My New Winter Craft Bag

Behold my new winter craft bag!

Started in 2017, it was born out of a ball of Norro yarn. I only had one ball, so decided to do some flowers in the variegated Norro, and turn them into squares that could be sewn together. I had some navy yarn, and purchased some mustard yarn to give it some life.

I made the squares, joined them together, purchased the lining fabric, and there they sat until last week.

I blocked the squares, then used them to make a pattern for the lining. Last Friday I made the lining up and hand stitched it in place. On the weekend I made some handles. I tried crocheting a tube to place over some plastic tubing, but the plastic tubing was too rigid and didn't quite work. so I pulled them undone and tried again after talking to my friend R----. These handles contain black cording to stop them from stretching.

After stitching the handles on, I felt it needed some decoration. My first thought was some crocheted flowers, but there were already flowers in the bag itself so I opted for tassels. There are three tassels in all, one navy, one orange, and one mixed.

So I now have another bag to add to my collection, and another UFO is off the list.

A Doily Bag

Over fifteen years ago I  was given a pile of un-worked stamped doilies by one of my students. Would I ever work them? Certainly not all of them. So I went through them all, kept the ones that I liked, and gave the others away.

At the time I needed a holiday project, so I picked one, chose some colours that I liked and started embroidering. I finished the stitching, then the piece sat there for many years, hidden in my UFO cupboard until I found it in a clean up at the beginning of this year. All it needed was a crochet edge to be finished!

I have lots of crochet thread in my stash, so I picked out a colour, and finished it off in a few days. Now what to do with it? Did I need another doily? Certainly not! Then I had this brilliant idea to decorate the side of a bag. So I rummaged through my fabric stash, found some scraps in similar colours, cut strips, joined them together, appliqued the doily to it, quilted it, them turned it into a bag.

It's a little smaller than I would have liked, but it will come in handy for my knitting, or taking books to and from the library. Wherever I use it, it will show off my creativity and some of my skills, embroidery, lace making, and sewing.

A Little Trinket Pouch

This little pouch started life in my creative stitching group Stitchers Plus. it was supposed to be a fun little fifteen minute design exercise. Well, it was fun, but took way more than fifteen minutes to work.

We just had to bring fabric and threads on the day, then we were all handed two words and two stitches to start us off. I got 'square', 'positive', buttonhole stitch and lazy daisy stitch. I had no idea where to begin so just started stitching.

The little piece got put away until about a week ago. I was meeting two of the girls from this group for lunch and wanted to take some stitching. So I pulled this project out and thought I would deal with what to do with it on the day. I had not touched it in four months.

I added some more stitches, and debated what to turn it into. A needle case crossed my mind, so did an envelope pouch. I wasn't fussed with the design turned the other way for an envelope pouch, and felt it was too big for a needle case, so decided a little drawstring trinket pouch would do.

There was barely enough fabric to turn a hem, let alone make a casing for a drawstring. So I hemmed the piece I had, then joined and hemmed another strip and decided to work a ladder insertion to act as a casing. I wasn't sure if this idea would work, but it did, beautifully.

So another UFO has bitten the dust, and I have a little thread pouch to use instead of a plastic sandwich bag.

A Little Work Pouch

Way back in 2016 the creative stitching group I belong to ,Stitchers Plus, had a challenge for the year to work 2" squares. My mind went instantly to working tenneriffe lace in a square format, it was something that I had wanted to try for a while.

I played with a few different designs which can be seen here , and settled on one that I liked so decided to make more.

The problem was what to do with them. A friend had suggested that I make a 15 sided biscornu, and I remember thinking 'why not?' So off I set to make 15 of the same designed little squares, just in different colour ways. I think I made ten before I  started to think how I could put this pin cushion together. The squares had been on exhibition, and in that process had been mounted to navy card to keep them flat and show off the colours to best advantage. To make the pincushion, I would have to take them off the card and mount them onto something else. I needed something rigid to help hold the shape, and everything I thought of was not pin friendly, so I needed to think of something else to turn them into.

I thought of one of those  square shaped bags that were traditionally from Central Asia, so bought some navy linen, interfaced it, carefully sewed a square, turned it through and folded it to shape, only to find it didn't sit quite square. Oh well, it would have to do. I found out later that all my friends who have made them have never got them quite square either.

So, the bag made, I then stared to add on my tenneriffe squares for decoration. I had a plan, but the plan didn't quite work, the squares were just too big to do what I wanted. I could only fit four of them on, and then they went on crooked, and the bag still looked incomplete. So then I decided to add some interlaced herringbone. Mmmm... remind me not to do this stitch ever again!I knew the stitch had to be worked carefully, and I'm sure I did it right, but when I came to do the interlacing, some of it worked, some of it didn't. If I don't tell anyone they won't know 😃😃.

The bag talked to me as I worked the interlace herringbone, and I kept adding rows of it. The issue was that where the joins met was not the best. So I decided to cover them up. I vlysafixed two layers of the linen together, cut some small circles and stitched them over the joins using woven wheel. Looks much better.

Then I needed a closure, so I made a covered button using the same linen with another woven wheel for decoration.

It's finished! Yay! My fifth UFO done for the year.

A New Work Bag

Behold, my new work bag!

This bag was born out of my local sewing group. One of the ladies had so much fabric she decided to cut up a huge pile into squares, and the members of the group could piece together colours of their choice into a bag. At group day, I chose my pieces, and got them all sewn together but one seam. It them came home and sat on my sewing table. I had one brainwave that my bobbin lace fish could adorn this bag, so set out stitching him onto one blank square, then promptly left the bag rolled up, unfinished, in another bag, on my sewing table. I found it again in my clean up last week, so decided to finish it.

It only needed one seam to sew, lining, quilting, a bind and some handles. The lining was scraps, donated by the lady who cut the squares. There was enough of it, it just needed to be be joined to make a piece large enough. The batting was scraps left over from other quilts that I had made. Once again joined to make a piece big enough for what I wanted.

So I made my quilt sandwich -  backing, batting and bag outer, and pinned it all together. I even checked that my fish was in the best place for viewing. Then I decided to have a play with the quilting and do something I had not done before. Because I had added my bobbin lace fish, I thought it might be fun to quilt fish shapes and waves on the bag. I had quilted  plenty of straight lines, shadow quilting, and stitching in the ditch, but stitching shapes and other lines like this was something new. I had tried once before and outlined the marks on a quilt in pencil.  As a dressmaker I should have known better because the pencil has never washed out, and as a result I have stayed away from free form quilting. This time I traced the fish shapes and waves into a tear-a-way, and quilted  through that. Wallah! Fish shapes and waves and no pencil markings! Why didn't I think of this before?

I was on a roll, and my bag was looking good, until I started to join it together into the bag shape. My bobbin lace fish that had taken sooooooooo long to do, was sitting at the bottom! I nearly cried! He couldn't stay there, he would wear, so he had to be moved. But how? All his working ends had been taken back through the green fabric and finished off. There were dozens of them, so he was not moving from that piece of fabric. The only choice was to move the square, but that meant unpicking quilting! So that's what I did, unpicked the quilting, swapped two squares around, then re-did the quilting. Sounds easy right? Took me a while, but I got there and my fish can now be viewed well and is safe from wear.

The bag was formed, seams on the inside bound, once again out of scraps. Then I made my handles, once again out of scraps. They contain slotted waist banding for strength and ease of making, and a layer of batting for some padding.

All in all I am happy with my new work bag, and will use it with pride. Amazing what can be made from other peoples unwanted fabric and one's own stash of scraps.

A Little Blue Lunch Bag

Behold! My new little lunch bag.

At our last meeting of GHS&S, our project for the day was to make this bag. We had been given a requirement list some weeks prior, but typical me left everything until the last minute. So much so, that I had nothing ready to take to the meeting. I had promised another lady that I would help her sort through some fabrics, so that would take up some time. I also quickly packed some tracing paper, pens, pencils, rulers, my sewing box, and a photo for inspiration. If all else failed, I could do some pattern-making ready for another project I wanted to do.

As it turned out, our meeting took much longer than normal, with lots of things being discussed, leaving less time to work on our projects. There was also a visit by a lady with not one, but numerous large bags of donated fabric. Well, there went the remainder of the morning. There were tables and tables full of fabric, ready to be sorted & gone through, with ideas flowing as to what we could do with it all. We were told we could take what we wanted. I came home with a small pile that would not have made a dent in what we had to choose from, most of it furnishing fabric.

My new little lunch bag has been made from some of that donated fabric. The pattern called for 100% cotton fabric, and the finished sample looked like quilting fabrics. It also called for firm batting or fuseable interfacing. I chose the light blue as my base for my bag as it was a furnishing fabric that had weight to it.  I figured it needed no interfacing or batting to help hold the shape, especially with all the folding and double layering that goes on in the making. The dark blue that I used for the straps and the lining is much lighter in weight. I chose not to interface this as I thought the light blue would be enough to hold it firm.

In hindsight, now I have made this bag once, quilting cotton would be ideal. The light blue furnishing fabric that I used was a little thick with all the double layering. It's great for the support, but in stitching across those base corners there were 8 layers of it. The machine could handle it without a problem, it was probably more the fact that I had turned it through to see how it looked before stitching the corners, and did  not want to turn it back. The outer fabric being stiffish made it hard to turn through the little opening.

The dark blue fabric is a dress weight polyester, good for making skirts and pants. In hindsight, it could have used a light weight fuseable interfacing to give it a little support. The furnishing fabric on the outside only provides support part way up the sides, and the handles only partially help the top section.

The bag is a cute little one. I think it has been designed as a handbag. There are pockets all around the outside supposedly suitable for keys, mobile phones, sunglasses etc. I personally like my possessions behind closures so they don't accidentally get lost. I also like closures at the top of my handbags for the same reason.

This is the first time I have made this pattern, and now I know how it goes together I may make a few little quirky changes. In the meantime, this cute little blue one can become a lunch bag for my Guild days. It can easily fit a sandwich box or salad bowl, a water bottle, coffee mug, and piece of fruit.

Now for those of you that have read this far, I know it has been a long time between drinks, but rest assured I have been stitching every day. My current project is certainly of the slow cloth variety

An Exhibition

Those people who know me well know that I belong to a few different textile inspired groups, one of which is called "Stitcher's Plus". We are a group of creative minded stitchers, and have been meeting & stitching together for over ten years now. Recently, we put together a collection of our works into an exhibition. Below are the pieces that I had in this exhibition.

First up is a book cover. This was the piece of Reticella that I worked for our tenth anniversary calendar. The piece has been sitting for quite some time waiting to be made up into a finished piece. I needed a book cover, so a book cover it has become, & how fitting that it should be a cover for my lace journal.
Next is a piece of Teneriffe Lace that I inserted into a handkerchief. Inspired by pictures of teneriffe lace that I have seen on the internet, I have been playing with different designs using the technique. This was one design that I found, & had to work out the method by myself as there were no instructions. Not my design, but definately my stitching, and was great fun using the brain to work it all out. It was relativley easy once I thought about for a few minutes.

Piece three is my first piece of Reticella which I showed you all here. This piece has been in two other exhibitions, and will probably go in at least another one or two. I am extremely proud of this piece.

Piece four,"A Summer Sanctuary", has also been exhibited twice before. The challenge proceses involved can be read here.
Next is a bag that I made from a challenge we were handed invoving faces. The face has been created using applique & FME, then pieced into the front of the bag.

The back of the bag has been pieced using the Flying Geese pattern & the whole bag has been machine quilted. This face has become my internet face & anyone who knows me personally will tell you I look nothing like this. A bag I use a lot.


Then there was my scarf. Made with a daisy wheel using a fancy knitting yarn, then crocheted together. Very slinky & warm.

Finally, my "Bugs In Boxes". These were another challenge & both consist of a painted canvas backgrounds which have been threaded with various yarns . Both also consist of couched yarns for the tree branches & leaves made from hand dyed fabric that has been FME'd with a metalic thread. The caterpillars in the top one are stuffed rouleau tubes featuring surface stitching, while the butterfly on the second one has been digitized & stitched onto water soluble fabric.



The exhibition is now closed, but for some more pics please visit our Stitchers Plus pages.

A New Shopping Bag

I've had the opportunity to make a shopping bag for a lady. I was asked first, & was told " tapestry fabric & something pouchy". So the above pic is what I came up with. The fabric was supplied & was horrendous to stitch through, requiring a jeans needle in my sewing machine. Very thick & stiff especially where it is tucked. I did think of gathering but didn't think that this fabric would gather very well. The lady that it has been made for is very petite so I couldn't make it too big, otherwise it would swamp her & if the handles were too long then the bag would drag on the ground. I hope she is happy with it, I am, & now I want one for me!

Sewing Again

After making a wedding dress & three bridesmaids dresses last year, I have hardly turned my sewing machine on since. I've done some mending & added some fabric strips to embroidery pieces so they will fit in a hoop for hand stitching, but that is all. My sewing machine has been sitting under it's cover waiting patiently for me to feel in the mood again.

Yesterday morning I remembered that I had promised to make a little bag for the sewing group I belong to. Needless to say the meeting was on yesterday as well. Nothing like getting things done just in time. So just as the sun was comming up & before breakfast, I sat bleary eyed at my machine to produce this little bag. Nothing special, (it didn't have to be), but in under an hour I had something usefull for the group. The good thing is that it has got me on my machine again, hopefully the next item will be a little more creative than this

Just some more fill in type stitching today. This is the beginnings of a little bag I started with one of my classes. The idea was to strip some scraps of fabric together & then add stitching. We would open a stitch book at any page, & take the stitch from that page & play with it. The idea was to extend my student's knowledge of stitches & see how creative they could be. I have had enough of stitching on this & now need to make it up. Just something else that my sewing machine is waiting to do. When it is finished I hope to use it as a thread bag, as lately my project threads are all over the place, unwinding themselves into messes. So I thought this might help to keep them tidy.

Exhibition Pieces

Just over a week ago our local stitching group held an exhibition. We only hold it once every 5 years which gives us time to produce enough work to put on a great display. For anyone who ventured into the hall there was certainly a feast for the eyes. Everything from Hardanger, Pulled work, Drawn work, Ukranian witework, Needlelace, Tatting, Canvas work, Wool embroidery, Smocking, Goldwork, Patchwork quilts & much much more.

There are over 40 members of our little group who meet twice a month and produce some beautiful work.

Below are the pieces that I had on display.

This is one of the first pieces of Drawn thread that I ever did. It now hangs proudly on my dining room wall.

This is a piece of Myreschka that we did in a class. It is a form of Russion Drawn Thread & is worked totally different to the pink piece above.

This is a surface stiched piece of ticking that I turned into a workbag. It was an exercize that my friend R & I worked out for our YTFG group when we were running it. We wanted the children to practice their stitches. Their bags were a bit smaller than this.

This is atissue box cover that was also made in a class. The class was to explore chain stitch, but I managed to squeeze a few more stitches in for effect.

This beautiful lady is a pin cushion. I first saw her in a magazine & just had to make one. So the search began for my china half doll. I needed her first as that would tell me what her skirt would be. Not sure that I will ever use her as a pin cushion, she is too much a lady to stich pins in.

This is a piece of Casalguidi. Another piece worked in a class that I really enjoyed.