Miranda Day Bag

Good Morning,

I am so excited to write this today. Yesterday, the Miranda Day Bag Class was held at my studio, with Karen Radding, The Bag Officianado. I asked Karen this summer to teach this bag and I had been waiting patiently until yesterday to take it. I am so pleased with my bag!

We learned a great new technique for making firm bottoms on bags. Karen did a great job of organizing the cutting and fusing process and we were done in no time. Our bags were done by 4pm except for whatever supplies we forgot. My bag just needs velcro for the closure. All of them are gorgeous. Here are some pictures. The zebra print is mine. We were all impressed with how the stripes matched at the seams. Not intentional on my part at all. My Threads magazine came yesterday and my button was in the notions sections! How cool is that!

Enjoy the pictures! I'll be back soon.

Merry Christmas!

I just want to say Merry Christmas to all my sewing friends!

My Linda Lee Project

Good Morning to you! I'm on a roll now baby! Two posts in a row! I should start one of those blogs like Julie did in Julie and Julia. That might be a bit ambitious on my part.

So I went to Topeka, Kansas before Thanksgiving to take a class with fourty or so other women. We learned about a new initiative to generate interest in garment sewing again called "Project Sewing Workshop". At the moment, a good portion of Linda Lee's popular pattern line called "The Sewing Workshop Collection and the "Shapes" collection that she put together with Louise Cutting, are in the line. Linda and her team are packaging patterns and fabrics in kits to take some of the stress off of new sewers when choosing a project to work on. Patterns and fabrics are available separately and I can coordinate other fabrics available from Project Sewing Workshop as well. She has a chosen some really nice fabrics and I am told that she is adding to the line all of the time. Fabric is available separately in 3, 5 and 10 yard increments.

So I chose the Trio Collection to work on when I was there. It is a top, a tee and cargo pants. I didn't really care for the pants.

I finished the tee in Kansas when I was there. They are really easy to construct. Its a cute pattern and something different. It is the first raglan sleeve I have ever made.

I cut the top when I was there and I finished it yesterday. I only had trouble with one step in the instructions. When sewing the collar to the top, they say to sew the back piece of the collar stand on first then fold over the shirt and sew it burrito style. I couldn't figure it out, so I sewed the same way I learned to install the collar in Peggy Sagers shirt pattern. I sewed the rest of the collar stand together. I folded under and pressed the top piece of the stand, pinned and top stitched. I learned this method in the Peggy Sager's Classic Blouse. From now on I would sew the whole collar in the same fashion. Way easier. If anyone know what burrito style might be, add a post, I may have to call the Sewing Workshop to find out what it means.

Overall the projects are relatively simple. I learned to flat pattern measure to adjust my tshirt and I did lengthen my shirt sleeves, the pattern is for 3/4 sleeve. On the advice of Linda, I only needed to lengthen the trio top. I might try the smaller size in muslin just to get a comparison. There is a lot of ease in this top. I will be making the two pieces again.

Well so long for now. Until my next project....

The Wine Tote

Hi! Happy Holidays! I know it's strange time to decide to start posting but I think I can see the light (or a train is coming, as one of my clients recently told me. Too funny!) Anyways, I did this wine tote class a few weeks ago and I made another one as a gift recently. Here's a picture of the original sample.

It wasn't a bad sample, but I bought this black and red fabric that I thought would look really good stippled. I couldn't convince any of my students to stipple so I thought I would try on this gift. I didn't have anymore of the insul-brite batting that the pattern calls for and I am not sure that you could stipple on it anyway. So I put regular fleece batting inside. Here is a picture of new one.

It is much stiffer than the original and I like the way it stands. The original is more like a bag. The pattern for this tote is available as a freebie from Bernina Sewing Republic.

I don't know how many of you are "seasoned quilters" but stippling is hard! In the sense that it's hard to not be so tense. I found, when I did this project, that I was a little less tense when I followed the beat of the sewing machine. My stitches were even a little more even. Overall it's an art that needs lots of practice. If you have any advice, add a post. I'm curious to see what other people do.

Have a great day!