The Choose Your Own Bag Adventure Wrap - Part 2

Self Designed Camera Bag by Chapter Fifteen

Graceful Kelly Bag by I've Got A Notion

 You Sew Girl Mod Bag by Thornberry

You Sew Girl (the book) City Shopper by Apple and Tangerine

Adapted Bag by Wild About Melbourne

I promised you more and here's the second part of the Choose Your Own Bag Adventure Sew-Along Wrap.

Lots more beautiful eye candy on the bag front.... oh, and did you see those tulips in Tan's garden? Oh me oh my.... bewdiful!

Thanks so much once again to everyone who joined in the fun. It's no fun to sew-along without all of you. If you didn't make it by the deadline, never fear, you can still finish off your bag and I'll add it to the sidebar (but if I miss it, please email me and let me know).

Flickr Group

The Choose Your Own Bag Adventure Wrap Up

It's the end of another lovely monthly sew-along challenge.

Sew alongs like this are really fantastic as you get to see an entire range of different bag patterns, featuring a huge array of different fabrics. It's a great learning and sharing experience for newbies, and even for experienced sewers.

Without any further ado, here's a little show and tell featuring the gorgeous bags... please go and visit the blog posts that I've linked to for all of the details.

You Sew Girl Hobo Bag by Seabreeze Quilts

The Two Zip Hipster by Little Boozle

Sheriff Bag by Finki

Ann Francene Dimmer Ready for Afternoon Tea Bag by Mistea Crafts

You Sew Girl Small Tote & Satchel by And So I Sew

You Sew Girl City Bag by Beccasauras

You Sew Girl Shopping Bag by News Views Clues and Reviews

 

You Sew Girl Large Tote and Satchel by Snailblazer

 You Sew Girl Large Tote and Satchel by Apple and Tangerine

You Sew Girl Baguette by Me

Thanks so much to everyone who played along, and I think we'd better thank Nikki for her amazing range of patterns, of which we've managed to include six.

You can still add your bags to the Flickr Group or just pop on over there to see more photos.


Now if you're looking for something to sew in September (eeeeek September already), Carmel from Solomon Sewing is having a Hat Sew-Along. I've signed up. It should be fun!

A huge thankyou to my August Advertisers:

 Yardage Design

Spincushions

If you would like to advertise in September, just send me an email and I'll get back to you pronto!

My Creative Space

I've managed to take over the dining table this week as I'm working on a custom t-shirt quilt for a customer.

Now comes the tricky part - as the t-shirts were all different sizes, I now have to make sense of the layout. I'm just waiting on some printed text blocks to arrive from Frankie and Swiss and I can get on with the job.

I had a couple of questions about this type of quilt when I posted a pic on Instagram so here's a step by step:

• Cut the t-shirt in half along the side seams to separate the back and front
• Block fuse a good quality woven interfacing onto the back of each printed side of the t-shirt (it's much easier if you have an ironing press rather than an iron)
• Cut your quilt square (make it large if you're unsure of your layout so you can trim it down later)
• Now that the t-shirt blocks are nice and stable and non-stretchy, you can just sew them in the same way as any normal quilt top.

There's also been a lot of this going on in the evenings. I'm working on something that's lots of fun and teaching myself new tricks as I go along.

The home of my creative space


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Spring Bouquet

It's only five more sleeps 'til Spring... and hopefully some much needed sunshine.

Sunshine arrived at my doorstep today when my new Spring Bouquet fabric arrived a day earlier than expected (gotta love that)!

Mr Limpy Houdini Attack Dog wasn't quite so amused by the knock on the door.

This is a Kona Quilting weight 100% cotton basecloth. 

It's a bit hard to see from the photos, but the design size is smaller than the Spring Bouquet Cushion Cover so that it's more useful for small projects and for my next A-Line Skirt of course.

I hope everyone else loves it as much as me!



  

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Yardage Design
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If you'd like to advertise in September, all the details are right here.

Choose Your Own Bag Adventure Sew Along - Baguette

Gosh things get a little crazy when you struggle to finish a project for your very own sew-along!

Thankfully, I had a little spare time Friday afternoon and I was determined to finish off my sweet Baguette.

Unfortunately the original fabric that I'd chosen for the base was an absolutely slippery slidey nightmare to sew with, so I ditched it, and found this beautiful soft grey wool blend in the stash instead.

Serendipitously, it was actually the leftover fabric from my You Sew Girl Beret  (pattern)

One of my curves isn't perfect, but it's perfect enough for me.

I used some lovely red chevron fabric from the quilting section at Spotty on the interior, and instead of making a short strap (like my original Baguette), I decided to make an adjustable strap so that I can wear it short or long.

I absolutely love how this bag turned out, and I'm going to get so much use from it. I can't wait to swap everything over!



You Sew Girl Baguette


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Sunday Snippets

Colour lighting up grey winter days

Oppy find

Ahhhh Melbourne... it never fails to deliver four seasons every day

Edna was a little lonely

Donna Hay Choc Fudge pudding. There are NO words. I had to buy the cookbook.

Clean. Neat. At least for one day.

Check out this brilliant APP named IncrediBooth found via Kellie at 74 Lime Lane. It makes little photobooth filmstrips. I've made a collage of five strips lined up here.

Sunday Snippets with Tinniegirl

Lifesavers.... get a HOLE lot more out of life

A couple of weeks ago I made a frivolous purchase of nailpolish. I haven't worn nailpolish for years, and have no intention of wearing it at the moment, but while waiting at the chemist, I just couldn't resist those colours. I was completely seduced by their point of sale marketing.


It's been sitting on the kitchen bench ever since... just waiting.

The eldest nephew was visiting earlier this week and he needed to make a gift for a friend, so I suggested that we make a necklace.

We used some really pretty silver chain and findings from my stash, and we painted a washer with the different colours of nailpolish to make a pendant.

When I posted this pic on instagram, Carmel mentioned that it looked like a Lifesaver, and it totally does too!

Photo courtesy of My Poppet and Just B

In a complete moment of serendipity, Cintia from My Poppet posted a DIY Neon Pop Necklace tute using nailpolish on the same day.

The gift was a hit, so I decided to make another for myself.

In pink and orange of course.. it's a bit of fun and something different!

My Creative Space

In my creative space today... Frances is modelling a calico toile of a shrug / stole

Carly is heading to Sydney next month for the Layne Beachley Aim For The Stars Foundation 'A White Night' Gala Fundraising Ball as one of this years grant recipients.

I soooooo wish that I could go too because I would love to meet Kirk Pengilly (and Layne of course).

She has a beautiful new dress, but she couldn't find anything appropriate to wear over the top to stay warm.

After lunch on Sunday, we decided to go fabric hunting.

Rathdowne Remnants was closed, GJ's was closed, Spotlight was errrr ummmm Spotlight, so we headed into Clegs in the city.

Carly chose this beautiful soft merino fabric and some diamonte trim and sparkly buttons.

Fingers crossed I can do it justice!

More Creative Spaces


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Off on a tangent... but I made a BAG

Why is it that when you have a billion (OK that might be a slight exaggeration) things on the MUST do list, that you take off on a completely different tangent?

I seem to be having trouble focussing on getting any one task finished at the moment. There are a multitude of half finished projects strewn about the place, more fabric designs in progress, and more new fabric already off being printed.

Some days I wish I had a clone so that I could just do the fun bits, and they could do the boring bits (like clean up the fabric explosion that happens every time I come up with a bright idea).

In the midst of the boring bits yesterday, I decided that I needed a new shopping tote bag, which co-incidentally was perfect timing for the Choose Your Own Bag Adventure Sew-Along.

I don't know why I didn't make one of these sooner. The Go Granny Cotton Canvas fabric is perfect for this type of application.

That's one bag down... at least one more to go!

How are you doing with your bag project?


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Sunday in the City

Carly arrived back from her overseas adventure last week, so we decided to meet up yesterday for lunch and a long catch up session!

 After getting lost in the 'burbs (it's a long story), we finally found our destination - Jackson Cafe and Gallery in Rathdowne St.

Have you ever tried to take a photo of a lit chandelier with an iPhone? The chandelier is beautiful... my photo, not so much.

The lovely accessories and homewares are by Red Phoenix Emporium.

Lunch was absolutely delicious...

.... and we shared this very yummy chocolate brownie for dessert

 

 Upstairs there's an beautiful three room gallery space

It's definitely a lovely spot to visit!