This week, a friend celebrated her birthday, so our gift to her was a sewing day at my house where we all made the same kind of bag and helped each other to finish them.

There were five of us with varying skill levels. I have made a crapton of bags but obviously some of my zipper skills are rusty. We had a lot of fun, despite the frequent cursing when someone was struggling with a technique, or ripping out a seam, or forgetting to open the darned zipper before sewing around the bag and turning it out <ahem>.

I started out with two of the make-up bags. We used a video tutorial by sewingtimes on YouTube. The chick one is small and the daffodil one larger.

Then, as I had time, I made a simpler pouch from a piece of fabric that I’d built from scraps ages ago. And then a keyfob/wristlet thingy which has a gorgeous rainbowy metal attachment. One of my friends had a whole bag of these plus the special pliers for attaching them. These wristlets only take about 5 minutes to make!

In between all the sewing and chat, we had lunch for which I’d cooked a vegan “seefood” chowder (with shiitake and oyster mushrooms, roasted potatoes, corn etc from Lauren Toyota’s book Vegan Comfort Classics) and a chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream icing and fresh raspberries.

Rather than put all my stuff back in my sewing room, I decided to leave it in the dining room overnight to encourage me to do more sewing. It’s so cold in the basement when the weather starts to warm up. The furnace doesn’t fire as often.

So I used another scrappy piece of fabric to make another zipper pouch and lined it with this candy corn print as there is a small piece of it on the outside of the bag.

And this evening I finished a project that’s been hibernating for a really long time. My oldest son bought canvas and thread to make himself a tool roll for wrenches. He started planning it out but put it aside and it sat around my sewing room for at least a year.

As it’s his birthday tomorrow, I decided I was going to finish the thing and when I pulled it out I found that half the sewing was actually already done.

I can’t remember whether I did it or he did it. But I carried on adding pockets for the tools and hemming the top edge and adding webbing and now it’s finished and he can actually use it.

It even has a little square of vinyl with his initials on it.

So many people are looking forward to time off this weekend but unfortunately that isn’t me! I’m working Friday, Saturday and Monday. The only reason I have Sunday off is that the store is closed. Working sure cuts into my crafting time!!