Problems with my Pouch

Following yesterday's reverse applique, I thought the fabric would work well as a wide mouth pouch.  I found Anna Noodlehead's fab instructions, but my fabric piece didn't quite lend itself to her method, so I bodged it a bit

The pouch does everything it's meant to:

It looks fab

It opens really wide

But it's not quite stable!

I suspect its because I made the fabric into a tube, THEN added the zip,and I guess I've distorted its shape, but it does hold whatever I want to throw into it, and I do love the grey / red combo

Two for Tuesday

Two different crafts today:

After mastering inset zips on various bags I've made, I found myself wondering if I could do reverse applique the same way. I think I may have seen this years ago, but decided to see if my thoughts/memories would work!

 

I started this by placing two pieces of my fabric RST and drawing a circle, and stitching around the circle.

 

I cut about 1/2 inch inside the stitching and reserved the two waste circles

 

I snipped into the concave seam allowance 

and pushed the fabric through the hole and pressed it.

I then placed a piece of scrap red behind the the hole and top stitched it in place.

I then repeated the process using the two waste circles

And then I used fusible fleece on the back and quilted circles both inside the red circles and around the outside.

I then had to leave this project to go on to the second crafty session . . .

For my second craft I was at Chertsey Museum with a group of kids making door hangers. As usual the museum and I supplied the resources and a sample, and as usual the kids far exceeded the suggestions and made some fab examples!  They added multiple pockets, secret pockets, pockets from jeans legs, bells, secret bells . . . There was no stopping them!

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Journeys with Jackie (2)

Hurray for adjusting the clocks - we got an extra hour of sewing time on Sundays!

We used it very wisely - working on our bags!  Maybe I should have called this post Plenty of Pockets - these bags have 12 pockets each!

Three outside on the front, and three inside on the front, plus one slip pocket between the inner and outer section . . .

 And three more outside on the back, plus two zipped pockets inside back

Additionally, a bit of fussy cutting made us two clock purses

We also went back to the Richmond & Kew quilt show and did a stint on the admissions next (and may have spent a bit of money)

But like all good things eventually it had to come to an end, and Jackie has flown home.  Miss you Jackie xxx

Hope you had a good weekend too!

Journeys with Jackie

Jackie has been over for the weekend, and while we've managed some fabric related stuff there has been a lots of travelling too!

First let me show you the great scissors pouch she made me, and these gorgeous knitted fingerless gloves.

She also brought me some more EPP templates for La Pass, and acrylic templates for cutting the fabric: thank you Jackie

On Friday we drove to Portsmouth (to collect mum) and then on to Eternal Maker - a fabulous fabric shop in Chichester. There was SO much lovely stuff, I struggled to make choices! Mum got herself a coffee while Jackie and I tried to make decisions!
In the end I bought this gorgeous grey-on-grey and these rainbow solids

And we got some pretty zips, then came home to play. Eternal Maker had instructions on their blog on how to use the zips, but it appears you need to *follow* the instructions - we go one successful boxy pouch, but it's partner declined to be photographed!

Unfortunately I'm a bit of a no-raw-edges snob, and this ended up with raw edges, so I'm done with these pretty zips

On Saturday we were going to Teddington to volunteer at a stall at the Richmond and Kew Quilt Exhibition. Teddington is near Twickenham, but also near Twickenham is the home of the 2015 Rugby World Cup - and on Saturday New Zealand was playing South  Africa in the first semi final, so we decided train was a safer choice than car.

The exhibition was great, and the quilts looked great in the fab setting. 

After we'd done our shift  we went on a few more stops to Kingston to visit Fabricland. I know at least one person (hello, A) who checks fabrics there with a lighter to make sure she really is buying 100% cotton but I just bought some home dec weight fabric for bags and done interfacing: no lighter necessary!

As we had the bag fabric, it made sense to make a bag. This one from Love P & Q looked fairly simple,

but it posed a few problems - maybe our fabric was too thick, or maybe we are!!!

We finally decided to adapt the pattern, and today we made a variation from our knowledge rather than the instructions!  I'll show you the result tomorrow!

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Not Quite Nothing

I haven't had much time (or maybe inclination) to sit and sew something significant, which explains why I haven't blogged for a while, but I've snatched a few fifteen minutes here and there . . . and thought you might like to see

After the lovely Just Jude sent me goodies from a recent giveaway, I've had the fabric and fabric pens sat on my workbench just looking at me: and yesterday I did a bit of colouring in!

Wonderfully therapeutic , thank you again Jude!

On my trip to Gibraltar I did some more work on La Pass - slow but steady - and still fun! 

Now the girls are in their 20s  I thought I'd finished with fancy dress costumes - but ComicCon beckons, and Niki is going as Sarah Walker from Chuck, in her Weinerlicious outfit (no it means nothing to me either!) so I havnet finished making costumes!

Here is the original, thanks to Google Images

And here is my version

As an aside, Katy at Littlest Thistle recently asked an interesting question - why do we create?   There were some comments, and some off shoot blog posts (Hi Sarah) but then I saw this on Facebook, and I thought it summed it up quite well!  Read the left side first, then read again but right the way across both faces! 

I dont know about making a living, or changing the world, but I certainly create becuae I "have to"

Fabulous Friends

Quilters are such lovely people! I'm sure you'll agree, but I want to give you two examples from just this week.

I met up with Plum (from PlumQuilts) at the Richmond and Kew quilters meeting on Monday evening, and she's not only helping me check in some quilts at our exhibition in 10 days time, she also brought me a whole load of Love Quilting magazines, and some selvedge edges

The second piece of excitement came in the post: Kathy (who blogs at RunningWithRocket) had a giveaway on her blog - a tissue holder for anyone who wanted one.  I chose aeroplane fabric (she has a plane in her back yard!) and it arrived today, but that just turned out to be a small part of the package!!!

It came wrapped in a paper pattern piece (what a great idea) and with chocolate washi tape!, all in a really pretty lacy plastic bag (not quite wrapped like this as I was too impatient to photograph first so I had to try and reassemble for pictures later!)

With TWO really useful zippy vinyl pouches

And what I first took to be a vintage sewing pattern. . .

. . . I know some people collect these, but they don't excite me very much, however it was much more exciting and useful than that . . . It's a note book!

Thank you Kathy and Plum - it's great to have you as my friends xxx

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