juli 31, 2012

A framed purse for my secret swap partner.

This has been staring at calling at me for weeks.


I committed to a secret purse swap some time ago and I have been sweating over this for weeks.

My secret swap partner shares almost the same taste in fabrics as I do - at least I think so - and that uncertainty was causing the sweat because maybe I got it wrong, right?

Well - I finally dug into this completely unknown territorie - I've never made a purse before.

At first it didn't go too well. Which is an understatement thats almost a lie. 

You need to use interfacing to make the purse a bit stiff and that word makes me shake. A LOT. 
Interfacing. Horrible word!
So I bought different pieces and when it arrived I could not tell it apart. HAHA - *sigh*....

Whattodo whattodo?

Samples.
So I ironed different pieces of youknowwhat to fabric and spent a long time feeling and fondling and hugging those samples to find out which one was the best suitable to use in a purse.
Having never seen or held such a purse I did not know anything about how such a purse is supposed to feel and which youknowwhat was the best to use. Huhh.... Not much help there.

I made some patterns.
It looked weird. The engineer in me demanded those patterns to be constructed properly, so I dug out the drawing and meassuring gear.
I looked at tutorials and could not get the angles right. Oh well - the tutorial writers are most likely not overachieving perfectionistic engineers and just plot in some angles with arrows pointing in very very not-engineering-correct-directions - which everybody else understand except me.
I like it ... correct. *sigh*

So I took a lot of breaks and did a lot of crochet instead but kept thinking about this purse. Constantly.

I also caught a nasty cold and felt extremely sorry for myself and all the frames were still laying there - now looking at me in a sort of.... accusing way.
I'm sure they were pointing their hinges at me and snapping closed when I turned my back at them!

Nausea set in. Procastination is a no-go for me, so on with it.


The small frames went bad. Total disaster. But I so wanted to make a tiny, sweet one for my partner.

Not good for rheumatic hands. AT. ALL.
Ruined 3 sewn purses that got glue all over - so I cleaned the glue off the small frames and put them aside. Thankfully I had bought a LOT of youknowwhat so I still had a lot left to practise the bigger purses with.

Oh... Acetone is not good for your brain. But it clears your airways if you have a nasty cold. Just saying.

The middle size purse went much better. Except the proportions were a bit weird...


weird size....

dark interior
... but the finished result looked GREAT!

I was very proud of this!


And then - on to the REAL thing!



Front
  

Back


 
Lining
Finally I was satisfied with my efforts - this I can give away without being ashamed.
Nothing beats that feeling of doing good. HAHA - you just need to be pleased with your self once in a while. And admit it :-))
I have added some goodies for my sweet secret swap partner.

Among those extra goodies is a readymade fabric coordinating small purse with a frame - without the frame glued on!!

I could not help sewing it but there is NO way I'm going to ruin this like the other small purses.
I hope my secret swap partner is up to a bit of gluing:-))


Small purse with DIY-frame!



Looks gooooood :-))))

 
And now the purse + extra goodies are sent on their way to .. well, thats a secret for now:-)



Ready to go!

It was quite a troublesome 'pregnancy' and the 'birth' of this baby was long but I hope my partner like my precious baby. A baby I'm giving away.

I'm a bad, bad woman *lol*


I found a great card that leaves no doubt about my feelings that this purse is now finished:


Pheeew....

Not only do I hope my sweet secret partner has humour - but I really, really hope she likes the purse and that I got her taste right.

Time will tell :-)

juli 29, 2012

My (international) hexagons

For a while I've been hand piecing hexagons in between all the millions of other projects.
It was time to finally cut into my stash of 'Hope Valley' and I found the perfect project -  The Hexy MF quilt along hosted by Katy Jones.

I just discovered that my project is featured on the Fat Quaterly blog with a (one) (1) (uno) photo, so I'm very proud - thanks Katy!






Making one a day is the goal and I'm pretty much up to date:-)

juli 18, 2012

Quilt on my door

I've had so much fun to-day!

Block 1 of the Tetris Quilt along was superfun, easy, fast and... HUGE!

I had NO place to hang it in the flat so I taped it to my front door - on the outside - to take a pic of it!



Notice how the colors match the walls in the entryhall!

I played a little with my coloring pencils - can't remember when I did that last, but it was fun!





You can read all about this fun, fast and scrap-eating Quilt-A-long at Melissa's blog or press the Tetris button
at the bar to the right --------------------------------------------------------------> somewhere about here.. :-) --------------------------------->





70x70 cm
 
Oh - these blocks are perfect for my future QAYG-practice blocks and for practicing some machine quilting too. Much easier to handle in the machine - me like:-)

6 blocks is all it takes plus border and the usual stuff.


I can't believe how productive I've been these last 4-5 weeks.
I blame the weather. Calling this a summer is a joke!
So sowing  sewing (HAHA - great spelling error!) is flowing here - and everything gets some attention, so lots of progress all over.
Good :-)

juli 15, 2012

Vintage whitework tablecloth

I just want to show you what I found last week at the charity shop I pass when I need a break and go shopping for vegetables;-)

Some times you just find the most amazing things...... and you just have to rescue them.

Enjoy!



It was not really possibel for me to get a full pic of the tablecloth. The light today is not good, so here most of it is hanging from the shelves in the livingroom close to the window


The tablecloth - 1/4 of it





So beautiful - washed and ironed so many times.  



The maker obviously did not want to cut into the lace in the center but let it overlap. My kind of girl!!!



Lovely, lovely craftmanship!




Detail - close up

Now - can anyone believe that this was just given away?

My heart almost stopped when I found it at the bottom of a pile of old curtains.

I'm so happy I could save it.
Not very often I feel like Florence Nightingale :-)))

juli 10, 2012

Dad's quilt - sort of a tutorial (2)

It is about time to move on with this tutorial.
I went to Tivoli last week and came home with a nice summer-cold, fever and a huge urge to do absolutely nothing in the craft department but whine silently about my poor condition for more than a week.


So - you have made a lot of squares, turned them inside out and stitched the gap closed with nice thread.

Then you top-stitch all the squares about 5 mm from the edge all the way around.




This takes quite a while. You will need a lot of breaks - but DON'T go to Tivoli.
Once is enough.
Instead go buy some vegetables - they are healthy and you know you need them!


Lots of topstitched squares

When you have topstitched all your sqares - or just one - you will add a blanket stitch all around the square.

If you are a perfectionist like me you will want need to do a lot of (unnessecary) work because your brain is too analytical and wants  demands you to meassure and do a lot of math. That's why you graduated an engineer and not a librarian like your mother wanted you to.

But - you know that you can't live with a crocheted edge that is wobly, uneven or do not have the same number of stitches on each side - so you cave in.

You just go overboard.
AGAIN!




You place a piece of meassurement tape that you've cut off from an old and worn out tape and place it the way the photo shows.

Now you can make you blanket stitch with ecxactly 1 cm apart on each side of the square and you KNOW that this is not really important but at least you can sleep tonight.
Without nightmares.

You do this to ALL the topstitched squares.


1 cm apart. Gooooood job!

ALL of them!




Now you are ready to crochet!!!




And of course you have excactly the same number of stitches on each side of the square so the pattern you have so intellingently figured out will match when assembly time comes.
You can be proud of your self.




And now you can relax and just crochet like mad.
You have whined about your cold now for a week, so you need to speed up.
There is a deadline to this, which you hate - but there you go.
This blanket will NOT end up an ufo.

 You just can't help being so proud.....




..... because you KNOW that you have made the PERFECT corners - and you do the happy dance 54 times over a period of 2-3 days in your tiny flat under the roof.

This also helps you lose some weight because you've snacked too much and not been exercising enough.

If your neighbors complain about the noise and shakes that go through the building when you dance - get some new ones. Apart from being quiet and invisibel it is very important that you make sure your neighbors are tolerant and accepting of happy dancing. That way you can continue being a perfectionist and loose weight every time you make something perfect. (which is very often all the time of course).

So - crochet around all your squares and when you are done sew or crochet them together.
Did you think I'm going to show you that now???

Wrong.
I've only finished 10 squares and just discovered that there is another nice tutorial here where you can learn much more about the blanket.

If you want to make this blanket you can sign up for The Fusion Blanket Crochet Along on Flickr

Me?
I need to go crochet.
I'm busy.