Hey, everybody! Hope you’re having a nice start to your week.
For today’s Crafty Monday post, I’m featuring a bag I made for September’s Big Contest winner, Liz! Liz wanted something in the romantic/gothic style and she likes the color green.
I have to say, I had a lot of fun making this bag. I made a special trip to the fabric store to find the fabrics, and I love the way the two black and cream prints go together.
That’s a pocket on the outside; it’s lined with green and sewn down the middle (mostly so it wouldn’t gape open). The black lace makes me happy and I actually bought a light green rose pin, but found that the red one I bought a long time ago was a better fit. The green was just one shade off or it would have been great.
Here’s a look at the lining:
And here’s Winston looking at it very warily:
So there you have it! Many thanks to Liz for being so fun and sweet throughout the process! In case you haven’t guessed, I think the contest is as fun for me as it is for the winner.
Speaking of contests, there will be a new one starting up later this week! So be sure to check back!
Today I’m featuring a baby quilt that was made for the second daughter of a friend of mine. If you’ve read the acknowledgments in Bad Girls Don’t Die, she’s the one I call the “beta beta reader.”
Anyway, Charlotte, also known as “Chuck,” was born last September, and I promptly procured all the supplies for this quilt. My original plan was to make it all heart blocks, 4 wide by 5 high, but as I started making hearts, I discovered two things:
(1) Heart blocks are kind of a pain in the neck to make
(2) The blocks didn’t look good at all set right up on top of one another.
Now, objection #1 only affected me insofar as, given the choice between making 20 heart blocks and making 12, I immediately favored the idea of making 12. This still took a fair amount of effort, but that part didn’t bother me at all. Every baby deserves a fair amount of effort on his or her part. If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t make quilts for the dears.
However, given the opportunity to bail on those final eight, you better believe I took it.
In answer to objection #2, I found a brown polka-dot print that would tie everything together, and then used the pink and brown faux-stitchy looking bit in the corners. I alternated those, stitchy design vertical and then horizontal, and vice versa on every other line of sashing.
Naturally, I sewed the last row on upside down, and had to rip out that giant seam and sew it back on.
The batting in this quilt is the bamboo-cotton stuff, which continues to delight me, as it is both warm and flexible AND has a nice heft to it, too.
I quilted down the sashing, 1/4 inch in on each side, with a straight stitch. Then I outlined each heart with a little zigzag, which–thankfully–was much easier than I thought it would be. Nothing like outlining the birds on the bird quilt.
So this one was about a year in the making… but Chuck (and her mom) are well worth it.
Today I started working on a bag for September contest winner Liz (and I think it’s going to be a good one… I might have to steal it! ha ha ha, just kidding), and that reminded me to post pictures of the stuff I made for Vanesa, who won the August contest!
First, Vanesa’s bag… she told me she liked brown, green, blue, and black. I had made a red, black, and white patchwork bag like this just for kicks a few weeks earlier, and when she told me that color combination, I knew I could do a cute version in that palette.
The scariest thing? Not only do I have all these fabrics, I already had all those squares pre-cut. Yes, there was a period in my life when my nervous habit was cutting squares. Like, if I was trying to think through something in a draft or a rewrite, I’d just stand there and cut squares. Crazy, huh?
So here it is! I paper-pieced the “V” (for Vanesa!).
The interior is camouflage with a pocket that matches the handles. Are you impressed? Winston’s not:
Since the bag was pretty androgynous, I decided that Vanesa deserved a highly girly eye pillow. This was also the first time I made a travel case to go with an eye pillow. I think this is important, because you want a clean place to put it.
Also in August, I made a bag for one of my dearest friends for her birthday. It’s kind of, uh, high energy, but I thought those colors would be perfect for a trip to the farmers market or something equally folksy and fun. Or whatever she wants to do with it, LOL. It has a key holder and a pocket.
Happy Monday, everyone! The husb and I spent the weekend shopping for new bedroom furniture, because we’re upgrading from a queen-size bed to a king-size. Who wants to guess why? That’s right–because of the DOG. He is a bed hog of unbelievable skill and sneakiness, and in order to have enough room for all three of us to get a decent night’s sleep, we need a bigger bed.
It was something I wanted to do before too long, anyway, but waking up hanging off the edge of the bed while the dog was sprawled out in the middle got to be too much.
“Why doesn’t the dog sleep on the floor or something?” you ask.
To which I answer, “Uh, sorry, question time is over! It’s Crafty Monday!”
Today I’m going to post a picture from my crafting pre-history. This is the first quilt I ever made–it was before I even owned a sewing machine. I was in Florida, visiting my family, and the guest room was also the sewing room. My curiosity got the better of me and I decided I wanted to learn how to make a quilt.
For whom? For Winston, naturally!
So we went to the fabric store (and it begins…) and I picked out some cottons and some flannel, and my stepmother helped me measure and cut everything, but I did most of the sewing myself.
It’s a little wonky, by golly, but it’s puffy and Winston took to it right away!
The reason I post this is that sooooo many people lately have said to me that they wished they knew how to sew.
Trust me, there are plenty of things I wish I knew how to do–things that seem magical and insanely difficult when you look at them from the outside. (Knitting, playing a musical instrument, learning some basic carpentry, becoming fluent in another language…) But ask anyone who does those things, and they’ll tell you that it’s just like anything else. Once you get started, the “It’s hard” feeling melts away, and before you know it, you’re just DOING the thing that once appeared impossible.
I made that first quilt in March 2006. And I never looked back!
If there’s something you’ve been wanting to try, but were afraid to, GO FOR IT!
Almost nothing in this world is as hard as you think it’s going to be.
Except for getting your fair share of bedspace when Winston is involved!
So, Tashi, who blogs at Taste Life Twice, is the winner of last month’s “big contest.” As part of her prize, Tashi received a custom made eye pillow and tote bag (along with a signed copy of Bad Girls Don’t Die).
If you ever win one of my big contests (and I hope you do!), you will get an email from me asking what your style is, what your likes and dislikes are, any color ideas, etc.
Tashi replied back with two ideas: the first, to do something with the same feel as the book cover–pale and ethereal. The other idea was to do something with a little attitude, using pinks and browns.
Despite my mountainous (I almost typed “mutinous,” which would also apply) supply of fabric, I felt better equipped to go with “attitude” than “angelic.”
I have a great pink-backed hand-drawn graffiti-ish looking print that I’ve been sitting on, so I decided to use that. It has accents in shades of brown, darker pinks, and even some aqua blues. So I found some brown fabric, darker pink, and one of my favorite fabrics–an aqua that is a slightly odd “large forest creatures” print–like deer, caribou, etc. And a pink and brown grosgrain ribbon that helped tie it all together.
I put them all together, trying to channel a sort of 80s athletic-bag feel, with the stripes. I don’t know if I succeeded or not (Tashi claims to like it!):
As usual, Winston doesn’t see what the fuss is all about:
Here’s a peek at the inside–it’s lined, with a pocket (I have hardly found anything else in life so useful as a pocket on a tote bag):
And last but not least, the matching eye pillow!
I had a lot of fun making this stuff–for a chance to win your own handmade goodies, make sure to enter my “big contest” every month! And congratulations to the August winner, Vanesa!
I met Alea of Pop Culture Junkie in a comment thread at Sharon Loves Books and Cats. It was something about tapirs, and I didn’t really know much about tapirs, but then I googled them and found out what they were–disturbing and weird!
Ha ha, yes, I know, it’s a totally immature viewpoint, but that was my initial reaction, and so far, I haven’t seen MUCH to change my mind. Baby tapirs are all right, but once they grow up, those grody little mouths just ruin everything.
Exhibit A:
So anyway, tapirs became a really big conversation element on the various blogs and Twitter. There was always a tapir joke flying around somewhere.
After I made Sharon’s tote bag of atonement, Alea made an offhand request for a tapir bag. I promised her that if I ever saw tapir fabric, I’d be sure to grab a yard or two and whip something up. (Mind you, I was pretty sure I’d never see tapir fabric.)
But then I kept thinking about a tapir bag, and wondered how hard it would be to make one.
There’s a technique used in quilting called “paper piecing” or “foundation piecing,” which basically consists of sewing pieces of fabric to a piece of paper with a pattern on it. It can be used for basic pieces or more elaborate constructions. I’d just done a little bit of paper piecing to add a monogram to the Keaton baby quilt. (Which drove me batty, because I kept forgetting that you have to use a mirror image of your final product.)
So I went to Google and found a line-drawn picture of a tapir (courtesy of Rainforest Adventures Discovery Zoo):
I printed it, then I took a piece of graph paper and used a ruler to trace the drawing, reducing it to straight lines, including the color divisions.
Once you do that, you have to figure out how to divide it into pieces you can sew, because when you paper piece, you have to start from the inside out, wherever there is an inside. So instead of working on one big piece, you work on as many as you need to and then combine them after the fact.
This picture was taken when I was combining big pieces. I had to leave the graph paper on because otherwise, I wouldn’t know how to match them up. If you look closely, can see the pencil lines, which are actually the stitching lines.
(Click any of the below pictures to open a larger version in a new window.)
The reason you see zig-zag edges on some of the pieces is that I tend to “pink” the seams (with pinking shears). If you cut the edges that way, the fabric has no way to unravel after the fact, because none of the exposed threads are long enough to unravel. I pink almost everything, unless I use my serger.
Winston was not a fan of this messy construction process (he is generally not a fan of anything that keeps me from being available for lap-sittage or belly rubbing) — you can see a piece of Keaton’s quilt on the floor, which is where I keep a lot of things:
This is what I ended up with–you can see it is the same size as the original printout, just a little squared-off (and mirrored).
A closer view–it’s hard to tell unless you really look, but I used a grayer print for the legs and ear on the far side of the body. And his white body is a tiny white-on-white floral print:
(If somebody was going to try to make his or her own tapir block based on my pattern, the above photo is the one they would print out and draw all over to figure out where to put the seams. Incidentally, if somebody does that, please link to my website from Flickr or wherever.)
Then I had to add a stripe of green to the front of his face. Once I did that, I squared off the “quilt block” and sewed it to a square of plain white muslin using 1/8″ seams. This was to protect the seams of the tapir from being jostled by the lining of the bag, and also to keep them from having to bear any weight (the larger version of this is rotated):
Then I sewed the tapir/muslin piece in between the black polka dot print using 1/4″ seams (so the smaller seam allowance I used to join the tapir and muslin was hidden).
I like to take pictures with rulers so I can remember how big things ended up being:
Then I put the bag together, which is a whole ‘nother process. Turns out it was a perfect fit for a pillow form I’ve had sitting around forever:
But it wasn’t made to be a pillow form (you have to make the opening on the back or bottom). Clearly its destiny was to be a bag:
With green grosgrain ribbon on the handles and a kicky purple lining (and pocket)–I used a new technique to put this lining in, because I thought it might save time… but it didn’t. Plus, the raw edges of the handles are visible which is a little agonizing for me. But so far, Alea has been gracious enough not to complain about that.
I would rate this bag as a medium-light load bearer–not as sturdy as Sharon’s bag. But it is lined and the handles are reinforced, so it should fit at least three or four copies of Bad Girls Don’t Die. Ha ha ha!
So there you have it! The evil tapir bag. This project literally gave me bad dreams–I couldn’t get comfortable and I kept thinking I was pieces of fabric that were getting folded over. It was weird. I blame the tapirs.
I guess the moral of the evil tapir bag is that you can solve just about any problem if you take the energy to wrap your head around it. Sometimes you just have to really immerse yourself. Paper piecing like this uses a very odd little corner of your brain. So many people have said to me recently that they wish they’d learned to sew, and I want to take this opportunity to say, go for it! It’s never too late. I started sewing 3 years ago, and if I can do it, anybody can!
So happy Monday! And thanks to Alea for giving me the little prompt of inspiration to make this bag… although I must say, the tapir bag is NOT one of the custom options in my giveaways, LOL.
Speaking of my giveaway, please enter my contest! You could win a signed copy of Bad Girls Don’t Die as well as a custom made tote bag and eye pillow.
When I’m working on a book, nothing is more tempting to me than the sweet siren song of my sewing machine. So I’ve been stitching up a storm, and I thought I’d go ahead and start blogging about some of my latest crafts.
When I was in New York a couple of months ago, Sharon and I met up at The Strand bookstore, and she showed me around. It was a little weird because I couldn’t stop sneezing, although Sharon was very gracious about it and we joked about my being a tapir wearing a human suit that made me sneeze (which is patentely untrue, by the by).
Here we are, looking quite smiley:
But like two days later, I read with horror on Twitter that Sharon was horribly ill. Yes, she got the plague, and I think it’s fairly obvious that I had at least a little something to do with it. I’d heard her mention needing to buy a new tote for her books, so I thought I would complete Stage 1 of my atonement process by making her a bag. Since she loves books and cats, I made it cat-centric and strong enough to hold books.
(Click the images to see a larger view.)
The exterior fabric is one of my favorites, and a piece I’ve been holding onto for about three years. The interior lining is just a dark blue with subtle darker lines. The pocket is this fabulously weird cats-dressed-as-historical-figures (and maybe a Jedi?) print I bought a few years ago and have been picking away pieces of for baby quilts.
I tried a new technique for the pocket–I sewed it directly into the seam of the bag. It’s big enough to hold a book, and the whole bag is reinforced with my serger, so it should hold quite a few books. I didn’t “box out” the bottom, so it’s a flat bag, but I’ve been on a flat bag kick and I’m kind of digging them lately.
Today I’m spotlighting a baby quilt. This is “Keaton” (as all of my quilts are named after the babies they’re made for).
It’s a patchwork quilt with a monkey & tropical theme. I included Keaton’s veddy veddy impressive monogram at the bottom, along with a row of zigzagging. Initially, the whole quilt was going to be zigzagging, but after I made that one row, I realized that I would actually rather drink a bottle of nail polish than make eight more of those evil things.
(Click for closer look.)
I started with the patchwork and then put the borders on. I’m chagrined that the inside border is light polka dots and it includes pink, but Keaton is a very serious, manly little baby, and I’m sure he can live with a few pink dots in his life.
Then I added the green border and the monogram, and then I felt like it still needed something. For some reason, I have a slight aversion to making square baby quilts, although I have done them before (see Julia) and certainly haven’t had problems with the results.
Anyway, just when I was feeling like I wanted a little something more, I remembered the evil zigzag that I’d sewn long ago and got that out. I had to trim it to fit, but I like the way it’s a little underscore and adds length.
The backing is the same blue and lime plaid in the zigzag. I quilted with zigzag stitches, except around the monogram, which I did in the ditch with a straight stitch. I also added horizontal lines of zigzagging in the space on the sides of the monogram, which you can see here:
I used bamboo/cotton batting, which has that wonderful floppy hand right out of the bag. Before I washed the batting, the quilt measured 44 inches by 55.5 inches. After washing, it had shrunk to 42.5 inches by 53.5 inches. So that bamboo definitely shrinks right up! I think it shrinks more than cotton. I learned that after a previous encounter and compensated, size-wise, in the construction.
Thanks for joining me! You can check out more of my crafty stuff by visiting my Flickr photostream. And I’ll have another crafty post soon! I’ve been making custom tote bags.
Tomorrow I have some fun newsy tidbits… nothing too exciting, but please swing by and check them out (on your way to visit me at the Debutante Ball)…!
So, when I was in New York a few weeks ago, I got to meet adorable YA book blogger Sharon (from Sharon Loves Books and Cats) at the Strand, the famous bookstore in Union Square. Sharon is the master of the Strand and she showed me all the good spots, as well as picking out some great books for me to buy and take home with me.
However, horribly, I was a sneezing mess the WHOLE time we were in the bookstore. It was so weird, because I had just had lunch with Agent M, and I don’t recall sneezing on him at all. I must be allergic to books. Sharon was very nice about it, though, and didn’t do what a lot of people would have done, which would be to hold up a cross in front of me and shout, “Away, swine flu vessel, away!”
No, we just hung out and it was cool.
But then I came home and you can only imagine my horror when I read on Twitter that Sharon was SICK! That’s right, she had the cold from hell, and even had to miss work.
So, awash with guilt, I did what any self-respecting crafter does to atone for a dastardly deed: I sewed up some bribes!
And Sharon got them this week, and she vlogs (that’s video-blogs) about it in her typically cute manner here.
So thanks, Sharon, and I’m sorry! Even though you absolved me, I’m still sorry. I mean, even if it was your job that got you sick, being sneezed at for forty-five minutes couldn’t help.
Here’s the video itself, for those of you who don’t feel like clicking a link (I won’t judge you)…
So, yeah, the joke is, it’s been so long that I posted that I forgot what a blog is! Ha.
Close, but not quite–yet.
Please visit me today over at the Debutante Ball, where I’m talking about my favorite travel memories.
Now, on to the quiltage!
This is “Baby Quilt: Onur”… it’s an I-Spy quilt, which is made with lots and lots of nifty fabrics to give baby and grown-ups lots of things to talk about and look at together.
(You can get a closer look by clicking on it.)
While I was binding this quilt, I took a picture of one side to show how much pinning goes on during the binding process (hint: a LOT). I hate pinning. Please pretend to be suitably impressed by this photo:
Naturally, after I finished the quilt (but before the final wash), Winston got his chance to sit on it, as is always the case (and disapproves, as is always the case):
So, this quilt was an interesting one for me because I used bamboo/cotton batting. For those of you who are not quilters, for the longest time, quilters have pretty much had two choices: cotton or polyester batting. Cotton is popular because it’s all natural and it has a little more floppiness to it. Cotton batting also makes you feel very virtuous and old-fashioned when you use it, because it often has little cotton seeds in it. Polyester batting is puffy and soft and doesn’t shrink when you wash it the way cotton does. (But you can use the pucker effect to make a quilt look more “charming,” or some other similar word.)
I’ve used cotton for a few quilts, notably “Ida Millie”:
And “Adelaide’s Birds”:
Now, bamboo/cotton is a blend, and the verdict is, I LOVED it. To hold it in your hand feels like holding a quilt that’s been washed and used for a hundred years–floppy and soft and wonderful. And it comes out of the bag like that. I didn’t find it hard to work with in the least. The only thing that surprised me is how much it shrank. I lost 2-3 inches in length and width when I washed the quilt (in hot water) after finishing it. I still like the look, but now when I use it, I compensate in advance for the loss of quilt geography.
It’s a little expensive (twice the price of polyester) but I think VERY worth it.
So that’s my quilty post! Laura, I hope you’re happy.
k.
PS – If you want to see more of my quilts, check out my Flickr set.
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Hey, everybody! Hope you’re having a nice start to your week.
Today I’m featuring a baby quilt that was made for the second daughter of a friend of mine. If you’ve read the acknowledgments in Bad Girls Don’t Die, she’s the one I call the “beta beta reader.” 
Happy Monday! 
So, Tashi, who blogs at 
I met 
When I’m working on a book, nothing is more tempting to me than the sweet siren song of my sewing machine. So I’ve been stitching up a storm, and I thought I’d go ahead and start blogging about some of my latest crafts.
