Bags for Christmas

I'm kind of hooked on this bags that I learned how to make on Craftsy. It's a free class by Kristin Link who runs the very successful website Sew Mama Sew. I have a lot of upholstery fabric scraps. I had about 4 yards of some black suit wool that I bought at Scrap in Portland. The interiors are all from my fabric collection. The flower fabric above is a piece of barkcloth that I have had for a very long time. I kept thinking I would make a pillow to show off the print. The gold fabric is a piece of upholstery fabric that has a dragon on it. I used some gold lame fabric that I bought at garage sale several years ago (I have about 1/2 a bolt of the gold lame). I was not sure what I would make with gold lame but this is the perfect project to use up the fabric as liners for the bags.

 I put my label on the inside of a couple of the bags. This was more as a way to show the person I'm giving the bag to that I actually made the bag. These are the labels that I put on the clothes I make. I like that the labels match the gold lame fabric. I used some old white handkerchiefs that belonged to my father for one of the bags above. I try to use up as much textile scrap as I can, I really had to see any textile go to waste.

I had a very cute linen table runner and thought that it would make a great bag too. So I cut out the a piece to show off the print on the fabric. The tapestry bag is another piece of heavy upholstery fabric, it really feels like a needlepoint. This was another piece that I have had for awhile and I was going to try to use it to recover a small chair. I instead decided that it needed to be used for one of these bags.

My neighbor gave me several different pieces of fabric with birds that she had bought on-line for curtains. She was not sure which pattern she wanted so she bought a few different pieces of fabric. The fabric above was a little stiff, it feels more like a canvas and more then likely would not have made nice curtains. I made a couple of different bags, one with the black wool fabric and one with jean material (another gift from a friend that knows of my textile hoarding problem). I like them both, the jean material bag on the right feels a little more casual then the black wool bag.

And another bag with the black wool and some bark cloth. Again I was going to make some curtains from the bark cloth but there was not really enough, so it has sat in my stash for some time. These bags are a great way to highlight a small piece of lovely fabric. And they take about an hour or less to make. 

I have collected a few needlepoints to use in future bags as the focal point. I often look for needlepoints at thrift stores, garage sales and estate sales. You can find some interesting things at estate sales. This year for Christmas everyone is getting a home made bag filled with home made preserves.

Christmas Tree Burn

Last saturday I attended a Christmas Tree Burn out at Kelly Point Park. The idea is to get as many christmas trees as possible and light them on fire. This is something that happens in San Francisco every January. Several years ago we collected about 40 trees and lit them all off at once down at an abandon warehouse in North Portland. The flames got to about 100 ft, it was truly amazing. This year we had about 5 trees going down to the park and hoped that others would bring trees too. When we got to the park there was a recycling area where folks had dumped their christmas trees already...so we had another 14 trees. As we gathered several people brought trees as well as a firework Christmas tree that my friend Karl put together from fireworks left over from new years. We were waiting for a bunch of people that went to the Blazer game to protest against the Westboro Baptist Church folks who were in town to protest the Blazers for coming out in support of Gay Marriage. It was getting cold so the trees were set off before everyone arrived. It went off in a magnificent blaze as dried trees often do. As the fire started to die down more folks arrived and added more trees. It was fun to see the fire reach a hight of about 70 or more feet in the air. The area was quite wet so there was no danger of a forest fire, we were also about 15 ft from the Columbia River so there was plenty water to use if anything caught on fire. We also honored some friends that passed away back in October in a car accident on I-5. We wrote messages to our friends on pieces of paper and attached the messages to the trees, the paper burned with the trees and the good thought went out to our friends. It was a nice way to honor our friends and get some closure. 

I finally completed the ABC Quilt. Some friends were expecting their first baby and they live on a house boat that can get quite cold so I thought a quilt would be a perfect gift. I wash not sure what to make, but my husband thought the alphabet that I had made earlier this year was the perfect thing for our friends. The alphabet if from the book "Quilt Talk" by Sam Hunter. Her book has all the patterns for upper & lower case letters as well as numbers and punctuation. If you have ever wanted to put text in a quilt this is a great book. It has simple and complete directions for her letters, and some great projects to start you out. I could not wait to make a quilt with letters so I just went through and made the alphabet. I have another quilt planned using text, I hope to get started on it very soon. I kept this baby quilt simple using simple lines across the quilt, the only thing I would do different would be to use blue thread on the lines under the alphabet...kind of like old school paper. Oh well next time. I just wanted to get this completed as our friends had their baby on New Years Day. 

Another friend showed me what he had been up to lately with a box of christmas ornaments he found on the street. He fills the ornaments with paint and throws them against a wall. The results can be very interesting looking. The one above had green paint and the ornament was red, so the glass from the red ornament sticks and dries into the paint. I think this would make a cute christmas card that says have a smashing christmas...next year I think I will print some of these. 

I also received a $20 credit from JoAnne Fabric to Shutterfly. I have always been a little suspicious of photo mugs as they can look terrible when they fade and well let's be honest people sometimes use awful photos of their family members. I decided to upload some cat photos and test the mugs that Shutterfly offers. I used 3 of my favorite photos of our cats and tested the look with different color mugs. I liked the black background the best. I had more photos but they got so small and looked a little distorted so I kept it simple and only used 3 photos. I ordered the mug on January 4th and received the mug on January 9th. Very quick turn around time. The mug holds 15oz, I could have ordered 11oz but l liked the larger mug. The total cost was $21.99 for the mug + shipping, I paid $9.98 for the mug because of the $20 credit. Would I pay $30 for a mug? maybe if it was something special, but for the price of $10 I think I got a great deal. My husband used the mug for coffee the day after we received it. 

Christmas Slippers, Christmas Shirt & tile

For Christmas my husband bought me a very cute pair of slippers, as well as a couple of Craftsy Classes that will help improve my sewing. Craftsy had all of their classes on sale for $19.99 just before Christmas. I had wanted to take the a class on pattern altering they had one called "Create any Size" it goes over pattern garaging and how to alter the pattern to your size. I have a ton of old patterns that I would love to make in my size but several of the patterns are too small. I have not taken the class yet but I will this week to see how I like it. I love learning new things but often find it difficult to match my schedule with actual classes at shops or colleges. I have taken some wonderful classes at Modern Domestic in Portland...if you ever need hands on training the ladies at Modern Domestic are WONDERFUL!!! 
I also made my husband another Negroni Shirt. He as about 5 now. This one is a lovely burgundy that I bought at the Pendleton Woolen Mills. The piece was in the salvage bin, it was bout 3 1/2 yards long but had been cut to about 36" width. It's soft and light weight wool that has a linen feel to it. I added some cute Japanese fabric as an accent. I didn't get the snaps on till after Christams, but gave it to hem anyway and took a photo. My husband prefers snaps to buttons. I think the color looks really good on him...so does he. 
My sister installed a gas fireplace in her basement about 2 years ago. She has a TV on the wall above the fireplace and some lovely bookcases on either side of the fireplace. The problem was she bought some expensive tile squares to put up around the fireplace, but was kind of afraid to do the actual tiling. I know that feeling..you really want something perfect so you just put off getting it done with the excuse that you may mess it up. I went over to her house last week and helped her tile the small area around the fireplace. She grouted it and it looks amazing. She told me she's glad I came over to help her and that Lisa (her partner) is very happy that it's finally done. The tile sheets were about 10x10 and the actual tiles were about 1/2 an inch each, the sheet is a mixture of metal, tile and glass. It sparkles so nicely. I was so happy to help her out on this project.