A small Beatrix Potter drawstring bag ....

HI all, 

I seem to be in sewing mode at the moment. I am more of a craft sewer than a clothes sewer, even though I made most of my daughters early clothes when we lived in the cold mountains of Lesotho & warm tracksuits were the most practical attire. The ones I made were trendy with frills,  fronts with poppers, collars & even dresses in gorgeous fabrics that I sourced in Johannesburg. I studied the trends in magazines, made my own patterns & then ran up these original items. 

Little granddaughter has some new teething toys & I thought they needed a little bag to keep them in for when she is out & about with her Mum. 

A friend gifted me a gorgeous piece of Beatrix Potter fabric that she had added the iron on batting too. It was a small piece but I immediately thought of a cute drawstring bag. 

The size was determined by the fabric & I added pink fabric to the top to make the drawstring. 

This was the youTube tutorial I followed for the main lined bag, I added a drawstring channel to the top before stitching the top together & turning it through the lining gap & sewing that lastly. 

There was just a tiny bit of fabric left so I made a matching ribbon toy with that, adding in crinky fabric & a hand made carry strap for it. 

I am rather pleased with the pair of them & I hope the little one will enjoy using them too. 

What are  you busy with at the moment? Tell all. 

Thank you for stopping by, 

Dee 💕🧵🪡

A little bit of Frida ...

I am rather partial to the colourful Frida Kahlo prints that are about now. I have several Frida cushions in the conservatory & a friend gifted a gorgeous length of fabric that covers my sewing drawers there. 

This past week, a friend made a beautiful Frida fabric bag as a gift when we visited. She is so talented with her sewing. 

She parted with the small, random leftover pieces, protesting 'they are just little bits' 

I decided to make a similar bag to the gifted one & drew inspiration from a little treasure pouch I made some time back. 

I assembled the pieces on a length of pink backing fabric - the Frida face piece was the longest so I used the other pieces to continue a pattern creatively as a length of fabric. 

It was surprisingly easy to find common bits, even if some were diagonally or upside down to do it. 

I pinned it all then used a matching blue thread to add free motion embroidery to join it all as a new fabric. 

I joined it in to a circle & did the same with a backing fabric in pink. The two were quite floppy so I cut a length of batting & sandwiched that between the two layers. 

I made a circular base by putting the top circles down & drawing around a small plate that was the right base size. I again sandwiched batting in the base, stitch it, turned it right way out.

I made a simple fabric channel to put a drawstring in, then assembled the top inside out with the inside fabric, the batting the channel & the outside pattern & stitched them along the top. 

Turned right side out (the bottom was not sewn at this point) then I hand stitched the circular base to the finished top piece, before adding a line of machine stitching. 

 A length of silk was threaded for the  drawstring, Frida's eyes had green embroidery, an earring sewn on & it is done. 

The process I used ... 

The fabrics matched together so well, you can hardly tell where they were joined together ... 

What a fun project & a matching bag is a bonus. 

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you are inspired to try something new. 

Dee 💕🧵🪡