By Alice | Published:
May 6, 2010
I made myself a new wallet, it is BIG though so technically it might count as a clutch bag. I like to keep all my important stuff together (cards, iPhone, cash) as then I only have to keep my eye on one thing and can transfer everything from bag to bag easily together.
The cotton flower fabric is from the Nippori Fabric Town area in Tokyo. The piece around the middle is from my inherited fabric stash, it was a belt of some sort. The zip was also from my archives so I think it is quite old, I was wondering if using a metal vintage zip was the best idea (will it break sooner?) but I wanted to try it out.
There are three pockets, two which are open and the one at the back closes with a zip. I put a layer of felt underneath the outside layer of fabric and the front pocket to give it extra stiffness and also to provide some padding. It took a little bit of thinking to work out as I wanted to make it from one long strip of fabric and to have the seams hidden, not to just have flat rectangles that are sewed together. I made a paper prototype to check I had everything straight in my mind and when it came to the actual fabric I hand sewed it together with a loose running stitch before committing with the sewing machine.
The inside. I did think about having a magnetic closure or velcro or buttons for the main flap but decided against it as I wanted to keep it as streamlined as possible.
And filled.
This is me showing it to Beep ;) You can get more of an idea of the size from this picture (she is a normal cat size).
Also posted in I made things |
By Alice | Published:
March 7, 2010
I made Elizabeth David’s Chocolate Almond Cake for my sister’s birthday lunch. It is flourless so gluten-free. When I was Googling for the recipe I found it on this pretty cookery blog. I used their doubling-up method. Very delicious, I will make this again.
I gave my sister Dorie Greenspan’s book Baking: From My Home to Yours
and made her this ‘R’ brooch from felt. It’s nice giving my sister gifts as I feel we are on the same wavelength so give each other things that we would like.
By Alice | Published:
January 27, 2010
This is what I made with the remainder of the fabric. It is a little drawstring bag for the small bike bits and pieces that I either need to carry around in the bottom of my bag when I park my bike, or keep together in my house ready to grab when I am out the door. This little bag is handy to stop everything from getting lost or dropped.
I had made that little black bike with the button wheels ages ago as a test run for a bike I sewed onto some cushions for my mother so it was no bother to sew it on here.
By Alice | Published:
January 25, 2010
I used the fabric from Liberty to make two cushions. I also made something with the leftover fabric which I’ll show later. A bright addition to our sofa (seen before here – the cats still hate me hoovering).
I made them in the envelope style and held together the opening at the back with two small cream bows on each. If the cats get into attacking these too much I will replace them with poppers but I like the bow look with this fabric. The fabric felt a bit too light for zips (also this is quicker and cheaper than having to find two zips of the right size!).
Btw I keep the longer lengths of ribbon that I have wrapped around a cardboard roll, I like to think I’m channeling ‘Martha‘ on a tiny scrappy scale :)
By Alice | Published:
April 4, 2008
This is a really small sewing project that I have had on my to-do list for a while. You guys are going to think that all I do is cover technology with fabric, next it will be curtains for my old Mac PowerBook or something.
Do you have one of these?
It is a Global Positioning Satellite thing that navigates you which way to go. And it is awesome, a real wonder of technology. Some people don’t like them but when you go to a whole bunch of out of the way places it really stops that ball of stress that can happen when you are going in the wrong direction for the 3rd time. "Dude! We live in the South East, why did you take the exit that says Wales?"
It belongs to Simon and I have been promising for a while to make a pouch for it so it doesn’t get damaged in his pocket or bag when he takes it out of the car. (This seems to be the way things are now – that what ever you buy (camera, phone, etc) that it doesn’t some with a protective case.)
So I made this real simple slouchy little case for it. It is padded. I could pretend like I made it in 5 seconds but actually I had to take it apart literally over 10 times. I don’t know what the goodness was wrong with me. I made it out of one continuous long strip of fabric and wanted the only visible seam to be inside the pouch so had to sew it inside out and then flip it back around once it was sewn and I just could get my head around it. There was lots of internal swearing.
Simon chose the fabrics from my stash. He liked this pear canvas. It came out pretty well… eventually.
My main sin when sewing is that I hardly ever iron fabric before I sew. You wouldn’t think it was that hard to get up, go downstairs, get the ironing board out, get the iron out, fill the iron with water, and IRON, but I have a mental block on this. I am working on it.
Also posted in I made things |
