When Is a Yard Not a Yard . . .

when you have someone at JoAnn's Fabric cut it and they do not sew!  Frustrating!!  Even though I caught the lady cutting a piece of my fabric 2" too short on one piece, I missed the other pieces.  When I got home one of the yard cuts actually ended up around 34" as it was cut at 35" to start and then it was cut so poorly the true-up cost me another inch.  Yikes! 

That was last weekend.  This weekend I started my conversation off with the JoAnn's cutter with "do you sew?".  And she did.  Yay!  I did feel obligated to tell her though that I was shorted a lot the previous weekend at another location and I really didn't want that to happen today.  It didn't.  She turned out to be a trooper when I had her cutting quite a bit of fabric.

And what am I doing with all this fabric???  Well, I'm on a roll right now with yoga bags and "etc" bags.

 "etc" bags

Aren't they awesome?!!

 

 Yoga bag anyone?!

 

 All cotton fabric quilted up nicely and ready for some studio time.

 

 Add yoga mat, water bottle, keys, wallet and you're set to go.

 

This is the fabric that was cut short.  Consequently the yoga bag is a bit smaller and the "etc" bag is a lot smaller, but still very cute and functional!!

 

Hope you've had a very productive and creative weekend also. 

 

Happy Mother's Day!!

Bag Lady

Who doesn't want to look stylish heading to the gym for some good old fashioned sweat time?

When I began this yoga bag making journey, I thought, "yeah, I'll do it for my SIL, but I don't think I'm going to like it".  And I was right . . . at least for the first few iterations of the pattern.  Each successive bag, though, I thought I'd picked out some good fabric and made a nice bag . . . and each one was not quite right.

Then I don't know what happened, but I hit my stride and I started producing these:

 

 

I found inserting zippers therapeutic and easy.  And once I finally decided to write down my actual steps that I took to sew a bag, the process became much, much easier.  Who knew I'd forget from one weekend to the next the easiest and least amount of steps needed to produce these gorgeous bags.

 

And last weekend I had an idea about what to do with the leftover quilted fabric.  And voila!  These babies were born!!  I LOVE them!  I have many, many ideas on things to make, but for right now, I'm stuck on yoga bags and these "etc" bags.  What do you think?

Namaste

The Hum of the Machine

I didn't get as much accomplished this weekend as I had hoped.  But, really, does anyone ever meet their lofty goals?!

I did sew two more charity pillowcases . . . and then it was on to yoga bags . . .

I pieced five more bags

I quilted the two brown bags at the same time.

This picture was taken after they were taken off the longarm.

The zipper was inserted.

Completed bag with inside showing.

A pocket for keys and wallet.

Voila!

 

It was another full weekend with lots of laughing and crafting.  I hope your weekend was as wonderful.

Footnote Friday

Spring Break . . .

 everyone took the week off . . . they sent me a temp!!

 

 

. . .I was the only one in my department at work this week . . . it could have been a lot worse!  Unfortunately I got behind in mailing out the giveaway boxes of AWESOMENESS! Okay, that may be a bit exagerated, but fret not, they did get mailed today.  Sorry about that, Ladies! The post office assures me you will have your respective packages by next Wednesday, if not sooner.

The view from my window this morning shortly after my temp left. 

 

And in the spirit of Spring Break, I left a few minutes early . . . shh, don't tell.  When I got home, I promptly sat down at my sewing machine and sewed four charity pillowcases and then went to Hancock Fabrics and bought zippers for more yoga bags. 

 

So, the plan for the weekend is . . . you guessed it . . . the sweat shop will be cranked up and yoga bags will be spit out!!  Well, at least there's a plan!  

Snowed In . . .

What a difference a week makes.  A trip home last week and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself snowbound for a few days.  I live in a state where snow is infrequent and accumulation is nil!  So, I flew in to 15" already on the ground and then another 7" fell the 2nd day I was there.  It was amazingly beautiful!

 Heading home

 

View of driveway from front porch

 

View from back porch

Backyard

Some kind of tracks made in the snowfall

 

Snow on Monday . . . Shoveling on Tuesday

Wow!  It's a workout that's for sure!  I haven't shoveled snow in over 25+ years.  Yowzers!

 

My accomplishment!

 

Of course, I wimped out before I got the entire drive shoveled, but I got at least 1/4th of it done before my back said "I give"!

 

And now I'm back in the land of high temperatures and high humidity.  But, for today at least, it is in the 60's and comfortable. 

 

Namaste

As promised, today was all about the yoga bag.

In process of adding zipper

 

Zippered pocket and strap added

 View of finished bag with lining

Another view

 

And there you have it, another yoga bag completed.  I think it turned out quite nicely.

And the Giveaway goes to . . .

Everyone who entered before this post!!  Yay!  Please send me your addresses and I will send you a lovely package in the mail.  Thanks so much for playing along!

Yesterday was a perfectly lovely day and I managed to spend a fair amount of money at JoAnn's Fabrics where everything I purchased was either 50% or 70% off.  I got some great bargains indeed.

I've been commissioned to sew some yoga bags for resale, hence the reason for my trip to JoAnn's.  Here's the first of many more to come.

Here's a sneak peak at the fabric after it's been quilted.  The piece with the stripes is the outside of the bag and the blue flowers fabric is the lining.  The solid piece is Amy Butler fabric from Fabric.com and it is luxuriously soft.  The JoAnn's fabic is a cotton duck.  All three fabrics are gorgeous in person, you'll have to trust me on that.

 

This little journal book is also from yesterday's purchases and I think it was a whopping $3 or $4.  It has 84 pages of hidden gems and I think it'll be perfect for one of my younger nieces.  I know I would have loved something like this when I was a kid.  Heck, who am I kidding . . . I love it now!!

And so I have one more day of creativity left this weekend and I'm pretty sure that there'll be some sewing, serging, quilting and papercraft projects that'll make my heart skip a beat.

I hope everyone is having a super terrific weekend also!

Getting my Sew On and Wait for it . . . A Giveaway!!

I've been looking at my stash and thinking "Wow!  How am I ever going to use up all this fabric???  I know it's crazy, but I want to buy more.  I want more modern stuff now and I have an entire room full of fabric.  (I bought the fabric from a store going out of business - what was I thinking??!!)

So, it's time for a giveaway.  Leave a comment.  Tell me your color choices and if you're the lucky winner, I'll send you some generous cuts of fabric.  Easy peasy.  Comment away!

A few weeks ago I decided to just start with a color, get out the GO cutter and start using up some fabric.

Chain piecing

Didn't cut enough for the center square . . . oops!

Just need to add borders (and take a better picture!)  There are no solid fabrics in this quilt - hard to tell, I know.

Started this quilt before Christmas as a gift to my nephew for his "man cave".  Needs a backing and is waiting to be quilted.

This piece of fabric is gorgeous!  It was given to me by my nephew's wife and it comes from Japan. 

Since there was only a 1/2 meter, I was limited in my choices on how to use it. 

So, I made another bag. 

And I pretty much utilized every scrap of fabric to make it.  Did you notice that the handles are different colors.  Not enough fabric to make the same, but I think it turned out fine

 

I added a nice purple lining and voila, ready to go!

 Washi tape . . . need I say more??!!

Project Life - "Cultivate a good life and record it"

My version of Project Life.  I had no idea when I bought this album that Project Life was such a big deal.  Apparently it is.  I like the photo plus journaling aspect of it.  No rules for me, just having fun recording bits and bobs.

Project Runway makes me want to sew clothes again.  I have all this fabric so I was just experimenting with this.  I'm not finished with it yet.  Does anyone like it so far?  Just curious.

And my sewing day would not be complete without my trusted sidekick.  He's exhausted from helping me with all the decision making that goes on around here!!

 

So, kids, it's time to leave a comment now and let me know what colors of fabric you want.  I'll leave this giveaway open for two weeks.  

Commitment

A new year . . . more commitments.  Yes, I feel it will be a great year. 

January is never a good month for me.  My job is such that January is the cruelest of months, but this year it has not defeated me.  Granted, the year end close went smoothly for a change and there were only a couple of days where I wanted to throw up my hands and say "Uncle".  So, overall the month has gone well. 

On January 1, I started the year off with a 5k Commitment Day run.  The run was held in 30 cities and in my city it was cold, rainy and windy.  But, we soldiered on and got the year off to a great start.

On January 12, I did my second 5k of the year and ran it with friends and family.  This 5k was the prelude to the Houston Marathon and Half Marathon on January 13.  I was lucky enough to "high five" Meb Keflezighi at the start of the 5k.  I was sure touching hands with the great Meb would give my legs some extra "OOMPH".  Um . . . still working out the kinks due to months of no running and bad back, so my Meb mojo failed me.  Not to worry, just meeting him was worth it.  I was also lucky enough to see him, Ryan Hall and Abdi A. win the 2012 US Olympic trials along with a host of other super incredible athletes.  Call me awestruck!!

And yesterday I completed my 3rd 5k of the year.  It was a beautiful January day, perfect for running and I managed to shave one minute and 50 seconds off of my time from just two weeks ago.  Yay me!

It's good to once again feel relatively strong and getting back into shape.  I had a rough go the last four months of 2012, but that was then . . . now I'm training for a marathon relay in OKC in April with my family, and the following weekend I will be running a half marathon in Wichita (again with my family).  I have a possible 4 miler this weekend in Wichita (must remember to pack cold weather running gear!) and then the Conoco Rodeo Run 10k on February 23.  I'm totally committed to making 2013 my best running year yet.  Oh, crap, what have I committed to??!!  Well, in my head, I'm fast and amazing; now I've got to work on the synapses between my brain and my legs.  Uh oh!!

And yes, I know this is my creative blog and I have been doing tons of stuff so here's a project I started January 1.

I love this project.  This is an old Rolodex and I have written something every day since January 1.  Eventually I see myself getting out the paints and making this project a bit more beautiful, but for now I am documenting my life one day at a time.  I am also doing a similar project that I started in 2012, but you'll have to stay tuned to see what that is all about.

I found these envelopes in our trash at work.  This is the beginning of my project.
 

 



This envelope is huge (too lazy to go look at and measure, so probably 15 x 17).  I'm going to paint the entire outside of the envelope and since it has no glued sides I am going to write a letter on the inside directly on the box.  I'm thinking it will turn out pretty cool.  Of course, I'm either going to have to write extremely LARGE or I'm going to have to write a dissertation!  I'm sure I'll find the appropriate amount of words to use!

There has also been a fair amount of sewing so I'll post about that next time. 

So, until then, let's make a commitment to pursue our passions!