Hexie update

Remember all the hexies I had prepped? Well here are all the ones I have sewn up so far. Not quite enough to make a quilt but its getting there. I've been working on them here and there when we go on road trips. 

Sneak Peek

I’m working on a secret dress project that I can’t show you yet. But I can show you the awesome fabric I got for it. It is a coral poplin with navy polka dots, that I found at Fabric Depot for 50% off. Also, check out Fabric Depot’s cute redesigned logo, so fun!

I felt like an idiot the other day. On Monday I was babysitting in North Portland in the evening. It wasn't going to be enough time to go home after work and then go to the place where I was babysitting, but I was going to end up with some time to kill. So I figured I would go to Knittin' Kitten and find something cool for this dress project I have planned. But they are closed on Mondays. Darn! So then I was trying to think about other fabric stores in N/NE Portland that I could go to. I thought about Bolt, but figured whatever I found there might be more than I wanted to spend. So I yelped it, and then Fabric Depot came up, and I was like "oh duh" because they are literally a mile from my work. How could I forget the largest fabric store on the west coast? (To be fair, they are the opposite direction from the way I go home, it's not like I drive past it every day and forgot)

What is your favorite fabric store?

Duffle

I made a duffle! (Do you spell it duffle or duffel? Spellcheck doesn't like either one, and when I googled it, similar products came up for both) 

Front pocket and strap. I love these owls, I bought them in several colorways a few years ago and have
been fussy cutting them into all kinds of projects.  

This project has been in my head for a long time. Several years at least. Once it got out of my head and onto the sewing machine it still took a long time. Months. I’m pretty sure I drafted the pattern for this over winter break. And now it is the beginning of April and it is finally finished. I was inspired to finally make a duffle because we are planning a train trip to California this summer and I wanted something cute to take along.

 Back side. I still need to wash off the chalk markings from my quilting.

I was inspired by the shape of the Amy Butler weekender bag, but I made my own pattern. I used Elizabeth Hartman’s technique for quilted panels. The thing that I am super proud of about this bag is that basically everything is recycled or used out of my stash. The only things I bought were the snap for the outside pocket and the piping cording. (I also bought a zipper, but didn't end up using it, if I make another I will use it then.)

It stands up completely on its own!

I used fabric from my scrap bin for the outside. I went through and gathered up black and white and navy prints as well as a few other shades of blue. The straps and piping were made from some leftover border fabric from a quilt a few years ago. I think I had bought extra because I wanted to make matching pillow cases, but that never happened.

The guts of the bag are scraps of batting and cut up old blue jeans, and the lining is extra from the pillowcases for the front room. (If I do this again I will use a heavier fabric for the lining, this stuff just sort of flops around, even with being tacked to the corners.

My mom gave me this awesome black and brass zipper that she had. It was really long, I had to cut off at least six inches. The zippers for the inside pockets have been kicking around my sewing stuff for years.

I am so looking forward to getting to use this on our trip this summer and for short weekend getaways in between. Now I need to plan the perfect capsule wardrobe to take with me!

Works in progress

This is my pile of things that are not completed. (there are more somewhere else, but these are the ones I’m focusing on) I've got a couple of quilts, some place-mats my my brought me back from Belize that need to be hemmed and some napkins. Several of these things were supposed to be quick and easy projects (napkins) But it hasn't worked out like that. My focus for the next few weeks is going to be to get through this pile. The quilts won't get completely finished, I need to buy more batting and the backing fabric and that isn't in the budget right now, but I’d like to get the tops totally done and ready to be sandwiched.

I often get to a certain point in projects where I get bored or tired of looking at the same fabric. This year I am going to work on completion. I have a lot of projects that have been forgotten and I want to either finish them, or get rid of them.

Foldover bag

Sometimes you just need a quick project so you can feel like you accomplished something. That was the case a few months ago when I was in the middle of sewing a duffle bag (I just finished it, pictures coming soon). I needed a break!

My mom gave me a bunch of old zippers that might work for the duffle and one of them had this really cool pull on it. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite long enough to be the main zipper for the duffle. I thought about using it for an inside zipper pocket but I really wanted it to be on the outside of something.

Recently I found this on Skirt as Top and really liked it. Inspired by the remix tutorial on that post and also this at A Beautiful Mess. I wanted to make one with a contrast panel.

I used a fat quarter that I got on my bachelorette scavenger hunt, and the solid blue is from a skirt that was my grandmother's. (A few years ago I got a bunch of my grandma’s awesome vintage clothes, but she was tiny. I tried to figure out ways to alter them to fit me, but I've realized I just need to suck it up and use the awesome fabric for other things.) Lining is a scrap from a quilt I made a few years ago.

This was a super quick project, I think it took less than an hour.

A few days after I finished the clutch, my husband bought us tickets to go see Colin Meloy play at the Crystal Ballroom. I was going to need something smaller than my regular purse to carry just my phone, ID and lipstick. But I wanted my hands to be free also for clapping and drink holding. So I added a quick strap. I cut a wide strip from the blue fabric (I had to piece it in one place), folded the edges in and folded in half. Then I top stitched along the edge with a fun variegated blue thread. I sewed the strap on so that the bag could still fold over and just overlapped the ends under the fold.

Voila! Perfect bag for a night out. It was just the ticket for the Colin Meloy show and will be great for future concerts as well.

If I had been planning ahead I might have wanted to figure out a way to make the strap adjustable and I might still fiddle with it, but for now it works.

Have you worked on any quick projects recently?

Hexie Pillow

I just finished a new throw pillow. When we moved in November I wanted to make all new throw pillow covers for the living room. At our old house the pillows were covered in a blue waffle weave fabric that I cut from an old shower curtain (don’t worry it was 100% cotton). We had lived with them for a while and I was tired of them. Plus I had a new awesome house and I wanted new awesome decor to go with. I checked in with C (my husband) and D (our housemate) about colors and themes for the living room. (They have to live here too.) I really wanted bold black and white prints, but they wanted warmer neutrals. I ended up getting a nice warm gray, which I think was a nice compromise, and recovered most of the pillow inserts. Except I forgot about one. I think I got tired of sewing pillows, or I had to go cook dinner and never came back to it or something else, but whatever it was I had one sad, naked pillow insert hanging out in my sewing room for the last couple of months.

I saw this on Sew Mama Sew a few weeks ago and totally fell in love. I have done a lot of different little projects with English Paper Piecing, but those have often resulted in an odd collection of hexagons in a ziplock and no clear project. This time was going to be different. I would plan!

I went home and dug through the scrap bin, picked a bunch of scraps I liked and then sorted them by color. I ended up with more color piles then I really wanted (neutral, black, pink, purple, yellow, light blue and dark blue) so I asked my husband to choose his three favorite. It just so happened that he picked very similar colors to the Sew Mama Sew example (which was totally fine with me). 

I started to cut out the stars, but I felt like they were too big, so I went back to just regular 1 1/2 inch hexies. I cut them all out of heavier scrapbook paper and used basting glue to baste them on. Then I laid out all the hexes in a pleasing design (I wanted a few clumps of color on a mostly all neutral background). I flipped them over and numbered them so that I would be able to sew them together in the order I wanted.

I’ve been working on it for the last few weeks when we watch TV in the evenings. I finally had a chance to finish it over the weekend while we were snowed in and I was sick. I ended up having to add another row of hexes on the top and one side so that it would fit the pillow form I have.

I made the back out of the same gray that all the other pillows are made out of. I just did my usual envelope cover, it is easier than a zipper and as long as you have enough overlap (on this one I did 3 1/2 inches) it looks great.

It turned out that the pillow cover was a little smaller than the pillow, but I think it looks good being a little stuffed and firmer.