Not sleeping much these days!
Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I helped my son's girlfriend work on a spectacular refashion. I'd love to post photos, but she took the dress (made from a maternity skirt) home to complete so we don't have pictures yet of the finished garment. Soon, I promise. Soon.
I also got a bee in my bonnet about my purse - I made one a couple of months ago, and found that even though I loved it, it was too cavernous for my taste - I just couldn't find anything in it. So I decided to start recycling some jeans that a really good friend donated to the cause, and using a Vogue pattern, this is what I came up with:
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| This is the front panel, with an external zippered pocket. The fabric was a freebie from Dorell Fabrics in Fountain Valley- they sell upholstery material but sometimes they have bits and pieces that are just too small to do much with - you can take one free sample every time you go into the shop. |
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| The inside of the front pocket. It's lined with another recycled garment, a blouse that a friend didn't wear anymore. |
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| The inside of the purse, with a couple more open pockets. Nothing moves in here when it's zipped shut, and it's not so deep that I can't see things when I'm looking for them. Bonus! |
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| My favorite part of the pattern - a side zip pocket. You can put one on either side of the purse but I opted to put only one in this time - I only had one zipper of this length and color. Next time I will line this particular pocket (and the matching one on the other side, should I put one in) with a fabric that matches the outer fabric - the way the zipper is put in, you can just see the lining around the perimeter of the zipper. Bummer. But this one's not for sale, anyway, so lesson learned. |
Nicely reinforced shoulder strap (while not being too stiff); bag is stablized with fusible fleece so it is still a bit slouchy but doesn't slump; lots of pocketses for everything to have its own place (with a nod to Lord of the Rings); overall a fairly easy pattern to work with. This may become my favorite bag pattern. And I have three boxes of jeans to go through....each pair renders one complete handbag using this pattern (Vogue V8661). I've already had two requests to make more, with fabric for the front panel that has special meaning for the recipients. A nice way to refashion jeans and to keep a treasured swatch of fabric close at hand!
Of course, the Sewing Assistant remains hard at work, inspecting each incoming order, large or small.
Or comfy, regardless of size.
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| Quality Control Expert, hard at work. |
In other crafty news, it appears that my sons have been bitten by the craft bug. Picture any other 20 year old young man, dressed head to toe in black (and variations of black), rides motorcycles, studying to become a machinist and loving every minute of being able to work with his hands, up to his elbows in some kind of engine fluid or other, surrounded by motorcycle bits and parts.
Now picture that young man making something as cool as this to give his girlfriend for Valentines Day (and reserving a single bloom for his dear ol' mum):
These are coffee filters, folks. Watercolored by hand, hand cut, hand crafted with floral tape, and accented with extra recycled leaves cut from silk roses from one of my projects long ago - my wedding bouquet! He presented them in a recycled tin from the Pirouline type cookies.
Dude's got good genes, both the refashioning and the crafty kind.
If you look very carefully at that first photo, you can see the man as a little boy in the photo in the bottom right corner - he's the one dressed in red. :)
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