My Sewing Space

I've been sewing, but not blogging as I have mixed feelings about blogging lately. I think I need to take some time to sort those issues out in my head and then save that for another post. In the meantime, have a look at what's hot off the machine... More angels .  Apparently, my daughter was right and people do want these. This hot water bottle cover is just like these , except it is half the size. S asked me to make a wedding dress wine sleeve to compliment these sleeves . I think this is good in theory, but it needs a better designer than me to make it work. Current wedding dresses don't really have sleeves, much less straps. The Preacher, whose fashion observation skills are pretty close to nil, even mentioned this. If they do have sleeves, they are made from only lace or bell-shaped - neither of which would work well for this wine sleeve idea. I spent way too much time searching online for wedding dresses and in the end I decided to go with a leg of mut...

About 30 minutes after I finished the last closet clutch , S called to ask me to make more wine bags as she only had one left. I dropped these off on Friday: I wanted one of them to have the same sort of look as the notecard that I liked so much. Next up :  finishing two little quilts...not very exciting...but still must be done.

Thanks so much for the feedback on the gift card bags.  All of your comments were very helpful.  I haven't decided for sure what I'm going to do yet, but I'll keep you posted. Three more wine sleeves, ready to go: Now that I've made a few of these and have all the gliches worked out, they come together pretty quickly. Two of these are going to my MIL who wants to give them as a gift.  The other will go to the shop for sale. Next up:  Something for ME!  I don't know what yet, but it doesn't matter.  As long as it's for ME!  :)

I dropped off these two wine sleeves at the shop today, along with the first one I made. Now I'm working on a hat fit for John Calvin.  (I'll explain when it's finished). photo from albatrus.org It's been an interesting project... I'm also still stitching away on tea towels.  I'm hoping to have those finished in the next couple of days.

The wine sleeve turned out pretty well, I think. Thoughts about how to do this have been rolling around in my head for a couple of weeks and in the end, I was pretty pleased with how it came together.  The "suit sleeve" is repurposed: I cut it off the jacket and took in the underarm seam so it was a snug fit on the bottle.  The "shirt sleeve" is made for the bottle.  I did look at dress shirts in second-hand stores, but the cuffs show wear and dirt and it would be hard to alter it to be the right size and still look good.  You can't really see the cuff very well in the photo because of the sun - oops. The bottom of the suit sleeve is wider than the top and it is longer than the shirt sleeve.  To get the slouchy look at the bottom, I gathered the bottom of the suit sleeve and sewed it to a circle the same size as the shirt sleeve bottom.  I sewed the two bottoms together in the seam allowances. This project was requested by the shop owner (I think ...

I picked up a men's sport coat yesterday at a second-hand store.  Even though I found this inside: I'm still going to cut it apart in an attempt to make this: (better picture here ) Wish me luck!

I make some small baskets and bags to sell at a shop in town and the owner asked me to make some wine bags, so this is what I came up with. This was the first one I made and then stopped in to show it to her and get feedback before making more. The strips are pieces of old neckties.  It was pretty snug and we thought the handles could be a little longer, so I made those changes and then made four more. The bottom of the bag is a circle, so this project wasn't as simple as just measuring height and width.  I had to dust off some math skills.  C = 2(pi)r .... remember that?  Then making a circle of a specific diameter meant I should really have a compass.  During my unsuccessful search around the house I found a roll of packing tape that looked about right.  I measured it and the diameter was exactly what I needed.  Perfect. All of the bags have a layer of batting between the outer fabric and the lining. For perspective, her...