if the shoe fits

I’m always delighted when I come up with a gift for one of the dudes in my life — they are so hard to sew for.  My sister-in-law suggested that I make my brother a shoe bag for him to carry his gym or work shoes back and forth.

This was a very simple project.  It’s an easy drawstring bag made out of soft grey wool and lined with ripstop nylon to keep wet or soiled shoes from getting everything else in his bag dirty.  I monogrammed the bag with a bit of embroidery.

 Love this.  So simple and classy.  AND my brother actually used it!

 

strawberry fields forever

A number of years ago, I made this drawstring bag and little pouch for my sister-in-law out of too-cute strawberry and polka dot seersucker.  For Christmas last year, she asked for a ditty bag big enough to hold the family’s toothbrushes when they travel.  Since she uses the drawstring bag for her toiletries and I had a bit of the seersucker left, I decided to make a matching set.

However, I did the math completely wrong, so she ended up with two ditty bags instead.  The strawberry one on the right was the first iteration and I accidentally made it short and tall, so I whipped up the second polka dot one to go with it.  Luckily, my SIL agrees with me that one can never have too many ditty bags.

 

my summer vacation

Like the great Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., I too have a dream.  Only in my dream, along with racial harmony & human rights, everything has its own cozy.  Everything.

I didn’t actually have much of a summer vacation but I did manage to sneak away for a long weekend camping trip.  My camping buddies and I are pretty serious coffee drinkers, so I like to bring my  French press with me.  My breakable French press.  What can I say — I like to live on the edge.

I whipped up this sweet padded cozy out of some leftover corduroy owl print.  Very woodsy, no?

Soon everything I own will have it’s own cozy.  And I’ll be living the dream.

 

dreaming of blue skies

Hello, friends.  I wonder if I will ever blog regularly again.  The long winter is beginning to wear on me.  As I type  this, a heavy snow is falling outside my window.  It doesn’t seem to be sticking as of yet, but I am tired of grey skies and damp, cold weather.

But here is a little glimpse of spring.  I made this set for my niece’s birthday.  She makes jewelry and wanted a ditty bag for her tools.  I made a matching tote bag large enough to hold her bead boxes.  I love this fabric combination, so bright and cheerful.

 

wired

Without intending to, I hopped back on the slacker blogger train, even though I still have a lot of images and crafts to share.  I think the combination of having my things stolen, crafting my ass off from October to December, and travelling a lot (5 weekends away in a row!) has taken its toll.

 
Crafting will continue to take a backseat for a while as I am focusing all of my energy on my dissertation.  My most recent trip was to a conference in Boston and it was so inspiring.  I love to go to conferences and meet new people, hear interesting ideas, talk about history, and look at books all day long.  Folks were very interested in my diss and that gives me extra motivation to work on it.

As you might guess, these were the Christmas gifts for my dad.  Last year, I made him a gadget bag for the small electronica that he brings back and forth to work.  This year, he requested a couple of even smaller bags for keeping his wires & earbuds under control.  I especially love the top one, which is about the size of a tissue pack.  The “Dad” appliqué came out a bit wonky, but that’s part of its handmade charm.  (That’s my story, anyway, and I’m sticking to it.)  It’s a bit hard to tell from the appliqué, but the fabric — also the lining for each bag — is a circuit board pattern.  Perfect!

 

irma r. tote bag

Late last year, a friend of my mom’s very kindly gave me some vintage tablecloths and fabric.  I have been holding on to them, staring at them, unfolding and refolding them, and generally meditating on them ever since.  I finally cut up the red and blue one and turned it into a couple of tote bags.

I really really love this bag.  The tablecloth is soft from use, and looks so great with the other fabrics.  Each side has a large pocket with a vintage button closure, and the red handles pop against the softer blue.  The polka-dot lining is sweet, but not too sweet.  I interfaced the whole thing with cotton flannel, so it’s very machine washable and very sturdy.  The flannel also gives it great body — there’s a nice heft to it.

I named this after Irma Rombauer, the author of Joy of Cooking — it’s sort of food-related and has a bit of a 30s-40s feel to it because of the tablecloth, and the colors are similar to older editions of the cookbook.

This bag is for sale in my new Etsy shop — did I mention I have an Etsy shop?  Don’t forget to comment on this post for a chance to win a gift certificate!

 

bread and circuses

This market bag has been finished for about a month or so but somehow, I cannot get pictures that I am happy with.  But this birthday gift for a friend is already well overdue, so I need to pack it up and ship it out. 

It’s a sizable bag, with an interior zip pocket.  I loved this food-themed polka-dot print, which seemed perfect for a market bag.

The various polka-dots and bright color combination makes me think of circuses.  It’s definitely a cheerful bag.

 

my new favorite new thing

My parents gave me a bit of cash for my birthday to get a badly-needed new sleeping bag.  Since LLBean was having a 20%-off sale, I had a bit of extra cash to spend, so I bought this much-coveted knife and cutting board set.  (My friends and I are car campers, not backpackers, so we get to indulge in these campsite luxuries.)  I used some ripstop nylon that I had bought for another project to make a protective bag for it.  While I was at it, I made a larger bag for the rest of my kitchen goods.

I French-seamed everything to make these a bit more sturdy, and made use of salvaged cords for the closures. 

My new sleeping bag should arrive any day and now all I want to do is go camping!