And another one...

Here's my second Buttercup bag:

 It turned out a bit smaller than the first one, even though I used the same pattern pieces. I think it may have been the brown material that I used for the outside of the bag - polyester mix and much more difficult to work with than cotton.

 But I'm still quite pleased with the end result. This one is for my mum on her birthday (which is on the 26th) along with some orange scented soap that I made a little while ago. Happy birthday Mum!! xx

Buttercup bag

A couple of my friends got married last weekend. I bought a really nice maxi dress that I fell in love with (I was not supposed to be dress shopping.....) but didn't have a matching bag and didn't really want to spend even more money. But I did have some matching fabric so I thought why not? I can make a bag, right?

After scouring the internet for easy-enough-for-beginner-sewers patterns I came across the Butter Bag by Made by Rae. The examples on Flickr looked great. I spent ages doing some extra research on making bags as I've never tried it before and then I cut into the material.... And the result:

The instructions were fairly easy to follow, although I did use a video tutorial I found - Couturier Mommy - and a step-by-step diagram one - Pigs in Pajamas - which were both very useful to a novice like me. I decided to use interfusing for the outer part of the bag, the flowery strip at the top and the strap to give it more structure (there were lots of debates about this online). And I was really surprised at how easy the magnetic clasp was to put in - although not very impressed at the price at my local chain craft shop...

I managed to put in the pocket on the inside:

And I also sewed another "Tybalt" label in - again very clumsily!

Oh how I wish I had a zig zag stitch!!

The pleats were easy to do and look very effective:

I even managed to topstitch the edges to make it look neater and nicer!

The only thing I wish I'd done differently is prewash the fabric. It's already creased and no amount of ironing is solving the problem.

But guess what the most annoying thing is? I didn't even get one photo of me with my lovely dress and matching bag at the wedding!!

Autumnal lap quilt

I've been thinking about making an autumn inspired quilt since I started sewing last year - and Celebrate Colour (via Stitched in Color) has given me the perfect incentive!

The front

Back

I wanted to use browns and khakhi greens (being two of my favourite colours) and found some material in my stash that I thought would go well. The bird panel was a perfect match and I absolutely loved the apple fabric (although I'm not sure what it is, Metro Apples perhaps?).

For the back I still had a few scraps of the apple left...

I wanted the quilting to be fairly modern and so i did random straight lines, which were very fun to do. I haven't mastered free motion quilting yet - mainly because the sewing machine I have is a 1930s Singer with a hand-driven wheel so I only ever have my left hand to feed/move the quilt sandwich. Even still, I'm pretty pleased with the effect.

I used bright red fabric for the binding as I thought it brought out the colours of the panels really well.

I also put in one of my labels - based on my first ever cat Tybalt, who the blog is named after. Tybalt (or Tybly as he was affectionately nicknamed) got run over when he was only 13 months old earlier this year. He was my first ever pet and it was like losing my baby. I decided to remember him always in my sewing escapades through my labels.

A little bit rough around the edges! And please excuse the raindrop over "tybalt" - I wanted to photograph the quilt in the sun but it had just rained and I wasn't careful enough when laying the quilt out over the veg patch...(not sure why i even chose that location!)

Anyway, overall I'm really pleased with this - I actually wish I'd made it bigger rather than a lap quilt though. Oh well. I've entered it into the "home decor" category of the Celebrate Colour competition for September - check out the website at Stitched in Color. Fingers crossed, eh?

I'm giving this as a birthday present for my soon-to-be brother-in-law. Hope you like it too!