Sewalong Challenge #2 Inspiration – A Bag (from a pattern you haven’t used before)

Ack, it’s February already!

I did finish challenge #1, I just don’t have any good pics at the moment, so that will come later.

The challenge for February is a bag, easy right? I LOVE making bags, they’re such great projects for making you feel accomplished.

But there’s one tiny stipulation on this challenge… it has to be from a bag pattern you’ve never used before.

Ack.

Therein lies the challenge for me! While I love to make bags I’ve only ever used a pattern for that really cute lunch bag I made several times from this great tutorial. All my other myriad (slight exaggeration, but only slight) of totes and bags and purses I’ve just winged because… bags!

Well.
I have a pretty large board for bags here on pinterest, and another one for wallets and clutches which have been mainly for inspiration.

But with the intention of following some directions I mostly cut out the “Dubstepper” messenger bag by Robert Kaufman.
So I’m going to finish that (which also counts toward challenge #8, finishing a WIP!), hopefully.

That’s the Dubstepper, I think I’m going to modify the flap though…

I’m trying to find patterns that will work with fabrics I got to make bags, and then I’m going to try to just make as many bags as I can squeeze in for this month. Of course, that was also my intention last month, to make several accessories, but I only got one done so we’ll see! I quite like this bag:

 

And a friend asked me for an overnight/weekend bag. So maybe?
It’s a free pattern from Noodle Head so bonus on the not spending money!

I actually have a lot of ideas already, so it’s more challenging to find a pattern that meshes with my vision!

Hopefully progress posts soon.

Random Mobile Photos

In lieu of actual content, I cleared out some of my mobile and table photos, exciting right?

These are all my socks lacking a sole mate D:
Having just moved, I really thought I’d find everything. Alas.
(Actually, I did find two or three of these after taking this pic last month, but then I also added two or three to the pile!).
I’m going to give it another month, and then see what craftiness I can get up to with socks 8D

Anyway, onward!

This is me and (some of) my sisters on the couch at my parent’s house over the holidays.
The awkwardness of the pic is I was actually taking a picture of Pippin, the cat, as you do, and realized I could probably get us all in the shot with some judicious angling. It turned out to be much brighter than I realized, and I take no responsibility for our expressions.

Took that pic the first night in my house!

Bonus, my house already has roses.

All my keys look the same, so I attacked them with nail polish. The shiny one on the left ended up a dark sparkly green.

The first picture I put up!

My shadow against my garage door, this hat is the original hat that sparked the hatting parties, and I made it way back in 2005 or 2006 (or 2004 now I think about it…). I’ve slept in it loads, and practically lived in it when I had no hair, so one of the wings doesn’t stick up anymore. It amused me.

On top of my fridge, I sense a theme.

Some pics from the hat party! Check out those awesome colours!

That stack was new stuff this go around, though I’ve had neon pink and orange before.

Going down the street to my parent’s, eventually we’d like to do a Regency shoot in those rolling green hills. But they don’t stay green! So we need to plan accordingly.

My first experiment with pickling! Doris fed me the most delicious pickled carrots the other day, and I just had to try my hand.

My kitchen table!
The table runner top was made by my gramma and quilted and bound by me.

Speaking of my gramma, these are scraps from some quilts and I’m trying to use them to fulfill some of the sewing challenges.

Lastly! Picked this up off the side of the road yesterday. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at restoring furniture and reupholstering, so we’ll see how this goes!
I think at the very least I can get it in good enough shape for some historical-esque pictures. It’s really not in great shape, but it was free and if nothing else I’m sure I’ll learn loads as I work on it!

Hatting update!

Soooo, confession. The reason the posts have been so sporadic is I keep forgetting to get my cardreader from my parent’s house. Whoops.

Anyway!
I had another Hat Party on Saturday, and Heather took pics so I have some!
 

We went pretty colour and pattern crazy this go around!

Our dino hats ROCK okay?

Every hatting there’s at least one hat I want to keep for myself, this one was no exception! But I was good and all will be donated.

Tonight I’ll wash and label them all, then figure out a good time to drop them off.

Hopefully 2015 will see lots more hats!
We’ve done 226 since I started this venture, that’s a lot of hats!

2014 Cos review

Everyone is doing such lovely 2014 sewing reviews, I’ve been dragging my feet because mine is so small!

This was a super weird cos year for me, only four new costumes! The least amount since my 2nd year of costuming, and one of them doesn’t even really count!

So, new stuff!


Click on the picture to go to that post!  

Jo Grant

I really love Jo Grant, so I was super jazzed to do another one of her outfits.

 Plus this happened:

 

Totally a highlight of my year 8D

Black Widow

This is the “doesn’t really count” outfit, it’s 100% bought and borrowed. Bon asked me to do it with her Maria Hill. I would like to eventually do more super hero type things, so I thought I may as well get over my body suit ambivalence now. I got this body suit off Amazon, she made the belt and wrist things, I borrowed her Poison Ivy wig (the closest either of us had) and her boots, and Molly did my makeup.  

Black Canary

http://make-it-sew.blogspot.com/2014/05/wonder-con-2014.html

Black Canary on the other hand has been on my list for awhile! This costume had a lot of fortuitous colour matching! I found tights at Target that just happened to match the blue in my stash that I used for my jacket, and Bon found adorable fingerless gloves at Hot Topic of all places in blue that matched wonderfully (worn at Comic Con, which I just realized I never blogged about).

I’m still not keen exactly on how flattering, or not, it is, but it’s a step!

Lastly!  

Country Regency

 

This one is a bit of a cheater, considering I still haven’t sewn proper closures in. But I feel like.. if I wore it, it must count as complete! For 2015 I’m going to level up this dress, a process I’ve already started and may post about soon (ha).

And that’s really it! I made a bunch of crafty type things, which you can see under the crafty tag, but still all things considered not thaaaat much.

It’s been a busy year! Though most of it has happened in the latter half of the year, there was the prep work beforehand.

So non-sewing highlights!

 + Went to Thailand/Cambodia (which I’ll continue posting about soon [for real]).

+ Bought a house (which I wanted to post about in a big look at my loveliness, but my progress has been slow, so… later).

January Sewalong : Accessory Inspiration

So! January’s challenge, due January 31st, 2015 is:

An Accessory
 
I love this challenge because it’s soooo versatile.
I put together some inspirations to get my brain going!

10 Pretty Ruffle Scarf Tutorials!

Found on Babble via Pinterest, I actually like about half of these, and while I don’t actually neeeeed anymore scarves… they do make great gifts!

There are actually lots of fun scarf tutorials, and many are grouped in convenient lists!

There’s also adorable hair clips/brooches which count, I don’t even wear either of those things but I want this:

Source: etsy.com via Mi on Pinterest

And I’ve seen some lovely pins of people who used fabric to make pretty origami hair clips.
I definitely think bags & clutches count as accessories!
I have boards on pinterest for those, because I love how quick a project they are in general:
Sewy Things – Wallets/Clutches
Sewy Things – Bags
 
I’m still undecided about whether coats count as an accessory, but I guess it doesn’t really matter for me because no way can I bust one out by January’s end.

But hats! Hats definitely count!

I’m hoping to actually have another hat party in Jan, so that would knock it out super quick!

What else… I’ve also seen things like glasses cases, checkbook covers, camera cases. All count!

Plus for those of us with a historical bend, it’s an opportunity to make something like… a matching reticule to a planned or existing outfit. Or perhaps a fashionable hat? I could definitely do with a Regency bonnet!
Actually… along those lines, I’m contemplating a set of detachable sleeves for my latest Regency dress.
The possibilities!

2015 Sewalong!

So for 2015 my sewing ladies and I decided to do a monthly(ish) sewalong! Exciting! AJ and I decided more of the themes, and we went with purposely vague topics so everyone can interpret how they choose and to account for various skill levels. But above all, we went for stashbusting!

So, I’m going to post our goals here as an additional “keeping me accountable” measure!  

Jan : An Accessory  

Feb : Make a bag using a new pattern  

Mar – April : Sew something vintage inspired (two months, because we will probably make dresses!)

May : Make a household item

 Jun : Something for your sewing table  

Jul : Refashion an existing item in your wardrobe

Aug : Finish a WIP (work in progress)  

Sep Sew something geek inspired

Oct : Holiday/winter themed  

Nov : Something from a Pinterest tutorial

 Dec : Something quilted

I’ll come back here and link the finished projects 😀

Life update!

Still too busy to much actual sewing, but that doesn’t mean I can’t plot!

2015 is going to be aaaaall about using up fabric! I’ve been on a self imposed fabric buying ban for so long @.@ Actually, now I stop and think about it, I think it’s been almost 3 years!

When I started I had some exceptions which were basically… Doctor Who costumes. But only ones I’d had in mind for awhile, so basically Jo Grant, TVM!Master, and Survival!Master. Somehow though I ended up buying fabric for three historicals, through some sort of mental loophole, but everything else was stash! You would think I’d have more to show for it!

Anyway, now my only “loophole” is gifted fabric, that’s still acceptable! So this year I’m really going to buckle down and stick to my guns, use up more fabric! To that end, I have a lot of small “crafty” type projects in mind (bags, bags, and more bags. More than I could possibly need, so potential etsy listings there!), some actual Real Clothes, and underthings!

By underthings, I mean historical. First up will be an 18th Century corset, something like this:

 

I think most similar to the far left. I can’t actually remember, I’m just using whatever pattern AJ @ Confused Kitty used! I’ll also have to make some paniers, probably this size?

 

I know nothing of this era, so I’ll be counting on Bunny to guide me through it!

I had planned to make more underthings so that when I can buy fabric again I’ll have the base for everything, but then Bunny went and gifted me some fabric of sizable yardage (something I’m greatly lacking) so a full 18th century outfit will happen. The fabric isn’t remotely similar to this, but I’m quite taken with this dress:

 

From the Kyoto Costume Institute.

So we’ll see, I’m in the beginning stages of my research! It’s exciting branching out.

I also have the fabric for more Regency things, and possibly another late Victorian.

Hopefully blogging more will keep me accountable!

Quick check in

Just a quick pop in to say: Not dead!
Still lots going on life wise, but I’m itching to get back to sewing!

I’ve also been thinking about this blog a bit, I started it inspired by all the lovely sewing blogs I follow and with the idea that if I had a dedicated sewing blog I’d be more prone to post.
But I’m wondering if I should just use it as a catch all (still primarily sewing)?
Thoughts?

I haven’t decided yet, so in the mean time, I’ll just link some posts from one of my other blogs:

Thailand Day 1
Thailand Day 2 – Part One
Thailand Day 2 – Part Two
Thailand Day 2 – Part Three
Thailand Day 3 

The Return!

Back from Thailand!

Came back in the evening on Tuesday and was back in the office by Wednesday morning, I didn’t miss this! But until I figure out how to Not Work and still do all the things I want to do, a necessary evil!

I was really inspired to sew while I was gone, but I promised myself that on my return I’d focus on destashing, so I’m resisting for now ;_;

But I have some small projects lined up that I may squeeze in! Some more bags, small crafty things, and a pile of WIPs.

Hopefully my next post will be about destashing or WIPs, if it’s not a backlogged post!

Thailand – go!

Just a quicky, off to Thailand tonight! (well, technically the wee hours of tomorrow morning)

Super jazzed to be traveling again, I wish I was brave enough to take the plunge and travel all the time!

But then, how would I sew?

When I get back, I’m hoping to squeeze LOTS of sewing (and actually posting) in! I’m also going to try to actually comment on all the lovely blogs I follow, so we’ll see how this goes!