Wednesday, September 23, 2015

A Fun Little Bag

During the summer our church had a ladies day out event in Rockport, MA.  We had a dozen ladies from high school through retirement age that all drove down to the coast to enjoy a day of strolling, eating and chatting.  It was a lovely day!
While we were there one of the ladies (a new friend) asked me if I ever sew bags - which I promptly acknowledged - bags are fun to do generally and they tend to be quick projects that bring immediate satisfaction.  Which is sometimes a welcome relief and distraction from larger projects that seem to go on and on and on!  She showed me a small bag she'd purchased in Maine and asked if I might be able to make something similar (with a few tweaks) for her to give to her sister as a birthday gift.  I was thrilled to have the opportunity.  I found the exact match fabric to her bag on Fabric.com and ordered it right away.
But, I had a BIG project that had a hard deadline - so that had to be done first before I could work on the bag.
Last week I made a mock up pf a bag to work on the rusty skill of inserting zipper pockets.


But it didn't seem to be quite right, so I found something else to work from and this one looks to be perfect (prayerfully!).
I love the website So Sew Easy - her tutorials are awesome and I just love her accent!  I found a pattern for a Cosmetic Bag that was just the ticket once I'd added some zipper pockets inside and out.

Lobster Fabric - matches original bag
Yesterday I started cutting and today I put it all together!


Adding zipper pockets - inside and out
 The zipper pocket tutorial also came from So Sew Easy - HERE.









It stands by itself!



Showing dimension with the mat 

I will deliver this little cutie on Friday and hope it will be just what she wanted.  It was great fun to make and hopefully will bless her sister.

UPDATE: a facebook update post - it was a hit! Made my day!


Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Taking a Step Back


I'm taking a step back from some big dreams to more familiar ground for now.

I have decided that in spite of what 'everyone' says, I don't really care for the WordPress format and it's sometimes simply too much work for an old dog to learn a new trick - so I'm bringing my sewing blog stuff back to Blogger which I know and love and can use easily.

After some time I will figure out how to add my custom domain/hosting stuff to here if I feel it's worthwhile, it may be or may not be.... it remains to be seen.

For now - Applewood Quilts Etc. will be here at home in familiar territory linked with my other blog about my 'real' non-quilty life.

Blessings on the journey all!

~Deb