Gingercake

Stylin

UPDATE!  The Lola Pattern now includes instructions to make this bag!  

My almost seven year old pays a lot of attention to what she is wearing and has very specific opinions about how clothes look.  I try to be supportive of her style in my own controlling sort of way.  When she needs new clothes, instead of taking her with me to the store, I shop for a whole bunch of things that I like and bring them home for her to choose what she likes out of MY choices and then I take back the rest.  This is questionable freedom but it is working for both of us right now!

I made this owl purse as a special order from my show a few weeks ago.  The adult wants it for herself but I like how it looks on a child too and with the strap across the body.  I wanted to get some pictures before it goes in the mail today.  Elsie was excited to model before school this morning.  She is also wearing my new scarf which she has claimed as her own.

My tulips are in bloom!  It was her idea to pose by the tulips.

 I made the purse the same way as I did the mini purses back in this post.  I made it a little shorter since it seemed really long when I had it done.  The strap is about 30" long.  I made it by sewing together 2 pieces of 2" x 30" long pieces of cotton.  I used all cotton fusible interfacing on the printed fabric that is on the outside of the strap.  It took me several tries to get this strap on in a good way.  In the end, the simplest way worked best!  I wanted to make sure I kept the shape of the owl, so I just folded the strap under and sewed it on.  Then when I did the final top stitch, I secured the strap again.

She wants a bag like this for herself now of course!  

 I am so happy spring is finally here!  All the april showers we have had here have made everything so green and beautiful.  Email me if you had additional questions about how to make Lola Owl Pattern into a purse & I will try to help out.  Now the pattern is updated to include the bag instructions!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

 

A Fresh Start

Phew!  The Handmade Arcade is finally over.  I have to admit all that production sewing wasn't my bag.  Things went well- not awesome but well and I am happy to have the experience.  

Part of the reason I feel a little let down is that my focus is so different now than it was 16 months ago when I did this show before.  I like making patterns now and sewing for myself.   I loved seeing all the people looking and it was so fun to talk to people about my sewing.  It was so cool to see all the mothers and daughters, sisters and friends together.  I got a great feel for what people like to buy at these shows and I handed out almost all of my 250 postcards that I made.  People like the.... Crayon Folios!  Not a huge surprise on that one.  I made 15 and sold 15 but I could have made 30 and probably sold most of those too!  

My sister (pictured above!)came up from Atlanta to work the show with me.  It was a big help.  She owns part of a  store in Atlanta and was really helpful with display, organization, & talking up the products.  We want to do another show together and she will be in charge of merchandising, display, business cards, etc.  That would be HUGE for me since I get so focused on my sewing and creating that the organization is an after thought.   Accepting some help from my sister would be wonderful, especially since she is actually much more stylish than me in the first place! 

On Sunday we (the WHOLE family) took her to the airport.  On the way home we stopped at the Pittsburgh Incline.  It was so fun.  Sunday mornings are a great time to see your city tourist stops!  Almost no one was there and it was beautiful.  By some miracle, I remembered my camera.  But the only lens I had was the 50mm which I thought would be a mistake since you wouldn't be able to see the scenery but the pictures turned out great!  That 50mm lens is such a gem.

 WARNING!  HISTORY LESSON TO FOLLOW...  Sorry friends, I was a history major so you are going to get some info that I learned yesterday which I think is really interesting.

As some of you may know, Pittsburgh used to be a huge industrial city.  The big boom happened in the late 1800s and as so many people (mainly European Immigrants) moved to the city, housing became a big issue.  The city is situated in a valley and surrounded by 3 rivers.  The only place for the workers to live affordably was up above the steep hills surrounding the city- namely Mt. Washington.  They had to walk up and down the hills after exhausting long days of work in the factory.  The German immigrants suggested building an alpine incline like they had back home in the Alps to make the commute easier. 

 2 inclines were built here on Mt. Washington to help the workers get back and forth to work at the steel mills on the Monongahela River.  They are still used for people to commute to work who live up on Mt. Washington.  They are made on a pulley system-when one goes up, the other comes down so their own weight pulls them up and down the hill.  Genius!   

There are beautiful overlooks of the city on top of the hill.  The kids loved running around up there.  It seemed like the top of the world.

 

I kinda look like a bug in my movie star sunglasses, huh?

Here is a close up of my boy.  He loved looking at the city, the buses, the bridges, EVERYTHING!  Yesterday evening he used some kids craft scissors and cut those bands WAY back.  Happens to every family at least once, right?

On the way back down the incline, I took this pictures of the girls.  The lighting was so pretty & they are wearing some new headbands from a vendor I met at the Handmade Arcade.  Cute!

I can remember my Mom picking us up in the middle of the school day and taking us all to the Oakland Cemetery in downtown Atlanta.  It was such a treat to be tourists in our own town.  I had that same feeling yesterday.  I can't believe I have lived here 11 years and never done this fun outing before!   I'll have to be better about doing new things in the city AND bringing my camera along.

 

Almost There!

If you have ever done a craft show, maybe you have felt the way I am feeling today.  I have only 1 day left (tomorrow!) before the show and I have decided NO MORE sewing!   I want to make sure that I have enough but also don't want to waste time making things that won't sell.  I also need to work on getting organized (YUCK), on pricing (DOUBLE YUCK), and on my display (PRETTY FUN).  Here are some pictures of what I will bring to the Handmade Arcade on Saturday.

There are a couple of new things that I did this past week that I haven't shown here on the blog yet.

I made birds at 65% size like I did the elephants and owls.  I did a loop on the top to hand them which I think will be useful- errr, depending on how useful you think a stuffed fabric bird can be.

I also made a fast and small version of the crayon folio.  I have seen lots of this size on etsy but since I am such a DIYer, I made my own which is very similar to the regular size crayon folio but even quicker to make.

 

It holds only 5 crayons and is 1/2 the size.  I think this will work well for mom's just to throw in their purse.  I like the wallet size and these were fast to make!  Good for a show like this where people may just want to buy something small and less expensive to support handmade.

Here is my list of all the things I made.  

Phew!!  I hope it's enough.  It was cool to make so many of items from my patterns and now I plan on going back and making some small adjustments to the PDF patterns.  I made an easy template for the crayon art folio, changed a few things on the Love Your Lunch Box, and made the On the Go Organizer a little different.   I will be offering these changes for free if you have already bought the pattern in the past.

Wish me luck on Saturday!  It's going to be fun there- live music, funky craft demonstrations, 120 indie groovy crafters, and gourmet cupcakes!  Come on down if you live near Pittsburgh and say hello to me!