Sunday, April 27, 2008

BTRSswap - Pleated Beauty

I finished my bag for the BTRSswap a couple of weeks ago and haven't had a chance to take a picture. Here it is! I'm really happy with the colour combination. I even remembered to leave a gap in the lining to turn the bag inside out!
I used magnetic snaps for the first time. I'm not sure if they are too strong though. They take a little bit of effort to get them apart. Next time I might use some smaller snaps.



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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Meet HP-44

How excited am I?!! Very! I got up early this morning to try and grab myself a knitted monkey from Monkee Maker. I was very lucky to be able to reserve this monkey as they all were sold within a matter of minutes. We are going to have so much fun together!


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Friday, April 18, 2008

BTRSswap Bag in progress

Here's the inside of my bag for the Bend-The-Rules Sewing swap. I love this fabric. My bag is to go to the US so I tried to pick Spring type colours. The ric-rac on the pocket is very 'spring' like I think. It is hard to try and pick out Spring type fabrics when it is cold and raining here.

I finished the bag last weekend so I will try and get some pictures before I send it to my swap partner.


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Saturday, April 5, 2008

Can't have too many bags ...

I wasn't quite sure about this bag. But I made some adjustments and now I'm really happy with how it turned out.

The straps were way too wide (3") so I folded and sewed them in half. I also added a strip of fabric over the inside seam of the strap to cover the middle seam and make it padded a little bit. The bag looked a bit plain so I made a pocket for the front, added a cat button and put on some velvet ribbon to finish it off.
The great thing about making your own bag is that you can add lots of pockets. One for keys, one for my train ticket, one for my mobile phone etc. And of course plenty of space for a label.
Things I will adjust for next time:
a) Adjust the pattern to make the straps 1.5" wide.
b) Add an insert in the bottom of the bag so that it sits flatter.
c) Add the pocket to the pattern.
d) Sew the button to the tab and put a magnetic closure on the back of the tab and the pocket.


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