface and pin all you can before sitting down.

I did get confused a few times, but after reading it through once or twice more it made sense (this is more on me than on the pattern).

I think it came together very easy and well.  I love the finished product and think the fabrics I chose (cottons from wal-mart) made a nice bag.  The bag is sturdy with the DecorBond interfacing and it fit my laptop perfectly and has lots of pockets for various things.  I started this one around 5pm on Saturday and finished around 8pm - I fixed a simple supper during that time too, so it goes quick.  I did my cutting and prep work while watching some more of the first season of Glee.

I carried it to my parents on Sunday and they ooohed and ahhed appropriately and my husband said "that is a really nice bag" very sincerely so I think they all like it.  I know I do and can't wait to carry it around more.

front view

inside of bag - lots of pockets

back of the bag - more pockets

I have a bunch of Aivilo Charlotte Designs patterns and I believe this is the second I have made up.  The patterns are wonderful and I look forward to making more of them in the future.

You can find the Aivilo Charlotte etsy store here.
Check out her facebook page here.
The messenger bag pattern can also be found here.

Made By You Monday: Hobo Slouch Bag by Ali Foster

I'm participating in my first Made By You Monday.  Made By You Monday is hosted by Skip to My Lou and I have gotten so much inspiration by looking at all of the posts over the last few weeks that I wanted to join in as well.

I cut this out a few weeks ago so when I sat down to sew on Thursday afternoon I was able to sew it up in an hour (I timed it because I knew I had a little over an hour from when I started to when I needed to leave to take my youngest son, Jacob to t-ball practice).  It goes together easy and I love this pattern as a purse.

I bought the fabric almost two years ago when I decided to start sewing again.  I have no clue who it was made by, I was new to all of that.  I do know I bought it in a great quilt shop in Wilmington, NC where DH and I were taking a weekend getaway.  I bought it because my mom is a breast cancer survivor (14 years in April) and I love all things with the pink ribbon.  I think it made a cute purse don't you?  I wish I had a little more of it to make some purse accessories (sunglass case, cell phone case), but I don't.  If I ever see it again I will buy more though.

The pattern is by Ali Foster who I first found on etsy and bought a lot of her patterns.  I have made one other purse, but have most of her patterns.  I can't say enough about how great these patterns are.  Ali Foster also has a shop separate from Etsy along with a blog.

Buying Summary - Week ending 5/1/2010

I think I'll start out my new blog with a sewing week summary.  I think I will have a buying summary on Saturday.  Sunday will be the sewing summary (because I do most of my sewing on Saturday) and on Monday I will post a summary of anything new and noteworthy I have seen around, patterns, fabric, blogs, etc.  Of course I will do other posts in between, but I like setting up a schedule that I will never follow :)

So here's my first-ever Buying-Summary, please don't let my husband read this :):

First off my husband did some buying on ebay earlier this week and this reminded me I haven't looked on ebay in quite awhile.  So on Monday off I went and I found some interesting things.  I ordered 3 half-yards of fabric and two patterns from sewnice1957.  I think I finished up my auctions on Tuesday and paid on Tuesday or Wednesday and what was waiting for me in my mail on Friday - but my order and the fabrics are lovely and the patterns are great too (like I need more patterns).  Check out what I bid on below and I will definitely be going back to sewnice1957's shop in the future!

Wednesday also found me on the McCall's/Butterick/Vogue website taking advantage of the big sale.  I am a club BMV member so that meant additional savings.  I ordered 8 patterns (again, like I need more), but they shipped on Friday. I expect them Monday so I'll post next week what I received.

Friday found me at Walmart, I wanted some fabric for a messenger bag I wanted to make this weekend and I needed some fusible fleece to finish a project.  So I came out of there with several pieces of fabric, some medium-weight interfacing, some DecorBond interfacing, a piece of canvas and some velcro.  Lots of projects planned for the future.  My WalMart ladies are so nice that I love shopping in the fabric department and dread the day we lose ours (though I hear it's inevitable).  The Pink and black design I'm making the messenger bag with.  The pink polka dot is actually on a bright green and it's for baby items.  The bottom piece is the canvas fabric for use in bags.

 So that's my week, now it's time to sew.

Using my serger for the first time

I bought a Juno serger after Christmas this year with money I received for Christmas.  I have been wanting to sew knits and other things and truthfully I just wanted a serger.  Well I played with it a little bit after I got it in January then I lost my sewing mojo and didn't use it again until now.

This morning I pulled it out and after fiddling with it awhile I finally got the hang of it.  I think I mis-threaded it the first time and that was the problem I was having.  After solving that, the serging went smooth and I made my first serging project also my first recycle/refashion experiment.

I started with this old dress (does anything scream 90s more than this).

Add to the dated look of the dress is the fact that it's a size 18.  In 2006-07 I went from a size 18 to a size 6 by doing Weight Watchers.  I have since put back on some weight (I'm a 8-10 RTW).  I'm not sure why I was holding on to it, but now I'm glad I did.

First I removed the buttons - I may can use them.

Then I cut off the skirt and cut it into 12.5"x12.5" squares. I serged the edges and there you have it - quick fabric napkins.  We try to use fabric napkins as much as possible and ours are starting to wear out, so this is perfect timing.

But the fun didn't end there.  I bought some green and tan check fabric from the remnant bin yesterday at Walmart for the purpose of making napkins, so why not serge them up too.  So from 7/8 yard I made 6 12.5 x 12.5 napkins and then 6 6 x 6 and 4 5.5x5.5.  The smaller ones work great for the kids. 

Now I'm off to start my messenger bag and back to the sewing machine.