Knowing When to Throw In The Towel (or bag)

Months ago, my sister-in-law asked me to make a doll's nappy (diaper) bag for my 2½ year old niece. She hasn't been able to find one for her in Australia. I picked up fabric for it ages ago, but with lacking sewjo and nerves about re-sizing a bag pattern when I've only made one bag it's taken me too long to get around to starting.

Skipped stitches because my machine didn't like using a denim needle
when sewing denim...

This was the week, and up until the last hour of yesterday afternoon it was going swimmingly. I'm making Sew Sweetness' Velocity Girl bag. I've made it before, in fact I took it out for its photoshoot last Memorial Day! And when my sister-in-law saw it she told me that with a flap it and a little bigger it would look just like the expensive real-life diaper bags that were all the rage. So when she requested a doll version for Grace, I thought, well I'll just make a scaled down version of Velocity Girl, add a flap - how hard can it be!??

And the answer is not that hard, there's some maths and counting, but Sara's pattern is so well written that it actually makes putting it all together still really easy when you're taking your little added extras into account. A fact I'm now eternally grateful for, because I find bags really difficult to keep a hold of in my head. It's their 3D-ness. I can't quite grasp the why, until twenty steps later I'm like, 'OHHHHHHH, that's really frickin' clever!!'.

Fighting the Pins

Anyway, the balls up. I made all the various panels and pockets, and added piping (a first - yay!) and it went grand. Then, I started to assemble them, into a bag form. It was when I was adding the second outer wall that I realised I was using half the recommended seam allowance, cos I'd gotten kinda cocky with how well it was going. Part of me was like, well, it would be a pain to unpick and it's fine so far, so maybe we'll just go with it.

Offending Hole

But, no. I missed the underneath layer in three spots, and one was a whopper. I was so cross. Grumpy for well over an hour. That feeling of wanting to break a piece of china, or maybe kick a wall... Grrrr. But, a rant at Paul, a stomp around the supermarket, dinner, Dr Who, and a walk all improved my mood. As did, surprisingly, turning the offending item right side out. It needs to be unpicked, and sewn with the correct seam allowance. But it's shaping up to be really cute when done right, so it will be worth it.

Mollified by the Cute

But it won't be worth it today. Or for the next week. Too much frustration. It's time to metaphorically throw it at the wall. Wait for pay day, grab some Joann's vouchers, take Sara's instagram advice of yesterday and buy some Clover Wonder Clips. So that instead of bending my lovely quilting pins, and trying to figure why I can't push one through, only to discover I've created a small groove in my thumbnail, I can just clip and unclip, and not curse.

Let's Not Forget the Hole of Shame

Last night, after I'd ranted and stomped and walked it out, I had 45 minutes and so I continued the calm with a little bit of English paper piecing. I've been cutting one square from every scrap of the Farmer's Wife Quilt that's large enough, and I'm beginning to sew them together. There's no plan to the colours, and I'm finding the outcome very cottage-y cosy.

This post is getting unwieldy now, but one more picture and a couple of links. The Deep in the Heart of Texas Roadtrip QAL kicks off on Sunday, June 1st. Melissa has cutting directions and the quilt layout up on her blog as of yesterday. Today I got out the fabrics I've chosen for this quilt. I bought a lot of Lazy Day charm and mini-charm packs (one of my oldest friends is having a baby, and I panicked earlier in the year) which were going spare, but which I think on a navy background are going to make a lovely Texas. I've only bought a few extra half yards for the city blocks so far, but this morning I ordered a few more colours for variety. I'm excited to get going and will check in once a week with my progress, and links if you're following along :)

Have a good weekend y'all, x

(did you see what I did there!??!?)

A Slow Week

It's been a slow one, sewing wise, life wise. Met my new neurologist on Monday, have a change in medication, the navigation of the American health care system began, it's been confusing and surprising (in good ways, so far). The bad parts are all in the withdrawal and new side effects, sleep is being stolen from me among others, but hopefully this is the low point.

I was prepared Monday, left out some easy to piece blocks from an oft put down project, continued on them on Tuesday.

Laid out my progress, over a year so far, 14 blocks left, seeing it all out is encouraging, such lovely colours - all courtesy of Justine at Simply Solids and her Sew Solids Crew stash club last year.

Since Wednesday I've tried to push myself to get to what I really should be doing - but like any time that word, should, is involved it isn't happening. My brain is not up for altering patterns as I go, and my machine has decided that skipping stitches is so in vogue right now. I've walked away. Though I'm eyeing up a potential couple of hours of alone time on Sunday morning for a thorough machine clean and re-thread! I'm actually enthusiastic about that, another surprise.

Yesterday I gave up on the shoulds completely, and started cutting out the fabrics for my next set of Farmer's Wife blocks. It's slow, requires little brain power (apart from the ones that involve mirrored blocks - why, why!?!), and is filled with colour. I'm loving it.

Very much looking forward to this long weekend (magical words), hoping that I will enter next week more refreshed and more human-feeling. Hoping you all enjoy your weekends, wherever you happen to be!

New Fancy Handbag!

I made a plan before I moved back to DC. I would spend my jetlagged first week making myself a pretty handbag, just for me, while Paul was at work. That didn't happen. Instead, I slowly cut out all the pieces and then last Friday I took a vagary and sat down and made the whole bag! I've never made a bag before. I was stunned at how quickly I got it together. There was some unpicking along the way, but no cursing (if you know me you know how astonishing that is!). I think that once you start to see it come together it is promising to be so pretty that you're happy to do whatever it takes to get it all worthy of that promise.

Made with Tsuru ...and Old Lace in Indigo by Rashida Coleman Hale,
Salt Water Submarines and Seaweed in Coral by Tula Pink,
and piping in Flamingo from Free Spirit.

Now, all of this is not some previously untapped well of bag-making talent. Oh no. Helpfully I have inserted some zippers before (and don't have super high standards in getting them put in, that they work and no fabric gets caught in them is all I'm after!). But most helpfully I was making my bag from one of Sara's bag patterns. Sara is the wee genius behind Sew Sweetness and she is just really lovely and helpful. At the end of her pattern she gives ways to contact her in case you are pulling your hair out and need some guru-like advice and a cup of tea/cold gin!!

The bag's first time in the Metro - the Metro is not as well
lit as it looks in this photo. We can't understand
why it looks so bright here...

I made the Velocity Girl bag. I needed a non-giant hand bag to replace my last one which I got a year ago for my birthday and proceeded to use to death! Especially since I hurt my back at Christmas I've needed to cut down on the amount of stuff I carry around with me, and since that is directly a result of how much space I have in my handbag I've needed to downsize (a lot). Velocity Girl is perfect! PERFECT! I carried it around all of Memorial Day and my back and shoulder didn't get sore once. It stands up by itself because I used some of Annie's Soft and Stable as recommended by Sara. I love it. And I love having some really pretty fabric with me all the time.

The bag in the wild at the Bethesda Farm Women's Co-Op!

Oh, and Sara put in plenty of pockets. So many that I even have one or two still free of purpose which is amazing, cos I love pockets. I like to put my phone, some tissues, some spare food, my keys, my metro card, and lip balm all into pockets. I love having them right at my fingertips and not having to root through the bottom of my bag as soon as I reach the Metro or my building!

Outside Pockets - there's five overall, just on the outside!!

I made a mistake - there's excess fabric in the interior because
I thought I knew it all and didn't actually read the steps right... There's
a lesson in there somewhere! But look, pretty magnetic clasp and zipper!!

Yeah, as you can tell I love this bag. I will definitely be making another bag from Sara. I own some more patterns. Hopefully by the end of June I'll have an Accordion Bag of my very own too! Secretly, when I was planning making Velocity Girl once I got here, I also bought fabric to make Accordion... Hence my current self-imposed fabric shopping ban! So worth it though, look at my bag!!!

Memorial Day exploring with a cardigan!! I enjoyed needing a
cardigan. Also, fancy bag hardware in the shape of a big metal O!

Linking up to TGIFF, over at Charm About You this week!! I hope to share the other bits of sewing I've been getting done this weekend with Fresh Sewing Day, because holy shit it's June tomorrow!

Aoif :)

WIP Wednesday: Leftover Charms

Things are on a real stop and start around here. Last week in about a day I made a patchwork quilt top (the pictures are coming in just a few paragraphs!). The weekend was jam packed with exploring markets, grocery shopping, cooking, and planning.

Monday started well, with me beginning to cut out the pieces for the Velocity Girl Bag by SewSweetness, and then we went to our first pilates class. I'm still sore. It was good, but too intense for my still-recovering back. So back to google to find a new class to try.

Then yesterday came, and all the go that had been happening over the weekend died. Just died. I was tired and cranky, and there were arguments. I didn't do anything on my to-do list. I did start watching Craftsy classes I bought last Autumn... And got an idea for a new quilt, which I then mocked up in Illustrator instead of making chilli for dinner. Thankfully it was only me for dinner here last night, so I just microwaved some frozen lasagne and kept right on playing with quilt ideas.

Anyway, I don't really have a point. But I feel guilty for not getting more done, for not replying to emails sooner, and for finding settling in here harder on some days than others. I am not blogging or sewing as much as I'd like, but I'm guessing you can't force it and instead I'm trying to go with the flow.

Here is the quilt top in progress. I started with a bundle of mixed charms that have been languishing in a cupboard for over a year. I needed something simple to get my sewing courage up after 3 weeks of no sewing! So it started off super basic:

But then I thought that was kind of boring. So I cut it up,

rearranged the strips, and sewed it back together.

Then, I thought, why not cut it up in the other direction!? So I did!

And I sewed it back together again, and said, done for now.

It is just less than 30" square. I woke up at 5am last Friday with the idea that I could surround it in a mosaic of 2" squares in various shades of white and bind it in a mauve colour. Then my mother suggested that I quilt it as is and use it to make an enormous cushion (I got an enormous cushion as a teenager and it moved all over with me until I came to the States).

I honestly don't know what to do with it, so it's folded up and living in the corner right now. My quilt idea would keep it on the long finger for a while because I don't have a variety of whites on hand, and would need to wait for off-cuts from some upcoming quilts. The cushion would mean looking for an insert the right size or buying foam or something... Do any of you have an idea??

I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced today! And heading off to do some more work on my new handbag - I'll leave you with a picture.