Custom shoulder/lap top bag

Back in Feb a lovely fellow designer/maker Fi Mehra asked me if I would design and maker a lap top bag that was big enough to carry her lap top, ipad and other bits and bobs. She loved the design of my saddle bag so I offered to sketch her a design and once agreed set about constructing the pattern pieces. 

This was the sketch we agreed on.....

 ...and this was the final bag, what do you think?

It has box corners which are on a curve, something that I hadn't tried before, I think it worked a treat.

I used these gorgeous nickle O rings, I bought them quite some time ago and wanted to use them on a bag and thought they would be perfect for this commission.

Fi picked two of my favourite fabrics out of my stash, don't they look great together, I teamed these up with a gorgeous Klona cotton from here. 

Plenty of room with one large pocket especially for Fi's ipad and two medium pockets for bits and bobs (big enough for a note book, mobile phone, purse, keys.....and lots of other knick-knacks (love that word).

And of course it was....made in England :)

I will be adding these to my website (once I get round to making some more). 

Spring has sprung

Hasn't it??? I do hope so. It was warm enough at the weekend for us to be able to get the garden sorted, the flower beds filled, our new garden furniture varnished and my veg planters started. We're doing potatoes, carrots, parsnips, peas, red onions, tomatoes and peppers this year. I'm hoping for a warm spring and summer so that we'll be able to get a decent crop. There's nothing more satisfying than eating veg you planted yourself. I'd love to say I grew these daffs and tulips but alas no, they were an Easter gift from C's Mam (instead of a chocolate egg - my choice). I did however find a couple of hours to make these 'spring' inspired cupcakes. They were scrummy!!!

Wild thing

As you all know I love bright, patterned fabrics......so I couldn't resist buying a FQ of each of these!! Grrrrrrrr! What do you think? I know they're not every ones cup of tea but not everyone likes the same thing, it would be boring if we did :) There's more coming next week.....Zebra and more leopard print (of which I already have an order for). 

*sings* "Wild thing, you make my heart sing! You make everything gggrrrooooovvvyyyyy".

Catch up

I think I might have to admit that I'm a binge blogger, is there such a thing? I seem to go weeks without posts and then I have weeks where I want to post every day. Do all crafters go through this? Is it that we have spurts of creativity?

I always have lots of projects on the go at once, this time it was saddle bags, before this cosmetic pouches. I just need to put their bows and rhinestone flowers on and these will be ready to be sold. I've found getting back into a routine difficult since we moved but finally I'm starting to feel as though its all slotting back into place.

Blooming Felt - logo cushion

Remember a little while ago I showed you a sneak peek of something I was working on? 

Well now I can reveal what I was making, admittedly I am a little behind showing you my recent makes but the main thing is that I'm here now :)

My lovely friend Sarah who is 'Blooming Felt' was planning on moving into a new 'Shedquarters' and I thought that one of my felt cushions would make a very appropriate moving in gift. So I nipped over to Sarah's website and borrowed her logo.

I then made some templates and began cutting out the felt letters and flower.

The smaller letters were quite fiddly, probably the smallest text I've attempted with felt. As you can see from the photo above I've just about managed to use pins to keep them in place.

In no time at all (as I love hand sewing) its was all ready to have the back sewn on and a Bagladee tag popped in place.

I waited until I went to the Knitting and Stitching show at the Birmingham NEC to give Sarah her cushion in person as we planned to meet for some lunch. I'm pleased to say that she loved it :)

I couldn't resist taking some photos of it against my favourite chair.

If anyone would like a felt cushion with their company logo on it please do shout up, not expensive at £15 (incl p+p) I have a mini grey one with my 'B' logo on it in my studio.

Easter Bunnies Egg Cosy Tutorial

I thought it was time to post this tutorial in full again since its Easter weekend. I know some of you will have already seen this but I made some this week and instead of felt tummies and ears I used some funky fabric. I'll post photos of them soon, meanwhile enjoy this simple and fun tutorial :) 

Hoppy Easter everyone!!

Materials you will need:

Lovely soft squares of felt of your choice

Embroidery threads

Your templates

Scissors

Brads (for eyes)

Additional Materials:

Buttons, Ribbon, and anything else you like

Trick Marker

Take your templates and using your Trick Marker, draw out your pieces.

You will need:

X2 Main body pieces

X1 Front head

X1 Back head

X1 Chest piece

X1 Puffy Tail

X2 Ear pieces

Small nose piece (you don’t need a template for this just cut out a small oval shape)

Now you have all your pieces, take the chest piece and place on one of the body pieces so that it sits at the bottom, like below. Pin in place.

Using a running stitch take contrasting coloured embroidery thread and sew the chest piece to the body.

Now take your front head piece and place the earpieces like below and pin in place. Again using a running stitch sew onto the head piece.

Which should look like this....

Now take your puffy tail, pin to the other body piece (which will be the back of your bunny) and sew in place.

Once you have all your pieces, you need to place the front and back of the head on top of the body pieces so that they overlap slightly....

And pin in place.

Next take your front of your bunny and carefully sew the nose just on the very bottom of the head. Be gentle with it small pieces of felt can be quite fragile (bless).

Now, if you know how to blanket stitch then great, if you don’t here is a brief explanation, I learnt by watching videos on YouTube, search for ‘how to blanket stitch’.

You are going to blanket stitch the bottom edge of the front and back pieces of your bunny.

a) knot the end of your thread and from the back insert your needle about 0.5cm from the edge and bottom and pull through, reinsert your needle close to where you have just been and pull through to the back making a loop.

b) Now thread your needle through the loop.

c) And pull tight (not too tight though or you will squash your felt).

d) Reinsert your needle from the back about 0.5cm along from your first stitch

e) Slot your needle through the loop and pull tight.

f) Carry on all the way along the bottom until you get to 0.5cm away from the end and tie your thread off.

This is what your finished stitching should look like, don’t worry mine was awful the first few attempts but once you get the hang of it it’s easy.

Now using your Trick Marker again, mark two dots where you want the eyes to be.

Take your brads and push through the felt until they are flat, turn your bunny over....

....and separate the brad until it lies completely flat on the reverse side. Repeat with the second brad.

Now take both of your bunny pieces, right sides facing out and pin together.

This will make it easier keeping it in place while you sew right round the edge of your bunny.

Again use the trusty old running stitch and sew from the bottom corner of your bunny right round the ears to the other corner, ensuring you don’t sew up the bottom.

Now if you find this bit a little tricky then sew the head pieces in place after you have sewn the nose on when the pieces are separate.

And there you go, one Easter bunny egg cosy!!

You can add all sorts of embellishments to make your bunnies look jazzy, I had great fun playing around with them.

TEMPLATE

 

Woooooossshhhh

That was the sound of the last 2 weeks whizzing past me. I have no idea where February has gone let alone the last 6 months, which is how long we're been living in our beautiful 'new' home. 

I finally feel settled and content now and there are so many to do lists I'm almost making a to do list about the to do lists :D ha ha! A lovely friend of mine is coming to stay this weekend (waves at Andrea) so I'm planning on chattering lots, relaxing, drink some vino, maybe more that just some ;) and enjoying a tasty meal on Saturday. 

There has been lots of sewing going on here at Bagladee's new HQ's so I'm planning on another website session next week. Oh yes and I've received another custom order for a completely new style of bag, which is very exciting, the sketch is lovely just hope I can transfer that into constructing the pattern too.