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I co-co-co-co hosted a babyshower for my sister-in-law the other night for their second little girl, Alexandria. I decided to make a penant banner for the shower decoration and also thought it would make a unique gift for decorating her room. The pic shows the banner and the mom (those girls are really lucky). If you click on the picture it makes it a little larger for better viewing. They're going to call her Allie. Really cute because her older sister (who by the way is ONLY 13 months older) is named Addison but we call her Addie. Cute, Cute!

BIG and small

Isn't it funny where our sewing will take us? Who knew when I started sewing yesterday that I would make a couple of BIG bags and then in the evening be making a couple of small bags. (and lovin' it!)

The Big bag is my own design - it doesn't "wow" me but it will do. It needs something . . . but it would still be very functional. It is roomy enough to take to Farmers Markets or the Beach or would be great as a diaper bag. If I was going to keep it, I would use it to transport a sewing project to a friends house.

The small one is from here. I don't know how these things find me but it was perfect timing because I was looking for bag patterns and I had to control myself from buying all of the patterns. I love that you are able to make things from the patterns to sell if you give credit to the pattern maker. I like that alot of designers are giving their permission for you to sell things made from their patterns. So generous.

I purchased another pattern from their site. Hoping to make some up today. Any guesses on what pattern I bought?

Yoga Mat Bags

I host a sewing group on Monday nights and we are working on projects from One Yard Wonders. We made the Yoga mat bags. I love a project that teaches new techniques and poses some challenge BUT . . . there is a mistake in the book so no amount of skilled sewing is going to get you through that. The pattern calls for you to cut out a circle with a diameter of 16 1/2" - that's a pretty big circle! Thankfully, some of the girls actually take yoga and we realized that there would be no way the bag would need to be that big. so after cutting the circle down, and cutting the circle down and cutting the circle down some more we arrived at a diameter that would work. This morning I found this. LOL. I think I will make at least one more to boost my sewing confidence - because not getting it right makes you feel like a failure and now I need to know I CAN sew if I have the right dimensions.

Nearly famous

I entered the "Official Spring Sewing Tops" on flickr and one of my entries made it to Made By Rae blog. Oh, I am so thrilled. I know it really doesn't mean alot in this big blogging world but it means alot to me. The judging gets started next week. Let me see, I think first they narrow it down to the top 50 so I am keeping my fingers crossed that I make it to the top 50. These are pictures of two of the three that I entered. To see the third one, click on the "made by Rae" link above. I am in the first row of pictures of the pink shirts. It is labeled "pinkie by Joey sews".

Makeup Bags

It's so nice when my girls want to sew! So the three of us recently spent an evening in the sewing room making these makeup bags. The robot material is an old shirt of my youngests. She loved that robot print so of course we didn't throw it out when it got too worn. Nope! I knew we would be able to use it. She actually had cut out the individual robots then roughly stitched them to another piece of fabric. It's really cute. The white makeup bag is made from a piece of sheet leftover from some lounge pants that I had made and the third one is made from the "stash".
I recently purchased a "ruffler" foot at the thrift store for $2 and so now EVERYTHING gets a ruffle. That little attachment is Amazing! No more "basting two lines of sewing only to have one of the threads break halfway through pulling"! I am having a little trouble judging how much material to use to get it to "fit". But there is a little "give" in the ruffle after it's been through the machine so so far that has worked. The ruffler foot allows you to make regular ruffles and also does a pleat. On the makeup bag, I cut a narrow piece of fabric (2") and serged both long ends and then ran the ruffler stitches down the middle then attached it to the bag front. Could only be more pleased by that fact that my 16 and 18 year olds like to sew too!

Super Easy Bag

We made these bags at my sewing group that I host at my home every monday night. The pattern we used is from this book, although, I believe I have seen the pattern many places. The pattern calls for round purse handles and I couldn't find them locally so we ordered some online but I couldn't wait for them to come in so I made some fabric covered handles. The exterior of the bag is a fabric sample remnant (given to me) and the interior lining is a thrifted table cloth. I am very pleased with how the bag turned out. I think my girls liked it to. It's nice to be able to impress your teenage daughters. (as you can tell from one of the pictures, I think the bag could be reversable).

BINGO!!

I'm afraid I just don't have a pic to go along with this post. But I did want to tell you about another great local place to eat. Bingo Burger. My friend, Tammy, told me about the place and we decided to try it last Saturday. They advertise that they have "locally grown, grain fed meat". MMMM, MMM, MMM, good. Although, I might just skip having a burger altogether to have their sweet potatoe fries. Oh, those are so delicious. Who came up with that? Thank you!

This outing wasn't a "date day" in the thought that it would be just me and my husband (21st anniversary on Thursday!!!!). Our two girls came with us. No complaints from them either on the food. Pretty good. You know how hard it can be to try and please teenagers. Not sure why it is called "Bingo Burger". Hmmm will just have to go back and do some asking (and have some sweet potatoe fries).

JOEY