The good news: I made my first dress! The bad news: it doesn’t fit. I know it looks quite wearable in the photo but that’s only because there is a binder clip holding it together at the back :) But let’s start from the beginning and please excuse my scary face expression in the picture.

I really wanted to try the Kimono Dress from Heather Ross Weekend Sewing and found the perfect linen for it, but before I screw up the 24 Euro/meter fabric, I thought I’d go with something cheaper first. So I bought this really cheap dotted viscose that was pretty enough to wear it in public if the dress would turn out fine. 

The pattern was really easy to follow, up to the point where you have to join the bodice with the skirt, using elastic thread to shirr the fabric. I don’t know if it’s my machine, the fabric, the thread or my sewing skills, but I couldn’t get the fabric to shirr up for the life of me. Any tips on that? Fortunately I still had some elastic lying around, so I just sewed in an elastic waistband and tried it on. Well, guess what: the bodice is waaaayyy too big. I have no idea how to fix this, other than ripping the thing apart and even then I don’t know how much I have to take in. And if I take in the bodice, I have to make the same adjustments with the skirt too, but that one is fitting quite nicely. The skirt still needs hemming and I didn’t make the obi sash (I used a scarf for the picture) because there is no point in an obi if I don’t have the dress to were it with, now is there?

Even though I can’t wear the dress it still feels good that I made it! I can’t just go on making more bags. Oh wait that’s not true :)

Just a quick post to let you know I’m still alive and crafting. I finished another bag from my list, the Highbrow Hobo from U-Handbag to be exact. This bag was pretty easy to make, even though it took me around 4 hours to finish it.  I love the shape and how big it is! I used some Ikea fabric (new collection is out!) and I found some cotton for the lining in the exact shade of green like in the Ikea print. 

On second thought, white might not be a good color for a bag, because while I was cutting the fabric on the floor, my cat came back from a stroll and walked right over it with his muddy paws. So the bag has already a lovely cat paw shaped stain. But hey, maybe this will gonna be my trademark, who knows :)

In other crafting news: I made the first version of the Summer Blouse and I’m glad I used a bed sheet, because I messed up the binding and plancket. And it’s way to short for me. So back to the drawing board and sewing machine.

I made another item from my Project List - the 1 Hour Bag, well kind of, because it turned out nothing like the original one and it took longer than an hour. If you want to make one yourself, check out Jodie’s fabulous tutorial and while you’re over there, drool over her amazing selvage frock.

It was so much fun sewing this bag, you wouldn’t believe it! It started out with a boring day at work where I, instead of working, drew the pattern for the bag. (My boss will never read this blog so I guess it’s ok to say so :) Back home I was going through my stash and found some pretty turquoise corduroy I bought a while back, and from this point on I just improvised. I appliqued some circles to the front and stitched two circles by hand, one with embroidery floss the other with wool. For the back I actually used the left side of the fabric and while I was staring at it, I felt kind of brave and tried some free motion quilting.

After sewing in the lining it didn’t quite fit, because I used a some polar fleece as interfacing, but I liked how it looked like binding and so I went with it.  On to the handles. I only bought half a meter so I didn’t have enough length in the grain for the handles, and since the fabric is super stretchy I stuck for a moment. But the god of improvisation was kind to me that day, so I just cut 4 strips and sewed them together changing from left to the right side of the fabric. 

At this point it totally looked like a hippie bag and something I would have loved back when I was 17. Again I did some free motion quilting, which will come apart pretty soon because the tension was way off, added two buttons and that was that: my totally improvised, “I’m 17, going to Ibiza and do a lot of *beep*, because I’m a hippie” 1 Hour Bag.

I really love this bag just because making it was so much fun. It was so liberating not trying to be perfect and going with the flow, that for a brief moment I thought this is the way I will make every project from now on. But I know myself too well to realize this isn’t possible. But I will try not to overthink everything I make, that’s the first step, right?

I thought I post about something else than the quilt for a change. These are actually the third and fourth bag I ever made made. Back than I was looking for a messenger bag pattern for Tony and found The Mischievous Gnome Messenger Bag from Sew Liberated. Loved it, ordered it and found out he didn’t like it. Great. But since a girl can’t have enough bags I made two of them for myself.

The bag has and inner zipper pocket, two pockets on the front, one at the back and a wrap around button closure. The first time I sticked to the pattern, the second time I made the whole thing shorter, made the handles longer and didn’t add the back pocket and the button (mistake).

Version 1 (on the left): Some wool fabric for the outside, orange Ikea fabric for the outside bags and some dotted Ikea fabric for the lining. It’s a great size for my MacBook and some magazines, but since I tend to stuff some extra clothes into my bags, I don’t like how the bag gets out of shape.

Version 2 (on the right): I used some leather look-alike fabric and made it stiffer with a double layer of Freudenberg S 250 iron-on interfacing. For the inside I used yellow corduroy. I really, really love the leathery look of this bag and since I made the handle longer it’s much more comfortable to carry around over the shoulder.

Even more details.

Overall it’s a great pattern and really easy to follow, and if you don’t tend to carry your whole household around like I do, I can highly recommend it! My favorite parts are definitely the applique on the flap and the wrap around button.

Also check out the Emmeline Apron pattern from Sew Liberated it’s sooo pretty. Such a shame that I don’t wear aprons, maybe I have to cook more so I can justify making one.

I hope you all had a great Christmas, I surely did even though probably not in the traditional sense. Tony was over at his mother’s house for two days, so I had time to finally make this little bag I was thinking about the last couple of days.

The pattern is the Taxi Tote from Anna Maria Horner’s “Seams to Me” and the instructions are really easy to follow. I would definitely say this would be a great bag for beginners. I really like the book and will probably make some more projects from it soon. It’s beautifully design, well written and covers projects from storage cubes, bags, quilts, aprons over to pillows and skirts. 

And now on to the Taxi Tote. I didn’t want to use only one fabric, so this was a good project to try out the foundation piecing technique. I used some heavy weight home decor fabric from Ikea and fused even heavier interfacing to the back of it. Then I used this as my foundation for the outer fabrics. The brown and green fabric are a wool/synthetic mix, the yellow is corduroy and the white/red one is a bedcover from Ikea. I added a contrasting straight stitch to the yellow and green stripe and now I just have to get another button because I don’t really like the one I used but couldn’t find a better one in my stash that was big enough. 

I kind of like how the tote turned out, the only thing I don’t like is the binding. First of all the bedcover is a really low quality fabric and was a pain in the ass to work with (I don’t know how someone can sleep in this) and second I messed up. If I ever do this bag again, I’ll definitely sew on the binding my hand.

Check out more projects from the book from other crafters: Seams to me flickr group.

Bonus shot: The dessert my mom made yesterday - Panna Cotta with fresh figs and a sauce made with cinnamon, orange juice, pin nuts and cranberries. It was delicious!

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*