Tag Archives: project bags

May5

April wrap up

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April wrap up

Hi all

I’m overdue for my April roundup, aren’t I! It was a making, vlogging, walking sort of month. Mr Stitches and I have been getting between 5000 and 10000 steps in every day, and I have also been supplementing with a few home workouts. Trying to get fitter again. 

Ali of Little Drops of Wonderful has had her Dodgy Bag Makealong in progress, and there’s an active thread in her Ravelry group. I’ve posted quite a few photos in there of bags I’ve made, including the one for my swap partner in Alberta. 

She sent me a lovely package of goodies in return. A bag that she made, some ceramic buttons, stickers and a cute toadstool charm. 

I’ll pop a few photos of the things I’ve sewn below.

Caroline bags (photo tutorial on this blog) including some smaller ones just for fun

Bum Bag – this was a pain as there was binding on the inside and I do not like binding!

Laptop bag – my own invention

Tote from upcycled denim

Forage bag – a Noodlehead pattern

Scrappy continuous zipper bags

Arm band for phone – another invention of mine so I can log steps when  working out at home

Scissor keepers – a SewingTimes tutorial

Tiny zip pouches – I made a YouTube tutorial for these

Turtle mop – an idea I saw on Facebook

Coral denim bag – another YT tutorial,  this time from Mama Project. Struggled with this one. Not good enough to sell but I used it today and I love it so I’m keeping it. I dyed the jeans with Rit.

There’s been quite a lot of crochet too. 

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Crochet pussy hats – I’m on the third one so far this week. Yarn is Ice Yarns Picasso.

I had another fun outing with friends one weekend. We drove a little way south and had a lovely time in a small town with a yarn store (that was really busy as they were having a special event with wine and cupcakes and everything) and a quilt store. So we spent lots of time browsing and inhaling yarn and fabric fumes and then went and had a coffee and a snack. 

I’m writing this on May 5th, and today was my first market, selling my bags. I did sell a few, and made a reasonable amount of money, but a lot of that was thanks to my friends who came to say Hi. I certainly didn’t expect them to spend any money but they did and I’m grateful for that. 

It was a tiring day of getting up at 6am (because I woke up before my alarm and thought I may as well get up) and driving to the venue and spending 5 hours “peopling” (I’m out of practice at that). Packing up didn’t take long, but I got home desperate for food and tea! And then Mr Stitches and I went out for a 7pm show of Taiko drumming which was absolutely awesome and made me forget my tiredness. 

Mr Stitches’ recovery from cancer is going quite well, though the after-effects of the radiation come and go. He will be going back to work next week, but only 4 hours, 3 days the first week. And then gradually working his way back to full time. I have also started looking around to see what part-time jobs there are in the vicinity but I haven’t gone as far as updating my resumé.

If you haven’t yet gone and checked out my YouTube channel, Stitches and Slapdashery, please do go and visit.

Thanks for reading.

May12

Back to work!

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Back to work!

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Coordinating mask and hair!

I was called back to work last week. Almost all of our staff came in for two solid days and we hung plastic barriers around the till and the cutting tables, taped arrows on the floor, cleaned, tidied and organised our buns off. Sunday was a day of rest and reopening day was Monday (yesterday).

We don’t have to wear masks but I made myself an extra-special one anyway!

The first day back went well, with customers happy to see us open, and OK with waiting if there was already the maximum allowed in the store.

Since my last blog post, I have making, yes you guessed it, more bags. I’m afraid there has been no crochet or knitting. I had a bit of a repetitive strain pain in the base of my left thumb which was irritated by the blanket knitting. Instead I upcycled a couple of jeans pockets and some extra bits and pieces I had lying around.

After I took the photos, I added some turquoise stitching around the seamline, though I don’t think my machine is meant to be embroidering on multiple layers of denim. It doesn’t look as good as it does on thinner fabric.

I am in love with this bag that I made today. I sized it based on what I had of the fabric, bearing in mind the floral and pink fabrics were both left over from sewing garments.

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I added extra features like the detachable wrist strap and the keyring on the side of the inner pocket. It’s a big bag – about 12.5″ tall.

So that’s two more bags for the #dodgybagmal2020 that Ali of Little Drops of Wonderful is running this month.

Apr6

Sewing with a purpose

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Sewing with a purpose

As you know, recently I have been sewing up a storm because, well, you know, the disease-that-shall-not-be-named has created a temporary cessation of my day job. And I’ve never been so grateful for a stash in all my years of knitting, crocheting and sewing!

So what have I been doing since we last met? I made a second one of these:

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While I constructed this I took progress photos, optimistic that I had the math worked out and I could quickly get to the job of publishing the tutorial. Well….no. At least, not yet. I was about to sally forth and make Mark III but was sidetracked by a request from a friend. One of our mutual friends has recently had major surgery and so a group quilt is underway, as is a crocheted beanie and some face masks for the times that said friend has to go into the hospital for follow-up visits.

My contribution to the quilt (with materials partly my own and partly my friend’s) is this:

The beanie, after false starts with different yarn, different hooks, pattern or no pattern, is in progress:

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This is one of my souvenir balls of yarn from Yarndale – Louisa Harding Giardino in the colourway Lily del Valle. It’s a DK weight cotton/acrylic blend. It doesn’t need a fancy stitch.

And then my thoughts turned to masks and synchronistically a link on my Facebook feed provided the perfect pattern. I started making them and then suddenly I was getting requests. So far I have made 13 – I am saving one of the snowboard ones for Mr Fixit, but the other 12 have been claimed by a friend who works in the hospital (admin, not front line). I now need to make a few more,

though once my bias binding and elastic run out I shall have to be inventive about ties. I am also using a medium weight fusible interfacing on the outer layer for more structure and filtration properties.

This period of extended home time will be remembered for the hours of sewing and pounds of bread baked!

 

Mar30

Ups and downs

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Yesterday was a lazy day – yes, even lazier than most during this time of social distancing. I didn’t really get much done. I sat outside for a while but, even though the sun was out, the wind was cold, so I had a knitted blanket wrapped around me. Mr Fixit was busy tidying in the garden, and making a noise with the wood chipper for part of the time. I didn’t feel like joining in!

I did finish this crochet cowl over the weekend though.

And another small SockSack, this time with some sew-in fleece incorporated for extra squishiness. I do prefer the softer result, compared to the crispness of the fusible interfacing.

Today, I was much more motivated. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Mr Fixit was at work, and I tend to get more done around the house on a weekday. I made a list. Vacuumed, cleaned bathrooms, watered plants, made bread, did laundry. That felt good. I do love crossing things off my To Do list!

This evening I went downstairs and made a simple drawstring bag. I used a tutorial from sewingtimes’ YouTube channel which was really easy and a slightly different construction from ones I’ve seen before. I like it!

I had to adapt it slightly as my fabrics were both one-way prints. It would have been even quicker to make otherwise.

And this little bucket/box/container whatchamacallit is cute! It’s from a Lizzy Curtis tutorial – she calls it a gift box and suggests filling it with edible treats.

I had to unpick the first attempt at topstitching but the second time seemed to go well…until I looked at the bobbin thread side and realised it had gone all loose and horrible. Pro – the loose stitches are on the denim side which can’t be seen if I fold it as above. Cons – if I want to have the butterflies on the outside and the denim on the inside you’ll see the crappy stitches, and it’s not good enough for gift-giving. Darnit!

What creative things are you doing to save your sanity right now?

Mar28

Sock Sacks

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I’ve been having fun this afternoon. A friend of mine was sending me Etsy links last night and we were gasping at the price of ready-made knitter’s project bags (ahem$70ahem). I suppose when you take into account the time it takes to make one, plus fabric and other notions, then the price isn’t totally overboard, but when you have the skillz you say to yourself, “I could totally make that!”

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As it happens, one of the Etsy stores mentioned the pattern they were using to make their bags, so I did a quick Google and found the source. It’s Ramona Rose at localredvine and the pattern is for sale here for about $13 Cdn.

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This is a drawstring bag with a divider. The divider can be plain or it can be a zippered pouch. Built in. So cool! Designed for knitting socks two at a time (which I don’t do) it holds the two balls of yarn separately and has two little tabs inside that snap shut to keep your yarn behaving as you pull it from the skein. (As I said to Mr Fixit, it’s always important to keep your balls separate!!!)

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I possibly could have reverse-engineered it, but with the last week being so frugal, with no purchases except for food, I’ve saved more than $13 on gas, lattes and the like. So I thought, to heck with it, and bought it.

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And I’ve already made two. The mushroom/turquoise flower fabric, which I am in LOVE with, was my first. It stands about seven inches tall.

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And the pink camper van bag is about 9.5 inches tall. Here they are side by side. I just realised that this design has everything – a drawstring, a zipper AND snaps.

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There is a larger size yet, but considering the depth (back to front) of these guys, I don’t think you need to go bigger! But of course it depends on what you want to carry in it.

Just to prove I really am in love with that floral fabric, here’s a photo to show you that I now have a total of four coordinated items that I can’t bear to give away! The wallet at the top is in daily use. So glad I bought some of that fabric before it sold out at work.

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Feb14

Thankful

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I am grateful for my job. It’s only three days a week but it gives me a challenge and  money to go on vacation and interaction with lots of people who have similar interests. And having that job makes me more grateful for the days when I don’t have a shift and I can get other stuff done. Yes, that means housework, laundry, grocery shopping and other mundane things, but it also means I have time for my hobbies and my friends.

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The six remaining bags

The set of 12 animal bags is done <<cheers>> and not only that but six are sold already. I was hoping that when I cut up that panel from work and turned it into project bags that I wouldn’t be left with a lot of things I couldn’t sell. However, thanks to friends, they are disappearing out of the door. Each bag is $24 and I am going to donate 75% of that to a farm sanctuary here in the valley. They don’t know that yet, but I’ll be passing on the funds soon, I expect.

It took me a while to get the job done as I kept distracting myself with other fun things. In fact, after I had finished the Hey Ewe bag this afternoon, I went on to make another thing.

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This is made from a jeans leg, which I fused with Heat ‘n Bond to some quilting cotton, and then I constructed a simple zipper bag with a zipper and button from the stash. So easy to make. I’ve watched so darn many YouTube videos on bag construction I think I could make some of them in my sleep. Well, except for the zipper – I still need Wonder tape for that.

I mentioned in my last post that I was planning to play with double knitting and I have started on the dragon square. I have made a few mistakes but I am being gentle with myself and leaving them, because it is a learning process. I have discovered I prefer to do it while holding both yarns in my right hand, rather than in the left, or one in each hand, and it is something that you really have to  FOCUS on because you have to knit and purl the correct stitches in the correct colour and then just as you’re getting used to it you have to switch the colours to make the design. Yikes!

When my friends came over last night, I didn’t even bother to pick up the needles, choosing to start something simple in crochet instead.

It’s dinnertime, and I’m off to scoff chili and rice. Have a great day!

 

Feb12

Nuts for bags

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Good morning! It’s a very foggy start to the day here. We still have snow on the garden, though most of the roads are clear as we haven’t seen any snowfall for a week now. Yesterday felt really warm – I think it reached double digits. My car’s thermometer said 10 degrees Celsius, parked in the carport.

Last time I posted, I had five project bags made. I now have five more.

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Still two to go to finish the set and then I’ll make more of a concerted effort to get them sold for CritterAid.

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In between making these bags, I made a denim one for a change of pace.

Same technique, no batting.

Much as I love my animal bags, I’ll be glad when they’re done. I did finish a child size beanie this week using Caron Cupcakes yarn…

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…which then led me to getting my swift and ball winder out and going through my yarns and tidying some up and turning some from hanks into cakes. I haven’t used any of my newest yarns, purchased last year. I suppose I’m thinking I should use up the older stuff first, but that could take a long time, especially at my current rate of production.

One technique I’d like to play with this year is double knitting, where you knit two layers at once using two colours and end up with a pattern on one side and the reverse pattern on the back. Like this Ampersand Dragon on Ravelry. I have printed the pattern and I think this will be my next knitting challenge. I have watched a few videos for cast ons and dealing with edges. Should be fun!

It’s a work day today so I’ll sign off here. Hope your day is wonderful, and happy crafting.

 

 

Feb1

What the Fox?

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Now that I have stopped distracting myself with other things, I have made great progress on the knitting/crochet project bags for charity. I have decided to sell these for $24, with 75% of that going to CritterAid farm sanctuary in Summerland, BC. I have been posting pics of these to Facebook and one friend has already called Dibs on the What the Fox bag.

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The quilt panel has 12 animals on it so once all 12 bags are made I’ll make a bit more effort to sell them, probably posting to Facebook Marketplace. I’d rather sell locally rather than pay postage to send them elsewhere.

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The bags that I’ve made so far are similar – animal panel on the front, patterned quilt cotton on the back and for the casings, denim upcycled from old jeans for the base, cotton batting, and turquoise organic cotton for the lining. They measure about 10″ across and 10″ deep, and have a boxed bottom that adds a third dimension to fit more stuff! They also have a denim tab and keyring for attaching stitch markers or keys or whatever.

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Five made so far, seven to go. I really hope I can (a) maintain my enthusiasm and complete all twelve and (b) sell them all.

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What do you think? What’s your favourite?

Jan16

Snow days!

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Snow days!

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When it’s well below freezing outside (our minimum one night was -24 or so, felt like -31  with the windchill) and the snow is building up to your knees and the roads are icy despite the efforts of the city to keep them ploughed and salted and gritted…well, you just gotta hunker down in a warm house and get crafty.

I was supposed to have Monday and Tuesday off, work Wednesday, then have today off, and work tomorrow. However the boss called Wednesday morning, expecting a quiet day at the store, and said I could stay home. YAY!

The bag adventures continue. I made another project bag (see above), still playing with proportions for using up those animal squares mentioned a couple of posts ago. This is the most accurate, compared to the squares I intend to use, and while it is still a teensy bit tall for its width I may just go with it. I do need to get a couple of metres of lining fabric before I actually starting sewing them though.

I also played with more triangle or pyramid bags. I used this tutorial here.

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This one used a zipper I had lying around and some stash fabric (left from a project a long time ago) and I was a bit slapdash with it, not bothering with Wonder tape on the zipper so it was far from perfect. The interfacing was a grey iron on piece I found in the scrap pile.

Later, I made a second, this time taking care to sew in the zipper perfectly and instead of interfacing I used a thin poly batting. The last step was sewing closed the gap in the lining, which was a bit messy, unfortunately. Still, I was just playing.

During my four days off, I also gave the house a good clean. Well, you can’t sew ALL the time. That felt good. And I also crocheted a couple of cowls.

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This is Bernat Pop from the yarn stash in the Blue Streak colourway. I held two strands double, one from each end of the cake and used a 9mm hook. The cable pattern is from the Complete Photo Guide to Crochet, which I own. This is for me, because sometimes I need an earwarmer rather than a whole hat, and anyway hats squish my hair flat and then I can’t take them off all day!

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This one was super quick because it’s a jumbo yarn. The brand is Spindle Yarns Snug-as-a-Bug which came from the store where I work. It used half the ball and a 19mm crochet hook. A 25 mm would have been better but I don’t have one. I just did slipstitch in the round for about five rounds and it was done in the time I drank a cup of tea at the coffeeshop today.

Seeing as I have half the ball left, I have whipped out some size 35 knitting needles (again, 25mm would be better but I only have one of those, probably from a thrift store purchase) and am making another cowl in garter stitches on SIX STITCHES. Yes, only six stitches makes a piece about 7″ wide. Crazy, eh!

I have done a fair bit of snow shovelling this week but thankfully because it’s so cold the snow has been very light. I have to be careful, as my right wrist tires easily since I broke it, and my left shoulder has a rotator cuff strain that has been painful for a really long time. I’ve decided to give it some serious TLC for two weeks to see if that helps. Rest (no yoga or upper body weights), turmeric for inflammation, ice pack, cold water in the shower (the water coming out of the tap right now is extremely cold, but I only direct it on my shoulder at the end of a warm shower). I really need to get this pain gone, because it hurts to do just about anything on that side, especially taking off clothing where you cross your arms over your body and pull upwards.

Oooh, I nearly forgot. It was a beautiful sunset as I was making dinner and as I looked out of my kitchen window I saw movement in the back garden. Four deer came through to nibble on our trees and generally hang out. They were there for some time. I am always excited to see them. (Sunset photo courtesy of my youngest son.)

Jan13

Playing with proportions

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Happy Monday! Well, it is for me. I worked Saturday and Sunday, so now I have Monday and Tuesday off. It is super cold here in British Columbia (we’re talking about minimums in the minus 20s) and I decided that I didn’t need to go anywhere today and I would spent some quality time with my sewing machine.

This morning I made the Pink Panther bag. In my last post, I talked about the pink campervan bag, and how it looked too tall and skinny for my liking. I experimented by taking a couple of inches off the height of the printed sections above the denim. I really like this bag. It’s the perfect size for a sock or other small project, but looking at the animal squares in the fabric I want to use I really don’t know if it’s doable to trim an inch off the top and bottom of those squares.

After a quick coffee and some avocado on toast I returned to the sewing machine and made the caravan bag. I went back to the original height of the print pieces but made them a bit wider, thinking that I could add some contrast fabric to each side of the animal squares.

It does look good, I think. But I prefer the smaller bag. Also, did you notice that there is a jeans seam running vertically down the base of this bag? I accidentally cut the denim from the jeans leg the wrong way, but used it anyway. I might even prefer it this way as it becomes a feature instead of being hidden at the bottom.

I was binge watching You Tube last night, watching bag-making videos and upcycled jeans tutorials. I really should just go to bed early at the end of a work day – I am such a zombie past 10pm – I just wish it wasn’t so much effort to get off the couch and brush my teeth some nights!!

If you haven’t yet entered my giveaway, it’s here and you still have until the 21st to enter.