The "Fits My Life" Bag

Hello, lovelies! Remember when it seemed all I ever made was bags? It was like every post was "Here's a bag. Here's another bag. Guess what I made? A bag." Then the holidays rolled around and I stopped taking custom orders for a bit. But it's that time of year when everyone wants to update their bag for the warmer months so I'm back at it. I've got a nice little to-do list already. This usually leads to me feeling overwhelmed, so yesterday I hunkered down with some Swedish Fish and Wheat-thins and cut and sewed and pressed away all day.

I now have this ready for delivery tomorrow:

I've made this bag numerous times now but I still love the way it turns out.

Someone once suggested pockets on the side for a water bottle or something...now everyone wants them. It takes a smidge of fabric to do, but it takes me forever to get the measurements with the elastic and the pleats just right.

 Look at that nice snug piping nestled in with the pleats. Mmm...cozy....

 Usually I do one line of stitching on each side but on this one I did a few. I like the look of it much more--I think it gives it a more professional kick...

 Here's a nice suspension-bridge style zipper. One day I will figure out how to do a zipper where the sides are enclosed but I haven't received any complaints with this method, so until then...this is just going to have to be acceptable.

Here's the inside--slip pockets up one side and a zip on the other. The pink is much prettier but I always have problems shooting the inside of a bag.

This baby fits everything and anything. The only reason I haven't made myself one is because I'm always trying to decrease the size of my bag--if it's a big bag I'll fill it with all sorts of things I don't really need just because I have the room. But for the ladies who love to carry their entire lives with them, it's perfecto.

The colors are just so perfect for spring and summer. I got all my fabric from Joann's, but some of it was already in my stash. I love decreasing my stash. It's my newest high (and totally legal, so yay!).

Yum.

I can't recall the last time I sewed so much in a single day. I also had a few dishcloths I needed to whip up, which I did during Ghostbusters, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and some SNL. I now need a weekend to recover from my weekend...

I'm sharing here this week:

Happy Spring (Fling)!!!--Day One

Happy spring!!! I am officially ready for sunshine and flowers and being able to sit on my porch with a book and watch Charlie be a lunatic with the dogs next door. Y'know what else it is today? Day one of Spring Fling! Two weeks of chances at oodles of awesome free stuff!

Today's giveaways are:

Leighann at A Crafty Southern Chick is giving away this GORGEOUS rosette earring and necklace set.

Amy at Increasingly Domestic is giving away a lavender neck warmer and some Burt's Bees goodies.

Head on over to enter! Back soon with the project that gave me a need for a neck warmer yesterday...

March of the Tools: Sewing Gadgets

March of the Tools - no, it's not a parade of some of the people who irk me, bwahahaha. It's a little thing run by Heather Bailey wherein the participants highlight some of their favorite tools, be it for crafts, sewing, cooking, or...fixing stuff. Anyone who has read this blog for a while knows that I dig crafty gadgetry. I can be such an impatient crafter and sewist that any little thing that makes my life easier makes me happy.

Today I'm going to share with you my three favorite sewing gadgets.

First up: my tailor's awl. I ordered this from a shop in Australia because I was having no luck finding anything closer to home (the ones in Home Depot were manly with a big billiard ball size knob thingee to hold on to). There was also a purse kit in the shop I was looking for an excuse to get, and since I needed to meet an order minimum for international shipping I really just HAD to get this...

 Photo from here.  More information here.

I use it specifically for two things--holding something in place under my presser foot when I've had to remove the pins but whatever I'm sewing still wants to be squiggly; and helping me keep a little distance between my finger tips and the steaming edge of my iron when I'm pressing seam allowances open. Worth much more than the few dollars I paid for it.

Next up is something I know you've all seen but I'm going to sing its praises: the humble bobbin holder:

Click here for photo and more info.

Wanna know why I love this so much? I was using those little plastic containers that had a hollow dug out for each bobbin. The bobbins didn't fit too snug in there and would rattle around annoyingly while I was sewing (I use a folding table for my sewing table and it lends itself well to rattling bobbins). The main reason I love this is that when I would pick up the container to get a new bobbin, the lid would invariably slip off, my bobbins would make a break for it, and I'd be crawling around like a doofus and cursing while I hunted for my rollaway bobbins. This little guy holds them nice and snug in a rainbow formation (that part is optional). I can even hold it upside down and it's all good!

The final thing is something that I got in my stocking for Christmas: a needle-sharpening mat.

Photo and more info here.

I'll be honest--I was a bit skeptical of this at first. I am now a believer. I changed my needle ONCE in the past few weeks. I sharpened it every few small projects, and halfway through larger projects, and that baby held on! I sewed almost eighteen dresses with the same needle, just by sharpening it. Of course it eventually gave up the ghost, but that is some heavy mileage from a needle, where I was changing them much more frequently before. Good needles can get pricey if you do a lot of sewing, so anything that extends their life is a welcome addition to my sewing box.

So that's that. Maybe $20 for all 3 but they certainly eliminate much aggravation.

What are your favorite sewing tools/gadgets?

To be sent to parts unknown...

I overdo things. I get excited, and I jump right in, and I realize it at the halfway mark, and then I wonder what I was thinking, and then I soldier through, and at the end I feel a touch of pride. That is how my last week went. I'm talkin' 'bout my dresses for the Dress a Girl Around the World sew-along. On Monday, I hacked into a stack of fabrics and cut a plethora of dresses to sew together. On Tuesday I turned up and pressed all the hems and casings. On Wednesday I sewed in all the elastic bits. On Thursday I sewed all the side seams and serged them. On Friday I hemmed everything. On Saturday I prepared all my bias tapes and sewed them down. And today I finished stitching all of the shoulder ties. It seems like not much...but I made eighteen. That's the overboard part I mentioned. Throw in some shopping, a basketball game, a party, and my aerobics class. And work. And sleep. It was busy and I feel like I ran a marathon.

So in a nutshell (even though I already gave you the long version) I took this stack of stash fabric:

And I made it into these:

They were very easy to sew together and really ended up being quite cute. They look like the coolest, most comfortable thing to wear on a hot summer day. Here are a few of my favorites. I do apologize for the shoddy photos--nighttime is not the right time for good photography.

This dress is the kind you wear for picking wildflowers.

 This is the dress you wear to afternoon tea.

 You run through a sprinkler on a hot day in this one.

 You eat a vanilla ice cream cone in this one.

 After a day spent picking berries in this one...

 You change into this so you can laze on the porch with a glass of lemonade.

These are bits of whimsy, of course.I don't want to imagine the circumstances one must be in for such a simple thing as a dress like this to bring a smile to one's face. But I send these off into the world with the hopes that they find a happy recipient. Fare thee well, dresses. And fare thee well, little girls I don't know.

I'm linking up here this week, not to pimp my project but to raise awareness.

Spring Fling Sneak Peek!!

Last week I posted about how I'm taking part in the Spring Fling hosted by Wildflowers and Whimsy. Two weeks of fabulous giveaways to herald in the sunshine and flowers (hopefully). I wanted to give a sneaky peek of what I'll be giving away:

My giveaway day is March 26, so make sure you pop back then for a chance to enter! Have a most excellent weekend, lovelies!

And have you noticed I'm such a liar? I said I wasn't going to post until the weekend and then I think every day I did. I'm practicing for April Fool's Day :) 

CSN Giveaway Winner Take 2!!!

Well, I'm sorry to say my original winner never contacted me, so I had to redraw the prize. Which means you get a second dose of anticipation... Do you want me to blather on a while about something irrelevant to help build it a little? I can tell you how I went to my nephew's basketball game last night at my old high school. First visit since 1996! Very weird. The same, but different. I felt a feeling that I couldn't quite describe...not quite sad...but it had tinges of sadness to it. Is that nostalgia? Is that why moms cry when kids get older? I use that term liberally and it's usually the happy sort of remembering... Their team won 16-1. They made me tired watching them. I wish I had me some kid energy.

OK, OK. On to business. So the winner this time around is:

And that would be Kayla who said "Thank you for the giveaway!" Well Kayla, you're mighty welcome. Since you so graciously left me your contact info, I'm off to contact you officially. Congratulations!