Just a quick post because I made three more Quickie Clutches for Christmas, and I already gave them away. I know, I know it’s a bit early, but who cares. As you can see I used the Ikea bed sheet again. I really like the pattern and color, sue me :)

And because I like the macro function on my camera too, a close up of the vintage buttons I used.

This post is for Tam from 1/4 of an inch because since I joined Sunday Stash I’m forced to go through my stash and as you can see I actually do something with it. So thumbs up for Tam and Sunday Stash!

So here it is: The Luna Bag. I got the pattern from Etsy and to be honest,  it’s not so great, even though I love how the bag turned out.

The good: Lovely bag, great shape, nice size. Fits a book, my wallet, keys and some makeup. 

The bad: The instructions and pictures are not really detailed, so if you’ve never made a bag before this could get quite confusing

The ugly: The pattern. Seriously. The lower part (the dark one) is far too big and the instruction tells you to put it on top of the main body and then cut away the rest. It’s impossible to get both sides to match up. Another problem is that the instructions are written with felt or leather in mind for the lower part, because you’re supposed to top stitch it to your main body. So if you’re using any other fabric it will fray. To fix this I used some bias binding, which gives it a much nicer look anyway. 

I used Amy Butler’s Linen Martini and Joel Dewberry’s Aviary Green Sparrows for the body and a chocolate brown courdoy for the lower half. For the strap I used a dark brown cotton webbing and stitched  a lighter synthetic one on top. The lining, even though you can’t see it, is a beige home decor fabric from Ikea. And again, I’m not in love with the interfacing *sigh*

It’s Saturday and not Sunday and I already made something with the stash in this post, but anyway here we go. Both fabrics are from Ikea, the blue one is a home decor fabric and the pink is actually a bed sheet. I liked the pattern and thought it would probably look nice as a skirt.

I never came around making the skirt, but I made a bag out of it. It’s called “Charming Handbag” and the pattern is from Bend the Rules Sewing.  The pattern is a classic handbag, but since I like to carry my bags over my shoulder, I enlarged the pattern a bit and made the handles longer. I used two kinds of fabric instead of one for the outside of the bag and added a inside zipper pocket. 

I also used these fabrics with my Skull Clutch, and the A Girl’s Best Friend Wallet, but since these projects are soooo small I think it doesn’t count :)

Like the pattern? Check out what other crafters did with it: Charming Handbag on flickr

Want to show off your Stash? Join the Sunday Stash at 1/4 of an inch.

I just love piping, I think it gives every bag something special. I was browsing some blogs and found this great tutorial about piping over at U-Handbags.  The only question is, which bag should I try it on?I didn’t wanted to make something big, since I only wanted to try out the tutorial, so I came up with a little clutch pattern.

It was also the perfect project to try out my new Stitch-It Kit from Sublime Stitching. Since I used some classic pinstripe fabric I went for the skull to make it a little bit more interesting. The kit comes with 35 cute transfer pattern, but it’s not a really good starter kit in my opinion. It gives you some basic stitches but doesn’t give you any suggestion what kind of stitch you should use with which pattern. The yarn comes in basic very bright colors and the hoop is pretty unstable. So if you really like the pattern, then go for it, or buy some from the website and save yourself the money and buy some yarn you like and a good hoop

The piping was really easy to make, thanks to the great tutorial. I’m not really a fan of the clutch, somehow it turned out a bit wonky. I just can’t seem to find the perfect interfacing, sigh. This time I used Freudenberg 250 which is pretty stiff and some thin quilt batting, and even though the lining is home decor fabric, it still doesn’t feel right. I also added two inner pockets for my cigarettes (cough) and keys.

But anyway, mission accomplished: I now know how to make piping :)

I love Etsy! And I love PDF patterns! It’s instant gratification. I bought this pattern and lucky me I found a zipper at home so I could make this really cute pouch. I don’t know why this pattern is called clutch because in my opinion it’s definitely a pouch. Anyhow, it’s great for carrying my make-up around (read: three lipsticks, powder, lip balm, hairpins, lighter, cellphone) instead of just tossing everything in my bag.

It’s actually not as quick as the name suggests but it’s a lot of fun and I definitely learned some new tricks I can use in future projects. I’m still trying to figure out how to make a pattern on my own using pleats, so if anyone has a tip let me know.

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.