Recently I bought Denyse Schmidt Quilts and when I first flipped through the book I was pretty underwhelmed. Somehow the projects weren’t what I expected. The main reason I bought this book was in the hope of finding tips & tricks on how to make quilts but it didn’t offer anything new from what I had learned from the web.

Two weeks later I cought a cold and had to stay at home, so I picked up the book again and somehow I felt the urge to do a project from it. Since I hadn’t the supplies for a quilt at home, let alone the energy, I decided to make a pillow. So I used her “Hits The Spot Pillow” as an inspiration, but I changed a few things. First I didn’t sew in the circles like she suggested but used Steam-a-Seam and then stitched them on. For every circle I used a different colored thread and a different stitch. I also did some free-hand machine stitching around each “bullseye”.

To give it a final touch I used a thread from the main fabric and hand stitched every inner circle with a different stitch: french knot, running stitch and split stitch.

I’m pretty happy how it turned out and spending some time with the book I found a few other projects I’ll definitely gonna try. Even thou the quilts still scare the crap out of me :)

Before I ordered my sewing machine I was browsing the web for some patterns and found this one.

It looked like the perfect first project….boy was I wrong. I haven’t sewed anything for 12 years and I never read sewing instructions or a pattern, and it didn’t help that they were in English. I probably read through the whole thing about 30 times and I still managed to screw up. I sewed the lining in wrong side facing up, the inner pocket is far to small and you can see the raw edge of the red top part (still haven’t figured out why), and the pleats drove me crazy! (And you can’t even see them in the photo, sigh.)

Anyway, I learned a lot and the second time I did this bag for a friend it only took me 4 hours.

I used some Ikea fabric for the bottom part and some red denim-like fabric for the top and handle lining. For the interfacing I used Freudenberg S320 which is pretty stiff so it gives the bag some sturdiness. Overall it’s a really nice bag and a great size for the everyday stuff I carry around which is quite a lot. If you like this bag check out the flickr group for more pictures from the same pattern.

After lurking, reading blogs and fantasising about being creative enough to actually produce something somebody else besides me will like,  I finally gave in and started this blog.

I pretty much crafted on and off my whole life (drawing, scrap booking, altering furniture, you name it) and after a loooonnnngg phase of “crafting block” , I bought a sewing machine. 3 months, 7 bags, 2 PJ’s, 1 cushion, 2 neck warmers, 1 quilt and a lot of swearing later I finally feel like … well, I guess me again.

I pretty much started this blog for two reasons:

1. To motivate myself

2. To share what I learn along the way. Because if it hadn’t been for the huge online world of crafting gals, I’d probably  be still slacking on my couch watching re-runs.

So even if I only inspire ONE of you out there I’ll be happy. 

Nothing else left to say besides: Happy crafting!