Baggity Bag Bags

Oh hai!  Remember when I was all, “see you next week!” “with progress on my Getaway Bag!” ?

right.

So, I know, it’s six weeks later.  But it’s totally worth it, because I have THREE bags finished.  Also a fourth, which I fogot to take pictures of.  So, later on that one.

Bag #1 — Lisa Lam’s Great Getaway Bag from The Bag Making Bible  

The exterior is a laminate from Amy Butler’s Alchemy line (called “Sketch,” I think).  I luuuurve it.  So much.  It is seriously the most beautiful fabric EVAH.  An it’s shiny!  The contrast is just a bright pink cotton duck fom JoAnn’s that… honestly? kind of a mistake.  I think it’s too bright and competes with the main print a bit. Probably should’ve gone with a gray vinyl or something.  But.  It’s done and I’m still really happy with it.

This bag was a process, for sure.  There’s about a million yards of interfacing (more than even the pattern called for since I used lighter weight fabric than the pattern called for), an interior zipped pocket, an exterior pocket, a shoulder strap, etc…  There were a lot of pieces and it took me a couple of weeks to get it all done.  But i’m so happy with it.  I took it on its very first trip soon after I made it and it felt so good to actually use something I made!  although I did have a persistent sense of ominous doom that all the seams were somehow going to disintegrate in Penn Station or something (they didn’t).

Bag #2 — Noodlehead’s Runaround Bag

This is my new summer Runaround Bag! Sooo easy to put together, I made it start to finish in just a couple of hours, including making my own bias tape.  Fabrics are Essex yarn-dyed linen in black, with bias tape made from Freespirit Designer Solid in Fucshia.  The lining, which you can’t really see in this picture, is from Jay McCarroll’s Center City Line.  The only change I made to the pattern was to interface both the exterior and the interior pieces with Pellon SF 101.  It worked perfectly.

Bag #3 –Satchel (pattern by Studio Cherie)

Man, this bag nearly did. me. in.  Gah.  But, I think it was worth it.  I found this fabric first, which is a Kokka prink with adorable little ballerinas on it.  I loved it for my mom, who teaches dance classes for little kids.  I mean, right?  It couldn’t be cuter.  After searching around for a pattern, I finally settled on this Satchel pattern.  I wanted to give the bag to my mom for Mother’s Day.  So I promptly got all my materials together around March-ish.  Then I did nothing until the week before Mother’s Day.  Of course.

So, considering I put it together in about a week, I guess it wasn’t that hard.  It was really just all that DAMN PIPING. Piping around curves, really, was what caused most of the swearing.  And seam ripping.  I got it together, though (baste the piping onto the exterior pieces before you sew it down for real).  I did forgo some of the piping that the pattern called for (around the main zipper and on the interior pockets) because I really just had piping fatigue at that point.  And I think it looks fine without it.

So, all’s well that ends well. My mom loved it and I really learned a ton about bag-making from going through this process.

Now, though?  I think I’m calling a moratorium on bags.  I need to get my wonky log cabin beach quilt done before it’s actually beach weather.  (although it’s 50 degrees here today.  FIFTY.  WTF SPRING? so I may have some time)

see you in 6 weeks or so?

A Little Beachy Smugness

I’ll try not to be a total asshole about this, but it’s gonna be a little bit hard.  At the beginning of last month, Greg and I took a little trip to the British Virgin Islands.  I will tell you how it was:

RUM PUNCH AND AWESOME.  the end.

also some trashy novels.  Did I mention we left the kids at home???!?

Honestly, there isn’t much else to say, because we really didn’t do anything.  A couple of little hikes (mostly to arrive at other beach bars), an ill-advised day rental of a dinghy, more rum punch and more delicious trashy novels. (You know what? Imma say it out loud:  I finished the Fifty Shades trilogy and I LIKED IT.  I’m not even gonna be ashamed.)

(I’m totally mortified).

Also sleeping. I slept so fucking much.

So, it was amazing.  I won’t go on and on about it.  But I will show you the beach bag I made for the trip.

Last July we took a little trip to the Charlottesville, VA area and I picked up some fabric at the Cottonwood Quilt Shop (a really great shop, btw!) that I thought would be fabulous for a beach bag.  I only bought a yard, though, so didn’t really have enough to make a huge bag.  I ended up making the Tulip Tote  from the Sew Serendipity Bags book by Kay Whitt, which is more of a purse size, but it was perfect for carrying my book, a water bottle (hahaha) and some suncreen down to the beach.

This was the second bag I’ve made from the book and I’ve been impressed with the quality of the patterns both times.  Last year, I made my very first bag ever — the “Socialite Handbag” and it came out really well (didn’t snap pics before I gifted it, though).  So, considering I was a total bag-making novice at the time, I think that speaks to the quality of the pattern.

The Tulip Tote was actually really simple to put together and came together quite quickly.  My only regret is that I didn’t quilt it (which the pattern tells you to do), because I thought I wanted a cleaner look.  In hindsight, Kay was right, the bag would’ve been better quilted.  Oh well, live and learn!

Next week I hope to update with some progress on my latest bag project — Lisa Lam’s Great Getaway Bag from the Bag Making Bible.

Four years

Owen turned four last Saturday, which also, if you’ll recall, was the day before Easter.  So, basically — Toys! Holidays! Celebrations!  his little brain was straight-up fried by the end of the weekend.  At least we were a little bit smart about things this year, though, and decided to forgo the large family party at our house and just invited a bunch of his little friends to the local Bounce House of Insanity (which, if you are four, is just fucking nirvanna.  There is nothing better, you might as well die now.  the end.).  So, suffice it to say, they had a great time.  And I had a great time because it was over and done with in less than two hours and nobody came to my house.  Win.

The party had a “Muppet theme,” which meant I stuck some Muppet toys in his cake and gave the kids a Muppet book as their party favor.  About a month before the party I also asked Owen if he wanted to wear a Muppet shirt for the party.  “NO. NOBODY WILL WEAR ANY MUPPET SHIRTS TO MY PARTY” was the answer I got and, admittedly, I was a bit surprised at his, um… adamance?  Who knew he was such a militant anti-Muppet Shirter?  So of course I didn’t let it go.

Two days before the party he relented, “Okay, okay, okay, fine, Mommy, I’ll wear a Muppet shirt.  And Baby Rory too.”  (!!!)  Two Muppet shirts coming right up.

Beaker. The most underrated ginger muppet.

Animaaaal!

Happy Birthday, dude. Have a happy and crazy fourth year.

The obligatory Halloween adorableness-related post

So, ’round these parts the lead up to Halloween is usually way more exciting that, you know, the actual thing.  No exception this year.  I just get so into the planning and the making of the costumes that, when it comes time to wear them, I’m always like, “oh, right.  I spent 56 hours on these costumes just so the kids could do a 20 minute lap around the neighborhood in them and then put on their jammies and go to bed.  huh.”

But. whatever.  I still love it.

I started asking Owen back in August what he wanted to be.  I got a rage of answers, from “nothing, I don’t want a costume, I just want to be ‘people,'” to “a birthday cake.”  So.  I suggested maybe he would want to dress up as Corduroy, the bear from the children’s story who wears the green overalls and loses a button (and who gains a pocket in the sequel; you’ll see that I ended up conflating the two stories.  Don Freeman please forgive me!).  Anyway, he agreed, and I was excited because I thought it would be pretty adorable (spoiler: it was!).  I waited a good month or so to make sure he didn’t dramatically change his mind, then went searching for a good overalls pattern.  Turns out, I had trouble finding exactly what I wanted and had to turn to e-bay for a “vintage” pattern.  1986 is vintage, you guys, and I AM SO OLD.

So, here’s the final result:

The pattern is “vintage” (can’t remember the manufacturer or number right now) and I used Robert Kaufmann Corduroy in Grass.  I used a suuuper adorable knit that actually has Corduroy his-own-self printed on it for lining the bib and the cuffs. I knew this fabric existed becuase I actually have a diaper for Rory that’s made out of it.  But when it came time to purchase some yardage (because I NEEEEDED it, it is so perfect and I couldn’t live without it!), damn if I couldn’t find it anywhere.  After some serious stalking, I tracked down some from an Etsy seller (who, you know, wasn’t actually planning on selling the fabric, but I convinced her to. WINNING!).  There’s a little purple pocket from my stash and a single yellow button (because the other one is missing!).

I also used the costume as a good oppotunity to use up some of the yarn that is drowning me alive. For the first time ever, he agreed to wear a hat as part of his costume. 

Rory, on the other hand, is in my favorite stage for Halloweening — the stage when he has no say whatsoever over what ridiculous outfit I dress him up in — was a lion.  Because I am beating the word play of “Rory / Roaring”  to absolute death.  So, my very scary lion:

The little sweatsuit is “tye-died” fleece from JoAnn’s and I used some fake fur that I bought from Fabric.com for the chest (and the tip of the tail, which you can only kinda see in the picture).  I bought a full yard of this.  Because I am not good at math.  So, I’m thinking next year’s costume will involve some fake fur also.

The hat is totally my favorite part!  I undid all my good work using up stash yarn on Owen’s hat becuase I went out and bought three skeins to get all the colors right for this one.  But it’s so cute, right?!?

Happy Halloween!

so I was thinking that what the internet really needs is some more blogs, yeah?

Hey!  Look what I made!

A quilt, a hat, and a baby!  So, in other words, welcome to my blog, where I will tell you all about how productive my womb and my sewing machine are.